The university’s move means that students from one of its most well-known and visible subject areas, Physical Education, will be moving too.
But not before many of my friends and fellow PE graduates from across the decades make a final visit back to Eastbourne! In May, 1,400 of us will gather at the Winter Gardens to reunite, remember and celebrate the success of this educational institution at ‘The BIG PE Party!’
It will be 75 years in 2024, since Chelsea College of Physical Education (now the University of Brighton) set down roots in Eastbourne.
Thirty years after that, I chose to become a Chelsea College student and trained to be a PE teacher. In some ways it was a lifetime ago, but some memories are as fresh now as when they took place.
Those initial nights were hard. I was so homesick!
I had never been away from home before and whilst I wasn’t that far from home in Surrey, the distance felt vast.
The pay phone at Granny’s was my connection to home. No mobile phones back then. Early on, the daily calls to my poor mum were probably pointless, due to my blubbering.
But miraculously, by Christmas, I was cured. In fact, I didn’t want to go home at all! By then, I had made friends and felt settled… Of course, getting acquainted with the Ship and the Pilot might also have tipped the balance.
That time as a student was a step into a different world, and one which changed and determined my life ahead. As the university has decided to close the campus this June, a walk down Memory Lane seems appropriate.
So, over the next few months I will be sharing some funny, sad, momentous and idiotic moments from those past years, which I hope you, the reader, will enjoy.
It will be 75 years in 2024, since Chelsea College of Physical Education (now the University of Brighton) set down roots in Eastbourne.