Maureen Burt – maiden name Bird
Date of Birth 14th August 1938
Place of Birth Kempston, Bedfordshire
Our family moved from Bedfordshire to Fairlight at Easter 1956 into ‘High View’ at the top of Battery Hill. My father became Secretary of the Hastings Car Club and held this position for 13 years. He also ran the Bodiam Hill Climb.
When I was 17 or 18 I used to go to the Pier with friends but my father always insisted on picking me up which was very embarrassing!
When I was told that we were moving to Fairlight, I applied to the Hastings and Thanet Building Society in Hastings to be a cashier but was turned down as they didn’t employ women cashiers!
I then applied to Plummer and Roddis (where Debenhams is in Robertson Street) to be a junior clerk but the money was too low. The Borough Treasurer’s Department initially turned me down for a clerk position but offered me a job as an Accounting Machine Operator at their offices in Wellington Square, Hastings. I was responsible for all Borough workers’ wages. As part of my job, I had to go to the Ladies toilets below the Carlisle pub on the sea front to pay the female staff. (A man from the same department paid the male staff at the Men’s toilets). I also took a taxi to pay the policemen at the Police Station – the current Lansdowne Hotel was the front of the Police Station. It was amazing that, being so young, I was given so much money to carry around!
After a transfer to Hospital Management in buildings behind the White Rock Theatre, I did the stocks at the Royal East Sussex Hospital and was responsible for the hospital staff wages. I was actually told not to get married for two years but I did get engaged after one year! I worked for the Borough Treasurer’s Department for five years.
I got engaged at Christmas 1962 during the bad winter of 1962/63. The snow was so deep in Fairlight that the buses had to stop at Ore and I had to walk from Ore to Battery Hill. On one occasion I walked back with an old lady who lived at the Alms House and there was a breakdown lorry across the road as a car had gone in a ditch. We had to climb over the lorry and jump down the other side but the snow was so deep that we disappeared! Church Farm had a light on outside and and we mistakenly thought we were near home and took a wrong turning down Lower Coastguard Lane. We turned round and then met my father with a large shovel who had come looking for me. It was so icy cold and in those days we wore skirts not trousers! My head scarf was so iced up that it stuck to my head and it had to be warmed up to get it off. Dad also put my feet in hot water.
The East Kent Bus Company ran buses from Hastings to Pett Level and the last bus to Fairlight left Pelham Crescent in Hastings at 10.20 p.m. At Battery Hill George and I would get off the bus after an evening out and the bus continued down to Pett Level by the Rescue Boat Station where it turned round. When it got back to near my house, the bus beeped and picked up George to take him back to Berlin Road, Ore. Jock the bus driver lived at the Coastguard Station.
My brother Roger used to forget his exercise book when the bus stopped to pick him up and the driver patiently waited each time he had to go back to the house to get it.
The field by the layby at the top of Battery Hill was not overgrown in those days and two horses lived in the field. One day George and I were looking at the horses and we heard a hooting sound. I called out ‘Johnny’ and an owl came down from the woods behind the church and frightened the life out of George! The owl was very tame and I have a photo of my mother feeding it. I think it may have come from Mallydams.
I didn’t go down into Fairlight Cove very often but we did used to drink at The Hayloft (now The Cove).
As youngsters we visited Nancy at her sweet shop (now The Coastguards Café). She used to sell bits and pieces but I don’t know if she served drinks as well.
Janet and Sue Sweetman were the daughters of local builder, Reg Sweetman, who had a house in Waites Lane near the Garage.
Janet and Faye Griffen came to my wedding.
Janet, Sue, Faye, Janet Dyer and myself all used to get the bus together.
In July 1963 I married George Burt at Fairlight Church. We held our wedding reception at Fairlight Village Hall (where I had also had my 21st birthday party).
George lived at No.1 Fishponds Cottage (a tied cottage) with his parents. George’s father was a farm hand on Funnell’s Farm and George used to help on the farm milking cows. After George was demobbed, he did two years’ National Service but during that time, his father died and his mother had to move out of the cottage. When she rang him to tell him about his father, George suggested to his mother that perhaps she should tell him her new address so he knew where to go when he went home!
George bought an A40 van which we took on our honeymoon. It didn’t have any windows as you had to pay extra tax for those.
Our first home was 53 Canute Road in Ore but in 1977 we moved to 46 Canute Road. It was a large detached house that I had always wanted to live in and eventually I did! There was no point in hiring a van as the houses were very close so George set up some scaffolding poles on wheels to transport things like the wardrobe.
George died in 1983 but I stayed on in the house with our sons until 2005 when I moved to St.Leonard’s.
Ore was a really thriving village when I lived there. We had three butcher shops (I used to go to Gray’s owned by Dick Gray), three banks and building societies, two shoe shops, the International store which was a supermarket, George Cornelius’ fruit and veg shop (taken over by Winchester’s) and Britts’ grocer’s shop.
There used to be a hall in Grove Road, Ore (since demolished) where the Brownies met. I knew Brown Owl as my sons used to go to Cubs and in 1983 she wanted to raise money for the Brownies. I held Tupperware parties and agreed to hold one at the hall to help with their fund raising. One of the ladies who came to the party was just on holiday and therefore wanted to take her order with her. Normally I would place an order and then deliver it when it came in but as she had placed quite a large order, I agreed to let her have the demonstration Tupperware which she was happy with. Her name was Margaret Thatcher!