Grandma P's Ramblings Through Life

Just like last week I have been hunting out some old picture postcards to add to our pictures of a place we visited. My account of our Lewes walk follows this entry.


This is a picture of Southover High Street and Anne of Cleves house on a postcard that was sent in 1905. No cars! No tarmacced road!
You can see the church with the fish weather vane in the distance.










This card is a Tuck's Oilette ( you may remember that I like this series of cards).
The castle remains stand overlooking the town.
We could see Lewes from "camp" - the field on The South Downs where I spent my childhood holidays. I loved being able to see the castle from 5 miles away.



This is Potter's Street which is a small side road off of Southover High Street.
The old timbered Tudor building looks much the same 100 years on. The picture below is mine.
I didn't take one that showed the street itself, for there were just too many parked cars to spoil the view.

Last Saturday we had a few spare hours in Lewes.
We were in Lewes for a day at the track, timekeeping for an Inter Counties athletics match. It was a competition for those doing decathlons and other multi event competitions. There is always a long break in the proceedings on the track in these events and so we went for a walk.
Lewes is a wonderful old town built on the south facing slopes of The South Downs above the River Ouse. The town is dominated by the castle, now ruined. The 12th century keep stands tall, protected by the 14th century Barbican.
The steep High Street is elegant with a mixture of medieval and Georgian buildings.
Oh - and by the way, I think I should tell you the pronunciation of Lewes; visitors often get it wrong. It is Loo-iss.

Last Saturday we were in the part of Lewes known as Southover - in medieval times it was a separate settlement based round the large priory, which fell into disrepair at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII.
Southover High Street is beautiful and interesting and oozing history.












The most famous building in Southover High Street is Anne of Cleves house which was built in about 1500 and given to Anne of Cleves by Henry VIII as part of their divorce settlement. It is said that she actually never lived there.


This picture of the large window at Anne of Cleves house shows very many building materials. I love to look at windows.
Here is another.












Anne of Cleves house is now a museum containing all sorts of artefacts connected with the area.

There are many styles of buildings. Some have the look of the typical Tudor house with the black beams and white walls.


The house to the left is called St John's House.
I wonder if the black and white style of building is a more recent creation than we imagine. Anne of Cleves house shows us the original stones. These medieval houses may once have looked much the same, but in Georgian times owners chose to make the houses look more interesting. It seems that giving one's house a make over is nothing new!




This old house was just round the corner from St John's House.






There has been a church in Southover High Street since the 10th century.
The present building is more recent of course - mostly 14th century.
The tall weather vane has a fish facing into the wind.











You can see that the church wall in the picture above is built from flints.
Sussex people feel a strong affection for flint, for only here - close to the chalk South Downs are so many buildings constructed this way.



From this point we could see the castle standing high above the town.
In the foreground is a pub named The King's Head.
We know that Henry VIII was very influential in these parts. He destroyed the life of the Priory and gave the property away to his own people.
I don't suppose he ever went into this local inn - but it was a portrait of Henry VIII on the inn sign.
You can see some of the flags of St George of England which were decorating the pub - not as a permanent mark of patriotism for the mother country. At this time the flags are to be seen in great numbers as the people of England wish to show solidarity with the national football team playing in the Finals of the Football World Cup.
We decided, having walked in the noonday sun to stop at The Kings Head for some refreshment.





Here is Bill in their courtyard garden at the back with a glass of Guinness.
Looking back he realises he should have chosen a pint of Harvey's beer - which is brewed not half a mile away on the other side of town.
Never fear - there will be other opportunities for Sussex beer!
Last Saturday he relished the dark Irish nectar.

I thought I would share with you the images on two postcards that I found showing Arundel and Burpham, which I wrote about the other day.



This postcard is of a type that I always enjoy - a Tuck's Oilette.
This card dates from about 1910.
The artist was viewing the castle at Arundel from just about the same spot where we stopped to take photographs last Saturday.


This postcard is for sale on EBay right now. It is not the sort of postcard that sells for a high price. The most sought after cards are always real photographs of lesser known views. A post card showing a side street in a town is always more expensive than the High Street because less of them would have been sold in the first place. The cards showing the places that tourists would have visited in large numbers are not really popular with collectors because they are so common place.
But I find the Tuck's Oilette cards quite charming. I may well bid for this card.



