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A history 55 Church Road, Portslade |
 Alfred Walter Noel
Langrish
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'Mum had three children when Dad went into the navy in 1914 at the start of World War I. ( the Great War it was called until WW II). So Mum had Alf, Ivy and George as young children while Dad served four years away until 1918 when the war finished. He was on Naval pay; his Royal Naval Division fought in the trenches in France in army uniforms, maybe they had too many sailors and not enough soldiers. Wounded twice and taken prisoner at one time he survived the trenches and a landing at the Dardenelles, Turkey, which was a complete failure. Mum told us about the time he came home on leave from the trenches in France and his clothes were so lousy with lice that she burnt the lot in the garden to keep them from the children. Horrors of war are not a thing people talk about much, Mum told us off it we asked Dad about the war when we were kids, no doubt she’d has quite enough of it.' Like many returning service men Alfred received a letter from Buckingham Palace welcoming him home from the POW camp and wishing him well for the future. |
| St Peters Infant School | Early years Four more children were born at 55, Joyce in 1919, Gordon in 1922, Bernard in 1924 and lastly Evelyn born in 1925. Several of the children were baptised at St Andrews Church, Church Road. By this time the weekly rent had risen to 10 shillings as the family grew to seven children. The food on the table was supplemented by allotment produce grown by Alfred and pickled and preserved by Florence. School All the children attended local schools first St Peters, then St Andrews then on to St Nicholas and either the Boys School in High Street near the Portslade Old Village or the Girls School, Chalky Road, Mile Oak. Each child left school at the age of 14. ‘My early years at St Peters Infant School can be summed up in three items; drawing in sand-trays, pulling the school bell rope and the outside toilets in the far corner of the playground. My next school was St Andrews Junior mixed, on the seafront road, Portslade. On our walk to school we had to pass the flour mill at the bottom of Church Road and remember the steam lorry drivers raking out their fire boxes onto the ground and standing warming our hands by the hot glowing ashes on cold days. The old gas works across the harbour had a loud steam hooter which sounded at five to nine for its workers so if you were not on your way to school by then it was panic stations. I attended this school until 11 years old.' Lodgers Many families took in lodgers to supplement their income. 'One of my early memories was of an elderly gentleman who at one time lived in the front room at 55 Church Road. Mr Spregget shared the room with his wife until she died but I don’t remember her. Sometimes he would play his old gramophone for us kids. He liked going fishing for shrimps and catching crabs down the beach. He showed us how to pick up crabs without getting our fingers nipped. Mum usually got the job of cooking them. He was in some way connected to St Andrews Church (church warden) and got in to the habit of telling everyone he met, a bible story, even us kids. This didn’t go down too well with Mum who was mostly too busy to stop and listen. He left 55 to go to live with a relative after Mum told him she could do with the extra room with her family growing up. Us kids would sometimes bring mussels collected off the groynes home in our swimming towels and got told off for spoiling them. (Still ate the mussels though). Growing up My eldest brother Alf was in the Royal Navy serving 12 years. Sister Ivy was a live-in maid with a family in Hove. This left Mum, Dad and five of us still at home, a full time job for Mum. Work Dad worked for John Edde Butt timber importer alongside the canal, stacking timber off the boats or loading orders ready to be delivered. His brother George also worked at the same job. At first the transport was all horse drawn, and so a load of timber for a place like Ovingdean was an all day trip, drivers took their dinner with them. They must have needed at least a two horse team or even four on the hilly sections.' |
 Eldest son Alfred joins the Navy
and becomes a sub-mariner |
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