Novium museum charts lives of 1930s miners relocated to Sidlesham

Unemployed miners found new work on on the south coast

The lives of unemployed miners and shipbuilders who moved from the north-east of England to Sussex during the industrial depression of the 1930s are the focus of a new exhibition.

The move south came when, in 1934, the Land Settlement Association established 20 sites where jobless families were given smallholdings.

Families of 120 men relocated to the largest of the farms at Sidlesham.

Their story is being retold at Chichester's Novium museum.

The creation of the smallholdings was to alleviate mass unemployment which had hit the North East.

Each tenant was given a house, piggery, chicken battery, access to a glasshouse and four acres of land, with the smallholdings run as a cooperative.

Norman Dixon was aged 10 when he moved to Sidlesham with his family

Norman Dixon, now 86, was just 10 when he arrived with his family from Gateshead.

Mr Dixon, who left Tyneside with his family in 1939, said: "I was a little boy when we came down here with the whole family.

The smallholdings were run as a cooperative

"My father had been down the coal mines looking after the old pit ponies, but he ended up on the dole for about 13 years.

"He put his name down for the scheme and was given a place here at Sidlesham.

"When we left home it was the only time I saw my mother cry."

The house built by the LSA for Mr Dixon is still standing

The family eventually established a successful agricultural business, producing vegetables and keeping pigs and hens.

Mr Dixon worked for his father for 13 years and later took over the smallholding when he retired in the late 1950s.

He still lives in the same house his family took over as a tenant.

He added: "We fitted in all right. In fact there were four new classrooms built at the school to take the LSA children."

Tenants grew produce in glasshouses

Bill Martin, who carried out the research for the exhibition, compared the success of the LSA scheme to the disappointment of the Jarrow marchers of 1936, who walked to London to lobby for help for the unemployed but returned empty handed.

Mr Martin said: "The 200 who marched from Jarrow returned with nothing. The 120 [at Sidlesham] were to begin a multi-million pound horticultural industry which still exists today,

The families who moved to Sidlesham have remained in the area, with many of the smallholdings being passed down through generations.

Families of the original tenants stayed in the area

'Living history'

Chichester District Council said the LSA officially closed in 1983 and a group of tenants formed their own company which traded until the late 1990s.

Most of the properties are now privately owned, but independent growers remain there, the local authority added.

Museum experts have described the development of Sidlesham's LSA as a significant historical event.

It was the start of a multi-million pound industry

Sidlesham's 1930s' history is still remembered locally

Other LSA schemes were established at Dunstable in Bedfordshire, Fen Drayton in Cambridgeshire and Harrowby in Lincolnshire.

Manager of the Novium, Cathy Hakes, said: "It's a story that is living history and in living memory.

She added that to be able to tell the story was "just fantastic".