Lifestory Library - Joan Wood - Learning to write using just a tray of sand and a finger

When a Worthing reader wrote in, 'I would like to tell you a story about Charmandean and Dyer Edwards who used to live there,' it led to some interesting tales of old Broadwater.

The reader, Mrs Joan Wood, was born into the Winton family in 1916 when they lived at Penfold Road in the parish of Broadwater.

It came as a surprise to learn from her, 'My father, Fred Winton, lived in the Reading Room(Parish Room) when he was a little boy and went to Broadwater School on the Green, where he was taught by a Miss Agnew,' and she produced a faded brown and white Victorian photograph on stiff card, as they often were then, showing schoolchildren dressed up for May Day celebrations.

Joan revealed one of her late mother's recollections, 'My mother remembers seeing a dancing bear on its hind legs in Broadwater, just the once. Oh I wish I had asked her more at that time.'

Joan, whose education seems to have begun at an unusually early age, insisted, 'I must have been 3 when I started at Ham Road School(renamed Dominion Road School following the road name change and later was changed again to Downsbrook) where my two elder brothers also went. I learned to write by tracing my finger in a shallow tray of sand.'

Like her father, she also was taught by Miss Agnew, who by this time had moved from the Broadwater School.

Joan and her mother knew the girl who was house parlour maid at a very large house in north Broadwater -- Charmandean House -- before it became a school.

'We were very friendly. She told us the house was haunted, and how one night she actually saw the ghost pass by one of the upstairs windows.'

Joan also got to hear about Dyer Edwards, the owner/occupier of the mansion, and his daughter. It evolved that he was extremely pleased when his daughter married a titled gentleman, but on a trip across the ocean they had a lucky escape when the ship went down. The young couple escaped with their lives when they sailed on the ill-fated 'unsinkable' Titanic in 1912 across the Atlantic, being fortunate to be among those saved when it sank after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage.

It is understood by Joan that in appreciation of his daughter's life being saved, Mr Edwards donated a large sum of money to charity, choosing the Royal National Lifeboat Institution as an appropriate cause, and the sizeable gift was used to buy a new Lifeboat for one of the stations on the Norfolk Coast.

Taken 100 years ago, this faded photograph shows May Day celebrations at Broadwater School on the Green with pupils dressed for the Maypole dance and wearing garlands. Barely visible in the background is a cottage which is still there by Paine Manwarings. Pictured far left is Fred Winton(Mrs Joan Wood's father), aged about 11, wearing a Tam O' Shanter; and also in the group is Selina Luff, daughter of the Luffs who ran the famous sweet shop across the road near the post office.