Back on Plumstead Common in the summer of 1905

This is one of 12 picture post cards which Tuck and Sons issued in the summer of 1905, and I rather like it.

So as I have more in the collection I rather think I will show some more over the next few days.

Picture; Plumstead Common, 1905, from the set Woolwich Town & City, by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://www.tuckdb.org/

Avery Hill on a Sunday…… after the night before .......

Avery Hill will have a special place for many.

For some it will be fond memories of being a student there, while for many others it will be the pleasure of taking time out in the park and visiting the Winter Garden.

And here I confess that my own memories are less to do with the beauty of the place, and more simply that it offered a venue for a second date, the day after the night before.

The scenario will be that familiar one, which begins when you ask someone out for a first date, which usually ended up at the cinema.

If all went well, and after the long walk back from her house, there was the question of how to proceed.

The next Saturday was too far away to wait, and trying to have a meaniful conversation on the Monday at school in front of everyone was a nonstarter.

And so that just left somewhere like Avery Hill on a Sunday afternoon to meet up and judge the future.

The advantage was that it was free, with plenty of land to walk the romantic walk, and if it rained there was the hothouse.

Alternatively, if it all went pear shaped, there was plenty of space to fill the time before you could leave with dignity.

So, after the nervous phone call on Sunday morning, which if all went well was full of banter there was just the equally nervous suggestion of meeting up.

And here I have to say the call was always made at the telephone kiosk down by the Co-op opposite the Pleasausance ………. and never from home.

The golden rule was, never, never offer to call at the house, but instead to meet up somewhere in the park.  That way if either of you had second thoughts it was less embarrassing, and by Monday both of you were prepared for how to behave.

All of which came flooding back, when l came across these pictures by John King of Avery Hill, and having gained permission to use them, the rest as they say are memories from a lifetime ago.

At which point I could reflect on the history of the place, but its history is well known and has been written already, and that history has already  featured on the blog.*

So instead I shall just mention the Friends of Avery Hill**, thank John for his photographs and remember with fondness those happy Sundays which now stare back at me from the distance of a full half century and more.

Location; Avery Hill

Pictures; Avery Hill, 2020 from the collection of John King

*Avery Hill, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Avery%20Hill
** Friends of Avery Hill, https://www.averyhillpark.org.uk/

When a comic story holds more than a truth .............. stories from the Eagle

Now I have no recollection of post war rationing after all I was only four when it was finally abandoned.

But there will be plenty who not only remember it but will have stories of its impact on their daily lives.

Some of them will also have been regular readers of the Eagle comic which began in 1950 and continued into the following decade and here is the connection because running through several of the stories beginning with the first was how at a critical moment the Earth’s government was forced to introduce food rationing.*

Now even though I have read and re-read the stories countless times it never quite occurred to me that older readers of the Eagle would have vivid memories of both wartime and post war rationing.

That first Eagle story  was followed by the Red Moon Mystery when the planet was threatened by a rogue planet which had once destroyed all life on Mars and caused havoc before it was destroyed, which was repeated later by other stories which saw the earth’s population forced to be evacuated from their homes and ultimately  off the planet.

And when it wasn’t a natural disaster of sorts then there were always evil galactic nasties out on inter planetary domination of which the worst was the Mekon a not very nice dictator from Venus and his army of followers whose slavish devotion to their leader and ruthless behaviour would have been all too familiar to a generation that had been children during the last world war.

Of course such events are the stuff of good adventures and in slightly different forms will have appeared before and since but for those of us growing up in the 1950s they were pretty much a backdrop to the real thing.

Location; The 1950s

Pictures; from Eagle Comics in the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Venus Story, April 14, 1950 – September 28 1951

Of town plans and visions of a future that never quite happened, Eltham in the 1970s and Manchester in 1945.

Cover of A Future for Eltham Town Centre, 1975

Nothing dates as much as those planning booklets issued by the Council as part of a brave new consultation process.

Of course at the time they look bold innovative and exciting, but go back to them 30 or 40 years later and many of them frankly just look embarrassing.

