Harry’s Ramblings Eastbourne Seafront
This is an hour long stroll along Eastbourne’s seafront from the pier to the bottom of Beachy Head, called Holywell. It is all on the flat, is about 4...
Harry’s Ramblings. Eastbourne Sovereign Harbour
Eastbourne has a reputation for having a population of white-haired seniors, wheelchairs, walkers, miseries sitting on seafront wooden benches waving their sticks as pointers. Yes, they do exist, but...
Harry’s Ramblings – Eastbourne’s alleged mass murderer
Much you are about to read is based on fact. One of Eastbourne’s general practitioner was tried at the Old Bailey in 1957, accused of murdering one of his...
Harry’s Ramblings – Madeira day trip
Madeira is a Portuguese island in the Atlantic about a thousand miles off the northern coast of Africa. It has a population of a quarter of a million, about...
Harry’s Ramblings Tragedy in Eastbourne’s First War
Eastbourne is on England’s south coast, with the town protected by the South Downs five miles inland, Hastings promontory ten miles to the east, and the 600ft cliffs of...
Harry’s Ramblings My First Cruise Lecturing Part 2
We checked into our twin bedded cabin in the crew quarters, resigned that for the next six nights we weren’t going to snuggle up to each other as...
Harry’s Ramblings Cruise Ship Lecturing
The procedure to become a cruise ship lecturer is very selective, but somehow I have managed to become one, taking from December 2018 to June 2019. It started with...
Harry’s Ramblings; Jimmy Greaves stole my magazine
Some years ago, a pal of mine called Stewart was going to a charity lunch in Brighton. He was quite excited, because there were going to be quite...
Harry’s Ramblings. Idyllic Madeira holiday
Madeira is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, about a thousand miles off the northern coast of Africa. Don’t ask me to be specific, it’s not particularly relevant. Many...
Harry’s Ramblings Eastbourne’s Unexploded Bombs
During WW2, Eastbourne on the UK south coast was the most raided town in the south east. Inevitably, some of the bombs failed to explode, with no records kept...
Harry’s Ramblings. The Bombs Fell on Eastbourne
Only three enemy planes dropped their bombs on Eastbourne’s south coast town on Friday 13th September 1940, but they were devastatingly effective in their endeavours. By the time they...
Harry’s Ramblings – Eastbourne’s poor people
Traditionally, which part of Eastbourne do the poor people live in? When the railway came to the south coastal town of Eastbourne in 1849, within twenty years an extensive...
Harry’s Ramblings Petrol in the early 1960s
When I was a lad, we lived in a village called Great Bookham. It wasn’t particularly great, but there was a Little Bookham. Great Bookham and Little Bookham were...
Harry’s Ramblings Eastbourne Carpet Gardens Roman History
There is a public wooden bench close to Eastbourne’s pier. It’s on the end of the Carpet Gardens, you can sit there quite comfortably for hours, breathe in...
Harry’s Ramblings; Eastbourne pier Camera Obscura
Walk onto Eastbourne’s 1870 pier, and you won’t be aware of a hidden history that hides behind locked doors. It’s called a Camera Obscura. The pier was originally built...
The Sheikh’s Pier
Eastbourne pier has a new owner, flamboyant Eastbourne hotelier Abid Gulzar, who is a self-appointed Indian sheikh (the title is a family name apparently). 70 year old entrepreneur...
phone and Pamnav
Today, it is humiliation. Mine. My Galaxy Note phone went wrong, so I took it to Tesco’s. Sorry, they said, it has to be returned to our repair department...
Prime Ministers’ Wives
Intriguing little known fact about the ladies who are still alive who have been married to British Prime Ministers. There are six, two more interesting than the others....
The First Month in Eastbourne’s War
Sunday 3rd September 1939 was the day England declared war on Germany. The day before, Eastbourne received its first evacuees. Eastbourne was regarded as a safe place for children...
Eastbourne- the most bombed town on the South coast
Eastbourne is mid-way between Brighton and Hastings, and during WW2 was initially of great strategic importance to the German high command. Sunday July 7th 1940 was the date of...
My first car
I passed my driving test at the second attempt in May 1965, at the age of 17, and was impatient to buy my first car. Money, or lack of...
Limousine for Lords
I started Cheam Limousines in January 1990, with a Daimler Limousine. This was a huge vehicle, at the time the only purpose built limousine, not a large saloon...
Eastbourne Extreme
For the last few years, Eastbourne on the south coast has been holding a long weekend event called Eastbourne Extreme. It’s usually in July, is based on the beach...
Redoubt Military Fortress
When Napoleon ruled the world, he wanted to come across the Channel and invade England. There were even revolutionary plans to dig a tunnel under the Channel, but that...
Swindon Outlet, a Derelict Railway Building
Let me make my priorities very clear. Shopping bores me. On the rare occasions I buy clothing, I get in, select, get out quick. I have been known...
Funchal in a day on a cruise ship
We were on the P & O Oriana which called into Funchal for the day, so decided to take advantage of every minute. As soon as we were...
Reviewing The Roebuck
The Roebuck is a hotel with pub restaurant on the A22 at Wych Cross, which is to the south of Forest Row in Sussex. Originally a 17th century house,...
Feel good Salisbury
We had to break a recent journey with an overnight stay, and decided on Salisbury. It didn’t disappoint. This ancient Roman city has both an ancient and...
Circus Ring Maestro
Just once in my long life I rode a horse. Not just any horse, but one in a circus. And didn’t fall off. I was in my mid twenties,...
Harry on the Radio
Lyn has asked me for my favourite 2015 article. This is it. The background is that I was invited during the summer to attend the BBC Radio Sussex studio...
Miracle in Eastbourne
The stage musical of the famous movie Miracle on 34th Street has been on at The Royal Hippodrome Theatre as part of a longer tour. Quite enchanting. Is there...
Eastbourne Seafront
It’s great to go to the seaside in warm weather, have a walk along the front, wearing sandals, shorts, t-shirt, wear a sunhat because it’s so warm, lick an...
Lee Nelson – comedian?
I just can’t understand why modern comedians rely on profanities to gain a laugh. Yes, I know that I am a lot older than I used to be, but...
Foster and Allen. Are they those two Irishmen or the comedians with the Crazy Gang?
Let’s get the confusion out of the way first. The Crazy Gang pair were Flanagan and Allen, and both have joined the great entertainment theatre in the sky....
Harry the tour guide.
You may recall that I am Eastbourne’s only sight-seeing guide licensed by the council. Recently, I was contacted by a Dutch travel agent, with a party of 53 to...
Cruise Size
Different passengers have different ideas of the ideal size cruise ship that suits their purpose best. There are now ships that take in excess of 5,000 passengers, with almost...
Harry On The Radio
Being invited back to live radio is quite a boost to the ego. BBC Radio Sussex have a daily lunch time newspaper review where an invited guest attends the...
Riots? In Eastbourne? Surely there must be some mistake!
Riots? In Eastbourne? Surely there must be some mistake, especially as the riots were against the Salvation Army. But this was in the 1880s and 1890s, when religious...
Ice cream and drinking fountain
On the landward side of Eastbourne’s seafront there is a traditional ice cream parlour called Fusciardi’s. Outside on the pavement is a drinking fountain. Most people pass by...
Eastbourne’s War Defence
Stroll westwards along the seafront and you can’t help but notice the Wish Tower. Before the 19th century there was the old Shomer Dyke, a very marshy area, called...