I've been visiting Shoreham, the first village, most of my life. When I was about 13 I went camping with about five mates at a place named Badgers Mount which was memorable for me for two things. One of the lads, Derek Smith, managed to snaffle a bottle of sherry and brought it with him. On Saturday afternoon we drank it.
That is, we all had a small sniffter each and Derek drank all the rest. After a while he turned green, then grey, then blue and threw up in a mosty spectacular fashion and passed out. We put him in a sleeping bag and he didn't wake up til Sunday morning, no hangover, much to our surprise.
At around 8pm we all (except Derek) decided to walk to Shoreham which is 2 or 3 miles away on the other side of a valley. These days it's a National trust reserve area with BBQ tables and stuff but back then it was just wild meadow and forest.
When we arrived in Shoreham it was still daylight and we mooched about, wished we were old enough to go in the pubs then started out walking back to the tents. By then it was dark and as soon as we left the village it was pitch black. Being townies we weren't used to this and it took a great deal of willpower on my part not to admit I was scared rigid and probably everybody else felt the same as me.
How we never got lost is beyond me but eventually we arrived back at our tents and collapsed into a deep sleep for the night.
In the video, when I drive across the bridge over the stream, the two houses together opposite, both in block colours, used to be a pub that had sofas, armchairs and a big coal fire going. Tis a pub no more, which is a shame.
One more thing, that Derek Smith again. He lived in New Cross and when his Mum and Dad went on holiday he invited us all round his home. Then he got out his Dad's hidden cine projector and we were treated to our first black and white films of naughty ladies of the night prancing around nekkid.
Had a catastrophic affect on this young boy's psyche, I was so deeply traumatised I started fancying women. Awful eh?