This card shows the church tower at Burpham, tucked behind a thatched cottage.
It dates from the early 20th century.
Church postcards don't command very high prices either - but are an ideal part of a collection connected with a genealogy study.

The signpost at the end of the lane we were on last Saturday pointed to Warningcamp and Burpham. We had not been along this lane before and these 2 villages would be completely new to us. I have lived in Sussex for almost all my life and still there are many new places to explore.

We came first to Warningcamp - it is suggested that the name came about because it was a settlement or camp which quite literally would send a warning to the masters at the castle in Arundel of impending danger. Today Warningcamp is a collection of houses and cottages with no obvious centre - no church or pub or shop. Yet a web site tells that there is a community spirit and the people of the village, numbering about 180, produced a history book about their village.

A small number of miles along the lane we came to a much bigger village - the village of Burpham (pronounced Burfum).
We stopped first at The George and Dragon, the local inn. It was built in 1753. We sat outside in the sunshine and enjoyed watching the world go by and chatting with other visitors to the village.
When the last drops of my ginger beer and lime had been quaffed, we decided to take a walk round the village.
The Church of St Mary dates from the 12th and 13th centuries - with some sympathetic restoration in the 19th century. It is tucked away, behind the cottages along a narrow lane.

One of the windows in the church is known as The Lepers Window, through which the poor victims of this cruel disease who dwelt in a leper colony could be blessed by the priest inside the church.
The stained glass window below is not the leper window - we just enjoy looking at stained glass.
In fact we enjoy looking at churches. We have no commitment to any religion and yet we feel the peace and spirituality to be found inside a church very soothing.
There is also something good about absorbing the history of the church and knowing that people have been going there for centuries for worship and for the important events in their lives.
I feel the presence of both God and all the people from the history of the church passing on some sort of inner strength
and peace.




















Burpham is a village nestling between The South Downs and the meandering River Arun, which flows through Arundel, with its fine castle.
The South Downs are a range of chalk hills with seams of hard flint rocks and stones. The flints have been used for centuries to build and have created a particular style which is very much connected with Sussex downland life.
The church has a lot of flint - and so do cottages throughout the village.





















We walked through the grave yard. I love to look at the inscriptions on the graves and imagine details about the lives of those buried there.
We walked through the gate at the far side and out on to another lane surrounded by farmland and looking across the fields, shimmering in the heat haze, to the distant sight of the castle at Arundel.
There were fields of wheat, still green at this stage of the summer - but dotted with red poppies.
Cows grazed lazily in the fields.
And then we spied farm animals not normally a part of Sussex agriculture.

This is a mother bison and her calf.
Unfortunately the mother wouldn't turn to face the camera no matter how much we called out to her.
Farmers throughout the land are being asked to diversify and move away from traditional crops and animals.
So sometimes we see llamas or ostrich in our fields - and last Saturday we became acquainted with bison.



It was from this point, just beyond the village that we could see what we had already learned whilst looking at one of our fellow drinker's map at the pub. Burpham is more or less then end of the road - there was no bridge below us to take us over the River Arun and no road suitable for cars to take us up and over the South Downs to Amberley.

We strolled back into the village to look at some of the pretty cottages.


These cottages, built of both brick and flint are tucked behind The George and Dragon - you can just see the pub sign hanging from the side of the building.
Country cottages look wonderful at this time of year with flowering climbers clinging to the walls - roses, clematis etc.

















We enjoyed peering over the walls and gates to enjoy the gardens that had been created in this secluded village.
I would guess that its seclusion has attracted people who were able to pay above average for housing and is very popular with people who enjoy getting away from it all - and at the same time being only 4 or 5 miles from Arundel Station, with its regular trains to London.
There are quite a few newish large houses amongst the older cottage style houses.

We enjoyed a couple of hours getting to know somwhere new to us - and next time we go to the car boot sale at Ford and drive past the end of the lane leading to Warningcamp and Burpham we shall feel so glad that we now know the villages and we have our photographs and our memories.

