Memories

Maurice G Wheatley
My first ride on a Brighton tram was when I was five years old {1935] and although I don’t remember much about this, I do remember being taken down to the Old Steine one evening to see the trams that had been specially decorated in coloured lights for King George the Fifth’s jubilee, and they seemed to me at the age of five to look wonderful. I also remember the Old Steine terminus passenger shelter also being lit up with coloured lights. The fountain in the Steine garden was also decorated with coloured lights, as was the Mazda fountain at the other end of the Victoria gardens. I saw all this from the top deck of a Tram on the Lewes Rd route, which terminated at the Preston Barracks, which was the nearest stop to where we lived. Over the following years I travelled on all the Tram Routes in Brighton at various times and the route I liked best was the one that went up Dyke Road to Tivoli Crescent. This part of the system had for some reason the smoothest track and was the longest ride. Talking of track, the one other part of really smooth track was the section between Ditching road and the bottom of Elm Grove [Union Road which runs through the Level recreation ground] and this piece was exceptional. The rest of the system was pretty good but not as good as the above. As I got older and went out and about with my school friends we always travelled on the top deck unless it was pouring with rain. On wet and windy days every body went inside and very often you were packed in like sardines, there seemed no restriction on how many were allowed to stand, and I .am sure the conductor couldn’t collect all the fares, so I am pretty sure some passengers had a free ride.. One Tram journey I remember in particular was the route known cross country [actually cross town] this route started at the barracks [bottom of Coombe Road] then ran along the Lewes Road to the bottom of Elm Grove, it then branched off to the right through Union road to join up with the Ditchling Road track and travelled a short distance up Ditchling Road it then went off to the left down Viaduct Road to Preston Circus. It then crossed Preston Circus up New England Hill and terminated in Dyke Road at the Seven Dials. , On football days my father and I would catch this tram and then walk down the Old Shoreham Road to the Albion football ground and I can remember complaining about this as it was quite a walk. I was about 7years old at the time! This service was well used by people living in the Lewes Road and Moulscoomb area as it gave access to two main shopping streets {London Road and Lewes Road ]but they always used the older trams on this route and this route is not mentioned in the Middleton Press book on Brighton’s Tramways By the time I was 9 years old the trams were being replaced by Trolley Buses, and what a sad day it was when all the Trams had gone, and sadder still was to see them in the yard at Lewes Road depot. I remember a black board being placed outside the depot advertising tram parts for sale. The main parts were whole bodies for garden sheds, top deck seats as garden seats and light fittings, but I can’t remember the prices, When they started to modernise the bodies of the older trams for some reason they never put the coloured lights round the top deck and I often wondered why. Towards the end of the tram era I remember visiting Kent on holiday and remember riding on a tram from Margate to Ramsgate, and this was real cross country as it travelled through open fields. Another place we visited was Bristol and their Trams were really old fashioned and real boneshakers .Bristol s trams were replaced with motor buses. After these visits I considered Brighton had the smartest and most modern open top trams in the country I can’t remember the numbers of the Brighton Trams I road on, .but there was one exception and that was riding on No 52, 53s sister. In the book I have it says No52 was the last of three new ones to be built.

An interview with Ray Parsons, a 93-year-old Brighton born resident. Recorded on the 21st of September 2025
Q-Where did you live in Brighton?

A) Okay. Well, until I was 14, I lived in Richmond Road, Brighton. So, I came round, if I wanted to catch a tram to round Prince's Crescent which is above the level to St Saviour's Church on Ditchling Road and got on from there, depending where we were going and depending which tram we got

Q- A strange question, but what was Brighton like then to you?

A-It was a very clean town and it was very proud of its heritage. They did everything they could to make sure it was visitor-friendly.

Q-Right. A little bit different from today, but we will pass on that one. So where did you go to school?

A- Ditchling Road. Oh, yeah, of course. (Which I think is now called The Downs. They rebranded them every so often) You've still got the tram shelter opposite. Yeah. Which is nice, you know. And we came... When we went to school in the morning, there was a group of us children collected at the end of Richmond Road and a parent saw us off walking round Prince's Crescent and we all had a halfpenny to get on the tram from St Saviour's along to the school. Well, if it was dry, of course, we did not spend the money on the tram. We went to school a bit quick and spent the money coming home on the sweet shop. (So, did I. My mother used to ask me why I was so late. That is brilliant’

Q- But if it was wet, you would take the tram?

A-If it was wet, we got on the tram.

Q-And what was the tram like to ride on? Was it comfortable to you?

A-Well, as a kiddie, I thought I was super. I mean apart from going to school, like if we went down the town to go shopping or anything, I always wanted to go on top. Q- Even when it was raining?

A- Well, if I could get away with it, if my parents did not drag me inside. Q-You did not mind that?

A- I did not mind the rain.

