st leonards on sea
Tich Turner’s Escalator – line up, Bathing Pool St Leonards-on-Sea
supplied by Rick Pentecost
Rick Pentecost, Tich Turner, Andy Caine, Steve ‘Vince’ Price, Steve Demetri and Paul Thomas
Graham Matthews… Still got their single Diana / Don’t really want you back again, it stands the test of time.
Pete Prescott… Great band !
Willie Wicking… Great Memories at those country Gigs
Ken Copsey… Tommy!
Kev Towner… Yeah, I’ve still got a copy of it too.
Stewart Rockett… *Andy Cunningham. Andy didn’t Caine it until later.
Roger Carey… Cracking picture- what a line up!
ITT Consumer Products (UK) Ltd, Theaklen Drive, St Leonards – Job Ad 1974
Matt Thomas… My mum worked here
Alan Esdaile… notice the wages
Pauline Richards… And the part time hours ‘for women’
Cliff Wootton… I worked there from 1974 to 1978. Started on the factory floor and worked my way up to draughtsman, illustrator and tech pubs specialist. Happy days
Paul Morfey… Both me and my wife ( janette) worked at ITT in Hastings in the 70ts. That is where we met. We just celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary!
Pete Prescott… I worked there as a temp in 78. I was in the buying dept with Keith Garnsey.
Dave Nattress… Wages – and if I read it right, unequal rates for males/females doing the same job? Certainly though a major player ITT. I had several friends who worked there in different roles or who took different rolls to work, (ham, cheese and pickle and salmon and cucumber being well popular). Of the illustrations on the advert I’m sure many of us had their products. I actually had the radio, cassette player/recorder, (2 of them, used for band rehearsals), and my parents had , the music centre at one time albeit not the best HiFi. Another local name and employer long gone.
Peter Millington… My father Bob Millington worked there managing the Stores Dept. between about 1966 to about 1978. He also organised all the dances at the White Rock and the Queens Hotel, a busy chap!
Paul Bryant… My mother worked there for a short time,remember the Christmas party they used to throw for employees children
Ralph Town… See how repressed women were back then. Different wage rates for men and women. Terrible.
Jan Warren… I worked for British Radio Corporation, Beeching Road, Bexhill in 1971/72 they were soon taken over by ITT!! – I enjoyed working for BRC, lots of my schoolfriends were there, it was fun, nice atmosphere, happy days!!
Richard Johnstone… I worked there from 73 to 78 in production planning. We had 3 categories of production workers – high skilled males, low skilled males and females! Doing different jobs – women on the component assembly lines, men (skilled) on testing and fault correction and men (low skilled) on jobs known as ‘hauling and mauling’. No overlap between the sexes
Peter Ulyatt… I worked there from 1963ish to 1979 when my wife, 3 kids and I emigrated to Australia. When I started it was known as KB (Kolster Brands). I started checking radios as they came off the assembly line. If they worked, I calibrated them ready for dispatch. If they didn’t work they got put on one side for a technician to fix it. A couple of years later I became one of those technicians. When ITT took it over, can’t remember when, I started working on TVs as a technician and worked up to being a Test Diagnostician. Then came the start of colour TV. A screen about 12 ” across In a massive cabinet full of valves. You needed an asbestos suit to work on them. Good days and a good company to work for.
Pete Prescott… I worked in the purchasing department for a month (temping) in early 78 with Keith Garnsey. amazing guy.
Terry Corder… My first job was there in 1968!
Harry Randall… Did you make it?
Read moreITT Consumer Products (UK) Ltd, Theaklen Drive, St Leonards – Job Ad 1974
Move to St Leonards-on-Sea says The Times 6th Nov 2020
photo shared from St Leonards Festival facebook page https://www.facebook.com/stleonardsfestival
more information click link…
Alan Esdaile… I’ve never heard it called St Lenny. Must be the newbies!
Chris Jolly… It’s going up in the world Alan… great news!
Judy Atkinson… nor me
Paul Marshall… or FILTH – Failed In London Try Hastings. As my daughter advised me
Pauline Richards… or the d.f.ls
Perri Anne Haste… I have heard Lenny Beige Aka Steve Furst refer to it affectionately as St Lenny in his shows before.
Russell Field… Perri, that’s where it’s from. X
Steve Amos… Nor me!
Janet Rennie… yes it is. Seen it so much more recently
John Paul Veness… someones trying to boost their house price 
lol
Harry Randall… I always new it as “Bedsit Land”?
Angela Frances Gardner… We’ve never called St Leonards ‘St Lenny’ and I’ve been here since 1962!
Nicola Dobson… Never heard it either and I was born here
Rob Ramsden… Move to St. Leonards they said. It will be fun they said.
Gin Genie… I heard it referred to as lennies last year
Liane Carroll… It’s a Lenny Beige thing!! Xx
John Coleman… Some of you dinosaurs need to get down there it has changed a bit.
Alan King… St Lenny ? my arse, never heard it referred to that
Margaret Trowell… quite like “St Len’s” ..why not? I’ve lived here since 1965. Don’t even know who St Leonard actually was…. nothing been made of him as far as I know …no statue etc
Mark Triggs… Dalston-on-sea
Judie Struys… St Lenny? That’s a new one on me. Mind you, I’ve only lived in St Leonards since 1969, apart from 2 short periods in Hastings and Heathfield.
