---
category: 
changed: "2018-03-03T10:13:30.000Z"
comment_count: "0"
created: "2013-09-26T16:17:00.000Z"
featured_image: "36_western_st.jpg"
images: ["wedding_2.jpg","wedding_1.jpg","jan_and_col_wedding.jpg","nick_with_gerbils_in_brighton.jpg","nick_on_brighton_seafront.jpg","nick_and_tree.jpg","more_christmas_in_brighton1.jpg","jan_after_graduation_in_brighton.jpg","jan_xmas_day_in_brighton.jpg","christmas_in_brighton.jpg","colin_a_christmas_in_brighton.jpg"]
ix: 10
nid: 13
original_author: "Janet Woolley"
path: "content/cornwall-brighton"
title: "From Cornwall to Brighton and back"
type: "article"
uuid: "b389b159-6ce1-4fb0-82a8-d4208e48af05"
---
Why did we leave Brighton and move back to Cornwall? 

This story is in answer to a question from Nick, and in order to understand why we left Brighton you need to understand why we went there in the first place, when we had already been living in Cornwall.

Ever since Nick was born and I had to give up my place at Uni, Dad wanted me to go back. I guess it is what every parent wants for their children – a good education to lead to a good career. (In fact its worth noting that much of what drives your parents only becomes clear when you become a parent yourself!) Once Nick was about 2 years old Dad started encouraging me to sign up for some kind of further education. First I applied to Cornwall College to do teacher training but I didn't progress with it because I didn't know what I would do with Nick. Mum was a brilliant support but she couldn't have coped with looking after a toddler all day while I was at college, and they would be long days including the bus journey from St Tudy to Camborne. At that time (1972) there was only one local authority day nursery in Cornwall - unlikely he'd get a place and I didn't really want to put him in a nursery anyway.

Next I applied to Marjons in Plymouth, also to do teacher training. I was accepted and actually went to see a private nursery school close by, who would have been happy to take Nick. Again I didn't go ahead with it; the logistics seemed to me insurmountable – another long bus/car journey and I just couldn't contemplate leaving Nick. Mum didn't really want me to go either, she liked having me around, so she wasn't quite so encouraging as Dad was; and he was miles away in Kenya so didn't really know what was involved or how I felt. I was really quite happy with my life in St Tudy, with Mum, my brother and sister and Auntie and Uncle. Of course I was aware that I would have to earn myself a living at some stage but there didn't seem to be any urgency as I had a roof over my head, funded by Dad, and I was getting 'National Assistance' to help support Nick.

Things changed when my cousins Paula and Martin finished university in Brighton. My Uncle Gordon had bought them a house to live in while they were students and now he wanted to sell it. A deal was done so that Dad bought the property – 36 Western Street, Brighton, and I applied to the University of Sussex to study Social Psychology. Mum came with me to help look after Nick which meant of course that Kathy had to come too. So we all moved in the summer of 1975 and Nick and I lived there for 5 years.  

I applied to do Social Psychology because I didn't feel confident to study modern languages which is what I had been accepted to do at Keele (the university I applied to on leaving school); nearly 5 years had passed since then and I hadn't read or spoken any French or German in that time. Social Psychology sounded interesting and didn't require any pre-qualifications. I was accepted and started in September 1975\. Nick had just started school in St Tudy the previous year but transferred to Middle Street First school in Brighton. It was a shame that Kathy had to move schools as well - right in the middle of her A levels, and I'm sure it had an adverse impact on the grades she achieved. She didn't really settle in Brighton and went back to Cornwall after a year or so, moving in with her boyfriend's family, the Reskelly's who lived at Rooke Farm near Wadebride.

So that was me sorted and Dad's wish come true.

Brighton was a great place to live, but I probably didn't fully appreciate this at the time. It was lovely living by the sea; our house was on the border between Brighton and Hove, near the West Pier, which was already falling down. Hove was very genteel and had nice gardens along the seafront, while walking towards Brighton you noticed that the numbers of rock candy shops, amusements and deck chairs increased. Then there was the main Brighton Pier, the Aquarium and further on the Marina, which was built while we were there, and beyond that the nudist beach (we never quite made it that far!). Brighton (and Hove) beach is pebbles, no sand, and quite painful to walk on - especially if your feet are cold after being in the sea. I think I only went in the sea once - in 1976 when we had that red hot summer that everyone remembers. They had great markets in Brighton, including Preston Street which sold fantastic cheeses and is where the Body Shop started life.

