Publications
City Streets to Sussex Lanes: A Country Childhood, by David Johnston, published 6 October 2008 (142 pp., Pomegranate Press, ISBN-10: 0955900646 & ISBN-13: 9780955900648) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries
Abstract:A wonderfully evocative memoir of rural life in Sussex during the 1950s.
When 8-year-old David Johnston, his mother and his older brother were made homeless in London in the early 1950s they first slept rough on a Sussex beach before being taken into the East Preston workhouse. His mother then fell in with "Old Harry", a farm labourer who periodically moved about the county from one farm job to another.
The author's vivid prose relates his tough, but happy, childhood with his new stepfather and his two sons. He recaptures the sounds and smells of the old farms and cottages where he lived; his adventures down country lanes and field paths; and his delight in the wildlife and the country characters he met on the way.
It was only 60 years ago, but these tales of living in tied farm cottages in remote parts of rural Sussex evoke a way of life now gone for ever.
Review by Rose Orr in Sussex Family Historian vol. 20 no. 6, June 2013:When 8-year-old David Johnston, his mother and his older brother were made homeless in London in the early 1950s they first slept rough on a Sussex beach before being taken into the East Preston workhouse. His mother then fell in with "Old Harry", a farm labourer who periodically moved about the county from one farm job to another.
The author's vivid prose relates his tough, but happy, childhood with his new stepfather and his two sons. He recaptures the sounds and smells of the old farms and cottages where he lived; his adventures down country lanes and field paths; and his delight in the wildlife and the country characters he met on the way.
It was only 60 years ago, but these tales of living in tied farm cottages in remote parts of rural Sussex evoke a way of life now gone for ever.
This is a lovely light easy read telling how a young boy, his brother and mother moved from London in the early war years to Chichester. They were then evicted to spend some nights on the beach before joining forces with a farm labourer and his boys. During the next few years they moved around farms in West and East Sussex. For a city boy he adapted well to country life and grew to love it.
A couple of chapters of throughout the book talk of going back to the farms after 40 years and his reaction to how they have changed. A nice account of Sussex farming in the war years.
A couple of chapters of throughout the book talk of going back to the farms after 40 years and his reaction to how they have changed. A nice account of Sussex farming in the war years.
The Restless Miller: Scenes from rural life in bygone Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, by David Johnston, published 7 April 2010 (86 pp., Pomegranate Press, ISBN-10: 1907242031 & ISBN-13: 9781907242038) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries
Abstract:This true story of a well-to-do miller who fell to the level of a pauper and was buried in an unmarked grave is thronged with a lost world of farmers, auctioneers, innkeepers, wine merchants and smugglers who mingled in the borderlands of Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire in the Victorian age and beyond - Chichester, Petersfield, Bedhampton, Leigh, Harting, Chiddingfold, Dunsfold, Wisborough Green, Barford, Headley, Colworth and Oving.
A Sussex Wayfarer's Nature Notes, by David Johnston, published 1 September 2016 (118 pp., Oakbarn Press, ISBN-10: 0995558108 & ISBN-13: 9780995558106) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries