From a Distance

Starting School Early School Days and Grateful Thanks to Chicken Licken  An energetic and capable pair of women, Miss Millicent Glencross and her life partner, Miss Spence, ran the Gateway School. I started there at in 1948 aged 4½ and travelled with my brother on the 50a bus, which ran along the Sussex coast to Pagham, west of Bognor Regis. For years I was fascinated by the bus’s ultimate destination ‘á Becket’s Ave though had no idea who Becket was with that funny á and what was Ave ? Did it rhyme with Save or with Have ? The Gateway was a traditional, tightly organised prep school where mastery of the basic skills was paramount. The teachers , were kind and caring, the school routine was unvarying. The classes were named after characteristics for us to emulate; the Reception class was called Happiness then we went on to Kindness, Goodness, Unselfishness, Courage, Truth, Loyalty and Perseverance. I can recall the formica-topped table and the tiny chairs and can see the first s...

It's time to celebrate the work of  Gerard Young, the author of Down Hoe Lane. He was a well-known resident of the tiny hamlet of Flansham, near Felpham.  His beautifully observed pieces from the 1940s and '50s make him something of a Laurie Lee  for this small corner of West Sussex.   He captures the spirit of the place perfectly with his descriptions of lambing, scything and the arrival of a threshing machine.  He wages a ceaseless war against the rampaging weeds in his garden.  He introduces us to local personalities, to a  benign ghost and   helps a child build a snowman. He describes adventures into amateur dramatics, records braving winter storms as well as cycling to the local beach for a swim on a balmy summer night.  Here's a taste of his writing, topical after the recent spell of freezing weather: The Giant in the Snow - Extract from Down Hoe Lane by Gerard Young I could not break my promise to him. ...