I remember…
Trials, camel rides & conspiring trees…
The Level! For years
it was a decrepit deathtrap, inhabited solely by vagrants swigging extra-strength cider and mums in tracksuits smoking Benson & Hedges. Now it’s being developed, ironically using lottery money from the pockets of those self same tracksuited mums. But what was The Level like back in its heyday? Ninety-six year-old local Canderel Robertson-Justice remembers…
On the level
“In the old days The Level was world-famous, oh yes. In fact, you know that expression “on the level”, meaning “all above board”? Well not many people know that expression actually comes from The Level. You see, back in 1928 the old law courts burnt down, and they couldn’t find suitable premises, so they elected to hold all their trials al fresco as it were, on The Level (it was handy, because if a murder trial was going on a bit, and the jury were flagging, they could perk themselves up a bit with an ice lolly from the kiosk).
Now, the most renowned judge presiding there at the time was the His Lordship, Sir William Bathurst. Old Bathurst once sentenced a man to only 49 instead of 50 lashes for stealing a jar of pickled onions because it was the day of his mother’s funeral, and he always absolutely refused to have anyone stoned to death on a Sunday. Thus, as his judicial business was conducted “on the level”, this phrase soon passed into common parlance.
The straw that broke the camel’s back
You know the phrase? That comes from The Level too. Well luckily for you I’m a bit of an amateur local historian so…to start at the beginning. From time immemorial there has been a patch of land between Ditchling and Lewes Roads. Up until the late 1700s it was a wild forest. Then, in 1800, King George III, who was as mad as a bleeding hatter, had all the trees rounded up and put in the Tower of London for conspiring against him, and it was decided to change the place into a wildlife park.
A huge, great fence made of solid brass was put up round it and it was filled with exotic animals of all kinds – zebras, ostriches, duck-billed platypuses, and the like. Particularly popular were the camel rides which took place every day at one o’clock. The great and the good used to flock to have a go; Thomas Jefferson, Davy Crockett, Edmund Kean, Ellen Terry, Buffalo Bill Cody,
J.P. Morgan, Tom Thug, Doomlord, School Belle, M.A.C.H. 1.
Unfortunately in 1835 they allowed one Hubert Straw, of Sunbury-on-Thames, a young man who weighed some 43 stone, to mount one of the camels. The camel’s spine snapped immediately and an oft-used phrase was born!
Back to Jurassic Park
Everything was going swimmingly until 1868 when the park’s trustees made the mistake of disturbing the park’s finely-calibrated ecosystem by introducing a Tyrannosaurus Rex, who rather sadly devoured every last one of the animals, as well as a now-elderly Hubert Straw who happened to be passing at the time.
Breaking eggs
You know the phrase “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs”? Well, unbelievably enough, that actually comes from The Level too. You see, in 1938 I had a job delivering produce for a local dairy and one day I parked my bike at The Level (to have a Jimmy Riddle in point of fact.) When I exited the toilets, however, I was approached by the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, along with Lord Caldecote and Sir Kingsley Wood. All three appeared to have been drinking.
“Hey pal, we’re starving. Gie us a few of them eggs, eh?” said Chamberlain. I explained that the eggs in question were the property of the dairy and that consequently such a transaction would be impossible, whereupon Caldecote and Wood held me down while Chamberlain took off his mac and hat… (continued on page 98.)
