Born in 1908 at the Marquess of Exeter public house (now the Chimney House), which was run by her parents, Marjory Batchelor spent her working life as a barmaid and pub landlady in and around the Brighton area. Marjory recalls her experiences of growing up and working through two World Wars and beyond in Brighton, [...]
Arthur Thickett’s 1993 memoir is the story of a young man who came to Brighton in the summer of 1970, full of hope and optimism – his goal was to find adventure and ultimately love. On his first day he found digs in Ovingdean, on his second day he walked into a job as a [...]
Marjorie Gardiner’s 1985 autobiography looks at the working life of milliner from 1925 to 1945, including an account of her working life during the Second World War. Marjorie’s story is told in a lively and evocative manner, and describes her experiences as a shop assistant working in a Brighton hat shop, where she met all [...]
This book is about a young boy’s experiences during the Second World War. A Far Cry from a White Apron - The story of a Brighton Bevin Boy is is a fascinating memoir which describes with poignancy stories of lost youth and a harsh life spent during a turbulent historical period. The content is frank and occasionally disturbing and [...]
Albert Paul was a retired carpenter who lived all his life in Brighton, and he describes in vivid detail the life of a boy brought up in poverty and his struggle against adversity. Poverty - Hardship but Happiness tells the story of a working class boy’s life in the years between 1903 and 1917, from [...]
This 1991 memoir by Lillie Morgan tells an often shocking story of the grinding poverty faced by working people in Brighton during the First World War. As a teenager she was working at a pawnbroker’s in Edward Street and witnessed first-hand the desperate lengths people went to to find the price of a loaf of [...]
One winter in the 1980s, Ernie Mason was at a loose end, so he bought a notebook and began to write his autobiography. This story encapsulates a working-class man’s journey through life over the course of the twentieth century, documenting the many changes that took place in the local environment and in social conditions. Born [...]
In her 1996 autobiography, Janis Ravenett recalls her memories of growing up in Southampton Street in the Hanover area of Brighton, during the years between 1942 and 1955. Janis describes a childhood that was happy and full of fun, living in a house in a close-knit community with few modern conveniences, and tells of the [...]
In this 1989 book, Sid Manville reminisces about his Brighton boyhood between the wars. This first-person account of growing up as one of ten children in Bear Road is a valuable insight into working class family life in Brighton in the 1920s and 30s. Sid recalls local traders and characters, attending Coombe Road School in [...]
In this poignant book, the author writes with candour about her experience of growing up in a workhouse children’s home in London during the Twenties and Thirties. Kathleen Dalley’s story is told with clarity and sensitivity, yet refrains from sentimentality. She describes an institutionalised childhood where strict members of staff upheld the rules and procedures [...]
This 1994 autobiography is the sequel to Sid Manville’s Everything Seems Smaller. It recalls memories of friends, neighbours and relatives who made up the 'small corner' of Sid’s neighbourhood in Bear Road in Brighton in the Twenties and Thirties. Sid writes with much affection and humour, although he doesn’t forget that this era was also [...]
Barbara Chapman was born in Brighton on a snowy Boxing Day in 1927. In this 1994 autobiography, she reminisces about her early childhood; focusing on her memories of home and school, and the effects of the Second World War on herself, her family, and the community. Barbara shares her experiences of working life in the [...]
With its backdrop of Brighton in the Second World War, International Service tells the tale of Kathleen Wilson’s naive teenage years, leaving school at 14 on the outbreak of war to work in a factory, going on to work in a baker’s, as a domestic help and in the grocery trade. Kathleen lived in the shadow of [...]
This 1992 book is a personal account of living in the Tenantry Down neighbourhood of Brighton in the1920s and 30s. Don Carter describes his childhood in the Hartington Road area of Brighton, where nearly all the roads are named after places in the Isle of Wight. Don can claim to be a true Brightonian, having [...]
This 1994 memoir is a schoolboy’s tale of Brighton in the 1950s, seen through the eyes of Andy Steer. He recalls Brighton characters and shops, swimming at Black Rock and with the “Shiverers” Swimming Club at the salt-water King Alfred pool in Hove; Stanford Road School, the now defunct Brighton Cycle Club and playing in [...]
George Grout was a member of one of Brighton’s best-known family bakers. He learnt the skills and craft of baking from his father and brothers at a young age, and can attest to hard times as well as recalling many happy memories of laughter and fun. In his 1992 memoir. George recalled the years when [...]
