How Times Have Changed!

I was recently at Broomfield Farm Caravan Club site in East Hoathly. Considering what a wash-out summer we've had I must have the luck of the devil as all my trips away this yea,r except one, have been in warm sunshine. My 10 days at East Hoathly were no exception!

Whilst we were there my wife and I took a trip to Brighton as it isn't far away. I have good memories of Brighton as all my family come from the town (I find it hard to think of it as a city which it is of course now).

Anyway, as a child I loved Brighton. We used to travel from where I lived in Twickenham by Fountain Coaches. They were painted in a smart green and cream livery and they were always immaculately turned out (although, like all coaches the clock never worked!).

I remember the treat of a C&C (Cantrell and Cochrane) Cherryade and a packet of Meredith and Drew's potato crisps at the halfway house stop mid-route to allow passengers to "spend a penny".

I rember that butterfly excitement feeling in the stomach when, clearing the top of the south downs, I used to glimpse the shimmering blue ocean for the first time!

I also remember the smell of the sea and the sound of the pebbly beach underfoot. It was all so terribly exciting aged 7 or 8 and I never wanted to go home to boring Twickenham!

My big excitement though was to take a ride on the Volks Electric Railway, the first commercial electric railway in the World. The Volks Railway runs from Aquarium Station to Black Rock with a intermediate stop at what was once Peter Pan's Playground but is now known as simply, Halfway.

It was always a treat to sit at the front of the train beside the driver who used to stand because he needed to reach up to operate the roof mounted rheostat which controlled the speed of the train. The drivers usually wore a uniform greatcoat even on sunny days. They looked very smart but I can only imagine it was chilly work standing at the front of a train as it trundled along Brighton seafront day in day out.

On my recent visit I obviously had to travel on the Volks Railway again for old time's sake. I hope I'm not giving too much away by saying that whilst once I travelled for half fare, this time I travelled for reduced OAP rate!

It was as we stopped at the old Peter Pan Playground Station, to let another train pass, that a vague memory from my childhood flickered into my memory. I had a dim recollection of my parents letting me ride in a minature motorised Southdown coach that you drove yourself around a large track that had road signs and a zebra crossing.

Was this a figment of my imagination or a real memory? A few minutes research on the net quickly showed that my grey matter was still firing as it should do. The wonderful sef-drive coaches I rember were constructed by a local businessman called Ernie Johnstone. They ran for a relatvely short time time during the 1950's.

It got me thinking though. Can you imagine anyone letting a 7 or 8 year old drive a motorised vehicle relatively unsupervised, without training and with no safety hemet or padding these days? A Health and Safety Officer would have a nightmare at the very thought!

How times have changed eh?