One from Ion Castro’s Archive Whilst looking for something else I came across this leaflet advertising Hastings – how times have changed – seagull smoking a pipe!!! So politically incorrect on so many levels, and, on the reverse “Every day’s a gay day” – nothing wrong with that but was that what they wanted to say?
Note the crowds, the Bathing Pool, Speedway, which used to attract up to 10,000 visitors, fishing off the Pier with crowds on the prom, golf, bowls, Sun Lounge and the Cricket Ground. The leaflet, clearly post war can’t be any later than the 1949 season because local residents served an injunction on Hastings Boro’ Council banning it on noise grounds and Speedway closed in October 1949. The Bathing Pool closed in 1986 and the site remains undeveloped. The cricket ground was built over and is now a shopping centre and the St Leonards Golf Course has been a housing estate for years, and the Sun Lounge has been privatised. We’ve still got the Castle, Caves and Alexandra Park and the Pier is arising phoenix-like from the ashes and appears on course to re-open this year.
More Hastings History on www.historichastings.co.uk
“Rye’s Own” March 2015
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