Continuing An Account of childhood days remembered in Findon by Barbara Lawrence (nee Winter).

I can remember Winton's grocery shop and there was a Pond next to the shop going towards Nepcote, after which came Browns which was a greengrocers. Further along was the Forge and opposite the Forge was the Post Office with its wide range of knitting wools.

My Uncle Leslie worked for some time at Blackwells the butchers in the square - he became a fully qualified butcher. Sometimes in the earlier days when I was in Findon on holiday, he would take me along with him in the van when he made deliveries. Later, when he had married, Uncle Leslie lived in Findon Valley - very near the Cissbury Hotel.  By this time he had a taxi firm and in fact he attended my own wedding with his taxi firm taking both my husband and myself to the Church.  (My home in the New Forest was named 'Cissbury', mother told me that she didn't know whether to name our home Chanctonbury or Cissbury but settled on Cissbury as she felt Chanctonbury was a bit too long!).

One summer, while on holiday in Findon, mother decided to take us to Worthing to the beach - a Southdowns bus would come to the square and turn around for the journey back to Worthing. The trouble was that I did not possess a bathing costume.  However, Mrs. Covey from No. 2 offered to lend me one of her daughter Joan's.  This was a hand-knitted blue and yellow wool creation.  All went well until I came out of the sea - as the water dripped out of the costume so it stretched and dropped down too!! Mrs. Covey was a very lively type of person and evidently back when the Great War came to an end, she stood on her head and balanced herself with a broom!

My grandmother was Angelina Burrell from Shipley, before she married grandfather.  Rumour has it that she eloped with grandfather, who was the groom at her home and from then on the Burrell family disowned her.  She never spoke of her family although I believe she had a sister called Fanny and another called Louie. 

Her father, Sir William Burrell, instigated the creation of the dew ponds on the Downs and the circle of trees on the top of hills locally.  My mother did remember one occasion though when Sir William (her grandfather) visited Findon presumably to see Angelina. 

Some years ago, I drove my mother to St. Mary the Virgin Church in Shipley. It was interesting to see windows in the Church dedicated to Lady Dorothea Burrell.

I remember Nepcote Green full of sheep contained in various wattle enclosures which I presume was a Sheep Fair.  It seemed to me to be a sheep auction and it sounded as if the auctioneer was talking in a foreign language and at a very fast rate.  I also remember my mother telling me that she used to go to dances on the top floor at the Wattle House at Nepcote.

In The Square next to Blackwells, the butcher, was I think an upholsterers and next to that a Newsagents who sold sweets and cigarettes etc. this was going towards Short's Farm which supplied the village with milk.  My mother used to go down to Short's Farm each day as a child to collect their milk in a jug.  She was a lively little girl and would tease the local goat which would chase her home. She would just manage to close the back door before the goat crashed into it!

Walking alongside the cricket ground led to the Church and also to Church Hill.  It was quite a steep climb to the top of the hill and I remember climbing this with my husband but reaching the top this particular sunny dry summer day the grass had become very slippery and my husband and I ended up crawling along the top as we were unable to keep our footing!!

My mother told me that when younger she and her brothers used to slide down the hill on trays.