I went to Littlehampton in Sussex to search for where my grandfather and great-grandparents lived. I had been there once before years and years ago and we went on a tour of places with family connections We passed a timber yard owned by Travis and Perkins and was told that this was where my great-granddad Billy had worked or been foreman. I have since discovered through looking at census material that he was a foreman there for many years.
I arrived with a not very good map which showed the street the family had lived in, Pier Road, and I parked just beyond the sea front (well river front really) and took stock of where I was, not really having a clue on where to go because of the useless map I had. I stood on the pavement by the car and looked around when I suddenly saw a familiar colour sign… Travis and Perkins! Now, I don’t know if the company was called Travis and Perkins when Billy worked there, or whether he worked in a timber company which was later taken over by T & P, and I also don’t know that the site it is on now is where it was when he was there… but I took it as a good sign that I had found a timber yard!
Looking through the security fence I could glimpse some piles of wood.
I reasoned that Billy and his wife Fanny, and sons William, Percy Wilfred and Stanley, known as Tom, may have lived near to where he worked. I wandered around the nearby streets, but there was no sign of Pier Road… I didn’t mind, it was a lovely sunny day and Littlehampton is very pretty.
I had to go back to the car as it was only a flying visit, and drove away thinking that I would come better prepared and with a better map next time. I paused at a mini-roundabout and glanced right to check for traffic, and there was Pier Road! I hadn’t much time but I parked up and ran back to where there was a row of half a dozen houses of the right period for my family to live there. The others had gone, demolished for some reason; I have the number of the house they lived in, but the numbering system may have changed as the other houses were pulled down, but ti gave me a clear enough picture of where they lived, round the corner of T&P and looking out to sea!
Lois Elsden 