Supplied by Helena Wojtczak
Helena Wojtczak… Les Hobeaux Skiffle group seen here performing on the sea front at Warrior Square. May 1957. I’m pretty sure this is where Goat Ledge is and performing in the luggage van on the train going to Hastings May 1957. In those days you could also drop the blinds and get some kip!
Great Hastings photos on this video…
David Russell… I remember the day like yesterday (I was the washboard player). I also remember busking in Shepherds Market where the ‘girls’ would pay us to gather a crowd that they could then solicit. One evening I told this to my landlady who exclaimed that I was ‘living off the immoral earnings’ whereupon I handed her my rent and told her ‘so are you’. I gave up early as I was studying Architecture and decided that there was more promise in that than playing skiffle. Those were the days.
Kevin White… David, that’s a great story, and the photos are brilliant, thanks for sharing!
John Wilde… Wow this is a fantastic piece of local history. Hastings and St Lennies own Skiffle group. Does Dave have any more photos or posters, history, names of members? These images are terrific.
Terry Pack… Great stuff. My friends Pete White and Pete Burden began playing music around 1960 in Bexhill and Hastings. I saw a photo of them at the De La Warr around then. The bass player had a tea chest bass.
Steve Accordion… Fantastic stories, thanks for sharing
Mark Hardwick… I have a large write up by Chas Mc Devitt , on this band, if ya need me to post that
Alan Esdaile… Yes would be interesting, thanks Mark
Peter Ellingworth… Looks like they are using the old restriction ‘0’ rail Maunsell steam stock utility van and coaches, seating three a side with a coach length side access corridor and were especially constructed for the Hastings- Tonbridge line which, due to shoddy work during its construction by a contractor on the likes of Wadhurst tunnel, meant they had to be reinforced with more layers of bricks narrowing the clearances to slightly less than eight foot one inch (old money) instead of the normal standard restriction ‘1’ of eight foot six or nine foot (no apologies again for using old money !). The restricted width in no small way was kept in mind when designing the legendary “Schools’ class V steam locomotives which were the regular backbone of the Hastings- Tonbridge route until 1958, and then on occasions until April 1962 or the later Hastngs diesels, a set of which we know has been preserved and in working order quite often seen out on railtours by the Hastings Diesel Group.
The Hastings line restriction was not removed until electrification in 1986 by using single line working in Wadhurst tunnel.
I believe the Tonbridge- Hastings line was first mooted for electrification in 1903 by the the then SECR, rejected on cost, then again in 1937 as part of the Southern Railway’s third rail electrification programme which had already extended along the coast from Eastbourne to Ore, but postponed due to looming war clouds, then again in 1947, but again deferred due to oncoming nationalisation in 1948, being finally achieved in 1986. I also believe the Hastings diesel coaches were themselves originally intended to be either steam or diesel loco hauled- some of O.V. Bulleid’s ‘spam cans’ WC/BB class steamers and twelve of the BR class 33 diesel locos known as ‘Slim Jims’, were constructed with working over the Hastings direct line in mind, but one of the design team at Eastleigh hit on the idea of making them inclusive self propelled diesel units.
The Bluebell Railway by the way, have just painstakingly and fantastically restored to public use one of the original Maunsell Hastngs line coaches, no 3687. All in detail on their website.