Last week I wrote about our visits to car boot sales.
Last Saturday we combined an early morning trip to the car boot sale at Ford, close to the Sussex coast with a look at our beautiful county.
Each time we go to the Ford boot sale we pass Arundel - the first glimpse of the castle in the early morning light is always a pleasure. But we don't choose to stop then, for we have bargain hunting on our minds.
Last Saturday we returned, after a morning at the boot sale, and took a little lane that branches off from the main road; we wondered just where it would lead us. The signpost points to Warningcamp and Burpham.
Within a few yards we could see that we had splendid views across the Arun valley to the town of Arundel.











The town, from this distance, looks for all the world like a medieval settlement by the river.And it is true that there has been a castle on this site since early medieval days, but during the Civil War in the 17th century it was badly damaged and left abandoned for about 150 years.
Towering over the town on the left of the picture is a cathedral in the Gothic style. It is a Roman Catholic Cathedral. It was built in the 19th century. It would have been even bigger but weak foundations prevented the erection of a huge tower and spire.
The castle also is in essence an 18th/19th building. Some of the very early stone work remains. The first attempts at restoration were in the late 1700s, but it was not until 1890 that a decision was made to rebuild a castle in the style of the 14th century.
The castle and much of the surrounding lands belong to the Duke of Norfolk. As a child I always wondered why the most important man in Sussex (for surely a Duke must be very important) should come from another part of the country - Norfolk being perhaps 200 miles away. No doubt the 1580 Duke of Norfolk won special favours from the king and was rewarded with his own castle at Arundel.
So, Arundel is basically an attractive Victorian town, growing quite rapidly with the development of the railways. It is a pleasant place to live or visit.And I still love the castle - even though I know it is not the genuine thing.













And now here is another view of the castle which we saw a little further along the lane to Burpham (which I will write about in the next blog entry).

Every Sunday morning - and sometimes on a Saturday - we are up very early to go to a car boot sale. This is more than an interest, it is an addiction!
One of the worst feelings in the world is seeing heavy rain on a Sunday morning, which thwarts our intentions.
Each week we relish the anticipation of never knowing what we will find. It could be something that might bring us a good profit or there might be something we really want for ourselves; sometimes we have to accept defeat and go home empty handed, but that very rarely happens.

There are many sites where car boot sales are held and sometimes we have hard decisions to make - where shall we go this week?
Last Sunday we chose South Park in Reigate. We like this one; it is not as big as some we go to and it has a nice atmosphere. It is peaceful and stallholders are friendly and there seem to be less aggressive dealers.

Some dealers who are out hunting behave really quite badly. Stallholders are accosted and the dealers are almost in the cars trying to look in boxes before the people can unload and set up their stalls. These dealers are so desperate to beat the one standing next to them to the prize bargain that they will grab armfuls of stuff without a care for the poor confused stallholders.
I can assure you that Bill and I are not like this - we always start our hunting by looking at the stalls already set up. Goodness knows what we miss - but it feels better like that for us.


Some car boot sales begin ridiculouly early. Stall holders are setting up by 5 o'clock in the morning - and in the winter time this is before it is light. The hunting dealers of course have to be there at the same early hour.
They prowl around with torches in their hands!
I really enjoy that time of day and I like to be out quite early, but we normally don't arrive until at least 7 o'clock and often half an hour later - for it can feel hard to climb from a warm bed on a cold morning.



The range of things for sale at a car boot sale is enormous. These sales began many years ago as an opportunity for people to clear things from their own homes and the stall money went to charity.
The biggest boot sales now are organised as a business. You can find food stalls and toilet facilities at the big sales.
And these days many of the stallholders are also professional dealers.
For Bill and me, the first priority is to find some things that we can sell on. So we carefully scan each stall to see if it might have what we want.
We pass by the ones selling baby clothes and newish plastic toys.
We glance at some and see nothing but tat and we wonder how the things on the stall had ever been bought from a shop in the first place.
We seem to ignore all stalls with a box of Friends videos or David Beckham's book - somehow we just know that people who wanted those things wouldn't have anything useful to us.
After many years of experience we seem to know which stalls to be drawn to and usually our bags soon fill up with a variety of things which will go later to the shop or might be described to go on EBay.
If we have time we go back round and look at clothes, plants, household goods and so on that we might be able to use. If we need something at home I normally expect to find it at a car boot sale within a month.
I remember the time just after we had decorated the bathroom and almost jokingly suggested that we get some matching towels; I jested because normally we don't worry too much about things matching. But that very day we found a pile of towels in the right colours for sale at 50p each.





