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Astronomer, musician, artist, entrepreneur – Robin Durant is one of Westdene’s senior residents with plenty of stories of growing up and living in Brighton through the War years and into the vibrant 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. You’ll see him and his wife Jan walking their Spaniels on Westdene Green or down by the Eldred Road shops most mornings. |
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The daily dog-walk has been a regular feature of the couple’s life since moving to Westdene, especially the fields by the Windmill and Green Ridge, both with their wonderful views over Brighton and the countryside
Robin: “When we first moved in in 1983 we had an old lady next door and I was a Sales rep for GEC. She said standards had dropped, ‘we have Sales Representatives living here now’. I kept quiet! It was a bit snooty.”
Over the years Robin and Janet have had good neighbours. The neighbourhood is now very friendly with many residents knowing each other and having a chat when meeting during their walks. They get a strong feeling they live in a safe place. The Barn was a run-down building which now has been turned into a great asset to the community, thanks to a lot of hard work by volunteers.
Born in the mid-1930s at around the time when their present premises in Copse Hill was built, the couple experienced the War years. Robin was informally evacuated to Christchurch and in the first week there was an unexploded bomb in the garden! He and his mum quickly returned to Brighton. Jan was bombed out of her mother’s shop in Albion Hill and moved to Osborne Road.
Robin: “I was a bit of a yobbo. A Teddy Boy. My father used to say I wore ‘a zoot suit, a drape shape and a neat pleat’. I used to go to the Regent Ballroom, always looking for someone to dance with, Janet and I met there and were married in 1958”
Reminiscing about the 50’s, Robin recalled that the Regent Ballroom was the reason for so many marriages. “It’s Boots now. The floor was sprung and every Sunday there were dances. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, the dance was at the Aquarium Ballroom, they had top bands: Jack Parnell, Ted Heath and so on and that’s what got me into music.
“On visiting the Aquarium recently I realised that the Ballroom dancing area is now inhabited by Sharks !!”
Jan: “Brighton centre shopping was so different in those days. There were big stores like Hanningtons, Vokins. It was a different shopping experience altogether. We used to enjoy our walks along Madeira Drive and the walk underneath.”
Robin: “I feel that now Brighton is a town for the youth rather than older people with a massive increase in clubs and entertainment”
His musical career started in the RAF Central Band, 1956 aged 21, on trumpet and flugelhorn. After his service he formed his own band and played up to 75 gigs a year. One gig sticks in his memory, when he put together a 12-piece band to play at Harold Wilson’s election victory celebration 1964 at the Dome.
“One day a guy who had a double bass sold it to me for £25.00. I had had it a couple of weeks when Bert Wilmer, a band leader who ran a band at holiday camps asked me if I knew of a Bass player. Although not any good at it I took the gig and learned the hard way to play the Bass and spent five seasons there.” Robin later reformed his own functions band “Strictly Ballroom” which he ran into his 70s.
“My final band was a swing band, great trumpet player, tenor sax etc. Steve Hayler my vocalist, was a Frank Sinatra fanatic.
“He was a master at Queens College Canterbury and we went up there playing jazz and swing. One night, playing to a packed audience, there was another band playing the same time as us in another room and someone said ‘you are doing better than them’. They were “Take That”, I must add, before they were famous!”
The couple married and brought up their two children. Daughter Lorraine has three children and lives with her husband in the luxury boutique hotel they own and run in Sedlescombe.
Their son Mark runs a rescue kennels originally called “Doberman’s in Need” out towards Bognor.
“We had three Dobermans at one stage and he and his wife have carried on our love of dogs. We lost our red setter a few years ago, who was a favourite of the neighbourhood and loved Trevor our local Butcher, and we decided we wouldn’t have any more. But there was something missing. We were talked into having these two over Christmas.”
Jan: “And we’ve had them a year and a half now.”
Jan found the bungalow in 1983 in an area she knew well because her mother and father once lived in Fernwood Rise. The view from the back sold Robin.
The Eldred Avenue shops at Loyal Parade were a focal point even then. There was Viv the Greengrocer who still lives nearby and also in the parade were a doctors’ surgery, a grocer, an antique shop, and the butchers, with the newsagent/ Post office at the end. They don’t recall a take-away at that time
The school was small and only catered for a few hundred pupils and the expansion has been extraordinary.
1983 was when Robin started up his own refrigeration business. In 11 years, he never took a holiday, with short breaks to their caravan in the New Forest the only respite. Running the business was tough – dealing with restaurants and hotels which often made little or no profit and had difficulty paying their bills.
But things got better when he changed to offering his services to Hospitals and Funeral Directors designing and installing refrigerated mortuaries with his brother. He retired at 65 but due to customers’ insistence, went back to work next day!! “Morticians and undertakers were lovely people with a great sense of humour and invoices were promptly settled.”
Robin finally retired when he was 75 and passed over his business to his brother.
He developed his old interest in watercolour painting in retirement and regularly exhibited, however now he is only selling and auctioning his work for his favourite charity “Whoopsadaisy”
His other great interest is Astronomy: “I’ve always been interested since I saw the first Patrick Moore TV programme in 1953 and never missed a single episode. In my latter years I got to know him and went to his house.
“Just before he died in 2012 we made another visit and cooked him a curry. He was my inspiration and honoured me by proposing me for a “Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.”
Robin bought his first telescope in 2004 at the time Venus was transiting across the sun and got a good picture which the Argus published.
Nine years ago, He formed the Adur Astronomical Society, which boasts 60 members and although he is now an honorary Chairman his love of the pastime has seen him develop the monthly “Astronomy at the Barn” meetings, with some of his Society members. They offer experts and novices the opportunity to meet, view the night sky and exchange ideas. “We welcome young people if they are accompanied. Last meeting was great. Two big telescopes, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. Residents came over and looked and said “Wow”. He hopes to continue the development of “Astronomy at the Barn” for the benefit of the Westdene community.
