A little bit of Manchester in Deptford …….. football …… VHS …… and a charity shop

Deptford in south east London was almost where I grew up.

Au Revoir Cantona, date unknown

As a kid it was just a short bus ride from Peckham, and when we moved to Eltham was still a place I went back to.

But long ago I moved to Manchester, and never thought I could make a link between the two, but my new Facebook friend Paula, managed to find the link. 

And of course, I am the first to admit it will not appeal to everyone …… as the comments to the post will no doubt reflect.

That said it is a neat piece of history, being not only a record of Eric Cantona’s time with Manchester United, but one of those bits of lost technology.

VHS tape with time scale

Au Revoir Cantona is a VHS tape, which is now another example of a technological back alley.

Video Home System was briefly in the 1970s and 80s, the go to way of recording stuff to watch on the telly.  It saw off the Betamax rival but in turn was sent off the scene by the DVD.

For perhaps a decade and a bit more they were an essential addition to the television, allowing you to both buy or rent commercial films to watch at home, and to record stuff to watch at a later time.

It’s downfall was that often the tapes became slack or just got jammed, and for those with a hectic social life, recording something to watch later, didn’t always work given that the hectic social life left little time to watch even the recorded shows.

I bet most of us will still have the odd VHS tape knocking around, which can never be played given that the accompanying VHS recorder has long since been skipped.  So they sit in a corner of the cellar or attic waiting the time  they will be transferred to a DVD, which is a time that never comes.

My kids are of an age which means that they remember them, but not so the next generation.  To them these clunky rather unsophisticated looking bits of technology are as remote as the cassette, the 78 record, and telegrams.

We will have had a few Man United VHS tapes given that three of our four lads are fans, and deep in the cellar at least one may have escaped the cull of all things obsolete.

And there they will stay, for without the recorder they are lost to us.  And I doubt any of the three will be beating their way to a shop to have them transferred to a DVD.

Deptford Town Hall

Leaving me just to ponder again on my time wandering the streets of Deptford, playing out one of many adventures, now over 60 years in the past.

Still it has rekindled an interest in the place, and I have asked Paula if she has pictures of Deptford, which in turn I suspect will lead to a series of stories.

We shall see.

Pictures; Au Revoir Cantona, 2021, from the collection of Paula Griffin,VHS tape with time scale, May 20, 2020, Tobias ToMar Maier, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license  and Deptford Town Hall, SE14, Philip Talmage / Deptford Town Hall, SE14 / CC BY-SA 2.0, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Down in Deptford thinking about Eltham Baths

Now I never went to Eltham Baths which is a pity but by the time we had washed up in Well Hall in the spring of 1964 I had plenty of other ways of using up my time.

In fact thinking about it I can remember only one day spent at a pool and that was the open air one down in Welling on one gloriously hot summer’s day in 1967.

So my memories of Eltham Baths are limited to those few times it was my turn to pick my sisters up and the odd ride past on the 21 down to Lewisham.

Instead my fondest memories are for the swimming baths at Deptford which was a grand old building and one which made you feel special had all the magic and grandeur of any Prince’s palace.

It was off the main road just past the Town Hall and seemed even to a seven year old an odd location.
Laurie Grove is a narrow enough street and the baths were sandwiched between houses.

But what it offered was magic enough.

It began as you entered and were hit by that mix of warm air, the smell chlorinated water and noise.

And even before you had bought your ticket and gone through the turn style the hot sticky atmosphere made your winter clothes stick to you, which continued as you walked along the pool side to the changing rooms.

The bigger of the two contained a water shute along with diving platforms which were both a terror and an abiding source of attraction for the young and a constant challenge to achieve the slide or dive without being stopped by the attendant.

But for many the Baths were less a place of fun and more an essential to everyday life.  Like many others it offered had a set of slipper baths for those who no bath at home.

Nor were these the only ones.  Just behind where we used to live was the old Peckham Health Centre and along with its own big pool it also had baths.

