John Gale… Hard to believe that existed when you see the size of the gap left there after the fire
Alan Esdaile… used to be packed in like sardines!
John Gale… so I hear, just a bit before my time
Jon McCallion… It’s where it all started Alan as you would remember, I remember Fiona she invited me for the band.
Linda McGregor… It was nothing like a discotheque when I used to go ’76-’79
all photos © Hastings Public Library
supplied by Phil Little Jacqueline Wearn, Jeremy Gillet and Martin Richter from Hastings Music Files. www.littledrum.co.uk
Linda Day… Omg thank you, thats wonderful. My son is to the right of photo Stuart Day. Left to right Jon Porter Dan Cox front middle Patrick Woolloff drums and Stuart Day far right. Also Stuart played in the group Daytripper a year later with Wayne Jeffery Nick Goddard and Joe Clements.
supplied by Linda Day
Photo © Brian Cooke/Redferns – September 8 1971.
Claire Lonsdale… He was a good looking guy in his youth.
Tony Court-holmes… used to serve him beer when i worked in The Nelson in the old town of Hastings back in the 70s like a jar or two that lad
Gerry Fortsch… I remember John putting folding money in our pot when the Hippo Band played at the Standard.
John Wilde… John gave me one of the best jobs I ever had. The “Inside Out” album art. Two days and nights in Island studios in the company of John, Danny Thompson, Stevie Winwood, Chris Wood, Kesh Satie, Bobby Keyes and Remi Kabaka. My heads spins just thinking about it.
Keith Rodway… his best album I think, and the only one I still listen to. He once invited me to his house, as he lived in Heathfield when I had my record shop in the old town. He told me he ‘was hanging out with Eric’ and why didn’t I come over. I told him I was working so couldn’t. It was only some time later I realised ‘Eric’ was a certain well known guitarist!
John Wilde… I had my art pad with me and captured my ideas during recordings. I was so very fortunate, a unique experience. it’s the only JM album I listen too also. That’s a nutty story.
Chris Wood… Used to see him regularly in the Nelson. We made a return visit to the pub years after we had left Hastings. He was on the balcony….pissed as usual….with a black eye. I think it was the “downward pull of human nature” He was leaving the pub to play in Brighton that night. He wrote the most amazing songs…not what you would have expected from a drunk with a black eye 
Absolute genius
Jim Breeds… Except that’s not his Hastings home. 10 Coburg Place. Which looks nothing like the house in the photo.
Claire Lonsdale… Last year we took a look and it looked similar to the photo.
Vince Ray… Yes I was always puzzled by that. Clearly number 8, yet he lived at 10.
Claire Hamill… ahhhh
Ray Barry… Remember it well,a Merrydown cider and bottle Brown Ale 2/10d. Circa 1963/4
Patricia Burgess… Ray, OMG haven’t heard the name Merrydown for at least 45 years loved that cider. Is it still made.
Ray Barry… Patricia, No the brewery closed some few years ago and is now a housing estate in Horam
Tony Court-holmes… Ray, my mum june used to drink that in The Anchor back in the 60s
Paul Reed… Is that street still there today or did it disappear if thats st Clements church in photo.Did I hear that area suffered bomb damage as well.?
Lynda Whatley… yes that is St Clements Church and the area was suffered bomb damage – and the church suffered too . My mother and myself posed for the local artist – when the church window over the alter was commissioned .
Ray Barry… The street is still there but the pub has long gone and is now a house. A pub round the corner called The Swan got bombed during the Second World War.
Graham Mccallion… I remember those days
John Wilde… I lived in Hill street during the late 70s and it was long gone
Eric Harmer… I drunk in there with Tony Davies , he lived in the Croft. They had bar billiards in there
Jacqueline Marsh… I went to school just behind this pub
Monica Bane… My Wedding breakfast there In 1960!
Tony Court-holmes… drank in that pub
Tony Collins… Whether true or not but I did hear that at one side of the top window of the Church is a cannonball fired from an enemy ship and the other one is made or stone to balance it up. If you look carefully one is rusted and the other is grey. Can anyone confirm this?
Roger Simmonds… Tony, Yes there is a cannon ball in the wall!
Roger Simmonds… I also used to drink in there in 1964!
Janet Mournard Russell… Used to go there often.
Mick Barrow… The Kicking Donkey kicked the hole in the wall, i think Ron French was the landlord
Don Cropper… A group of us bikers used to drink there and play snooker and billiards in the middle to late 60’s
Cris Kennard… I had my wedding reception in the Hole in the Wall Sept 1968 when I married my first husband (Roger Barnett who died in 1983) Don do you remember.
Tony Collins… Had my 21st birthday party there, I am 76 now!!!
Ray Barry… That is what I was told as well Tony but I’m not 100% sure.
