Peggy's Memories
Peggy Bailey
Peggy with Her mother Bessie Bailey c 1970’s
“My first memory, at the age of three, I remember I fell in the river from the houseboat ‘Speedwell’, my mother was told bubbles were coming up, I was reprimanded of course, in trouble”
 Melbourne c 1930’s - Feeding the swans |
“There were many swans in the river that came to be fed and the river was quite clean." |
| “We walked to school twice a day, over the footbridge, the toll being a halfpenny each way for children and a penny for adults” |  Footbridge over the River Adur c 1921 |
“ Mr Snelling, who worked for Battens, delivered the milk in a milk cart. He had to push the cart along unmade roads. On Sundays a man came around selling winkles by the pint and a girl selling watercress. These were considered a treat for Sunday tea. Finding the pin was fun and a chore.”
“There were several nightclubs on the beach. Our parents knew Arthur Godfrey, who owned Arthur’s Club, which was later Flo’s Club (Florrie Forde a noted Australian singer who sang songs such as: Down at the Old Bull and Bush). I was curious to see inside. One morning we went with a message and I was most disappointed, it was dark and smoky, with one-armed bandits along the walls. I’m sure it was much jollier at night."
An early Beach Club, August 1915
"Also in Ferry Road was the Pebble Tea Lounge, where we could have ice-cream in a dish with a wafer, sitting on a Lloyd Loom chair – a great treat. Eades stores the grocers and post office, had a lovely smell of bacon and ground coffee. Mr Cheal, the historian, was the post-master, he wore mittens and had to serve the groceries when the manager wasn’t there.”
Shops in Ferry Road c 1935
“We had a friend in the newsagents; she let us bring
the comics home to read and return without paying. They had to be ironed
if they were crumpled when they were returned. There was a drapers,
a hairdressers, a sweet shop, with a halfpenny and a penny tray and
it was a great treat to have something from the penny tray. Cooks had
the ironmongers, where you took your can to have filled with paraffin.
The butcher shop was in Riverside Road, and the manager, was a short-tempered
man who waved knives about; we were frightened.
“September 3rd, war was declared. I was with friends. We went home where my sister and I had to sit with our gasmasks on while the sirens sounded. We had air-raid shelters at school and you went nowhere without your gasmask in a cardboard box, which you wore over your shoulder. There were various case covers and there was great competition on having the best gasmask case!”
The War ended, and in 1947 Peggy married her husband who had been wounded in Germany. Life went on, the rations didn’t end until 1953, but the fear and danger was over and so were her teenage years.