WESTBOURNE

A village history in West Sussex

The family moved from 6 The Grange to Rosebank, Commonside on 20th January 1946. The handwriting on the rent book is that of Mr Johnson, the landlord, who charged a weekly rent of 20 shillings. He also owned Johns Stores a grocery shop further down the village. Perhaps we were fortunate in obtaining our new home as it is believed that Mrs Johnson was a distant cousin of my father. Whatever, we pleased with our our semi-detached house with our own front garden. It looked across the road to Mrs Hellyer's shop on the corner of School Lane.

Entering the front on the left were the stairs, a passage to the back of the house and on the right, the front room. This was only used for special occasions like parties when we had a sing song round the piano and dancing. Along the passage was the living/dining room and on a Friday evening the bathroom. This was in front of the coal fireplace with a tall chest of drawers on one side and a radio on top. On the other side was a china cabinet cupboards underneath. Off this room were 2 cupboards. The one under the stairs served as a cloakroom and contained the gas meter with a stack of emergency pennies. The other was the larder with a marble shelf for keeping foodstuffs cool. Other shelves contained household cleaning materials. The kitchen/washroom had a butler sink and gas cooker and a door into the toilet, but no fitted bath.

Upstairs there were 3 bedrooms. The one at the front was the width of the house and were used by our parents. At the back was a double room that my brother and I used in a double bed. Our sister had her own small bedroom. With no central heating it was a cold house in the winter with hot-water bottles at bedtime. Under the beds were potties because it was too cold to use the downstairs toilet.

Outside a long back garden overlooked the apple orchard belonging to Ellesmere Nursery. It was a very productive garden. Between the kitchen wall and what is believed was once the outside toilet was a 6 foot wall. At waist height were rabbit hutches stacked 2 high that would be dispatched as required by my Uncle Len. He was a country-born lad from Old Bosham used to small-holding farming and gardening. On the opposite side was a wooden shed where I kept my pets. Three white rats, 5 white pigeons and 20+ mice, they started at 3. The garden was divided into a lawn and a vegetable patch. It was here that I learned gardening skills from my mother's mother and Uncle Len. A pleasure that remains to this day. At the bottom of the garden was a small enclosure with a sunken tin bath for the 2 geese for the Christmas plate. Speaking of baths, the long tin bath used on in front of the fire hung on a nail inside the former outside loo.   

ROSEBANK,  COMMONSIDE

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