Telegram boy became leader of the Gang

So let us just toddle along South Road and see what can be found. On the extreme left is the wall of Church Road, leading down to Chapel Street, as it does today, but now it is much narrower. Horse chestnut trees provide a handsome hedge, but soon they will be large enough to attract the boys with their desire to break each other's conkers. Then, they would have feared no more than a telling off from the local vicar, whereas today they would be confronted by the local constabulary whose kingdom they would have disturbed. In any case, today the greenery is rather scarce. Christ Church was quite large and it is said provided a place of worship which did not require you to surmount the steep hill up to St Michael's! At the far end of the conker trees is the Church Room, which had two levels. In wartime it has been used for schooling. The artefacts recovered from the Roman dig in the area of the church and Somerfield's site were cleaned, examined and listed there. A few pieces can be seen in a showcase at the entrance to the police station and others at our museum. Before World War II, I had little cause to visit the hall, with one exception, probably in 1938. An ex-local was going to give a talk to a Newhaven audience. Something prompted me to go and I was glad I did. I suppose Denton could be considered as local, for it was none other than Ralph Reader. One was never likely to fall asleep in his company, but I remember him saying that he started off at Newhaven Post Office as a telegram boy and how he would have to deliver at the Fort. Later, he was an office clerk at the Heighton Cement Works, then via Ireland to America where he was befriended by Jack Oakey (who played Mussolini in the Charlie Chaplin film The Great Dictator. This got him into the world of theatre, which on his return to England he shared with his other love, the Boy Scout movement, which he so promoted with his famed Gang Shows . I remember he did a Gang Show on Radio Normandy and the singer with George Scott Wood's band was none other than Betty Driver, later 'Betty Turpin', famed for her hotpot in Coronation Street. He put a lot of pleasure my way. There is a file about him at the museum. In his last letter to me he mentioned that he could just see the typewriter keys, but he couldn't read what he had written. What a sad way for such an active man to finish. Return to South Road, the inhabitants posing in the road. The picture must have been taken from the upstairs room of the girls' school, replaced now by the multi-storey car park. There was a church and chapel on one side of the road and three pubs and an off licence on the other, and not a motor car in sight! PETER BAILEY Peter Bailey is curator of the Newhaven Local and Maritime Museum based in its own fascinating premises in the grounds of Paradise Park in Avis Road, Newhaven. Summer opening hours are daily, 2-4pm or by arrangement. Admission 1 (accompanied children free). Contact the curator on 01273 514760. Log on to the website at www.newhaven museum.co.uk