Chris Baker… Lived just round the corner in Cobourg Place! Steve and Ian Hersee and Monica Bane were immediate neighbours
Madeleine Thompson… Does anyone remember if they had a cellar there?
Kim Woodley… Ron French was my uncle. When our family visited during the weekend from London, he used to give me a pocket full of coins for the juke box which I used when the pub was closed in the afternoon. Great music! Stones, Beatles, the Who, Tremeloes, Hollies…..
Jim Breeds… Kim, Ron used to often play the Russ Conway on the juke box (after he took over the Jenny Lind), saying “Listen to that! His fingers never leave the keyboard!”. I was never quite sure what that meant!
Richard Burks… great nostalgia there!
supplied by Leigh Kennedy – Historical Hastings facebook page
Jim Peckham… I remember that
Jeff McCall… Yeh, it was there in the ’50’s as well.
Dawn Leaney… I have a photo sitting on that elephant.. would of been in the 60s. 
xx
Linda Russell… Dawn, me too !
Graham Sherrington… LIFEBOAT chip shop used to be the best!!! in the left background
Stuart Moir… Brilliant photo
Ray Barry… Yep I remember the Elephant
Carol Acott… Used to drink in the Rising Sun when Bert and Elsie had it
Tony Court-holmes… had my 21st birthday party in there, my god that was a long time ago
shared from David Clegg Hastings & St Leonards History Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/hastingshistory
Diane Leigh… Also just opposite was another pub.
David Holdstock… Diane, Marilyn’s 18 Birthday party was in that pub the Hole in the Wall. It closed in 1971.
Gaz Linch… My Dad would always tell me that the Kicking Donkey made the Hole in the Wall!
photo © Hastings Public Library
Alan Esdaile… I seem to remember this was a glass animal shop at one stage?
Monica Bane… Yes you are so right Alan!
Sparrow Baker… Is that Fred Lee’s barbershop on the right ? Ask for anything, ended up with short back and sides. (Something for the weekend sir ?)
Graham Sherrington… best fish and chips for a looooong time
Ray Barry… Yes I remember the glass blowing , I actually purchased a set of 3 Swans that I saw being made.
Linda Turnbull… Yes, I remember , I think he blew the glass there as well ?
photo © Anthony ‘Nan’ Morland
Phil Gill… Class outfitters
Martin Richter… all the army boots you could eat
Glenn Piper… veritable Aladdins cave of curiosity’s and lots of boots & great coats
Lucy Pappas… Bought my very wide leg sailor trousers from there! Loved Malcolm Mitchell x
Phil Gill… Lucy, You could have washed them before you turned up at the youth club wearing them though.
Lucy Pappas… Phil, I apologise for the fishy smell. Thinking about it, that would have been when we first become friends, 50+ years ago….
Phil Gill… I didn’t mind fishy, it was the beer stains from some Norwegian sailor’s night out.
Bruce Zebedee… Great shop
Colin Wells… Malcs bootique!!
Pete Blomfield… Datsun 100a or 120y?
Jeff McCall… Great shop, bought a purple parker from there, it had a bullet hole in it!
Gerry Fortsch… I remember that they sold every thing so one day I asked for a torpedo and they came up with one.
Fred Marsh… I wonder what some of our dfls would have made of it
Lloyd Johnson… Fred, Hastings is my home town.I moved to London in 1966 I went Ore youth Club with Patrick Mitchell who’s uncle owned MM .I opened my own shop/stall in 1967 in Kensington market a year later.In 1973 I was buying similar items that we’re sold in Malcolm Mitchell’s the High st,Baldocks and Winters shoe shop in George st.,Cyril Savages in Kings Road and Apps shoe shop in Silverhill by that time the stock I remembered from the early 60s was considered vintage clothing. I remember. buying an amazing W11 leather dispatch riders jacket from MM which I wore during my Art school days at The Brassey Institute above the Library in 1961/62…I guess you could say in some ways all those shops including MM were a great inspiration for me during my time. in the clothing business as was the whole teenage experience of growing up in Hastings with The Pamdor, Fiesta ,the trad jazz at the caves and the groups on The Pier. I think it is nice to see some new small innovative businesses bring some style to the town. The DFLs’ as you seem to call the creatives from London that have chosen Hastings to make their home. Several friends from London have moved to Hastings and St.Leonard’s and I think they contribute extra style and entertainment to the Town…..
Mark Syrett… Top shop
Mike Waghorne… Top clothe’s shop in the late 60’s Malcom’s boutique we used to call it !
John Mcewen… Best work boots ever!
Dave Nattress… Even us Bexhill boys knew Malcolm’s Boutique, always on the tourist may with the Trading Post
Jim Breeds… April 2021 view (Google Streetview)
Alan Esdaile… Jim, hasn’t got the same smell as the original photo!