Now we were lucky in that we had a bathroom but my friend Hugh and his siblings would make the short journey across the road armed with soap and their own towels once a week.

And it was there in the Health Centre that we had our swimming lessons made all the more enjoyable by those odd incidents like the day Paul Driver fell into the baths fully clothed and for ever after was known as Dribble.

It had opened in 1926 a mere babe compared to the Deptford Baths which had opened in 1898 and just missed its centenary closing in 1991.

By comparison the baths at Eltham were just a newcomer.  They were opened in 1939, closed in 2008 and demolished three years later.
Still those down there at Laurie Grove have survived and while no one can splash and shout inside its impressive facade, the building has been retained and is well worth a visit.

Picture; ©  Dr Neil Clifton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1786698

Now you can go looking for a water trough and five turn up on the same day

My water trough was at the top of St Mary’s Road where it joined Evelina Road.

I remember it from the 1950s and so did Linda and Joan and in the case of Joan she told me that  “you have just given me a memory jolt... I can recall my mum telling me off for trying to get into that trough..... it was all green and slimy inside !!”

I vaguely remember others and said I would set myself the task of looking for them and it is a search which has already been helped by Ros, Linda, Sue, Sharon and Helen who all came up with fresh sites.

So now I know of the one on the Old Kent Road where it joined New Cross Road, the two at the top of Deptford Road, the one at Vassel Road and a fifth outside the Kentish Drovers on Commercial Road where Sue’s mum fell in “and swallowed her false tooth celebrating on VJ night. What a night that must have been” and finally one on Southhampton Way.

There will be others, after all there were lots of horses and other livestock on our streets and all needed watering.

So the project has just started.

I am hoping for more stories and pictures.  Pat has promised one of the tough at Vassel Road.

So as they say watch this space.

Thanks to Linda Barnes,Helen Middleton, Sue England, Joan Griffiths Sharon Wood, and Pat Ross.

Picture. down on Bexley Road 2014, courtesy of Jean Gammons

The all time iconic buildings of where we live .................. what are they?

Now on this very wet day I have been thinking of what building I would nominate as my all time iconic building.

The rules are simple enough as I grew up  in Peckham and went to school in New Cross and often wandered as far as Deptford I have pretty much got a clear boundary which runs from Peckham Rye up past New Cross Gate and stops dead at Laurie Grove.

And as I am starting the series I reckon my list would include the Telephone Exchange and the Health Centre on St Mary’s Road, and the old swimming baths at Laurie Grove which opened in 1898 and just missed its centenary closing in 1991.

Added to these I think I would go for the old New Cross Public Library  and the Fire Station.

I could include Edmund Waller but it’s a bit like many board schools built between the 1870s into the 90s, so I shall leave it out.

And because I grew up with Saturday morning pictures I toyed with one of those majestic cinemas but they have all gone as have some of the pubs which I knew only as places to pass.

Which would also mean that the old coco factory on Kender Street would qualify but it was swept away decades ago and I don’t have a picture.

Now the beauty of the series is that it is open to anyone of any age, and of course is not limited to those who like me spent their earliest years in Peckham.

Everyone will bring a new take on what the area means to them and as I left in 1964 I have to say my buildings are frozen in time.

Location; Peckham to New Cross and on to Deptford

Paintings; the New Cross Telephone Exchange and Laurie Grove Swimming Baths, © 2015  Peter Topping

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Down in Deptford remembering J Stone and Co ............ another story from Barny

Does anyone remember (or used to work for J Stone and Co Engineering in ​Arklow Road, Deptford?

From 1881 to 1969 the industrial estate was Stone’s engineering works. J. Stone & Co had been founded by Josiah Stone in a workshop in Deptford in 1831, moving in 1842 to railway arches where he made hand pumps and manual fire engines.

The firm moved to Arklow Road in 1881 to make propellers, watertight ships doors, steam pumps, electric lighting systems for railways axle-driven lighting system, and later air conditioning for trains and other engineering products.

