Mr Beenie came to the UK in 1967 from Gujar Khan, Pakistan. He started working for Gatwick Cars in 1979 and retired in 2017. Q. What other ethnic groups were at Gatwick? When I started working there were mostly English drivers, one Moroccan guy, a few Pakistanis and Indian. In…
Q. What year did you arrive in England? I arrived on the 23rd January 1967 from Azad Kashmir Q. What year did you start at Gatwick Cars? I started in 1984 and then left in 1991 – due to the Gulf War. I relocated. Q. What did you enjoy about…
Growing up in Crawley in the 1970s I knew only two people that were a different colour from me, and they were brother and sister. My primary school was therefore almost 100% white. Indeed it was so white, on one fateful day in 1976 I found myself being held down…
I moved to Crawley fifteen years ago, having lived in Manchester for five years before doing so, and the first 31 years of my life in Leicester. I had pre-conceived ideas of what Crawley as a new town would be like. When I was small I had relatives in Milton…
Volunteering at Crawley Museum has given me the opportunity to peek behind the curtain of how a museum functions and what work goes into organising and storing exhibitions. I had a very romantic idea of how museums looked behind locked doors, and still do to some extent. Thanks to modern…
It began with a talk to the U3A by the then curator of Crawley Museum, Helen Poole, and the late Gillian Pitt. They were giving us an up-date on the move from Goffs Park House to the new premises in “The Tree”. After the talk a clipboard was passed round…
One of the first things I learned was how to handle objects. Gloves were essential and they had to be powder free and in this case we used Nitrile gloves. Then we had to handle the object. Always lift the object from the base to give it as much support as possible…
I was keen to learn about the formal processes, for example the need to comply with heritage sector regulatory standards. Also I learned of the need to be aware of contaminants, such as moulds, which could cause devastating damage if not properly identified and contained. That some items donated to…
Caroline Haslett at the Signing of Youngmans lease, September 1949. Suffragette and women’s equality campaigner Caroline Haslett (1895-1957) was born and grew up in Three Bridges. She went on to champion the role of women in the world of mainstream employment – particularly engineering – by their emancipation from domestic…
As we entered the new millennium, Crawley had two thriving Choral Societies – Concordia Singers, formed in 1962, and The Weald Choir of Crawley, formed in 1970. Having co-existed in friendly rivalry for over 40 years, in 2016 the two choirs prepared to put on a joint concert at The…
