Dancing every night and a bubble gum machine on the wall outside

On the left is the much-loved and much-missed Savoy Ballroom on the corner of South Parade and Clarendon Road, Southsea, and in the distance South Parade Pier many years before the fire.

The overhead trolleybus wires tells us it is dated before 1963.

On the Savoy wall you can see cigarette and bubble gum machines. I wonder how long they would last today?

The man walking along the Esplanade has on a heavy overcoat with the collar up to keep out a chill breeze on this winter’s day.

• I put a question mark at the end of the caption of what look like mudlarks because I’m not too sure when mudlarking started.

They were local lads who shouted for coppers to be dropped down to them from the railway approach on the right. They would then dive into the mud searching for those coins.

I am not sure if the embankment where the lads are sunbathing, laid out to the mudflats many years ago, has a name or not. I have never heard it called anything apart from the walkway.

In these early years it looks like a Roman road and much of it has since been washed away by the thousands of high tides that have covered it in the intervening years.

• As I have mentioned previously, this coming July is the 50th anniversary of the end of steam running on the South Western Division of British Railways.

I have recently published photographs of locomotives in local locations but this photo, from George Lynham of Salisbury, shows the intricacies and skill of the steam engine designer.

These arethe driving wheels and rods of a Standard class locomotive and you might ask where the designer began.

At the end of the day the majority ended their lives as scrap.

• I have gone out of town for the final picture today which looks across Denmead Green with the Waterlooville to Hambledon road on the right.

To the left of the pony and trap is the White Hart pub which still survives, I am glad to say.

Most of what can be seen in this photograph remains, apart from the old road surface. It is now a modern surface of course and the road, although still rural, can be very busy at times.

Further on, beyond the S-bend, is the well-known Denmead Egg Farm where free range chickens can be seen running about and laying the most delicious eggs.