Nick and I walked along the sea front almost everyday en route to school. His school was near the 'Lanes' and his friend Badrul lived in an Indian restaurant right there. I would drop him off then walk up to the station to get the train to University. To begin with I was always able to finish in time to meet him from school. When he was a bit older, I used to let him walk to school on his own - after following him for a few days to make sure he knew the way. (I wonder if I'd do the same now!). I wasn't so happy about letting him go home on his own so when I started having later classes I advertised in school for one of the other Mum's to look after him until I could pick him up. Nick didn't like this arrangement at all: although the lady was very kind her son wasn't one of his friends. Fortunately we later found another family to pick him up from school. This was his friend Orlando, Orly for short, whose family lived near the station in a lovely but chaotic and rambling old house. Orly's Dad was called 'Crow' and rode a motorbike, his Mum, Julie, was like an 'earth mother'. And they had two other children, Rosie 3, and a baby called Sims. Nick enjoyed being there. Later he made friends with another boy his own age called Adam; they met at Judo classes as Adam went to a private school, but they became really close friends and spent many happy times together. Adam's Mum and Dad lived just a few streets a way from ours so we became friends as well.  

36 Western Street was just off the seafront and in a very windy spot. It was also rather run down: 3 storeys high with a damp basement and a kind of cellar area under the street. Our neighbour on one side was a hairdresser and on the other an almost derelict, and mostly empty property, I think there were even squatters there for a short while. We only lived in the ground and first floor with a kitchen and spare room in the basement, plus a small back yard with a built up flower bed. As the house had been a student house there were 2 kitchens and bathrooms so we rented out the top floor rooms to a young couple with a baby - Maggie and Paul Roberts. Later we rented out another two rooms to a gay couple called Ian and Keith who became known as 'The Two Ronnies' (thanks to Colin) and we became good friends with them. It all helped to pay the bills and it was good to know there was someone else in the house if Nick was there on his own.

Colin is another person who was dragged into the Cornwall/Brighton move. I met him when he was doing some scaffolding at Hengar Manor, where we lived in Cornwall in 1971, and we started going out together, he even wanted to marry me! When I moved to Brighton he was devastated and followed me up there getting a job as a bingo caller with Ladbrokes, later opting to train as a psychiatric nurse at St Francis Hospital, Haywards Heath. After Mum died he moved into 36 Western Street with me and Nick and we did eventually get married.  

Mum died in 1976 while we were living in Brighton; we were actually on holiday in Kenya that summer, when she had what seemed like a stoke. Nick, Kathy and I came home without her while she went to hospital in Nairobi for an operation. In October Dad phoned to say that she had died as a result of an embolism. It was a bizarre but tragic event, I didn't even return to Kenya for her funeral, something I will always regret.

University was ok but I can't claim that they were the best 3 years of my life – as my teachers at school told me it would be – obviously my circumstances were somewhat different than most 18 year olds. Social psychology was an interesting subject but I always struggled to get the pre reading done, didn't contribute much to seminar discussions and found writing essays hard work. In the end I came out with a 2:2 degree and the realisation this was not enough of a qualification to get me a job. Job hunting in 1978 was not easy, my CV was full of gaps and I had no work experience to enhance my rather feeble degree, so I signed up for a one year Post Graduate Certificate in Education. Even this didn't help me get employment and I hated teaching practice, the children reduced me to tears of frustration and failure.

By 1980 Nick had moved up to Middle School, not such a happy place as first school because football became part of the school curriculum and he hated it. Colin had finished his training and he wanted to return to Cornwall. Since all my teaching job applications had failed I was working as a clerk in the Legal and General Assurance Society. The Brighton house was a drain on Dad's resources (even when we left it took ages to sell). So …... in April 1980 Colin and I got married and we moved back to his home village of Lanivet, near Bodmin in Cornwall. We lived with his parents for a few months until we were lucky enough to be offered a council house. I did a couple of terms of supply teaching and then got a job in the Unemployment Benefit Office in Bodmin; Colin started work as a psychiatric nurse at St Lawrence's Hospital and Nick was enrolled at Lanivet Primary School.

The next phase of our Cornwall life had begun: and I didn't realise until much later that Nick was unhappy with the move – and the marriage - and would have preferred to stay in Brighton. But he was only 10 at the time so, rightly or wrongly, his opinion was not factored into the decision making process and he had to go along with it.