London Road butcher comes home

But the family trade lives on and now Robert Green has come home - he has opened his own local business called London Road Butchers.

"I've been a butcher all my life," said Robert.

"It's in my blood - definitely.

"My grandfather moved to Bexhill in the early 1940's and his first shop was just down the road here - he was Mr Archer Hunt. He sold to Mr Chambers and bought a shop in Little Common - now Betts and Lloyd."

His father Malcolm was also in the trade, and having grown up in Reginald Road, Robert began his own training at the age of 15, and worked for William Plow's butcher shop in Sidley for 14 years. He spent seven years as a meat inspector before becoming a butcher again, based in West Wickham where he commuted every day, and where he won a number of awards for his excellence in sausage-making.

More recently he worked for a butcher shop in Battle but now he has started up on his own and is selling free range meat and poultry of organic quality which is supplied from Highlands farm in Horam.

"We do it at the same price as for normal meat - we even have free range lamb. We have been very busy - I know it is a downtime but people want the product. I think they want to buy it somewhere like this, not just go to the supermarket. I had the chance to open here, and it is something I always wanted to do."