It is a pity that maybe our biking days are over, for these seemed a bargain at £5 each.

And bargains is what it is all about!











There can be many reasons for having a stall at a car boot sale - well, money is the main reason of course.
Though when we sell at a car boot sale, which we must do later in the year, the object of the day will be mostly to clear out things we no longer want.
We might set up a stall maybe once a year.
Others do it every week and obviously boost their income this way.
The girl selling just beyond the plants in this picture was hoping to raise money for her travel funds. She is off to the far east next month and will be visiting Thailand. So soon we were sharing experiences with her and making sure she knew about our J's connections with Dive the World and about his blog.
That is something else that we enjoy - the chatting and banter between sellers and buyers.


Last Sunday, in Reigate, the weather was really sunny and hot and we enjoyed a good couple of hours.
We came home home with things to sell and plants to put in the garden.

The picture on the right is from Google Earth and shows another boot sale that we often go to in the summer - Hook Road, Epsom. You can see that there are hundreds of stalls set up - and amongst those little dots which are the customers there could be Bill and me.

The world of the car boot sale may be a closed book to you. That seems very strange to us, for so many people that we know are as addicted as we are.
Goodness me! There are folks out there who have never been to a car boot sale!
I hope this entry in my blog may have explained a little more about why we love this part of life.

Yesterday could be viewed in two ways by the young people who competed at the Sussex County Schools Championships. For some it was the pinnacle of their achievement to be representing their area at a big athletics meeting.
For a few others it may prove to have been the first stepping stone on an illustrious career.
The very best of the athletes will travel north to Gateshead in July to represent the County at the all England Schools Championships.
Many Olympic medallists began by becoming All England Champion in their age group.

Our J won a gold medal at these championships - it must be 20 years ago now. His time wasn't good enough in the 400 metre hurdles to take him to the All England Schools, but he did represent the county at Inter Counties matches.

Bill and I attend these meetings as timekeepers. We have passed tests and have a great deal of experience. Sometimes we work alongside electronic timing and this confirms our own skills for we normally end a day of timekeeping with an average error against the electric timing of about 3 hundredths of a second. It may look easy - but I can assure that a novice timekeeper can be easily a tenth of a second wrong and sometimes more. I once worked with somebody who managed to be 6 tenths of a second out in a 100 metre race!


Here is a picture of most of yesterday's team on the timekeeping steps.
We work hard and concentrate hard but also enjoy meeting up with friends who we see often or others we might see just once a year. There is always lots of talk and laughter.
Yesterday the weather was really hot and so the black blazers which we often wear were not needed.







Here, we are looking across to the other side of the track half way through an 800 metre race.
You can see a collection of starters in red, chatting and waiting for the start of the next race.
The track judges are checking the numbers of the girls running past the bell (out of shot). Jenny, in pink, is calling out the times that each girl has taken to run the first lap.






This picture was taken from the timekeeper's steps.
A lad is about to hit the take off board in the long jump and in the distance, somebody is in the cage about to throw a discus.
Beyond that you can just see a part of the new buildings for Thomas Bennett School.



The officials normally take great pride in making sure that a meeting keeps to the timetable. But circumstances altered that yesterday.
There was a fire alarm from inside the sports centre and every person in the building and in the athletics stand were asked to walk over to the far side of the track. This was inconvenient for us - but worse for the competitors at the swimming gala or the sellers at a toy collectors' fair. We believe it was a false alarm.







It probably did us good to get up and walk about. Timekeepers can be busy on uncomfortable seats for many hours. But having seats is better than no seats at all, which we find at some tracks.
You can see that there are hundreds of people at the far end of the back straight waiting for the all clear.
In the foreground are some of the time keepers - I am the one in white on the left of the group.



This is the first season that this track has been in use. It has been crammed into a site which is slightly too small, I think. The track is big enough of course, but we would prefer a little more space around it. There have been some early problems which still have to be solved - but at least the builders changed the position of the timekeepers' steps in time for the first meeting. It obviously had not occurred to them that we need to be sitting right in line with the finish to be accurate.
I am sure that before too long the Crawley Athletics Club will feel that this track is home and the club will renew its strengths and become a force to be reckoned with.