In her 1990 autobiography, Ruby Dunn recalls the development of Moulsecoomb, then a rural outskirt of Brighton, into a post-World War One “garden suburb”. The early residents of the community had no school or church, but they were proud of their new electric cookers and semi-detached houses set in a valley with gardens filled with [...]
Sheila Winter’s 1998 memoir recalls the growth of the community of Moulsecoomb. Sheila was born, raised and married in the area, and narrates the story of her life during the years between 1929 and 1950. Sheila’s father was badly injured in the First World War, and although the estate was built as “homes fit for [...]
Celebrating twenty-five years of innovation with the launch of the 'ZAP' book.
Mary Adams was born in 1930 in Birmingham. The first part of her 1995 memoir recalls her early life when she was sent to a residential school in Hertfordshire at the age of four, transferred to a school in Surrey before the outbreak of World War Two, and then to a convent school in Devon. [...]
Published in 2005, this fascinating book looks at the customs and culture of the Sudanese community in the Brighton and Hove area. The British and Sudanese cultures are very different to one another and the narrative includes comparisons of the two cultures, as well as giving first-hand descriptions of festivals, celebrations including weddings and funerals, [...]
Ethel Smith’s autobiography was published in 1992 and it tells the story of a girl born in 1912 in a working class family who grew up in the Old Kent Road in London and came to live with her family in the Sussex countryside when still a young girl. She started work age 14 and [...]
Brighton & Hove is a multi-faceted city and it is possibly its trendy, cosmopolitan side that most people recognise. Local residents however are familiar with a much more fascinating, diverse place. What is it really like to live here? Is it just ‘London by the sea’ as the media portrays? Or does it have its [...]
Roofless is a collection of photographs, essays, stories and poems by homeless and ex-homeless people from Brighton. It is about survival, about battling poverty, rejection, violence, ill health and loneliness. There is anger, sadness and rebellion, but also instances of hope and solidarity and writing that, whilst often raw and uncompromising, possesses a surprising generosity [...]
This diverse collection called Alt-History: New Writing From Brighton, consists of fifteen stories by new writers, including five pieces of work by young authors under the age of twelve. The aim of the publication was to allow people the opportunity to write their own versions of ‘histories’ of Brighton and Hove and the material includes [...]
Published in 1983, Brighton on the Rocks incorporates a collection of interviews, photographs and statistics, which are used to analyse how monetarism affected the economic policies that were pursued by the city’s local authorities in the 1980s. When local councils imposed financial cuts from 1980 onwards, they argued that the cuts were necessary because of overspending. [...]
This journal was produced by the Letter in the Attic project and was a way in which people could do their own writing, illustrated with quotes and pictures from the Letter in the Attic collection. It contains images, photographs, quotes and pictures from letters and diaries related to Brighton and Hove from the last 150 years. These were [...]
Daring Hearts - Lesbian and Gay Lives of 50’s and 60’s Brighton: Long out of print, this is a searing and informative collection of life stories based on taped interviews with forty lesbians and gay men who spoke openly about their lives in and around Brighton. Originally published in collaboration with Brighton Ourstory.
Originally produced in 1990 in collaboration with the now defunct Lewis Cohen Urban Studies Centre, Brighton Behind the Front brings together a collection of Brighton World War II reminiscences and documents how ordinary people were affected by the war, offering moving accounts of individual lives set against a society undergoing profound changes. Using personal recollections, contemporary photographs, letters, a logbook and diaries, the book vividly portrays what it was like to live in Brighton during the Second World War. You can buy copies of the book using Amazon Kindle, Google Play, the Apple store, and other Android outlets - just go to your chosen website and search by title for the book.
This book contains original material that was written during the period between the early 1860s and 1888. It is part autobiography and part diary, and tells the story of James Nye, an extraordinary man, who lived much of his life in a nineteenth century rural village, near Lewes. His life story was discovered in latter [...]
Daisy Noakes tells her story from the age of fourteen, when she went into service. She gives us an insight into the life of a woman born and brought up in Brighton during the years 1910-1934. Daisy documents – with humour - her inevitable trials and tribulations in the often physically demanding world that she [...]
Albert Paul was a retired carpenter who lived all his life in Brighton, and he describes in vivid detail the life of a boy brought up in poverty and his struggle against adversity. Poverty - Hardship but Happiness tells the story of a working class boy’s life in the years between 1903 and 1917, from [...]
This anthology presents a child’s-eye view of the year 2000. It includes drawings and words that reflect the perspectives and views of children aged between five and eleven. The book was compiled from one-week diaries, written over the course of the Millenium Year, by four hundred school children in the Brighton and Hove area. There [...]