In most cases the plans never came to anything, or they didn’t work or worse still they did but time has over taken them and a new plan is called for.

But in their way they are as much a history book and a comment on past times as any learned piece of original research.

All of which was prompted by A Future for Eltham Town Centre, which fell through dad’s door sometime in 1975.  It was produced by Greenwich Borough Council and invited residents to “make your views known to the Council.”

Back of A Future for Eltham Town Centre

Like all such documents it rehearsed the problems, speculated on how these might develop and offered possible solutions.

As ever “increased trade has brought pedestrian/ traffic conflict and parking pressures and a growing interest by multiple chain stores accompanied by a reduction in the smaller family business.”*

Added to this were issues of parking, demand for more office space, a need to accommodate more community services, while recognising that it was desirable "to promote the provision of residential development, some small service industry and some open space within Eltham town centre.”

It is a litany of concerns which could apply to many urban areas and no doubt our own planners in the town hall wrestled with similar issues here in Chorlton.

And like everywhere many of the opportunities for change were constrained by the amount of space, lack of money and other priorities.

But the planners did their best offering ideas to retain and plant more trees and improve the green spaces on the north side of Eltham High Street and suggesting a multi story car park down Orangery Lane as well as developing the reservoir.

Plan for the top of wel Hall Road

My own favourite was the idea of a small Town Park “on the disused part of Eltham Cemetery and a community centre beside the parish church, which would involve moving the public lavatories “when an opportunity occurs.”

Like so many planning ideas it would seem that the opportunity never did occur.

But I think I may be a little unfair on the planners given the constraints they faced.

So how much more of a problem was it for the town planners here in Manchester in the closing stages of the last world war?  They too were well aware of what they could do, but at the same time were galvanised by the issues of a tired looking city where many of the inner city  residential areas were no longer fit for purpose and some of the commercial areas showed the effect of haphazard development during the past century.

Trinty a new station for Manchester,  1945, from the Manchester Plan

Of course what they had in their favour was the wide open spaces which had been made by enemy action and a will shared by both politicians and planners to do something decent for the city.

Theirs was a bold plan which envisaged broad new avenues, People’s Places and rationalization of work, traffic and leisure along with new social housing.

The 1945 Plan for Manchester fitted an optimistic age fired by that post war belief that this time things had to be made to better.

Each time I go back to it I still get excited but do have to admit that I am pleased that not all of it came to pass, for while the slums would have been banished, new pleasant public places would have replaced the twisting dark courts and alleys, we would also have lost many fine Victorian buildings.

The People's Place, All Saints, 1945, from the Manchester Plan

Some still went under the commercial projects of the late 1950s and 60s but many more have survived.

The 1945 plan no less than the consultation document for Eltham in 1975 may not have gone the wayt he planners wanted but they do take me back to another time.




*A Future for Eltham Town Centre
** The 1945 Plan for Manchester, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%201945%20Plan%20for%20Manchester

Pictures; from A Future for Eltham Town Centre, Greenwich Borough Council, Planning Department, 1975, The 1945 plan for Manchester, Manchester Corporation, 1945

Magic nights in Well Hall

I can picture the poster now.

It featured a guitar and a set of unlaced boots, was finely drawn in black ink resting on a white background, and advertised a folk and blues night at Well Hall Peasaunce.

Its design and the event perfectly appealed to a 16 year old and it ended up on the wall behind my bed and stayed there  long after I had left Well Hall Road.

As for the concert it was all the poster promised and while I have long ago forgotten the names of the artists the evening has stayed with me.  It was one of those memorable nights which began with the setting.

To the right of the stage was the southern side of the Tudor Barn with the moat running alongside it and to the left were the gardens with the railway station beyond.

And as the dusk turned into night the odd break in the performance was filled by the sound of trains passing through Eltham and the noise of cars coming down Well Hall Road.

I remember the concert being full and while I did go to a few more  nothing compared with that one.

And that got me reflecting on what makes a perfect memory.

We all have them bits of our past however trivial which stick with us and bring back home.

Going back even further and before we even moved into Well Hall Road I can still remember laying in bed and watching the night sky lit by the blue flash of what must have been a train at Queens Road Station.