Now that we are enjoying some wonderful sunny days it is pleasant to be out enjoying the garden.
Our gardens are very small.
We changed the lay out of the front garden a few years ago. I think that gardens should reflect the curves to be found in plants - nature doesn't give us straight lines and I don't want them in the garden.
We have a curved area with pebbles under the windows and then 2 areas of grass curve out to the flower beds which at this time are overgrown with little beauties struggling to find space.
The garden may be small but we are very fortunate to have a wide grassy area between us and the road. This also serves as garden and is a good place to play games. We don't use it so much these days; our sons are grown and flown the nest, but other young lads are to be seen kicking balls, hitting balls and generally having a good time.
This picture was taken from outside the boundary of the house looking into the garden.
Along the fence we have many peonies. The red ones come first and of course finish first. The red petals have dropped, leaving seed heads.
The white ones are just superb today.
They are very special to us for these plants were dug up from Bill's parent's garden after his Dad died.
It is nice to have memories in a garden.
There are lily of the valley plants in the back garden which came from my Granny. We thought we had lost them - but they are just about surviving.




Isn't that a superb bloom!

Bill has always liked to photograph flowers. They have such beauty and colour and form magnficent patterns.










This anemone is simple, yet magnificent.

I had meant to put this picture in yesterday's writings about BROTHERS.
Uncle B is my mother's young brother. This week he became 80 years of age. He spent his 18th birthday, he recalls, preparing to be in the first wave of troops to land on The Normandy Beaches on D Day.
Sadly my mother has not lived to share this day with her brother.
She reached not much more than half his age.

Happily, I can continue to share things with my brother. Roger and I enjoyed a family party in the sunshine last weekend to celebrate the birthday.
The picture shows me with my brother and Uncle.


I just thought I would share this lovely picture with you.

I have been blessed with brothers - there were 2 younger brothers who shared my childhood with me and in adulthood Dad presented us with a half brother.
I have to be honest and admit that there may have been times when they didn't always feel blessed to have an older sister! But I am sure that older sisters the world over will agree with me that we know best!
I was much cleverer than them - just because I was older and so I presumed that they would want to do what I wanted to do. And of course I was in charge.
At Christmas I was the producer of a "grand" concert to be staged in our front room for parents and grandparents and I have happy memories of being the star of the show. My brothers may have thought differently.
Here are the 3 of us in a school photo.












That's Roger on the left and Robin on the right.
Robin was closer to me in age and it was natural that sometimes we played together and formed a bond. He was a spirited boy and I admired his dare devil approach to life, although he did get into some scrapes at times. An elderly neighbour who we knew as Aunty B doted on him. I was a bit cross about this, wondering why he should win special favours.
















My 2 brothers were close in age (only 20 months) so it was natural that they spent time together doing "boys' things" and I did yearn for a sister to be my special friend in the family.
For much of my childhood I viewed Roger as the baby of the family. He seemed to be a good boy, wanting to please our parents. He is 4 years youger than me and in childhood that was a gap too wide to be crossed.





Well, you can imagine that no big sister could get involved in a jar of liquid mud that was being used to "paint" the outside of the house!










Robin grew up quickly. At 17 his girlfriend was pregnant and a wedding was hurriedly arranged. Sometimes such marriages are doomed to disaster - but not this one. Their love remained firm and strong despite a difficult start.
They lived for a while in a little caravan while Robin continued his building apprenticeship. He passed with flying colours and got a job with a big company. I can still proudly look at buildings that my brother built.
Their little boy moved with them from the caravan to the first little house that they could afford and a baby daughter was born.
Tragically Robin was diagnosed (a diagnosis which came far too late really) with a stomach cancer. This plunged his young wife, Roger and I into an unreal world that we had not encountered before. You don't learn in advance how to cope with death, you have to grope your way through it. Robin died at home, aged just 33. I miss him still.
But I am blessed that I do still have a brother. As adults Roger and I have grown closer and share a great deal. As a young adult I still saw him as the "good boy" who seemed to be doing things as our parents would want. We were both teaching - and both enjoying some aspects of the job. I didn't have to settle down to it as a career for I had a children at home. I know now that Roger gradually felt trapped by the job - needing the income to support his own family. Finally he rebelled! He quit - well sort of. He has chosen to spend the last few years before retirement as a lowly teacher's assistant. This means a cut in income, but more importantly he has eliminated most of the stresses of the job. I can really admire him for making this decision - it must have been hard.
He is happy pottering on his bit of land where he has kept sheep and poultry.
Here he is in the pig rearing days.




