19/08/2026
I know, I’m obsessed with this tree!
…and, for anyone that actually reads further than the first line…here’s why.
I was 8 when my dad relocated the family from Derbyshire to Worthing. (June 1968)
My grandparents came down to visit us in 1970, and my grandfather took us all on the bus from Worthing to Findon, the bus stop was in the village, at what used to be the old post office. (Swipe to see photo - L to R, my grandmother, my older brother David, my mother, my eldest brother Jonathan and ME) (my grandfather, being a keen hobby photographer, took that photo)
We then walked all the way up the lane, finally reaching Cissbury Ring, we climbed the original chalk steps to the top (they have recently located them further to the right)
We then walked to ‘that tree’….he took his monocular out (which I still have, in its leather case) raised it to his eye and scanned the countryside for what seemed an eternity, to which, once completed, exclaimed in his Derbyshire accent…’oh glorious, simply glorious’!
It is that day, and my grandfather’s words that have stayed with me and why I love Cissbury and ‘that tree’.
I still have his camera, with its pullout lens and bellows and an incredibly sharp Zeiss lens, and I have used it.
It’s funny how something which might seem so insignificant, can leave such a long lasting memory!
I’m the only one left in that photo now.
