BUNGALOW TOWN
Snapshot Memories of England's Hollywood
 
 
 
 
 

 

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Daily Life on Bungalow Town Beach c 1912

There are several websites about Bungalow Town or Shoreham Beach, as it now known, but none of them tell of the people who lived there in the early decades of the 20th century. This knowledge, coupled with the reminiscences of other residents past and present about their extraordinary lives until World War II and their apparent deep sense of contentment and belonging, set me on the search that resulted in the contents of this site.

Initially Bungalow Town was a colony of theatrical people, but in the 1920’s
it became a weekend retreat for the comfortably off, and as a result tradesmen closely followed. To understand their lives I have chosen to share a collection of memories of people who lived in Bungalow Town during this period.

I have a tape recording of a Radio Sussex programme ‘Memories of Bungalow Town’ which was on the air in about 1972. In this the late ‘NEB’ Wolters reminisces with some of the older residents who had lived and been enchanted by this extraordinary place, its inhabitants and their raffish life style, when it was a colony occupied by stars of the silent movies and music hall.

In contrast to those memories, Peggy Bailey, who has lived on this shingle spit almost all her life, allowed me to include her reading her memoirs of a simple but happy childhood in Bungalow Town between the wars. She speaks about her parents and in particular her mother Bessie Bailey who had lived in Bungalow Town from the time of her marriage in the early 1920’s until she died when she was over a hundred. The reading concludes with Peggy’s own recollections.

A period piece: an evocative “poem” conjuring up a fairytale picture of life on the Beach at this time. The Shoreham Poem


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