The pigs have long gone from his life - this must be 25 years ago.












I also have a half brother, Matthew.
My Dad had a second family with his new wife.
Sadly my mother had died young, leaving Dad only with his career and life in the community. He was lonely and happily, he married again. Jenny is 23 years younger than him, and when they married she was at the beginning of her own career and also eager for motherhood.
Matthew was born a few months after our younger son.
So Uncle Matthew is younger than our sons who are his nephews.
Later Ruth was born - the sister I craved for at last!
Matthew is now in his 30s and has forged a life quite unlike our Dad's - except that he has charisma and great organisational skills with people. Matthew is the leader of a modern Christian evangelical church in London. It is interesting to note though, that our great grandfather was a preacher at a non conformist church.
He is married with 2 children.

Here is Matthew with Dad. They are admiring their birthday cakes at a party held to mark Dad's 70th birthday and Matthew's 18th.
Yes - Matt's cake really is a wood louse! He had worked hard on a biology project all that summer and the woodlouse had been much in his mind.








This week I have been thinking again of brothers. We have been celebrating the 80th birthday of my mother's baby brother.
I know she treasured her brother, like I treasure mine.

Part 2 of your guided tour round the antiques centre.

I left you in the village antiques centre standing by my area.
The areas are all very close together and although, we all know exactly where each space begins and ends, it isn't always obvious to the customers. Some of them think that the person who greets them when they come through the door owns everything. It can be hard when somebody comes and asks if we have some particular small item - it is bad enough sometimes to remember what I have, let alone know what everybody else has got.
We all dabble in many things that interest us, though most of us will happily pick up other sorts of things if we think they might sell. I often say that I don't have pretty things, for the 1950s were quite gaudy, with bright colours and geometric designs. But I do have a shelf with some pretty china, because it pleases me and it was cheap to buy.
Other people concentrate on different things. We have a book dealer and a couple who love beautiful old china and also oriental china. There is an area which concentrates on linen, lace, costume, christening robes and things like that. It is a delight to go in on my duty day to have a look round and see what other people have been finding during the week.
I think that most of us would say that we sell things in the shop because we love it. Buying and selling fills our lives and is very satisfying. I think also that most of us would have to admit that there is not really much money to be made - but it seems to be unimportant. I always feel pleased if I have broken even at the end of the year - and in truth there is normally a little to put away towards a holiday.

So, here we are at the end of the shop, looking back towards the door; and yes, that is my area in the foreground.
The tall little cabinet you can see in the middle is where Grandad has his model cars and other smaller, slightly more valuable things.



Customers always seem to enjoy a chat and often I find myself going round with somebody, perhaps helping to hunt for an unusual present. Others come in with friends or their spouse and chat together as they go round. So often I hear people chuckling about seeing things on the shelves that they remember from their childhood.



Perhaps they can recall the black hat, the black fan and the black feathers - just like a Grandma from days gone by might wear.













Or perhaps they can remember playing with dolls or a golly like I am selling.










By the time the customers have got round the shop I am, of course hoping they will have things in their hands that they have picked up on the way round that they want to buy. I am pleased for the shop if customers have found things they want - but most of all I am delighted of course if they have chosen something from Grandad or me.
The person on duty must write down every sale carefully with the codes on the labels that each separate seller uses.



Here I am checking the books.









When people leave the shop it can sometimes feel like you are saying farewell to a friend, having learned quite a lot about them. Often they have said where they might be going next - maybe the pub for some lunch or to walk round Wakehurst Place which is not far away. Perhaps they are continuing their hunt for interesting things and will drive on to Lewes or Brighton.



The first thing they will see when they leave of course is the village main street.
Below is the village post office.
















There are many other interesting places close to the village and I am sure I shall record them during the summer. There is a reservoir in the valley. Wakehurst Place is a lovely place to walk and enjoy plants.

If you are ever in Ardingly though, please make your first call at Rocking Horse Antiques Cente - and no, we don't actually sell rocking horses!