I say that but the blue flash may have been caused by something entirely different but it remains with me even now.

As does the day sometime in 1964 when on a first adventure into Woolwich I discovered by sheer chance the ferry and like so many others before and since it caught my imagination.

Now there is nothing unusual in any of these memories.  Since I first posted a story about the concerts in the Pleasaunce others have told me of their magical nights on those hard metal seats listening to the music by the Barn.

And in the same way the Ferry remains one of those bits of so many people's past along beside the market stalls, a traffic filled Powis Street and of course trips to Hind’s in the High Street.

Not that this is not  just another bit of nostalgic tosh but an appeal for those memories, with if possible a picture and better still a story, like the one from my friend Jean on a tram heading home to Eltham with a live eel bought by her grandmother on the market.

And these memories however episodic and disjointed are all part of our history.  Put them together and you have a set of stories to tell your grandchildren.

Location, Eltham & Woolwich, London

Picture; Tudor Barn, Well Hall courtesy of Scott MacDonald, 2013 and the floral display 2014, from the collection of Chrissy Rose

Looking down on Eltham in the late 1960s

The aerial photograph has got to be one of those powerful ways of capturing a scene.

So here we are flying over Eltham sometime in the late 1960s or early 70s.

Over to our left just below the centre of the image is the parish church and behind it on Well Hall Road and the High Street is Burtons now a fast food restaurant.

Travel up the High Street and on the right at the junction with Passey Place is the old ABC cinema.

Now I could go on but rather think the fun of the picture is about leaving it up to you to wander over the view identifying the landmarks.

Location; Eltham, London

Picture; from Looking At Eltham, Eltham Society, 1970, supplied by the Kentish Times

Buying a book at Wilcox's on Well Hall Road and a thank you

Well Hall Odeon, circa 1960s

It is pretty much one of those things that when you live somewhere you take it for granted.

Growing up in Eltham in the 1960s I don’t think I ever took a photograph of the place and most of the changes that occurred just passed me by.

That said I am not sure that there were many dramatic developments to Eltham during that decade.

The cinemas were all still there when I left as was the old station, and the shops on Well Hall Road just down from the Odeon were the same when I returned in the early 70s.

They included the radio shop where mum bought our first stereogram, the barber's shop next to the cinema where you always came out with a short back and sides no matter what you had asked for and Wells the Chemist and the cafe.

Some places have faded from my memory and others while still vivid have challenged me to remember their name.

Wilcox, Well Hall Road circa 1960s

So here I am with that shop at the top of Well Hall Road hard by Burton’s.

It sold everything from papers and sweets to books and on a Saturday morning it was one of the first ports of call before heading up the High Street to meet friends, or visit the library.

And only yesterday our Saul started reading the copy of Canterbury Tales which I bought from Wilcox’s sometime in the summer of 1967.

The book is much battered and is in danger of falling apart but it is a nice reminder of the continuity which binds me to the place where I grew up and still feel a pull for.

So I was pleased that I have come across a fresh collection of photographs from the community website This is Eltham and particularly pleased that they have given me permission to raid the archive.*

Some are very much part of my childhood while others look back to an earlier period of Eltham’s history.

But it is the one of Wilcox’s that has triggered off a rich cascade of memories and underlines for me the power of an image to reawaken the past.

And as these things go just as I finished the story, Lesley of This is Eltham, told me that Wilcox's  
"was my father's shop Andrew,  he had 5 shops in Eltham, 32 High Street, and there's a photo of my mother in that shop in 1938/9, then a haberdashery's in Well Hall Parade opposite the Pleasaunce, one with a Post Office in Westhrone Avenue and and a tiny, tiny one at the High Street end of Archery Road but that was probably gone by the time you came to Eltham."

Now that I think is just a perfect ending.

Pictures; Well Hall Odeon and Wilcox’s circa 1960 courtesy of This is Eltham


*This is Eltham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/index.php

Ancient buttons ……. and that definition of being old

To some these are just a pile of buttons and yet in their way they offer up a bit of history.

