I remember Lewes when you could sit barefoot in the Grange drinking cider. The huge row of motorbikes parked opposite the Rainbow pub on Fridays and Saturday nights. Strings of racehorses coming in and out of the old Winterbourne Stables. Chasing the cows in the field at the bottom of Mountfield Road. (Sorry farmer) How safe it was to play in the road, before the Lewes Leisure Centre was built. Drinking cider at the Magic Circle behind the castle. Those green canvas curtains in the changing room at the Pells Pool. Secretly swimming in the outdoor pools (now non existent) of Priory Middle and Upper schools. (Sorry caretaker). The look on the bus driver’s face who followed my brother and I up through the High Street on his motorbike (I was on the back facing the wrong way). The gymkhanas at the Stanley Turner Grounds. Galloping along the Lewes bypass on horseback, dodging all the JCB’s, when it was still under construction. (Sorry road workers). Standing in the big hole at the top of the Mound by the Dripping Pan, just because it was there. Playing sand castles in the dog toilet (now gone) at the entrance to the convent fields. Climbing up the big steep grassy slope on the face of the cliffe. (That was scary). Running across the dried up surface of the sewage works. Rowing in a dinghy along the Cockshut stream that ran parallel to the Priory School fields. Playing hide and seek inside the Priory Ruins. Wading through the Winterbourne stream from Winterbourne Close, right through to the Grange. When Kingfishers were in abundance along the Cockshut stream. That was my Lewes. CS