Growing up in New Cross nu 2 ........... looking for that newsagents on Mona Road

Lausanne Road, 2007

I went looking for the little newsagents on Mona Road.

In its time it delivered our papers, my comics and once briefly provided me with a job.

But the less said about the paper round the better. It was a disaster for me, the shop and the customers.

Despite this hiccup I still have a fond spot for the place and remember that overpowering smell of newsprint and chocolate along with the heavy dark wooden counters and shelves that disappeared into the ceiling and no doubt had you rummaged at the back there would have been the odd item which was sold as new when the old king died.

Now Mona Road isn’t a very long road and consisted of just six houses on the north side and seven opposite.

And as well as being the location for our newsagent was also part of the route I took from Lausanne Road to Edmund Waller.

So I felt fairly confident that it would be one of those little personal landmarks which would still be there and while I was prepared for some changes I would still be able to buy a Kit Kat, look through the comics and touch a bit of my past.

I reckoned the old hand painted sign running the length of the shop would have gone along with the small shop window replaced by one of those 1970s walls of glass.  This I reasoned was progress but the reality was worse, for along with the other five houses it had gone completely, cleared away and replaced by a large block of flats which spill out on to Lausanne Road.

And while they were at it those responsible also did away with a stretch of Dennett’s Road.

At which point it would easy and lazy to condemn what happened to that bit of my history, but I haven’t lived there since 1964, don’t pay the council tax and have no idea of the state of the properties which were demolished.

So I shall return to my newsagents.

Searching back through the memories I think it must once have been a private residence which at some time was converted.  Back in 1914 the directory lists a Mr Tom Noble newsagent at number 13 which seems to be a smaller property at the end of the row at the Dennett’s end.

The eagle Comic, 1959

But I remember it in the middle of the row and I doubt there will be any one who can help.

Which of course is the problem, for with the passage of over half a century I have lost contact with everyone I knew in the area.

That said I have made new friends, some of whom we have discovered lived very close by and but for an accident of different schools may well have become friends.

And I am confident that something will eventually pop up about that newsagent and if not it will have to be the hard trawl through the old directories for the 1950s.  But they are not on line and can only be accessed by a visit to the local studies centre, which will involve a trip back to Peckham.

Which is pretty much where I came in and just leaves me to reflect on the Eagle comic which fell through our door from Mona Road everyday from the mid 1950s through to the early 60’s.

It saw me through my early years and pretty much sums up much about the period which I rather think will work its way into a story.

Pictures; Walter Green House, 2007 from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick , Safari in Space,  the Eagle Comic, 1959