Memorial Hastings 1970’s

 

Malcolm McDonald… Great times..

Keith Veness… That’s what a Town centre should look like

Janet Gardiner… Keith, That’s how it was when I lived there in Middle Street. Came to Australia in October 1952.

Steve Cooke… What it looked like before the ‘town planners’ got there knapkin drawings approved. They have decimated our town over the last century and it is such a sad place now as a result.

Patrick Syder… spot on Steve!

Gail Allana… I spent many a happy Summer there in my childhood. I cried when they demolished the sea water lido. Still a pretty place, as revisited some years ago, but the homeless drug addicts is very sad. {I did sit & speak to quite a few}. Bought them food.

Wayne Heldon… Gail, well they need somewhere to go. shame they arent looked after in our society better. more council govt issues

Yvonne Smith… Should have left the town centre just like this when it had great shops, a great cricket ground, a bus depot, etc. etc.

Lloyd Johnson… Before it was decimated

Gary Benton… This is exactly why every time I come back home now, I feel ashamed of what the town has become.

Sheila Imrie… Gary, Me too, was born in Hastings and lived in St Leonards, visited a couple of weeks ago now live in Devon. I remember this view very well , also the cricket pitch

Tony Court-holmes… when the town had a heart and it was safe to go in the town centre at night

Mary Hunnings… The Town was a great place to be then

Heather Sidery… Great picture

Adam Poole… Looks so much nicer back then in comparison to now

Jacquie Abbiss… I remember those days,with Plummers department store.

Keith Woodcock… There’s nothing left of this town now

Jennifer Furnival… I loved the town back then not now won’t go near it. Dump

Jane Owen Schaumlöffel.. What a thriving town it was.

Pamela Thomson… Such memories even down to the bus number.

Sue Goodhand… Pamela Thomson 12 or 84 to Sedlescombe

Paul Cullen… Remember it well, good times

Georgina Woolsey Sorrell… Why did they remove that lovely clock just cant understand it

Ron Adams… The good old Hastings

Stuart Parsons… Not a foreign vehicle in sight , its only taken 53 years to ruin what was the best industrial country the world had ever seen.

Rufus McDoodle… Met the traditional Hastings fate of ‘mysteriously catching fire’ if I remember correctly. The council should’ve been forced to repair & rebuild.

Jamie Deeprose… Rufus, the council wanted rid as they wanted to implement the new road structure in place today and was told they couldn’t knock it down, as part of Hastings heritage, so mysteriously got burnt down. Then it was deemed dangerous and was remove and the new road was then built, no rocket science to why it was burnt down

Cherry McCleery… Not 1970s ……. that’s 1960s

Teresa Norman… The good old days

Dean Garnham… lovely back then , it’s a total mess now in Hastings town, shame

Lyn Lomas… Why on earth didn’t they leave it as it was? Oh yes….money talks loudly!

Julie Pett… Bring back the memorial !! Such a pity the town planners got their way.

Carol Gomes… When Hastings used to have style

Kevin Carlyon… Before Hastings Council destroyed the Memorial

Celia Jimenez… It was a lot, lot nice in those days!!!! It’s a real shame they didn’t keep the clock tower.

Linda Moon… Now it looks like a vagrants paradise

Sandra Williamson… I remember visiting Hastings as a child. I use to enjoy and love the town. As an adult 33 years ago I moved here and even then I noticed a big change. Deffinately not the same. Drab Dreary, falling apart. They built Priory Meadow but you can’t really call that a shopping centre. Not compared to other towns. Plus the flooding problem. Bring back the old Hastings.

Thomas Wilson… Sandra, it flooded back then as well

Sonja Warren… Looks lovely back then

Liz Mann Cummings Green… Remember it well from years ago, shame it’s ruined now

Marion Ball… So sad stunning feature the clock

Phoebe Bumstead… I was born in Hastings it used to be a lovely little town to call my home but its not now, I don’t know the town now its a shame

Martin Markowski… Way better then now it’s a complete dump where you only go if your really desperate for something

Doug Cheshire… The once “bustling” town centre has gone

Val Estcourt… Should have been a harbour instead of a flooded shopping centre with a lot of shops closed in Queens Road..

Elaine Wright… Lovely memories, great shops

Lynne Guyton… Great photo, remember all of it just loved the town and the great times I had. It’s a shame I didn’t appreciate it back then!

Sue Mummy Hen Procter… Oh my… so many memories xx

Eileen Aldous… Miss seeing the memorial

Paul Coleman… That’s a great pic! I remember it like that. Shame the fire took it.

