Both mum and dad were voracious readers devouring two or three books a week.
In the winter dad would prefer the battered old armchair in the kitchen.
Here beside the equally battered stove he would pass the evening with a succession of historical novels.
Mum on the other hand preferred the front room with the telly mixing the news, light entertainment and those kitchen sink dramas with a variety of reading stuff.
She also wrote short plays, stories and was working on a novel based on the people she came across in our bit of South East London.
Meanwhile Dad would also spend part of those long winter evenings making toys for the five of us for Christmas.
I didn’t think at the time we were unusual and I still don’t and that I suppose is the point, because it is all too easy to slip into simplistic stereo types when you are writing about growing up in Peckham.
But like any working class area it was a place rich with variety.
There were plenty of pubs, cinemas and characters who could have stepped out of a Dickens’s novel but at the same time the library on New Cross Road was always full as was the private circulating library based in the local book shop.
Both of them I remember vividly.
The book shop which was opposite the library was stacked full of books to buy and borrow.
It was one of those dark cavernous places where the shelves ran up into the ceiling and each book carried a blue sticker with the name and address of the shop on the back.
Conversations were conducted in hushed tones but they were always animated as mum swapped her opinions on the book she had just read with the owners who in turn would suggest different titles.
Some were by the same author in the same style but other’s would offer up an alternative, “Well Mrs Simpson if you enjoyed that one, why not look at this, it’s only just come into the shop and I think you would find it interesting.”
By comparison New Cross Public Library was that old fashioned style of library with neat solid reading tables, matched by sturdy bookshelves full of everything you might ever want to read, and laid out in meticulous order.
And it was visited with the utmost care to remain as quiet as possible, which if you forgot you were quickly made of aware of by the signs requesting “Silence which were everywhere.”
It was a Carnegie Library built in 1911 and not unlike our own here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.*
I always thought it was a place to endure rather than enjoy and always tried to avoid visiting.
And yet now as I hold a copy of a book mother forgot to return that smell of disinfectant which still permeates the book takes me right back to the library which I miss.
Now the book was James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I have to confess I have never read and I rather think mum didn’t either.
I have thought of returning it but the library has long since relocated but just possibly the current owners would welcome a little bit of the building's past history.
They are the Music Room London, who according to their site established their "first rehearsal studio in 1985, when it was located in the basement of The Garden Gallery on Monson Road, New Cross Gate. This small basement studio, famous for its toasted cheese sandwiches, was frequented by many including Daevid Allen’s Franco-British progressive/psychedelic rock band Gong."**
Now that I think mother would have approved of given she was always one for anything which shook the trees.
She was I suspect the only person on Lausanne Road to take the Police Gazette.
In mum’s defence she found the stories of robberies fraud and much worse a fascinating starting point for stories, and possible chapters in that book.
In fact thinking back our paper bill must have been mega, because along with the newspapers, Police Gazette and a shed full of comics ranging from the Beano, Eagle and Look and Learn there were also Punch, Knitting Weekly and Railway Monthly.
All told a vast acre of news print which came into the house and was devoured before being passed on to mum’s best friend, B who lived at the top of Kinder Street.
That said my Eagles were carefully stored away along with the Lion and Tiger and later the Look and Learn to be brought out on rainy days.
Alas all were junked when we left Peckham, although just last week I came across one of those knitting patterns, but that as they say is for another time.
Pictures; Dad 1962, and mum 1956 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, New Cross Library in 1911, The London Music Rooms, New Cross Road courtesy of the The Music Room London, 2015, and Lausanne Road, 2007 from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick
*Debates which never go away, ......... the story of our public library, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/debates-which-never-go-away-story-of.html
**Music Room London, http://www.musicroomlondon.com/
 |
| New Cross Library, 1911 |
Here beside the equally battered stove he would pass the evening with a succession of historical novels.
Mum on the other hand preferred the front room with the telly mixing the news, light entertainment and those kitchen sink dramas with a variety of reading stuff.
She also wrote short plays, stories and was working on a novel based on the people she came across in our bit of South East London.
 |
| Dad, 1962 |
I didn’t think at the time we were unusual and I still don’t and that I suppose is the point, because it is all too easy to slip into simplistic stereo types when you are writing about growing up in Peckham.
But like any working class area it was a place rich with variety.
There were plenty of pubs, cinemas and characters who could have stepped out of a Dickens’s novel but at the same time the library on New Cross Road was always full as was the private circulating library based in the local book shop.
Both of them I remember vividly.
The book shop which was opposite the library was stacked full of books to buy and borrow.
Conversations were conducted in hushed tones but they were always animated as mum swapped her opinions on the book she had just read with the owners who in turn would suggest different titles.
Some were by the same author in the same style but other’s would offer up an alternative, “Well Mrs Simpson if you enjoyed that one, why not look at this, it’s only just come into the shop and I think you would find it interesting.”
 |
| Mum, 1955 |
And it was visited with the utmost care to remain as quiet as possible, which if you forgot you were quickly made of aware of by the signs requesting “Silence which were everywhere.”
It was a Carnegie Library built in 1911 and not unlike our own here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.*
I always thought it was a place to endure rather than enjoy and always tried to avoid visiting.
And yet now as I hold a copy of a book mother forgot to return that smell of disinfectant which still permeates the book takes me right back to the library which I miss.
Now the book was James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I have to confess I have never read and I rather think mum didn’t either.
I have thought of returning it but the library has long since relocated but just possibly the current owners would welcome a little bit of the building's past history.
They are the Music Room London, who according to their site established their "first rehearsal studio in 1985, when it was located in the basement of The Garden Gallery on Monson Road, New Cross Gate. This small basement studio, famous for its toasted cheese sandwiches, was frequented by many including Daevid Allen’s Franco-British progressive/psychedelic rock band Gong."**
Now that I think mother would have approved of given she was always one for anything which shook the trees.
 |
| The Music Rooms, 2015 |
In mum’s defence she found the stories of robberies fraud and much worse a fascinating starting point for stories, and possible chapters in that book.
In fact thinking back our paper bill must have been mega, because along with the newspapers, Police Gazette and a shed full of comics ranging from the Beano, Eagle and Look and Learn there were also Punch, Knitting Weekly and Railway Monthly.
All told a vast acre of news print which came into the house and was devoured before being passed on to mum’s best friend, B who lived at the top of Kinder Street.
That said my Eagles were carefully stored away along with the Lion and Tiger and later the Look and Learn to be brought out on rainy days.
Alas all were junked when we left Peckham, although just last week I came across one of those knitting patterns, but that as they say is for another time.
Pictures; Dad 1962, and mum 1956 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, New Cross Library in 1911, The London Music Rooms, New Cross Road courtesy of the The Music Room London, 2015, and Lausanne Road, 2007 from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick
*Debates which never go away, ......... the story of our public library, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/debates-which-never-go-away-story-of.html
**Music Room London, http://www.musicroomlondon.com/
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