Mr Bruce McBrien’s affection for his city was very apparent during his insightful and informative presentation. Born in 1926, the same year as Queen Elizabeth II, he started life on a housing estate, built by the ‘AV Jennings’of the day, in the new suburb of Brighton, an outer suburb which saw the introduction of nature strips. “Why?” you may ask. Bruce explained that with cars becoming more popular and with more on the roads, they caused clouds of dust to enter the houses. The nature strips provided a barrier for dust collection.
The audience was captivated by Bruce’s reminisces of the times. Some remembered these times when tradesmen travelled the street in horse-drawn carts hawking their wares and other local identities such as the ice man lugging blocks of ice for the ice chest; the ice cream man (not Mr. Whippy!); the dustmen who ran alongside their cart, and were usually local footballers, emptying tin rubbish bins whose lids
were thrown anywhere and had to be searched for… and many more..
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