Q- Was it true, I have heard the rumour, that when it was wet, there would be an argument about who went upstairs? Did you ever see that, or is that a bit of an urban myth?

Well, yeah, because it got packed out tight inside if it was wet because most adults wanted to go in there. Yeah. So, the kids, we went up top because there was nowhere to stand inside. Oh, you had no choice.

Q-Okay, We spoke about the trams in the wet weather, did you catch the tram to go downtown for any sort of reason?

If we were going shopping, and the main shopping area of course for us was London Road, we would go round to St Saviour's Church and catch the tram down the hill to the open market. Here is where you got off and you could walk down Baker Street into London Road. Came back the same way, walk up Baker Street, catch the tram at the open market, come up to St Saviour's, walk round to Richmond road. Unless we had a very heavy load when we were in London Road, let us say it was heavy or big, we might get on the tram in London Road and go the long way round up Beaconsfield Villas.

Q-Yeah. Up Preston Drove and come back down the Ditchley Road. Right. You did not mind that obviously? You did not mind the longer tram ride?

I did not mind the longer tram ride. The only thing I missed, when we were coming up Ditchling Road, which all the lads like me used to like doing, was to get on top and grab at the trees as we went by. That is why they never had to clear the trees in the tram days.

Q-Yeah, I can understand that.

Q-And how frequent were the trams? I am told they were very frequent if you missed one.

They were very frequent, probably about every three minutes. If you came round to St Saviour's and one was not immediately near, if you looked along, you would probably just see one leaving Ditchling Road School. If you looked the other way, the next one coming up would be at the market. They were that close.

Q-I have heard they had a very good service. And the divers and conductors, were they friendly?

Oh yeah.

Q- That is good to hear.

Except when you got to the aquarium, because if we went right, if we were going on the front, say to the beach or anything, when you got to the aquarium where the trams stopped. Yes, I know. The driver and conductor got out and all us little boys, we used to hang back upstairs as soon as they were off. If you came down the front stairs, there were two pedals and the trick was to hit them. One had dropped a lump of sand and one hit the bell.

Well, the drivers did not mind us hitting the bell, but they did get annoyed at us dropping the sand because they had to refill it.

Q-Yes. Did they refill it the sand at the at the Old Steine?

They had got a sort of auxiliary supply there, yes. They were supposed to fill them at Lewes Road when they came out, but... Obviously due to naughty boys, that was a problem.

Q-Did you ever go inside the shelter at Old Steine? Because there was quite a big office there, wasn't there?

Yes. Well, it was a big waiting room where the office was just a sort of like a hatch at the side when you got to the aquarium.

Q- I know there was a parcel office and other facilities there. Thank you very much for that. So, did you ever use the trams on all the different routes like Dyke Road? Did you ever go in areas like that?

I mean, I said where we went shopping, but my auntie lived in Hangleton Road, Brighton. Right. So, if we were going to see my auntie, we walked round to the tram at St Saviours, went down Ditchling Road to the college where it stopped, got off there, crossed the road where the cross-country tram came. I know, yeah. We got on that, that went down Viaduct Road, up New England Road and turned into Dyke Road. Where it terminated. It then went to Lower Rock Gardens. Going back from Dyke Road to Lower Rock Gardens, it was one of the few places where the pole turned automatically.

Q-Yes. They had a wire across to the east side of the road and as the tram started coming back, the pole went across like that. It came back in itself.

Turned it round. Yeah, I know they fitted those at quite a few places later.

Q- So, from there, how did you get to Hangleton Road?

Well, that is what I was coming to. When you got out there, you had to catch another tram which had come from the Aquarium along London Road, up New England Road, and that then went up, right up the Dyke Road to Tivoli Crescent North, where the tram shelter is now. (Yes, I know you mean). Then we could get off there and walk to my aunt.

Q- How long did that take to walk to your aunt's?

Oh, I really do not, could not tell you the time, but I mean, it seemed quite a long while. Yeah, I would imagine that. But up the piece of the tram route from the Dials up to Tivoli Crescent North, that was run by having poles in the middle of the road.

Right. With a single wire out each side. Right.

Well, when they brought in the trolleybuses, they could not take trolleybuses up beyond the Dial, because Hove would not allow them to put poles in their side of the road.

Q-Oh, is that why? I knew that became a motor bus route so that was why it became a motor bus route. Hove was too snobby for trolleybuses

. That does not surprise me.

Q-So, apart from the Dyke Road route, did you do Queen's Park, Elm Grove?

Yeah, on the days of the races in Brighton, there was a fair on the lower side of the road, and my dad used to take me up to that. We would then have, of course, to come down on the tram to the market, get onto the cross-country one to get to Elm Grove.

Q-And then, at the bottom of Elm Grove, you changed onto the one that came from the Aquarium and went right up to the race hill.

Right, yeah.