Bernard Goffredo… Never heard it called that but it was built as a town for the well off
Howard White… I call is St Leonards. Just cannot stand this ‘-on-Sea’ thing.
The Bathing Pool Holiday Camp closed 22nd October 1986
Shared from Hastings and Area, Past and Present facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/HAPP1066/
Hastings Area Past and Present say…It’s 22nd October 1986 and on this day the Bathing Pool Holiday Camp closed. Leaseholder Cllr. Dennis Carrington sold the last two years of his lease back to the council because they said they wanted to build a marina there. But they did not. The pool had struggled since its opening to be financially viable, without success. The site now lay forlorn, quiet and derelict for nearly 7 years with no occupation of any kind. Intruders had eventually forced their way into the site on many occasions, destroying the complete complex beyond any economical repair. Lead, copper, brass and bronze, more or less anything of salvage value was removed and presumably sold on. If this could have been caught on camera it would have given the first impressions that a bomb had dropped on the site. The greater majority of the 2,500 seats had been ripped from their mountings and thrown into the pool area, doors were ripped off, lights and conduits pulled from walls and ceilings, the list is absolutely endless. There was now only one solution for the complex, sadly – to pull it down! It had been left far too long to plough large amounts of money back into an upgrade that probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, in trying to bring the pool complex into the 2Ist century, and to fulfil the requirements of the day would never have happened. The site was now a top priority for the Council, as the complex was now an absolute disgrace in so much as it was a danger to the public, the area was scattered with broken glass and debris that laid all around. Its ultimate demise was decided upon very quickly – it was to be demolished in the May of 1993. Sources: http://hastingschronicle.net/key-events/1980-onwards/ and Hastings – Looking Back To The Future, A Tribute to Sidney Little by Richard Pollard from where I have also scanned the photographs with permission from the author.
Carol Paffett… Enjoyed swimming and sun bathing there
Eric Harmer… It also had squash courts I first started playing
Lucy Pappas… Me too, Eric. It was the only way the High School could get some of us to do any exercise! x
Eric Harmer… It’s a great game Lucy. I don’t know why people don’t play it any more. A lot of us played it back in the day. X
Paul Crimin… My Dad brought my brother and I down from London to spend a week at that holiday camp when I was a youngster. It was a nightmare!
Mick Carlisle Savage… Take it he forgot to take you home
Chris Meachen… Loved swimming and diving there..
Mick O’Dowd… Spent many an hour in there swimming. I learn’t to swim in the shallow bit.
Mel Hayes… Loved it there. Used to visit Grandparents there on their holidays !
Betty Austin… Me to back in the late fifties with Crowhurst youth club and friends x
Alan Pepper… I too miss this place . Many a good time spent there swimming in the late 60’s early 70’s with friends from school . Never did manage to brave the top diving board ! Wouldn’t mind but the area is a waste of space now and feel a bit sad whenever we walk by it !!
Jan Warren… Yeah, sad ending for this lovely place, my ex-hubby worked there in the early 70s, also ran the disco, happy days!
Stuart Tanner… I worked there, great times, Saturday was best when you carried the luggage up to the chalets and hopefully got a big tip, also started playing squash there!
Si’s Reaction and The Coconut Mushroom – Witch Doctor St Leonards-on-Sea 7th October 1967
Mick O’Dowd… What was SI’s Reaction to this news?
Jim Breeds… He ate his coconut mushroom and went home.
Lyn Graham… I loved that place. Spent a lot of time there.
Candy Choir – The Cobweb 21st September 1968
Pete Fisher… win a chicken?!!
Tony Court-holmes… dead or alive ?
Paul Coleman… The Kult! I thought they were a great band & they did actually release a record called “No Home Today” which I thought was good. Might even have got into the charts.
Led by by 2 brothers, Mick & Pete o’Driscoll who were friends of my brother, Martin. They were Ninfield boys if I remember right. They certainly played at the memorial hall there. Late 60’s I’m guessing. They had a great local following & used to lay on coaches for their fans to go to their gigs. Great times.
The Happening Coffee Bar – Tony Blackburn St Leonards On Sea 17th July 1967
Andre Palfrey-Martin Collection
and John Wilde had this to say –
moved to St Leonards in 1966 with my parents. They bought number 8 Kings Rd and turned it into a coffee bar club, we made the basement look like a cave. We called it The Happening, Tony Blackburn opened it with a disco night. It was a popular hang out for a soul crowd, we had a great jukebox, an espresso machine and pintables. We even had bands play downstairs. Does anyone remember this place? Apparently it has reopened recently as The Kave Klub. by John Wilde
Gerry Fortsch… I gigged here in 1967 several times. Far out man
Mick O’Dowd… DJ’d here many a time. Also was with Deep Purple (Hastings) when they appeared. John Wilde’s dad owned it.
Jeff Belton… Met Tony Blackburn at a gig he did in a London night club, got a request read out on the evening , and played on the radio, when he was on Radio London. It was my 21st birthday that day.
Tiffany Barton… Wonderful! What did he play for your birthday ? Thanks for the memories . 1967 supremes the happening ?
Pacman… Yes I loved “The Happening”. Went there all the time. John Wilde was a really nice guy. Very patient with some of the rowdier kids. My motorbike was very popular with the girls & was always being asked for a pillion ride. Remember the girls well. It all ended for me when I got a car & started going farther afield. Shame.