Written in prison at the age of 62, this autobiography begins with Ron Piper as a boy of seven, clambering around bombsites looking for shrapnel and ends with his appearance in the dock at The Old Bailey, as a notorious career criminal. It's a powerful wartime record of the author’s steady progress towards a life of [...]
Les Moss tells of his lifelong struggle in search of progress, and his personal triumph over adversity. Published in 1979, this fascinating life history describes one man’s involvement in trade unionism and provides a picture of political activism in London and Brighton from the 1920s onward. Also documented are the daily and working lives of [...]
This autobiography tells of George Noakes's childhood and early adult working life before he married Daisy, author of The Town Beehive and The Faded Rainbow, in 1934. George reminisces about his childhood farm memories and forays to the local shops and surrounding areas; for example, when he visited the local bakers, he always knew that [...]
This book contains reminiscences and anecdotes from past pupils who attended St. Luke’s School, in the Queens Park area of Brighton in the years between 1908 - 1983. It contains an eclectic mix of anecdotes that express both fond memories and less happy recollections of pupils’ schoolday experiences and the reality of belonging to a [...]
This is a child’s-eye view of carefree times spent in the 1930s and the more difficult times experienced in the 1940s, in the poverty-stricken Albion Hill area of Brighton. Meet the characters in John Knight’s resilient family unit - above all, his parents, who were determined to shield their offspring from the hardships of their [...]
This book, which consists of both poetry and prose, features the reminiscences of Katherine J. Browne. Most of the book comprises poems inspired by Katherine’s deeply-held religious faith, with memories of her early life in Belize, and an account of her Second World War work as a Billeting Officer in Liverpool, in which she provides vivid descriptions of [...]
Continuing the theme of working with people who have suffered strokes, this book is intended as both a self-help aid and as a helpful guide that can provide support to others in similar situations. It is written by five people with experience of caring for a close relative who has suffered a stroke. The process [...]
This is an account of stroke survivors’ triumphs over adversity, as they undertake the difficult and painful process of learning how to live again. The book examines the lasting effects of degenerative trauma and documents the transition from being able-bodied to becoming disabled. Writing is viewed as part of the process of rehabilitation, as the [...]
This is a beautifully illustrated account of life as an adolescent girl, growing up in the rural Sussex village of Ditchling between the First and Second World Wars. Doris Hall describes the details and events of her daily life in an environment where she was able to develop peacefully and happily, surrounded by family, friends [...]
This selection of creative writing is the cumulative work of fifty people, who attended a writing weekend in Seaford, East Sussex in July 1993. There were four workshops in total, including one on autobiography and personal histories, one on poetry, one on storytelling from images and one on drama. From the beginning of the course, [...]
This intelligently written book examines the social and religious history of St. Anne’s Church, which was located in the heart of Brighton. Maurice Packman, the author, was a choirboy at St. Anne’s in the 1930s and he takes a gently humorous look at the community of his fellow worshippers. The church has been demolished, but [...]
This evocative collection of photographs shows Brighton during WWII. Kindly reproduced here under licence from The Argus and The Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove, most of these images haven’t been seen by the public for many years. From soldiers marching past the Savoy cinema in East Street to a St Paul’s Street party [...]
In the late 1950s the Environmental Health Department of the former Brighton Borough Council commissioned a series of photographs to form a visual record of areas being considered for slum clearance. Some of the striking and evocotive photographs taken are featured in this 2007 calendar. Thanks to Kevin Bacon at The Brighton History Centre for allowing [...]
This calendar follows on from 2007’s successful Lost Streets of Brighton and features photographs of shops, most of which are previously unseen by the public. All the shops have long since disappeared. Viewed together, they conjure up an evocative portrait of Brighton's past. Thanks to The Royal Pavilion and Museums Brighton & Hove, David Carrington and [...]
The Faith Project used oral history and video work to help members of the Sudanese Coptic, Muslim and Progressive Jewish communities to collate a history of how and why the followers of these faiths arrived in Brighton and the traditions and customs that they brought with them. Project extracts are featured in this book which [...]
These childhood reminiscences examine the special and unbreakable bond between mothers and their daughters. Through the story of five daughters and their relationships with their mothers, the book charts the positive and negative experiences of family life. In particular, it examines the influence that their mothers had on their development as women and individuals in [...]
Phoebe Hessel (1713-1821) was a woman who spent part of her life dressed as a man, and fought as a soldier for many years with the British Army. In the 18th century, women had very little power or choice in their lives and there was therefore much to be gained in 'becoming a man' in [...]