The Middy - October 14, 1999

Simple pleasures

It appears the "Gold Age” of entertainment in Mid Sussex was the late 1940s and 1950s, when, for the first time, people actually found some spending money in their pockets.

The austere war years, when times were hard for both young and old alike, were fading from the memory and the "material "culture, emanating from America, was embraced warmly.

Cinemas in Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill and Hassocks recorded the greater ever attendances, the annual fairs were resurrected from the pages of history – to swarming crowds of thousands – amateur dramatics were booming and families enjoyed days out to parks, gardens and the coast in their very own motorcars.

They had indeed, "never had it so good ".

Popular music had gripped the imagination of the youth, again with a State-side influence, as the likes of  Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly triggered the beginnings of a myriad of skiffle band. The Beatles, in the early 60s, gave this an enormous boost and left an indelible mark on popular culture, so very much evident today.

Mid Sussex, without a suitable concert hall of its own, was unable to ride the crest of this tidal wave of change, but a short car or train ride to London, Crawley or Brighton meant all the popular groups of the day, including the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, well within touching distance.

The "teenage boom ", pushed jazz and the big-band sound into the background somewhat, but far from fading away, these musical forms continued with their diehard fans.

The best known pop star from Mid Sussex is Brett Anderson from Lindfield, who found fame as the lead singer of Suede, the band generally credited with fronting the Brit-Pop boom of the early 90s.

He attended the junior school on Lindfield Common, Oathall, and the sixth form College in Haywards Heath – scoring very creditable examination results, before hitting the big time after graduating from University with a degree in architecture.

The shape of the majority of people’s leisure time was altered beyond recognition by a handful of inventions. The wireless transformed peoples lives and when the motorcar was available to the masses, days out to places otherwise undreamed of became a reality.

The television set brought the whole world into our front rooms with a view to inform, educate and entertain. Whether this has been proved accurate is a matter of opinion, but the radical changes to the leisure habits of a generation hit the entertainment industry hard.

Cinemas, theatres and amateur dramatics all suffered and it took years, and a great deal of hard work, to woo Mid Sussex families from the comfort of the living room is back to hands-on, outdoor pursuits.

Francis Barling, a Newick amateur dramaticist for many years, recalls: "The society started to go downhill in the 1960s, when almost everybody in the village had a TV set and would stay in to be entertained. They were not very keen to come out to see our amateur dramatic productions."

Fred Avery, the Burgess Hill historian, remembers his family getting their first television set for the Queen’s Coronation in 1953. He said: "We were the only family in Junction Road with a set, a small black and white job, and we had about 24 people in the room.

"We had to do it by a shift system – as four people went out another four came in!"

Lillian Rogers laments: "nowadays we all tend to sit in front of the TV for hours watching our favourite soaps, while grumbling about the license costing so much. “

But she expresses amazement at the opportunities available to the youth of today and compared to what was on offer to school children between the wars it is easy to see why.

Her idea of a treat was a Sunday down to Brighton on a steam train organised by The Wesleyan Church. She said: "this sounds so unreal today when families can get down there so easily in their cars. But we only had one or two outings to the seaside every year. "

She recounts in her book Haywards Heath - Yesterday Remembered how she thought it magical when her mother would check the times of the tides in the paper so they would arrive by the seaside when the tide was going out.

She said: "just sitting on the beach eating sandwiches until the tide came back in before coming home sunburned and very happy was a day to remember." As was a walk down to the Downs, which was "so tranquil because there were no ice creams or anything. "

The Beech Hurst Park, on Butlers Green Road, formally the home of Mr and Mrs W. J. Yapp, the tobacco millionaires, used to be opened once a year. There were greenhouses in summer houses and Lillian said: "they were just out of this world for us kids at school.

"We were always on our best behaviour and I remember word going round the council school "the gardens are open, the gardens are open ".

"We had such simple pleasures then – it was quite an event. "

And while mid Sussex can now boast multi-million pound leisure complex at the Triangle in Burgess Hill and the Dolphin Centre in Haywards Heath, getting your toes wet prewar was not so swish.

Haywards Heath amateur dramatist, Rosemary Hannah, recalls: "we used to love going to the Birch Hotel on Lewes Road in the 1930s when they had their pool, and it was so nice to sit on the lawn with an ice cream and have a dip.

"It cost half a crown each and lots of us used to go usually in the holidays. It was either that or cycled to Burgess Hill and pay to pay for a swim in the open air – it was tremendous fun but really jolly cold. "

Theme parks, supersonic travel, computer games and the Internet are all taken for granted by the children of the millennium and, if the many predictions which are made at this momentous time come true, these are just the beginning of a major scientific breakthroughs.

It has been said for years how the development of computers and robotics will make our lives easier at home and work, and leave us with hours of leisure time to fill.

To date this is only partially true, but there can be no doubt the tremendous advantages advances in our understanding of technology will shape the way we spend our free time in the next decade, let alone the next millennium.