I have Merrydown's latest report and accounts. For many years, Merrydown has been Sussex's leading cider maker and it also makes and markets Shloer brands and it's doing well.

I have an affection for Merrydown. In 1951, Merrydown vintage cider was fashionable; its rather jazzy bottle may have helped but word got round there was plenty of alcohol in the fizz and there was - 10.5 per cent.

I was doing my National Service in the Navy and, with a number of colleagues, was drafted to HMS Vernon in Portsmouth for a three-week course. Vernon was known as a stone frigate, not a ship but a shore base.

Most of us were very poor. £2.20 per week in 1951 was much less than the average wage. We took to drinking Merrydown vintage cider.

"It is a damn fine drink," we said to each other in our posh accents. Indeed, it was a good drink and there was a bonus. It was cheap.

We had some riotous parties and then the axe fell. The bar steward was sorry but he had orders from the First Lieutenant - midshipmen were not to be served Merrydown Vintage Cider.

Merrydown was started by two friends, Ian Howie and Jack Ward. Ian had the misfortune to be a prisoner of war in the Forties but he experimented in making wine from currants from Red Cross parcels.

In peacetime, the friends developed a thriving business on the hill in Horam.

It was not only cider. They made a bewildering variety of country wines - gooseberry, elderberry, blackcurrant, rhubarb. You name it, they made it. They were generous, too. Coach parties had to be pre-booked and visitors appreciated the free samples.

Cider making has always been a difficult business and the company looked for other opportunities. Its interest in English wine was not a success.

It was at that time I met Jack Ward. He was kind, considerate and helpful, despite Merrydown's difficulties. The sudden fashion for alcoholic lemonade was another problem. The market collapsed before Merrydown made any money from its pioneering alcopop, Two Dogs.

The company's purchase of the Shloer brands from Beecham made a significant difference.

Better still, Merrydown has the resources to invest in marketing.

The spirit of Ian and Jack lives on.

Operational director Christopher Carr gave me a recipe for a really good party: The Red Bullet - four parts vintage cider, one part gin, one part redcurrant juice.

That's a stinger.