Pauline Richards… fire seems too take all the buildings.in our town that get in the way! wonder what’s next!!!

Frederick Crouch… The bus is a Leyland Atlantean which were the first buses brought in to replace the trolley buses in 1959. This bus is on route 133 which went from Hollington to Ore. A new pattern of services was introduced with bus deregulation in the 1970s. Then the town centre redevelopment necessitated buses to be routed via the station which increased journey times from Hollington to Ore. Route 133 was a quicker and popular service, but being staffed with conductors, it lost money. The Memorial Clock tower shown in this colour photo was painted pink a few years before it was destroyed. It was originally a stone colour, but it had to be painted pink to cover up numerous cracks that had been repaired with cement.

Rosemary Clark… Frederick Crouch my dad ( Jack Linch ) drove these back then ( 59 + )

Sylvia Eldridge… Hastings was a busy wonderful town in the 60 s & 70 s . Look at it now

David Scott… Very sad to compare this with today’s version. How grand it once was

Blossom Hope… Hastings used to be a lovely busy place, now it’s a ghost town

Rodney Martin… The good old days

Brian Jones… Looking better then

Sooty Tymn… Hastings was a lovely town. I grew up there.  Sad now.

Lynda Whatley… Memories

Wendy Henry Wilson… Just how I remember it

Sue Goodhand… There was always a friendly policeman at the memorial !!!!!!!!I don’t think he had much trouble, just a helpful guy.

Yngvild Maae… I lived in Hastings from 72-74, and was there also 71. I remember the clock tower very much and still miss it. I was visiting September last and have family Martin as family forever

Maureen Duly… I remember the memorial as it was Much better than it is now

Phil Goodsell… Criminals tore it down.

Julian Humphries… Turret burger was great back then

Pat Gerrish… I still miss the memorial and the clock.

Steve DP… Happy days. Before the town was ruined.

Michael George… Those were the days

Pete Grain… Where did the clock go?

Lucy Pappas… So familiar x

Ron Adams… The memorial clock Tower was put there with peoples money and pulled down for nothing to make room for development.

Pat Burmarsh… I remember this – vague memory of there being trolley bus network around the Memorial

Paul Mac… So different now.

Pat Turner… last visit 2017. Very sad the way the town looks and with Albert Memorial gone even sadder.

John Anthony Jones… Some clown set fire to it and caused irreparable damage and it had to be demolished, Derrick.

Tina West… Back in the day when Hastings was a town not a centre

Jock Brown… Yes it’s changed a lot for the worse not the better, it is virtually a ghost town, most people shop out of town like Eastbourne ,Brighton ,Maidstone, even as far as London

Jay Wilson… Not a plastic gangster in site

Mike Higton… WONDERFUL, YET LIKE MOST LOVELY PLACES DECIMATED, WITH LITTLE THOUGHT.

Gordon Martin… The town of my birth in 1944. Wish it still looked like it today. !!

Emily Booth… Definitely looks classier then! What’s the shop that became Debenhams?! And who remembers Athena?! The 80’s poster store that I think was on the far corner …..

Alan Esdaile… Emily, It was Plummers before Debenhams. Yes remember Athena, in the shop that was ‘Crews’ in the photo.

June Gilkes Tidey… The Beating Heart has been removed very very sad

Ruth Edgeworth… Love

Peter Bolingbroke… Bring it back, !!!!

Angela Bates… It looked good, why do they destroy nice buildings for concrete drab.

Angie Starr Davies… Loved Hastings back then it’s been a sad demise since then

Debbie Elliott… When you could go to town safely and spend your pocket money, I do miss those days. All the different shops we had you could get everything you wanted, nothing worth going to town for now

Jacques Alston… Hastings is a great place to live generally, beach front, old town and lovely beaches themselves are very nice. I spend a lot of time there & glyne gap, but the town centres a boating lake after heavy rain, shops flooded, Queen’s Road is a complete dump with shopkeepers blocking the pavements with their cars & town shops are a waste of good space ….needs a complete change to be desired.

Dai Jones… It was removed after damage by two fites. The Albert Staue and the drinking fountains were preserved.

Phil Drake… The war memorial clock tower suffered its fatal mystery fire in 1973 ~ which pre-dates the photo image to then or before. [.. M&D’s huge Leyland Atlantean fleet of 146 doubledeck buses (14 lowbridge and, 132 highbridge) ~ were delivered between 1959 and 1963 in five different batch orders. So, the photo dates from the period 1959-1973. Incidentally, ccrew-operated service 133 was the replacement for trolleybus route 6 (.. which in turn replaced the trams in 1928) . . . Maidstone & District ~ highbridge Leyland Atlantean on crew-operated town service 133 Hollington to The King’s Head, Ore (via Battle Road, Bohemia Road and Mount Pleasant). The highbridge Atlantean departing Robertson Street, could be on service 99 to Eastbourne; or crew-operated circular town services 76 or 155 (?). Aaaaaarh, Happy Däze . . .