Buttons ... buttons .... and more buttons, 2025

I don’t suppose in this throw away age the practice of accumulating a collection of buttons is as common as it was when I was growing up.

In the middle decades of the last century pretty much everyone I knew had a box of buttons to cover every eventuality.

More buttons, 2025

They sat beside boxes of nails, screws, and heaps of other things salvaged and stored ready for when they would be needed.

In the case of our Dad, they were neatly put away in old dried milk tins which were a left over from the last world war.

To these he added what ever he came across, including eighty copper earthing rods which had been made in the Anaconda Works in Salford and resided in the original cardboard boxes on a shelf in the garden shed in Well Hall Road.

Just when and how Dad would have used them we never asked, but it was part of that approach to life which was never to throw anything away if there was a remote chance it could be of use.

And our house won’t have been alone in having a last to repair shoes, a wooden darning mushroom for socks and of course a mix of buttons.

These buttons belonged to Liz Butcher’s mum and Liz was kind enough to share them with me.

Bits of brass, 2018

They took me back nearly 60 years to wet afternoons looking through the button boxes for treasures and finding instead odd buttons from long ago discarded cardigans, along with full sets which had been bought and never used.

Both Nana and mother knew exactly what were in the boxes and would be able to locate the right replacement or similar button to the one that had been lost of broken.

The darning mushroom, 2018

And then there were the boxes, which also had been repurposed from cake tins, cigarette containers or like dad from empty dried milk tins.

Depending on their age some would have begun to rust in the corners, the pictures on the lid and side fading with age, but some, some still had a faint aroma of what they had once contained.

Today most are now just curiosities or museum pieces but for those of us of a certain age they are a vivid reminder of that different way of life, best summed up by that phrase “Make Do and Mend” from the last war.

Although the idea of recycling has a much longer history and is again back in fashion, whether it is to repair where you can or exchange and come away with items from a charity shop.

                                    History at treble the price, 2019

Of course, I am also old enough to remember that in the past these emporiums of used but reusable things came from Second Hand shops.

Jugs galore, 2019

Now they exist in that range of charity shops from the ordinary to the upmarket, with many more appearing in antique showrooms.

These antique showrooms I try to avoid because such places fill me with a mix of bitter nostalgia mixed with incredulity that what cost next to nothing and sat on the sink command exorbitant prices and are exhibited as fascinating objet d'art.

And that reaction is I guess the closest I will come to a definition of being old.

Location; Eltham, Vintage Emporium, Pear Mill, Stockport

Pictures; Buttons, 2025, courtesy of Liz Butcher, Bits from our house, 2018, and History at treble the price ……. 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Well Hall Road and memories of collecting my National Insurance number in 1965

Now I left Eltham a long time ago and bits of the place have tended to fade faster than others.  

But Chrissie’s pictures of the parade of shops at the top end of Well Hall Road brought it all back.

During the 1960s and early 70s that stretch from the Spiritualist Church to Dobell Road didn’t get that much of a second glance.

If you were on the bus you passed it without even thinking and if you walked, it was for me just the prelude to a look in at Normans, and Wilcox’s further along before heading in to the High Street.

But the parade did contain that wonderful model shop and the place dad bought his timber which meant that on occasions I lingered gazing in at the made up model aircraft before going to get some “two b one” and wood screws for something dad was making.

It was also where in 1965 I went to collect the card with my National Insurance number and here someone will have to help me out.

As I remember it was that bit of an extension to the side of what is now the Polish Deli and I guess was an add on to the original building.  After you had entered there was a flight of stairs to the offices and that is all I remember.

I have no idea when it was built, opened for business or for that matter closed.

But that is the price you pay for moving away because things and places have a habit of changing and sometimes it is so complete that you even begin to wonder whether what you remember really was the case.

Now I am on firmer ground with the Shining Pearl which always caught my imagination with that huge swirling red and yellow sun which dominated the window.

I reckon it will have been one of the first Chinese meals I ever ate not counting of course Vesta Chow Mein which with its partner the Vesta Curry stood for all that was exotic eating in our house back in 1965.

