Bob a Job …. baked beans…. and an encounter on Kender Street …….adventures in Peckham

This is the building, or more accurately a flat in the building which still 63 years after the event never quite leaves my memory.

Kender House and the scene of the Bob a Job nightmare, 2023

I could be very dramatic about the experience and use words like “a haunting memory”, or “seared into my consciousness” but they would exaggerate what was simply a bit of outrageous exploitation.

It will have been around 1960 and kitted out in my green jersey, yellow scarf and peaked Cub hat and in the company of another I set out to take part in that all important Bob a Job Week.

The scheme of doing a good task which was rewarded with a “bob” or shilling began in 1949 and was supposed to be character building for those who did it, helpful to those who found the job and beneficial to the Cub and Scout group.

The week began well with mother and our adopted aunt providing a series of not too arduous tasks, and finished in this building.

The willing Cub recruit, 1959

I say finished because we never bothered again after knocking on at the door of one of the flats and spending what seemed an hour washing the breakfast plates, assorted pans, forks, spoons and cups. 

Even at the time I reflected that the peals of laughter from the front room which rose in tandem with the columns of cigarette smoke were a sign that we had been “had”.  

The remnants of baked beans were stuck fast to the pan, the grease from the sausages and bacon slid in great congealed lumps from a frying pan which looked as if it had been in constant use since the death of the old King while the teacups were stained brown and stubbornly remained so.

Just how long we laboured was anyone’s guess but eventually we were done.

After that me and the Cubs had a falling out, which was never reconciled.  It was less the unpleasant washing up job, but more what even then I though was bare faced exploitation of two ten year olds.

Never one to learn my lesson three years later I enlisted in the Sea Cadets which met at my old junior school in the hall of Edmund Waller.

Every Friday through the winter of 1963 into the spring of the following year we paraded in our authentic naval uniforms, learned Morse code, tied a variety of “approved” knots and attempted to remember a heap of different flags.

The downside was trying to correctly press the bell bottom trousers and wash off the blue stain from the woollen jumper, while the upside were the misshapen jam tarts made by the caretaker’s wife which we consumed during the break.

Sea Cadets learning to tie knots and splice rope, 1943

Had I stayed I would no doubt have had plenty of trips out, but sadly I only managed one very cold and wet Sunday on the Surrey canal learning or in my case not learning how to row.

By the Easter of 1964 we had moved from Peckham to Eltham, and that was pretty much the end of my adventures with cubs, sea cadets and baked beans.

Eltham and Woolwich offered new horizons, and pretty soon they encompassed the back rows of cinemas, the angst of waiting for that return phone call from that significant date the night before and dreams of guitars and music.

That said I have never quite shaken off the memory of baked beans and greasy frying pans and only last week I wandered past Kender House on Kender Street trying to work out which flat was home to the stuff from that dreadful breakfast.

Odd what still stalks your memory 63 years after the event.

Location; Peckham

Pictures; Kender House, Kender Street, 2023, courtesy of Google maps, the willing Cub conscript, circa 1959,and Sea Cadets learn to tie knots and splice rope at HMS UNDINE at Bowness-on-Windermere, 1943, D 16280 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.