The story of one house in Peckham over a century and a half, and of one family who lived there in the 1950s.*
Now for obvious reasons I have no memory of being baptized in All Saints Hatcham Park.
But today I came across the order of service and with that came flooding back a series of memories of the church, my brief time as a Cub and even briefer time in the Sea Cadets.
It will be a full fifty two years since I last stood in front of the church but looking at pictures of it today is to be reminded of what an impressive building it was.
According to the Diocese of Southwark it was built between 1869-71 “of Kentish rag, in the decorated style of Foreign Gothic: nave, aisles, transept and chancel with three-sided apse. A tower at the north-west has not been built.
A large circular traceried window is at the west end; the east windows have glass of 1954 by Goddard and Gibbs.”*
And of course it is that large circle window which catches your eye as you pass down New Cross Road although I am also fascinated by that large painted ghost sign for W Uden & Sons Ltd.
But stories of ghost signs are for another time; instead it is the community building that is exercising my memory. I can’t now remember if it is the one that stands beside the church today or an earlier structure.
My one had a stage at one end with a trap door which we were regularly sent down to retrieve some item that was needed for the nights activities. It was musty with the dust of ages and had I rooted hard enough no doubt would have found untold treasures.
Mostly it was bean bags and bits of rope which is about all I can remember other than the one Bob a Job year which took me and some else to that block of flats at the start of Kender Street just down from the Montague Arms.
To the vague amusement of the people in the flat we were given the job of washing plates which I can still remember must have had baked beans glued to their sides and for which we walked away with sixpence, which given the task and the fact that we had earned only 50% of the bob still rankles to this day.
Even so that was the high point of my scouting career. I can’t say I liked the green jumpers of the yellow scarves and shortly after that bob a job day I left.
Later much later I briefly flirted with the Sea Cadets which had the attraction of a full naval uniform.
We met in the lower hall of Edmund Waller school spent the evening drilling, learning Morse code and for a few pennies got to buy and eat the jam tarts made by the caretaker’s wife. If you were lucky they looked and tasted like jam tarts but if you were at the back of the queue you got the burnt ones.
The upside was the Sunday’s rowing down at the docks, events which always seemed to happen in winter on one of those miserably grey wet days when the wind knifed across the open water penetrating all the layers you were wearing.
Looking back my organised youth activities were short lived and while the Sea Cadets was fun it came to an end when we left for Eltham.
I have to confess I never really got the hang of either Morse code or the variety of knots and my two lasting memories are of how the blue dye from the woollen jumper came off all over you and arriving home to the news that President Kennedy had been shot.
It’s odd how after fifty years it is a plate of baked beans, a blue woollen jumper and the news of an assassination which are the lasting legacy of my time with the cubs and Cadets.
Pictures; All Saints, Hatcham Park, 1950, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Sea Cadet badge by Fry 1989 from Sea Cadets, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Cadet_Corps_(United_Kingdom)
*The story of one house in Lausanne Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road
** Diocese of Southwark http://www.southwark.anglican.org/parishes/119k
But today I came across the order of service and with that came flooding back a series of memories of the church, my brief time as a Cub and even briefer time in the Sea Cadets.
It will be a full fifty two years since I last stood in front of the church but looking at pictures of it today is to be reminded of what an impressive building it was.
According to the Diocese of Southwark it was built between 1869-71 “of Kentish rag, in the decorated style of Foreign Gothic: nave, aisles, transept and chancel with three-sided apse. A tower at the north-west has not been built.
And of course it is that large circle window which catches your eye as you pass down New Cross Road although I am also fascinated by that large painted ghost sign for W Uden & Sons Ltd.
But stories of ghost signs are for another time; instead it is the community building that is exercising my memory. I can’t now remember if it is the one that stands beside the church today or an earlier structure.
My one had a stage at one end with a trap door which we were regularly sent down to retrieve some item that was needed for the nights activities. It was musty with the dust of ages and had I rooted hard enough no doubt would have found untold treasures.
Mostly it was bean bags and bits of rope which is about all I can remember other than the one Bob a Job year which took me and some else to that block of flats at the start of Kender Street just down from the Montague Arms.
To the vague amusement of the people in the flat we were given the job of washing plates which I can still remember must have had baked beans glued to their sides and for which we walked away with sixpence, which given the task and the fact that we had earned only 50% of the bob still rankles to this day.
Later much later I briefly flirted with the Sea Cadets which had the attraction of a full naval uniform.
The upside was the Sunday’s rowing down at the docks, events which always seemed to happen in winter on one of those miserably grey wet days when the wind knifed across the open water penetrating all the layers you were wearing.
Looking back my organised youth activities were short lived and while the Sea Cadets was fun it came to an end when we left for Eltham.
I have to confess I never really got the hang of either Morse code or the variety of knots and my two lasting memories are of how the blue dye from the woollen jumper came off all over you and arriving home to the news that President Kennedy had been shot.
It’s odd how after fifty years it is a plate of baked beans, a blue woollen jumper and the news of an assassination which are the lasting legacy of my time with the cubs and Cadets.
Pictures; All Saints, Hatcham Park, 1950, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Sea Cadet badge by Fry 1989 from Sea Cadets, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Cadet_Corps_(United_Kingdom)
*The story of one house in Lausanne Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road
** Diocese of Southwark http://www.southwark.anglican.org/parishes/119k
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