Des Lynam's roots are humbler than Martha Buckley realises (February 21).

Des lived his early days in the Fifties in Kipling Avenue, Woodingdean, on the estate of prefab "homes fit for heroes".

He is only one of a host of "glams" linked to Woodingdean.

There were the parents of Errol Flynn, who lived in McWilliam Road for many years, until Mrs Flynn's tragic death in a road accident in the late Sixties.

Indeed, my first ever paid job was to clean the Flynns' car, an ageing Hillman Minx, for the princely sum of 2/6 (that's 12.5p).

Mrs Flynn always promised me 3/6 but never put the rate up - shame I hadn't discovered trade unions then.

Another star of the silver screen was actor Nigel Green. He used to drink in the Downs Hotel and was a lovely man.

Then there was the first Sussex Labour MP, Denis Hobden, who started life in Langley Crescent and, by an incredible coincidence, ended up living in the same house the Flynns had occupied.

Stan Fitch, that stalwart Labour hero on Brighton's (then) Tory council, was an honoured Woodingdean resident.

And Woodingdean's political connections remain strong today. Councillor Gill Mitchell, the erstwhile Brighton Labour councillor, is a resident, as is Councillor Geoff Wells, a lifelong Woodingdeaner and the natural next leader of the Tory Party, some predict.

But Woodingdean's greatest claim to fame is surely Rudyard Lockwood Kipling, the writer and unofficial Poet Laureate, who regularly walked across the Downs into his beloved Woodingdean.

Kipling's writings enrich English literature immeasurably while reminding us that Britain's imperial past is not quite as glorious as some would have us believe.

It's ironic Des should have started life in Kipling Avenue, named after this giant of English literature.

How do I know all this? Because, like Des, I was a prefab dweller, too, in Lockwood Crescent.

-Hon E St Labore, address supplied