Villagers celebrate life then and now

Celebration Day will take place on July 25 when people can bring their photographs to the Community Centre and place them on the notice boards.

Providing context for the day will be Neil Rogers-Davis who will be displaying his archive photos of village life in the past.

The results should be fascinating, a genuine celebration of then and now - and the difference in between.

Neil, owner/editor of Angmering Village Life

(www.angmeringvillage.co.uk), has long been fascinated by the village's history. His website, running to a couple of thousand pages if you printed it off, is testament both to the richness of that history and to Neil's enthusiasm for it.

Neil has lived in Angmering for 42 years; his historical pursuits have blossomed since early retirement: "I have always had a latent love of history."

Sadly history is inevitably at times a story of loss: "We have lost a lot of buildings over the years. It was not until about the 1970s that people generally started to realise that older buildings were so much part of their heritage.

"The Angmering Society was then born to save a specific house in Angmering and it has in effect saved other properties. But there were some beautiful houses that were lost.

"In the 1930s there was a big slum clearance. The 1960s were pretty bad, but it started really in the 1930s. Angmering lost a lot of 15th and 16th century buildings at that time. Goring got pretty much wiped out at that time. People just saw them as old buildings and everybody wanted new."

Over the years, traffic has become a key issue, as has keeping the local shops: "Once you start to lose the heart of the town, you can't get it back.

Coping too with the increasing population has been problematic. With the addition of Bramley Green, the past few years have seen the population increase from around 5,800 to about 8,000 - and this on top of significant post-war growth.

Take it back to 1332, and the population was around 580. Plagues and the rest stepped in, with the population decreasing to around 320 in 1724. But with better general health, the population rose steadily during the 1800s, accelerated also by market gardening coming in.

"And then after the Second World War, there was a massive explosion in numbers."

But the great thing is - Neil believes - that despite the growth, Angmering still has a village centre which looks like a village centre.

Fortunately, some things just haven't changed...