Viva Lewes Issue #135 December 2017

INSIDE LEFT
REDUNDANT RUDOLPH
Tom and Tania sifted through the Reeves archives to find this Christmas cracker, taken, according
to the notes, in December 1931. “The negative tells us it is ‘Father Christmas on Croft,’ Tom tells
us. “The croft was a three-wheeled delivery vehicle, and the shot was taken for Cecil Rugg, of Ruggs
Garage in Station Street.”
It’s a fun bit of marketing: it looks like this particular Croft was just driven around town by an employee
dressed as Santa in order to advertise the fact that Ruggs sold this type of vehicle. At the time,
Ruggs was an impressive state-of-the-art enterprise, as we can see from a three-page 1935 feature in
the Sussex County Magazine.
The company started in 1885, we’re told, as a bicycle shop at 1, Fisher Street, run by Arthur Rugg. In
1906 he started selling motorcycles, too, and when in the early 20s motor cars became the natural progression
for the company, it moved its premises to the splendid former coaching yard in Station Street
(where Caburn Court now is), which was open till the company closed down in the 80s.
Around the same time as the move, Arthur’s son Cecil took over from his dad, and turned the garage
into a multi-faceted service for everybody’s motor car needs. As well as selling new and used cars,
Ruggs rented them out, too, with or without a driver. They provided petrol and oil, did repairs, ran a
breakdown vehicle, and paid an in-house taxi driver to be on call 24/7.
The driver was one of two men to live on site, in two ancient cottages which were preserved from the
old coaching yard: the Sussex County Magazine (who, one suspects, were paid for running the piece)
gush: ‘The same wisdom which preserved these cottages has been exercised in the building of the
modern garage premises, which are as attractive in their modernity as were the old coaching stables in
their antiquity’.
We suspect the Santa in the picture to be the taxi driver with a beard on; we’re very taken with the
slogan he’s parading around town, and his klaxon.
Thanks, as ever, to Tom and Tania from Reeves (01273 473274) for this photograph by Tom’s father,
Edward: it’s worth noting that Edward’s sister Jean married Cecil Rugg!
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