So. Farewell then, Sam

Who would have thought Temple Street was a hotbed of musical talent? And that a UK Number One single was partly recorded at Number 36? Sam Preston's departure has thrown a spotlight on a surprising side of the Street

 Sam Preston – ex Big Brother star, ex Ordinary Boy, now a successful songwriter 

So farewell then, Sam Preston. Or just Preston as the world knew and loved him on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006. He met Chantelle Houghton in the Big Brother House and their unfolding romance was the highspot of the show.

When he came to live in the street, he was still attracting the attention of the tabloids, still prime celeb mag fodder. Patient papperazzi sat outside in their cars, waiting to spring out to take a lucrative pic or two when he ventured out.

Eventually, it all quietened down and Sam – the name he now prefers – has lived at Number 36 on and off for 11 years and now, along with his partner Emily Smith, he is decamping to a four-bedroomed house in Brixton. Soon after Celebrity Big Brother finished, Sam he had married Chantelle in 2007, but the couple announced their separation a year later.

"It all seems so long ago, and as if it all happened to someone else," he says, "although I do still get reminded. The other day a man in the street shouted 'Oi! Preston! My sister named her son after you!'"

Onstage with The Ordinary Boys

Chantelle and Preston – as seen on Big Brother

When he signed up for the TV show, Sam was the lead singer with the Worthing-based rock band The Ordinary Boys, who scored a solid string of chart hits from 2004-7. After they split he launched a solo career, which unfortunately stalled when he broke both his arms coming off his bike and had to cancel his debut tour.

It must be said he does seem to be rather accident prone. Sam's most recent mishap (and his last, we hope) was on September 1st last year and it was no laughing matter. He plunged off a hotel balcony in Denmark, four stories up, and broke his arm, shoulder blade, leg and pelvis. "I'm metal right through from here...to here," he told us, pointing from his ankle up to his shoulder. "I went to the toilet in Temple Street – or so I thought, half asleep in the middle of the night – and woke up days later in a Danish Hospital. I was barely conscious for a week.

"I had tubes sticking out of me everywhere, and my leg, which had been pushed right back behind my head by the fall, wasn't at first actually attached to my body. When I opened my eyes one day I saw a nurse quietly weeping in the corner of my room. I asked somebody why, and I was told she'd been to a 'grief meeting' about my death, and then she'd come in here and found me still alive."

As soon as Emily heard about the accident, she took the first flight over, and she looked after me from that moment," he said. For six months residents of Temple Street saw her gamely pushing him around in a wheelchair. It wasn't an easy recovery. At one stage Sam says he was told he'd be seriously disabled for life 'but I wasn't going to give in to it.' September 1st is s significant date to him for another reason – he hasn't touched alcohol since.

Sam and Emily in August last year

After the accident Sam had to give up playing the guitar because of the damage done to his fingers and he now makes his living as a songwriter. He's been rather successful too, co-writing Ollie Murs' number one hit Heart Skips A Beat  – some of which was actually recorded in his soundproofed recording studio in Temple Street – and penning songs for Enrique Iglesias, Cher and Kylie Minogue.

Ollie Murs – Sam co-wrote his second Number One single

Temple Street's connections to the music industry don't stop there. For a year, Sam's maisonette was rented out to a friend, the singer-songwriter Lucy Spraggan, who was the only contestant on the X-Factor to score a top 40 single and album before the live shows had even aired. Her career is currently very much on the up, says Sam.

Lucy Spraggan – spent a year at Number 36

Then there's Peter Stein, an Australian musician, who lives next door at number 35. As well as making his own albums, Peter has written for legendary gospel band The Blind Boys of Alabama amongst many others. Peter's another Temple Street muso with a soundproofed studio in his house. His daughter Juanita is lead singer with another band – Howling Bells – whose name you can see set into the concrete outside number 35. Yes, music history is literally etched into the fabric of this street!

Juanita Stein and Howling Bells

Finally, Sam told us that another of his friends, Joseph Mount, founder, vocalist and keyboard player of Metronomy, another excellent Brighton band, lived above our pizza takeaway, La Cucina, at the top of the road.

Metronomy's Joseph Mount, who used to live above the pizza takeaway 

There could be more in our midst, sitting quietly at keyboards and plucking thoughtfully at guitar strings. What future talent is brooding in dark as yet-undiscovered studios in the Street? We will keep you in touch as they emerge.

Meanwhile Sam and Emily are flitting this nest of musical talent for South London, and they have announced that they are going to be married next year. So it's goodbye, good luck at avoiding future accidents and many congrats from us.Many congrats to the happy pair from the staff of the Irregular!

Before we left him to get on with his packing, Sam said the nicest thing: "Leaving Brighton is hard," he said, looking down our road at the shimmering sea. Then he looked at the colourful little terrace of houses across the road.  "But it's not half as hard as leaving Temple Street."

  

Temple Street’s tragic anniversaries

Today marks an unhappy anniversary in Temple Street. Every street has had its tragedies, and as the years pass, memories fade, people move away and die, and life moves on. But delve in the coroner’s reports at The Keep*, East Sussex's new repository of local records, and you will find glimpses of sad events which must have been the talk of Temple Street in their time.

The cliffs at Black Rock

83 years ago Arthur Spilsbury threw himself off the cliffs at Black Rock. The records show that on July 2 1934 Arthur Richard Silsbury of 12 Temple Street, Brighton, electrical engineer; 57; on the Undercliff Walk, Black Rock; found dead, laceration of the brain and shock due to throwing himself over the cliffs at Black Rock whilst of unsound mind; suicide

James Gow Brock, 58; 6 Temple Street, Brighton; coal gas poisoning, self inhaled, 25 Oct 1937, suicide

Virginia Ann Sabey of 17 Temple Street, Brighton, old age pensioner, widow of William Samuel Sabey, paper hanger and decorator; 88; at Brighton Infirmary, 250 Elm Grove; shock following fracture of the right femur caused by a fall at [home] on 16 Dec 1928; accidental death

Mary Ann Elizabeth Banister of 19 Temple Street, Brighton, wife of Thomas Banister, retired police inspector; 65; dislocation of the spine between the 1st and 2nd cervical vertebrae caused by a fall down stairs at [home] on 12 Feb 1913; accidental death. No warrant

Florence Evelyn Renton Bird of 22 Temple Street, Brighton; 84; widow; at Brighton Municipal Hospital on 24 Nov 1944; myocardial degeneration accelerated by injuries sustained after a fall at home; accident

Edward Tyrell of 36 Temple Street, Brighton, painter and decorator; 24; at Sussex County Hospital; fracture of the skull caused by a fall from a window at [home]; accidental death 23 August 1905

Anne Katherine Archer of 37 Temple Street, Brighton, widow of John Chapman Archer, banker's clerk; 79; at the Royal Sussex County Hospital; uraemia following shock and fracture of the left legs caused by deceased having been knocked down and run over by a motor omnibus driven by Harry Victor Buckman in Western Road on 28 Dec 1921; accidental death

William Arthur James, riding master, 39 Temple Street, Brighton, 50; pneumonia following injuries caused by being knocked down by a bicycle; accidental death. 1924


* http://www.thekeep.info/