I cannot remember where we went for our tap and ballet classes, but it was in Crawley when I was around 6 or 7 years old. I remember one Christmas we were doing a show and I was a dalmatian. At the end the teacher was handing out chocolates as…
Spitfire were a garage rock ’n’ roll band from Crawley whose line up revolved around brothers Nick and Jeff Pitcher (ex Bobby Scarlet). Their 1991 debut single, Dive, was an NME single of the week, and their first album, Sex Bomb – whose cover featured a picture of Jeff’s daughters…
I was lucky enough to be 16 in 1964 and I lived in Crawley . . . My friends and I were out every night of the week, I can’t remember the days but we used to go every Friday to see the bands play at Hazelwick, I don’t remember…
Heather Eves is a cellist who has lived in Crawley since 1991. She writes: I have enjoyed many musical occasions in the town. The biggest of these has to be the Crawley Prom in the Park as a member of Sussex Symphony Orchestra. Who can forget these huge events? It…
I started to enjoy the Crawley dance scene when I was 14 and my best friend Ann was 13 years. My brother, Burges who was five years older, was home on leave from the Merchant Navy and he decided to take us to a Sunday night dance at Leons, we…
While looking in our stores for things to put in our music exhibition, we came across these lyrics in a collection of music sheets from the Crawley Ladies Harmony Club. We’d love to hear it sung! If you don’t know the tune to ‘Sussex by the Sea’ you can find…
I was born Marilyn Mutambira (nicknamed Punkie) in Rusape, a small town in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) on 23 September 1958. Rusape We visited Rusape a lot because my dad wanted us to know our roots. The bus was old and noisy, with chickens, people selling eggs and…
By David Stoker In the early nineteen fifties few Crawley residents had their own transport beyond a bicycle; the factories on Manor Royal all had large cycle sheds and the cycle tracks beside the by-pass on the A23 or from Northgate to Manor Royal could get quite crowded at the…
My name is Graham Hackney. We moved from Wimbledon to Crawley in 1958 (I was a baby) when we opened a new branch of the family business which was Tooting Tyre Service at 7 Horsham Road, West Green. We lived above the depot. My Uncle, George Mullen (Mum’s Brother) owned…
By Sandra LowtonOur familyOur parents were George (1913-1994) and Beatrice (1918-2008) Layzell, originally from Bermondsey and Rotherhithe respectively. They married during the war in 1941 at St James, Hatcham, and lived with his parents in New Cross, London. It was there that Brenda was born in 1942 and George junior…
