Friday, May 01, 2009

 

Happy chance meetings and chat

Today has been delightfully sunny.
After breakfast we set off towards the town, via the post office. It was not meant to be a day of surprises - but life's rich pattern does often provide surprises.
That's OK when they are full of pleasure - this time last year we had been more than surprised by being in a road traffic accident. I can still sense how that very nasty surprise hurt.

The first pleasant surprise was to stop and have a chat with Ron Ford. He was the ace cyclist of a rival club to Bill's Southern Wheelers. The blond fit young man has now become a man in his mid to late 70s. He still cycles with a group of retired people a couple of times a week.
Perceptive man - he could see I had had health problems; but thought Bill hadn't changed a bit! There is just a bit more of him these days!

We walked from the Post office into Malthouse Road, where we had walked with Roger and Sue last Sunday to try to find the home of our great aunt Mercy and Uncle Ern.
Roger has since used the census to decide which number they lived at.
We found number 48 and I began to wonder if it was the right house.
I had an image in my mind of a photograph of Dad and cousins in a side alley and Number 48 is a mid terrace house.
But the picture of the children - which is on Roger's Days Out part of his website - was taken at the same spot as this one of my Great Aunt Mercy. This is about 1922 0r 23.

I felt confused........Perhaps it was number 46?
And then I wondered if it could have been number 49.
We walked back a little way to a larger semi detached house on the other side of the road.
Seeing somebody in the garden, I explained what we were doing.
"Come in and meet Mavis" he said.
We learned that this elderly couple had recently celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary.
They were so old, I thought they must know Aunt Mercy.
Then I remembered that time had moved on - this couple married in 1948, comparatively recently. Mercy and Ern must have married about 45 years before that.
I just forget how old I have become!
Anyway Mavis was a Freeman and had been born in the house next door. Freemans had owned land and houses there since the 1900s.
I asked if this was the same Freemans who owned a plumbing and building business and it was. So I could tell our new friend that I went to school with Michael (Micky) Freeman and had been to parties in the bungalow opposite them.
We shared memories of other old Crawley folk - she knew of Bill's Uncle Bill and knew that there were Edwards (cousins of Dad's) in Ifield Road.
I think we might have been there all morning, but the chiropodist arrived to interrupt the flow.
It is such chance episodes that make life more meaningful, I think.

And so on to the town - over the footbridge over the railway.


London bound train passing the level crossing at the end of Brighton Road and the old signal box.

Train passing the remains of the platforms at the old station.

At the new station.


Looking down the line towards Ifield. There are 4 crossing points in view - the Brighton Road/High Street crossing. the Horsham Road crossing, the footbridge linking Goffs Park to Goffs Lane and the dual carriageway of the A23.

We passed the Catholic Church and I remembered that my old friend Frank had asked for a picture of a grave.
It was for somebody who died when I was going out with Frank, the mother of a school friend of his. I was moved and shocked by this death - one of the first I was really aware of. The lady was killed whilst riding her bike down the old Pease Pottage Hill. Later Frank was teaching with the daughter and he told me recently that she had died of cancer and was also in that grave.
Bill took some pictures and saw that close by there was the grave of Frank's old head master - so that grave was photographed too.

Then on into town - holidays are the time for new underwear! Bill got his in Lidl, but I wanted to go to TJ Hughes.
We got a few more bits and then caught the bus home.

This afternoon we have fiddled around. I have almost filled my hand luggage case. I needed to feel more secure that I could get everything that was really important in. Medication and equipment for wee bags etc is now sorted. I must relax now - and hope for the best that there will be no problems.

I shall stop soon and watch a bit of TV and get an early night - didn't sleep so well last night.
Tomorrow will be a relaxing Saturday morning - no trips to Ford and Littlehampton this week.
We have a men's southern league athletics match in the afternoon.

Happy chance meetings and chat
posted by Grandma P on Friday, May 01, 2009