There was a Fastener Division, a Boiler Division, a Rail Division, and a Laundry Division. The propeller foundry moved to Charlton in 1916 where it remains.

In 1950 the Deptford works made rail and road transport products, nails, rivets and washers. In 1959 the firm became Stone Platt Industries, and in 1963 Stone Manganese Marine. The Deptford factory closed in 1969.

Stone's Office block. A classical building of 1916, with an extra floor added in 1928






Picture; inscribed name plate, and trade page courtesy of Grace's Guide to Britsh Industrial History, http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/

Searching the records of two Camberwell cemeteries has just become a bit easier

Now I don’t have any one buried in Camberwell but I bet there will be plenty of people who do so it might be of interest the burial books from two south London cemeteries are available online.

Details of more than 300,000 burials at Camberwell Old and Camberwell New cemeteries have been uploaded to deceasedonline.com where they can be searched by name and year of internment, according to WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? magazine.*

As well as a scan of the page on which the entry appears, each record contains a grid reference and links to a cemetery map, enabling the family historian to determine the exact location of their ancestor’s resting place.

Both sets of digitised records date back to the years in which the cemeteries first opened.

For Camberwell New Cemetery this is 1927 while for Camberwell Old Cemetery users can explore material from as early as 1856.

The release of the new datasets means Deceased Online now holds more than 700,000 records for cemeteries owned by Southwark Council.

Records from Honour Oak Crematorium, situated in the grounds of Camberwell New Cemetery, will be added in the next few weeks.**

Searching is FREE, and can be restricted as required to country, region, county, or individual burial authority or crematorium. If you register with Deceased Online, you will be able to purchase vouchers online, which you can spend to access further information associated with any of the found records. Or you can pay annual subscription of £89.

Pictures; Nunhead Cemetery from the collection of Sue Simpson

* WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?, September 2015,  issue 104, http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/

** Deceased Online, deceasedonline.com

The story of one house in Lausanne Road number 11 ............ down in Deptford and across the back to the Health Centre

The story of one house in Lausanne Road over a century and a half, and of one family who lived there in the 1950s.*

Now if you have to go swimming I can’t think of anywhere better than the baths at Deptford which was a grand old building and one which made you feel special because it had all the magic and grandeur of any Prince’s palace.

It was off the main road just past the Town Hall and seemed even to a ten year old an odd location.

Laurie Grove is a narrow enough street and the baths were sandwiched between houses.

But what it offered was magic enough.

It began as you entered and were hit by that mix of warm air, the smell of chlorinated water and noise.

And even before you had bought your ticket and gone through the turn style the hot sticky atmosphere made your winter clothes stick to you, which continued as you walked along the pool side to the changing rooms.

The bigger of the two contained a water chute along with diving platforms which were both a terror and an abiding source of attraction for the young offering a constant challenge to achieve the slide or dive without being stopped by the attendant.

Nor were the Deptford Baths the only ones on offer for just behind where we lived was the Peckham Health Centre.

It was here that we had our school swimming lessons made all the more enjoyable by those odd incidents like the day Paul Driver fell into the baths fully clothed and for ever after was known as Dribble.

And as you do I took both places for granted which was a shame because  the Deptford Baths which had opened in 1898  just missed its centenary closing in 1991 while the bold experiment that was the Health Centre had long closed by the time I was old enough to know of its existence.

That said  we used it as a nursery for my sisters for a while, and by one of those odd coincidences in the 1980s  I came across a reference to it in a set of speaking notes made by Mr Barlow who worked for the Manchester and Salford Co-operative Society.

He had visited it in 1946 and gave a series of speeches to local Labour and Co-op Parties here in Manchester praising its achievements and arguing for more such enterprises.

Thinking back I don't know why we never used the swimming baths at the Health Centre or why for that matter we made the trek up to Laurie Grove but we did, and I am pleased that the building has survived and while no one can splash and shout inside its impressive facade, the building has been retained and is well worth a visit.

Picture; ©  Dr Neil Clifton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1786698

*The story of one house in Lausanne Road, 

http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road