Simon Hitchman… looks better

Paul Currie… Should have left it alone, looks better than the current one.

Malcolm McDonald… Great times..

Fathi Ahmed Algomati… I remember it realy well .. the good old days . Great times

Paul Williamson… Looks just like Bournemouth.

Laurence Willard… It was a lovely looking town the Memorial, was the Showpiece of EastSussex everything clean we were proud of our town

Julie Skipper… I used to love the christmas window displays in Plummers

Peter Ellingworth… Photo taken mid to late sixties I would say, judging by the vehicles, traffic and just-can-be-seen style of the Plummers store sign. And of course the much lamented clock tower. My late Mother worked there in the accounts department just prior to WW2, when it was known as Plummer – Roddis and the principal department store then in town. Re. somebody saying about only UK made traffic to be seen : no doubt a few VW Beatles were buzzing around town then – many people overlook how the UK contributed to the success story of VW, which on turn was many say the most contributory factor in the post-war West German economic miracle.
In 1946, the Wolfsburg VW plant which came – only just- within the British occupation sector was completely smashed and in ruins. A small team of British Army REME engineers under the direction of a Major Hirst, against all odds and being told and scoffed at by the other occupying forces ( Russian, French and American) they were completely wasting their time, got the plant up and running again producing at first the Beatle as a basic run around for the British occupying forces, and latterly the civil population handing the plant back to the Germans in 1948-9. So you could say VW is also a UK success story! Ivan Hirst was offered a new VW each year, looked on as an honorary citizen of Wolfsburg, and had a road there named after him. The town centre has always been prone to flooding, and in many ways has followed the trend of others, losing out to out of town super stores, on-line shopping and high business rates.
Somebody mentioned the trolleybuses- the town centre was indeed a focal point for the services with core routes such as the 6 (133 after diesel buses took over in June 1959) and 11 (151) running every few minutes. It would have been interesting to see how much longer they would have gone on for had Hastings Council exercised their option of buying the undertaking in 1955. Hastings Tramways Company as it was then had plans to extend the system, certainly at least to serve the then new estates at Ore and Hollington. In the event the only post war extension was from the Vic pub in Battle Road to a turning circle where – at least last time I passed that way- the ‘Observer’ offices are. Remnants from tramway days can still be seen near the Memorial, in the form of wall mounted rosettes which carried the overhead support or ‘span’ cable for the running wires.

Peter Ellingworth… Phil/Ray, interesting re. the Antlantean buses – I had forgotten there was a total of 146, replacing the trolleybuses which totalled 58, and after the war around 50. The T-buses had smaller passenger capacity, but a more frequent headway. M&D wanted rid of the t-buses by Oct 1958, then Dec, but this had to be extended again to 31st May 1959 due to late delivery of enough Antlanteans to sustain a full replacement service, and which at time were of a new novel design. One thing I learnt from the late Stuart Eteson, who most sadly died of cancer last year, and was one of the main participants in the restoring of ex Hastings trolleybus no. 34 to its current superb running condition, was that the electric collection and return poles – ‘booms’ in bus parlance- were extended on the vehicles used for route 8 to Cooden by two feet in order to cope with moving around parked traffic in Bexhill- so nothing new then ! The EATM is well worth a visit, and a ride on no 34 which went on to run in Maidstone until April 1967 is icing on the cake.

Bernard Baker… Fire by arson a couple of times at least. The tick box current precinct and underpass is a disgrace. Also, the less said about the college building – the better!

Peter Ellingworth… It was a total of 40 Atlanteans including the low bridge versions, that worked out to Bexhill via West Marina ordered to replace the Hastings trolleybuses. The remainder mentioned were used around the M&D empire in Kent & East Sussex. They seated 78 ( low bridge versions 73) as against 54-6 on the t-buses but this has to be set against a less frequent headway, which led to complaints in particular from Hollington residents, as there were more short workings to Silverhill instead of on to Hollington. I believe the bus industry was de -regulated in 1985, not 75, with mixed results as I know from dealing with bus services over the last ten years in Hertfordshire where I now live. London was not de-regulated as it was considered too large and complex- probably why in relative terms it is less fragmented than the provinces. The fact that Manchester and I think Liverpool are going back to a more regulated franchise set up speaks for itself.