I have been trying to thin the bookshelves, and at one end is a volume called ‘Evening Argus July and August 1958’ which I had never really looked at, but I could not throw it away without a brief look. Many hours later I offer this selection of observations and illustrations.
Work and Pay:
J Sainsbury Ltd is seeking grocery and provisions saleswomen. Wage at 18 £5.18s.0d pw, rising to £6.8s.0d within 6 months (approx. £333pa). 45 hours per week. Overalls supplied and cleaned free of charge, pension and sick benefit schemes.
Sales careers in SE Gas Board: 21+ years men and women. During training £545 men and £499 women. Then men from £585 and women from £534. (gender – say no more)
Intelligent women required for clothing factory work, training provided, excellent pay and prospects. Harrimonde, The Hyde, Lower Bevendean. (clothes made in England, how quaint)
The Mullard Radio Valve Company, Hove, require young women and girls to train as valve assembly workers. (valve operated radio and TV still the norm)
Young women (15 to 35 yrs) – clean, light, interesting work at Ferguson Radio factory, Newhaven. £6.2s.6d pw at age 19yrs. 8am to 6pm Monday to Thursday, 8am to 5pm Friday. (44 hours pw and about £306 pa. Valves built in Hove, put into radios built in Newhaven)
“Only an attractive girl need apply – we want someone with Personality-Plus to introduce an exciting new product – Flav-r Straws, at the MilkMaid Pavilion, lower promenade.”
Brighton Council Housing Department seeks clerk/collector. Male 25-45 salary depending on age and experience – £450 to £550 pa.
Machine-tool manufacturer CVA Jigs, Moulds and Tools Ltd have completed a 150 ton, 140 feet long machine-tool for an undisclosed customer. It took nearly a year to complete at their Hollingbury factory which employs 230 workers. (a week later they laid off 70 staff, with another 80 to follow soon)
Brighton Education Committee seek P/T teachers of cookery and needlework for evening institutes from September. (an education committee in the Council? Employing people to teach non-statutory courses?)
Housing:
Two storey non-basement 3 bed and 2 rec. house in Princes Crescent, (Round Hill), Brighton £1925. (4 times a clerk’s salary, just over 6x a grocery assistant’s salary)
Terraced house, level ground close Lewes Road, bay fronted, 4 rooms plus kitchen £750.
Franklin Road terraced house 3 bed 2 reception kit/bathroom rear garden £1675.
Aberdeen Road terraced house 2 bed, 2 rec kitchen and bathroom £1875.
Brighton Council is considering joining the Government scheme in which local authorities guarantee mortgages so that lenders will lend 90 to 95% rather than 70%, enabling more people to buy. At this time 705 purchasers have Council mortgages at 6.5%. Investors can earn 5.75% for every £100 invested.
House for sale on Upper Lewes Road, 3 storey – vacant upper maisonette – 4 rooms, bathroom, kitchen and garden. Ground Floor let at £1.11s.2d pw comes with the sale at £1350.
Local building societies dominate the lenders advertising – Hastings and Thanet BS, Regency BS, Alliance BS, Brighton, Hove and Preston BS, Sussex Mutual BS, Pelham BS and Citizens Permanent BS. Only the Halifax BS and Northampton Town and Country BS from elsewhere.
Consumer Goods:
Men’s suits in Huddersfield worsted (woven in Yorkshire)
Men’s worsted/Terylene mix suits £20 at Hills of Hove summer sale. Burberry all-wool gaberdine raincoat, £10 to £17 at Hannington’s. (natural fibres dominate)
BMK, Wilton and Axminster carpets all mentioned in adverts, usually containing British wool.

Valve radios and TVs advertised – cash or terms:
Radio Rentals – rent a 17″ TV for 9/- a week (nine shillings, 20 to the £) which includes continuous service, free replacement tubes and valves. Or buy a TV for BBC and ITV stations for 67 guineas (£67 and 67 shillings, or £70.7s.0d.) to include 2 years service and repairs.
BBC and ITV already here, in Black and White, but Southern TV coming in August 1958, from the Isle of Wight transmitter.

