I made many visits to Guy Champion's home

In 1951, my parents moved to Rustington from Haslemere, where they had lived since being married in Brighton in 1934.

My mother was a Brightonian and I believe she and Dickie Champion, Guy's wife, had attended school together; she was later one of my mother's bridesmaids.

It appears they lost touch with each other during the war years, but upon moving to Rustington, they somehow got in touch again.

Over the next few years, there were many visits to the Champions' home at 9 Brookside Avenue, Rustington.

As a small boy at the time, I found this a fascinating experience;

Guy was a large, very jovial man, somewhat untidy in appearance, and someone I thought a little eccentric.

As well as his wife Dickie, a pleasant, dark-haired lady, his sister-in-law, also lived there.

Dolly was a little lady with white hair and said very little.

The bungalow, I remember, was very spartanly furnished, but some rooms were full of pottery, I think awaiting glazing and firing, and the hall usually had a number of paintings leaning against the walls.

Sometimes we would have tea in the garden, which was well-stocked with fruit trees, vegetables, floral borders and so on. I remember the bees, but not the goats.

The pottery and forge were at the end of the road (at what is now no. 17; is this the no. 16 referred to in the article?), housed in a series of old sheds and lean-tos, reclaimed corrugated iron and timber, and it was here the ovens were located, two or three, I believe, together with the potter's wheel.

Guy was clearly a very artistic man, who had the ability of turning his hand to many things.

On one visit, he was in the process of reconstructing a car to his own design; whether it was completed, I do not know.

On the closing of the pottery, would I be right in thinking Guy may have built a new residence on the site to which he moved?

This would probably have been during the 1960s.

John Stevens,

Oakcroft Gardens,

Littlehampton

Editor's note: Mary Taylor, who wrote the article about Guy Champion, has contacted us to say that the Harry Champion referred to in the other story alongside hers is the same person '” in fact, more people knew him as Harry, rather than Guy, probably after the old music hall star, Harry Champion.

So we now know that Mr Champion was active in his pottery business until at least the mid-1960s.

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