Q- Did you buy one ticket for such a trip, or did you buy lots of tickets?

No, they always gave you a through ticket. When as you changed trams, you had to show your ticket and they clipped it.

Q-Did you ever use the Lewes Road? Did you ever go to the depot at all?

No, that was one route I did not go on. The other route we went on, my dad sometimes took me to Queen's Park, to the boating lane. Yeah. To run my little yacht.

Q-Oh, you had a yacht, oh brilliant, instead of on the level. Right. Because there was a boating pond on the level as well. Yes, I remember that. It has been filled in now, hasn't it?

Yeah.

Q-When you did that, you got your tram down the Ditchling Road to the college and changed onto the cross-country route. Right. Which then took you up Elm Row as far as Queen's Park Road?

Yeah. Where it had to stop. The conductor pulled the pole the other way round.

Q-Then it ran back down Queen's Park Road and lower Rock Gardens.

Yes, it was a dog leg. The road was too steep for a tram to come up Elm Row and turn into Queen's Park Road, which is why it had to go beyond and then reverse to get a spike curve. So, when that happened, the conductor had to pull the seats the other way and things like that.

Q-Did it take long?

No, only a couple of minutes stopped. I know when the trolleybuses appeared, they could go up the steep bit, couldn't they? Yeah. So, that was a better thing.

Q-So, overall, your impression of the trams as a kid was a favourable one. You thought they were good transport.

Oh, I loved them

. Q-Were they noisy?

Yeah, they rattled and banged on the curves and squeaked on the rails.

Q- Was it quite a smooth ride or was it quite a harsh ride?

Oh no, once it was going, it was nice. It just rocked along. The other thing that my dad did show me, was that he took me down to see the tram that crashed. There was one tram, it was on a winter's morning, coming down Ditchling Road, even with his sanders, they got so much leaf in the rail, he screwed his brake on and she just skidded way down there. And I can remember my dad showing me where at the bottom, instead of going round Union Road or down the point that took it straight down to St Peter's Church, it ran across, knocked over two bollards from the little island in the middle.

Q- Right. It had ended up on its side over the wall of the level. Wow, I have seen pictures.

I saw that, yeah. My dad was good at taking me to see things, he showed me that. We went to the Devil’s Dyke on the steam railway.

Q-Oh, did you? Lucky man, you know.

I can remember me standing by the engine in Brighton Station, my dad holding me up to see and the driver inviting me onto the footplate and let me throw a bit of coal into the fire. Lucky man.

Q-That was quite a steep railway.

Yeah, the engine suffered up there.

Q-Wow, that is very impressive. So, going back to the tram cars themselves, when they disappeared or when they stopped, were you sorry? Did you prefer the trolleybuses?

No, I preferred the trams because I liked the open top. Well, apparently a lot of people did not. The other thing about them that I liked, they decorated them. I think it was for the King's Jubilee. I was about four or so when I first saw them. They had electric bulbs all the way around them. Yeah, they were quite a feature of the Brighton tramways and they kept them then until the very last year. And this is a thing I never managed to find any record of, but as a boy I remember right at the end being very disappointed. The last summer they took those bulbs off some of the trams and they put like a big square box. I think it must have been a fluorescent, but anyway, it gave like a white background and they got like fishes and things in the front.

Q- And you did not like that?

Well, no, I liked my little bulbs, I could look over from the top deck

Q- I did not know about that. So, they had tried a different type of light on that last summer anyway. As I say, I can only vaguely remember it. And because I was so disappointed in it compared with the others, I used to make my mum and dad wait till one of the ordinary bulb trams came.

Q-Of course, you were obviously a very stubborn child. When the trams finished, did they take the rails up very quickly or were the rails still around Brighton in the 50s and 60s?

The rails were left when they got all the trolleys in for a little while, but they pulled them up quite quickly because they wanted them as scrap steel for the war.

Q- Of course, the war effort, yeah.

And most of them, an awful lot of them at the main junctions like all around Preston Circus, they were not laid straight in the tarmac road. They were laid in wooden blocks. A block was about, I suppose, about nine or 10 inches long, six inches deep, they put those in the ground and ran the rails in them. So, when they took the rails up, they picked up the wooden blocks and they took them to the Lewie Road tram depot. T there were piles and piles of these building up, and trying to be economic in the war, the corporation said that if any of the local Brighton people wanted these blocks to burn on your fire to eke out your coal ration, you could go and get them. So, me and my next-door neighbour's little boy, we went down with a flat barrow we borrowed from the local shop and we got a load of these blocks, brought them up home, very proudly put them on the fire. Well, we did not do that very often because as soon as they started to get burning, they got bits of grit stuck in them from the road. In those days they did not salt in the winter, they threw grit down. Well, those little bits of grit went bang, bang and we ended up having to put the fire guard there all the time. So, it was not very long before people stopped taking them.