If you want to dance to music you could buy a record player. Wickham, Kimber and Oakley of George Street, Hove have a Dansette auto-changer for 25 guineas, and they add “Mr D Stewart-Baxter will attend on Fridays and Saturdays to help you select jazz records.”
Buy a new fridge for £39 (7% of our clerk’s annual salary) or buy second-hand, like the rebuilt Hoovers from a Boundary Road shop, and repaired radios from George Barnard in St Georges Road.
Curry’s advertised valve radios for £10 to £16, and the modern transistor radios at higher prices (change coming soon on this pricing). Cash or terms available:

For moving your baby about the Best was still a perambulator, but smaller models were available for those living in small apartments or with stairs to negotiate. Champions was the premier store of these, but even they were moving with the times and stocking buggies!

Food, Fags and Wine: For everyday items prices were better, Bellman’s Food market on the London Road had butter at 1/1d, self-raising flour at 1/4d a 3lb bag and sugar for 1/2d a 2lb bag. 20 Park Drive tipped cigarettes would set you back 2/6d. Dominic’s the wine merchant was offering red, white and rose wine in half and one gallon jars “for the daily wine drinker” for 17/6d and 34/6d respectively, being roughly the equivalent of 3 and 6 bottles. Pressing their offer further by stating “our vans deliver daily throughout the town”.
But Sunday Trading Laws would restrict when you could buy them all – shops could only open on 18 Sundays a year. (probably a tricky one to police though)
Cars and motoring: For the better off you could buy a new Hillman Minx car for £498, but the government tried to dissuade you by adding a further £250 Purchase Tax! Petrol (at the Lion Garage, Richardson Road, Hove) was just 4/- a gallon. But your motoring freedom was threatened, as reported in ‘Motoring Notes’ “Today is P-Day in London, P standing for Parking meters. I hope no similar day is ever celebrated in Sussex” said the correspondent. Car brands mention in the newspaper but not made now include Studebaker, Jowett and Borgward.
Services:
A Mr M F Reed of Hollingbury Road is still waiting to be switched over to AC electricity from DC! SE Electricity Board say the lack of suitable site for a sub-station is causing the delay (Does anyone remember DC electricity supply?)
Eating out: Royal Albion Hotel Saturday dinner dance 17/6d, supper dance to midnight 5/-. Marine Grill (at the Clocktower) 3 course lunch Monday to Friday 3/-
Telephones: The new automatic phone system is still causing problems – some people are still dialling 0 for the operator to collect local calls, rather than dialling direct. The new telephone directories are being delivered to subscribers, the Post Office asks that you have your old one ready to return. (Recycling as part of the system!)
The National Coal Board urges everyone to place their winter coal orders soon to avoid winter delivery problems.
Polio Vaccine: Brighton and Lewes Hospital Management Board will urge the Ministry of Health to give nurses priority for polio vaccination. Supplies of American vaccine should be available towards the end of the year. By 27th July East Sussex County Council report that 41,000 people have now received the US polio vaccine, 11,000 are still waiting their turn and 7,200 have decided to refuse it and await a British vaccine.
Crawley Council has accepted a tender of £74,000 from G T Grouch Ltd to build an old peoples home. The Council are applying to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government for consent to borrow £81,000 to cover the cost of the work. (Councils delivering services!)
and a bit of foresight:
During a Young Conservatives “Question Time” quiz the chairman, Pavilion MP William Teeling, suggested that Brighton should consider a Festival on the lines of the Edinburgh one, (the first Brighton Festival happened in 1967, nine years later)
“Will Brighton ever be a city by the sea?”, Cllr Cohen said that the coming of a University to Brighton should improve the odds but, “We should try to amalgamate Brighton and Hove so that the whole can become a city”. (city status was awarded to the unitary authority of Brighton and Hove in 2000)
But some things never change – it was always better in the past:
