HILLCREST ROAD

A nice shot this as it holds so many memories. The closest building is Howells Shop and Post Office, they also had a fish and chip shop there in the 1950's.  The hill from where it is taken was always known as Howells Hill because they provided steps to the top of the hill to the Hill Crest/Second Avenue corner. Colgate and Grays Chalk Pit is in the centre and Farmer Bowles caravan site in the background. In just those few houses shown lived: (in the closest row behind the shop), my Uncle Fred (Tugmaster of the "Foremost 22" and the "Meeching"), Uncle Steve (lifeboatman with the "Cecil and Lillian Philpot" and the "Kathleen Mary"), he lived where Aunt Lena has her washing out. Immediately opposite lived the Coxwain of the "Cecil and Lillian Philpot" lifeboatman Len Piddlestone. In the first house below the lampost lived Edgar and Harold Moore, they were Bowman on both the above lifeboats, Edgar later became Coxwain on the "Kathleen Mary". Connie Moore their mother was devoted to the R.N.L.I. and a great fund raiser. I would guess that this photograph would have been taken during the 1960's.

ps Next door down from Uncle Steve lived some of my distant relations the Winder's they, both male and female were Blue Boulder Pickers on the West Beach.

I never realised quite so many harbour people lived in Gibbon Road! My Dad, Frank Gilbert, lived near the top, my brother Barry (engineer on the ferries) lived down near the rec. Our nextdoor neighbour, Len Beale, was also on the ferries, and I can recall that there were some other seafarers in the road. Some were on the two dredgers and others on the ferries, but I can't recall names.

My Dad took over Meeching for a while when your uncle Fred retired, until Alex Pringle moved over from the Tidworth. He came back a short while later and stayed with Meeching until he retired in 1979.

Small town really, isn't it!

Andy

This is the first time I have been on this site and was browsing the photos I noticed the caravan site in the background. We used come down from London each weekend and holidays firstly to camp and then in our caravan until about 1951/52, when we moved to Newhaven as my mum and dad took over running the site, Fred and Jean Collett. We knew Mr and Mrs Bowles well. I went to Newhaven Secondary Modern School and had two school friends who lived in Gibbon Road, I think one was Sheila Barker or Baker and I cannot remember the other girls name.
We left in the late fifties, Mum and Dad moved to Lancing and I started working in stables all over Sussex.  I have been in Australia for the past 38 years
By Joyce Aedy(nee Collett)