Q-Right, I did not know that, but of course that makes sense.

So then, of course, the corporation had a problem with getting rid of them. Hmm. Well, they built the power station at Southwick, of course, by then. At the time, I can remember being told that because we were not taking them, they had to take them to the power station to burn them. Well, it was not until, of course, 1954 or so when I went to work at the power station, I realised where they had burnt them. Because they had only got the A station then, the old one. But in there they had got two retort stokers, two chain grates and six pulverised fuels. . Well, you cannot grind up wooden blocks in a mill to put it in pulverised and you could not put them in the retort because they were pushers to put it in. So, what they must have done, they must have put them all through the chain grates where you have got a big door at the side, you could open and throw them in.

Q-Were there any still left then or they would all gone, obviously?

Oh, they had all gone early in the war. But as I say, I did not know where they were, I never saw where they burnt them. That makes sense. Until I went to work there.

Q- The next question I want to ask is when they scrapped the trams, did you go past Lewes road depot when they were all lying there waiting to be scrapped?

No. I did not see that.

Q- I understand you knew Mr Marsh or you knew Mr Marsh's son, where did he live, first?

I cannot tell you the name of the road, but do you know Hollingdean Terrace goes up? Yes, I do, yeah. Halfway up, there is a little road goes across into, it is either Hertford Road or Stammer Villass.

Q-Yes, I know what you mean, yeah. I used to do a paper round there.

Well, that little road is where he lived. I used to come up from my house in Richmond Road, after school I would go with his son home and we would play in his garden there, or his son came to us and Mr Marsh would collect him on his way home.

Q- And what was your impression of Mr Marsh? Was he a nice guy? Was he a stern man?

Well, as a kid, he was a super bloke because he gave us the tram tickets and the ticket punch.

He got us tram tickets to play with.

Q- You're lucky, yeah.

And of course, when all the trams went, he gave me one of those boards where you put your tickets in the clips, a bag, and a clipper. I would love to have had them now because they had been worth their weight in gold to you.

Q- Well, we have luckily been given a pouch bag and we have got two machines.

Well, you are lucky. Yeah. Only, being the war time, there were not toys about. Naturally, when I got sort of 15 or 14 or more, I would hand them on to my younger cousins.

Q-Well, which is lovely, which is a good thing to do. Do you know what happened to Mr Marsh? He retired from the trams. Did he stay in the area? I really do not know.

Q-OK. When did you sort of lose contact with the son then? Was that as you grew older?

I lost contact with Tom, I went to secondary school when I was 11, you see

. Q-So by the time you had gone there, obviously the trams had gone. So, I take it when you looked out the window, you saw the tram lines being taken up or they had gone already?

They had gone long. Yeah, because I mean, they went when I was eight. Right. And I went to the grammar school when I was 11. So, they had three years to get rid of it all.

Q-And in comparison, did you like the trolleybuses, did you think they were good? With hindsight, they were better because they were faster. Yeah. And quieter.

Q-Yes, I have heard about that. Do you think it was a good thing to get rid of them then or a bad thing?

No, I mean, I think I should have kept them. But I admit that they were tied to where the lines were.

Q-Yeah, same as the trams. In the modern amount of traffic, they probably just could not have coped. Right.

Yes, that is something I have heard as well. One thing we did not mention on the trams, what I did see, on the days the races were on, they did a special run for Brighton Station. They came down North Road and instead of going down to the Aquarium, it went down as far as the south end of the first Victoria Garden. Then around that little loop road and then back up to the race hill.

Q-Right. Apparently, they charged a lot more on those days as well, the corporation. So, it did a special route for the race course, is what you said.

Oh, yeah, on the race days.

Q-And I have heard also the trams had no standing restrictions. Some of those trams are stuffed full of people and still overtaking motor buses apparently.

Q-Going back to the Brighton trams, have you got any other memories you would like to share? You obviously enjoyed riding them. You thought they were a good form of transport. Anything else you would like to add? Were there any disadvantages with the trams?

Not that I saw, because I was used to them. They tell me they were dangerous because they were in the middle of the road and people were getting out, had to get out and cross the road to the pavement. But there was so little traffic, and it was mostly horses. So anyway, as I always did it, and my mum or my dad, who was with me, looked for me, or if I was on my own, I would learn to look. Yeah, there was no problem. There was no problem. Both the trams and trolley buses would have had great difficulty dealing with the amount of traffic today.

Q_ Finally, did you notice any difference with the different tram types?

Yes, they later trams, such as 53, had less luggage space, due to the enclosed cabs. They kept the earlier open fronted trams on the station, route, as they could carry more luggage. All thew tram were faster than the motor buses of the time, but as mentioned before, the trolley buses were faster.
Thank you very much Ray, you have given us some wonderful memoires of the Brighton trams.