INTERVIEWING Sean Connery in a Wimpy restaurant was among the memories which came flooding back to Radio One's longest serving DJ when she viewed The Argus archives.

Annie Nightingale, a reporter at the newspaper in the 1960s, reminisced over the bizarre location for the meeting when she visited Brighton last week and looked back over her work and some memorable pictures of her in action.

"I loved my time on The Argus and living in Brighton was fantastic. And I'm still a news hound.

"It all started at Peacehaven Parish Council. I still remember sitting in the meetings aged 19. But there was such variety. I was doing that, then the next day interviewing the mother who insisted her son was not a murderer and then I was interviewing Sean Connery in a Wimpy. It was much easier to interview famous people then."

The DJ looked through pictures of her time in Brighton held in The Argus archive and cuttings from editions of the newspaper from the 1960s stored on microform during a trip to The Keep archive centre.

She smiled at the memory of her presenting the Brighton Song Festival at the Dome in May 1965 in the spirit of Eurovision, pictured next to a leader board which showed Lulu at number six.

She recalled her brief "dalliance" with fashion when she was involved in the opening of boutique SNOB when it opened in October 1965 after seeing pictures of her with a mannequin and one of the co-directors Philip Hillman.

There were also pictures of her presenting competition winners with their prizes, including a certificate to three-year-old Michele Rogers of Bevendean Road, Saltdean, who had been crowned the young carnival princess on May 31, 1971.

Some incidents proved a bit of a mystery, such as a favourite Argus picture of her being cut in half by magician John Southgate in 1987.

The Keep, a £19 million project, opened its doors in Wollards Way last year and holds a vast collection of historical documents of local importance including census and newspaper reports. A copy of every Argus since it was first published is kept on microform up to the year 2000 or as a hard copy from then on to the present day. During the visit on Tuesday staff said they recommend The Argus as a useful resource for visitors as a historical record.

Ms Nightingale added: "I think The Keep is a fantastic facility and its material is extremely useful. It was brilliant to look at everything. I found some of my old columns and it was a fascinating experience looking at all the old editions - seeing the adverts, what was on tv and the news stories."

 

Factfile

THE Keep is the result of a £19 million project to preserve archives of local historical information.

Opening just a year ago it allows visitors free access to all the collections of the East Sussex Record Office, the Royal Pavilion and Museums Local History Collections and the University of Sussex Special Collections. The Sussex Family History Group library and the Historic Environment Record database is also available  as well as newspaper archives and other documents. There are more than six miles of archives over three storeys.

It is open from Tuesday to Friday from 9.30am to 5pm and from 9.30am to 4pm on Saturday.

For information call 01273 482349 or email thekeep@eastsussex.gov.uk.