HEIGHTON ROAD

There were farms on both sides of the The Hollow as we called it. The farm on the right was owned by the Brooks family and I used to go to school with Patrick Brooks and his sister. The Hollow was lethal in the winter and my brother Peter remembers being with my dad in the family Sunbeam Rapier and doing a complete 360 degree turn on the ice.

The farm was in fact leased by the Coker family for many years and my uncle John Coker was the last member to farm there. My cousins Patrick Brooks and his sister Marilyn were the children of John's sister Beth who was stricken with MS and died prematurely. My late stepmother Lorna Giles, aunt Rosemary (who lives in Eastbourne) and the late aunt Margaret (who married an American and emigrated) were the other children. The Eldridge family farmed opposite; one of the daughters, Betty, lives in Chailey and with her family runs a sizeable free range egg production company. Her elder sister Catherine married Roger Pile and they farm at Tarring Neville.