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Robin: “When we first moved in in 1983 we had an old lady next door and I was a Sales rep for GEC. She said standards had dropped, ‘we have Sales Representatives living here now’. I kept quiet! It was a bit snooty.”
Over the years Robin and Janet have had good neighbours. The neighbourhood is now very friendly with many residents knowing each other and having a chat when meeting during their walks. They get a strong feeling they live in a safe place. The Barn was a run-down building which now has been turned into a great asset to the community, thanks to a lot of hard work by volunteers.
Born in the mid-1930s at around the time when their present premises in Copse Hill was built, the couple experienced the War years. Robin was informally evacuated to Christchurch and in the first week there was an unexploded bomb in the garden! He and his mum quickly returned to Brighton. Jan was bombed out of her mother’s shop in Albion Hill and moved to Osborne Road.
Robin: “I was a bit of a yobbo. A Teddy Boy. My father used to say I wore ‘a zoot suit, a drape shape and a neat pleat’. I used to go to the Regent Ballroom, always looking for someone to dance with, Janet and I met there and were married in 1958”
Reminiscing about the 50’s, Robin recalled that the Regent Ballroom was the reason for so many marriages. “It’s Boots now. The floor was sprung and every Sunday there were dances. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, the dance was at the Aquarium Ballroom, they had top bands: Jack Parnell, Ted Heath and so on and that’s what got me into music.
“On visiting the Aquarium recently I realised that the Ballroom dancing area is now inhabited by Sharks !!”
Jan: “Brighton centre shopping was so different in those days. There were big stores like Hanningtons, Vokins. It was a different shopping experience altogether. We used to enjoy our walks along Madeira Drive and the walk underneath.”
Robin: “I feel that now Brighton is a town for the youth rather than older people with a massive increase in clubs and entertainment”
His musical career started in the RAF Central Band, 1956 aged 21, on trumpet and flugelhorn. After his service he formed his own band and played up to 75 gigs a year. One gig sticks in his memory, when he put together a 12-piece band to play at Harold Wilson’s election victory celebration 1964 at the Dome.
“One day a guy who had a double bass sold it to me for £25.00. I had had it a couple of weeks when Bert Wilmer, a band leader who ran a band at holiday camps asked me if I knew of a Bass player. Although not any good at it I took the gig and learned the hard way to play the Bass and spent five seasons there.” Robin later reformed his own functions band “Strictly Ballroom” which he ran into his 70s.
“My final band was a swing band, great trumpet player, tenor sax etc. Steve Hayler my vocalist, was a Frank Sinatra fanatic.
“He was a master at Queens College Canterbury and we went up there playing jazz and swing. One night, playing to a packed audience, there was another band playing the same time as us in another room and someone said ‘you are doing better than them’. They were “Take That”, I must add, before they were famous!”
The couple married and brought up their two children. Daughter Lorraine has three children and lives with her husband in the luxury boutique hotel they own and run in Sedlescombe.
Their son Mark runs a rescue kennels originally called “Doberman’s in Need” out towards Bognor.
“We had three Dobermans at one stage and he and his wife have carried on our love of dogs. We lost our red setter a few years ago, who was a favourite of the neighbourhood and loved Trevor our local Butcher, and we decided we wouldn’t have any more. But there was something missing. We were talked into having these two over Christmas.”
Jan: “And we’ve had them a year and a half now.”
Jan found the bungalow in 1983 in an area she knew well because her mother and father once lived in Fernwood Rise. The view from the back sold Robin.
The Eldred Avenue shops at Loyal Parade were a focal point even then. There was Viv the Greengrocer who still lives nearby and also in the parade were a doctors’ surgery, a grocer, an antique shop, and the butchers, with the newsagent/ Post office at the end. They don’t recall a take-away at that time
The school was small and only catered for a few hundred pupils and the expansion has been extraordinary.
1983 was when Robin started up his own refrigeration business. In 11 years, he never took a holiday, with short breaks to their caravan in the New Forest the only respite. Running the business was tough – dealing with restaurants and hotels which often made little or no profit and had difficulty paying their bills.
But things got better when he changed to offering his services to Hospitals and Funeral Directors designing and installing refrigerated mortuaries with his brother. He retired at 65 but due to customers’ insistence, went back to work next day!! “Morticians and undertakers were lovely people with a great sense of humour and invoices were promptly settled.”
Robin finally retired when he was 75 and passed over his business to his brother.
He developed his old interest in watercolour painting in retirement and regularly exhibited, however now he is only selling and auctioning his work for his favourite charity “Whoopsadaisy”
His other great interest is Astronomy: “I’ve always been interested since I saw the first Patrick Moore TV programme in 1953 and never missed a single episode. In my latter years I got to know him and went to his house.
“Just before he died in 2012 we made another visit and cooked him a curry. He was my inspiration and honoured me by proposing me for a “Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.”
Robin bought his first telescope in 2004 at the time Venus was transiting across the sun and got a good picture which the Argus published.
Nine years ago, He formed the Adur Astronomical Society, which boasts 60 members and although he is now an honorary Chairman his love of the pastime has seen him develop the monthly “Astronomy at the Barn” meetings, with some of his Society members. They offer experts and novices the opportunity to meet, view the night sky and exchange ideas. “We welcome young people if they are accompanied. Last meeting was great. Two big telescopes, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. Residents came over and looked and said “Wow”. He hopes to continue the development of “Astronomy at the Barn” for the benefit of the Westdene community.
Click here for more Westdene Originals