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Home <> Lifestory Library <> Explore By Location <> <> <> The Flamingo Club




  Contributor: Harold TaylorView/Add comments



When I was covering the Goring beat, I was occasioned several times to visit the Flamingo Club, remembers Harold Taylor. This was a country club with quite a good clientele.

Occasionally they would have an extension of hours for an event and it was a necessity to check that the requirement had been met. Not being a pub, it meant actually knocking the door and asking for admittance.

This brought me in contact with the owner and his wife. I cannot recall their Christian names, but the surname was Posner.

Harold joined the police force, originally posted at Horsham, in 1948, shortly after the Second World War. He continues...

They gave me an open invitation to visit whenever I liked, which I did not take up because I knew another constable who had worked the beat for some years already thrust himself upon them and made himself objectionable. To drink when the fancy took him.

Among the guests one could expect to see there were the Moores of football pool fame. I also learnt that the club before the war had intended to be the first British drive-in cinema. I was often to pore over the plans. The site is now the Field Place Centre of which Worthing is proud.

Posner was, I discovered a fellow of musical talents, for it was revealed that he was the author of a musical show that was running in the West End. I am afraid I have forgotten its name, but I seem to think the title had something to do with girls and bed.

I always get mixed up because about the same time I think Deanna Durbin came out with a film, 'A Hundred Men and a Girl'.

One small, useful turn I did for myself with the Posners, was to sell some old white uniforms for their waiting staff.

I cannot remember whether clothes rationing was still on, or whether supply was difficult, but whilst checking the club one night, we were in the kitchen having a drink and a sandwich when something came up about waiters uniforms etc.

When we had thrashed the subject around a little I realised that my old tropical white uniforms would meet the bill, and offered them. They jumped at the chance and paid me reasonably for them. Eventually the Posners sold out and moved on.

Harold Taylor West Sussex, 2001
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