Not that I am going to knock it, after all when you are 16 and want to rebel against sausage and mash but lack many culinary skills, the Vesta range was the name of the game, followed by Angel Delight which was even easier to serve than old fashioned blamange.

All of which is a long way from the offices of the Employment Exchange and later Alan’s the furniture place.

But I will add a correction from Carol Coleman, who posted, "I worked for the department of health & social security in this building in the late 1960s. 

It was a benefits office not an employment exchange. The building was an old snooker hall and before that a theatre. 

The stage was still there and the department had converted part of it into office space. The steps led into a large waiting room with a long table and metal seating. 

Public enquiries were dealt with at this table and at either end were two small cubicles used for private conversations if required. A big space with a high roof it was cold working there in the winter!"

So I shall close before I am accused of nostalgic tosh, thank Chrissie for her pictures of the parade and just ask if anyone has a picture of the Shinning Pearl.

Sitting here within a few miles of Manchester’s Chinese Quarter and the equally famous Curry Mile in Rusholme I have a wish to be reminded of the Shinning Pearl.

Location; Well Hall Road, Eltham, London

Pictures; from the collection of Chrissie Rose

Standing outside Burton’s on Well Hall Road remembering a suit

Thinking of my first suit......... outside Burton's, 2015

Now I am back with another one of those buildings that most of us take for granted.

Added to which a large chunk of people will not even know that this fast food outlet was once Burton's.

The building was on the site of Eltham’s Congregational Church but when it was demolished in 1936 Burton's built their store.

The company was founded by Montague Burton in Chesterfield in 1904 under the name of The Cross-Tailoring Company and was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1929 by which time it had 400 stores, factories and mills.

 After World War II Montague Burton was one of the suppliers of demob suits to the British government for demobilising servicemen, comprising jacket, trousers, waistcoat, shirt and underwear*

Burton's in the 1960s

And so sometime around 1967 this was where I went for my first ever made to measure suit which was a great successor, followed by heaps of shirts, and ties and a not very successful grey overcoat which I took an instant dislike to and did our dad for years.

The shop dominated the corner of Well Hall Road and the High Street and will be remembered with fondness by many, as will the dance hall above.

I never went there but would often pass it at closing time on a Saturday night having walked back from Grove Park and a girl friend called Ann.

It was such a feature of Eltham life that I just thought it would always be there but on one flying visit in the 1980s it had gone and with it a bit of my growing up.

Pictures; the old Burton building, 2015 courtesy of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick and Burton's in the 1960s from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Burton (retailer), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_(retailer)

A little bit of Tudor History in Well Hall on a summer's day in 1964

Well Hall Pleasaunce, August 1964

This is one of those photographs we all have in the collection.

It was taken in the summer of 1964 and there amongst the smiling children and their parents is one of my sisters.

And it is one of those odd things that I not only remember the event, but also my mother cutting the photograph out of the local paper and sending a copy to our grandmother.

The event was “Junior Showtime” one of a series of summer time events put on by Greenwich Council at Well Hall Pleasaunce.

The moat and Tudor Barn, 2013 © Scott McDonald 

I doubt that our Jill even remembers the show and I am pretty sure it will be almost impossible to track down the performers on that Saturday in the August of 1964 but it is a reminder of the extent to which local councils put on all sorts of cultural activities.

I still remember a magic summer of fun put on during that long six weeks holidays at my Junior school in south east London in the July of 1961.

And round about the same time the Manchester Corporation Parks Committee issued a “Guide to Leisure and Pleasure in the Open Air” with everything from the big events like the Manchester Show down to “Jerko the Clown, Versatile Children’s’ entertainer presenting Magic and Mirth in various parks.” 

Of course it was not all positive.  Many of the bandstands which for over fifty years had been places to listen to live music were slowly being left to rust and the attention of vandals while the paddling pools were closed and filled in.

The moat and Tudor Barn, 2013 © Scott McDonald

All of which takes me back to the Well Hall Pleasaunce on that warm summers day in 1964 and the Tudor barn which had been built by John and Margaret Roper in 1525.

She was the daughter of Thomas More, Lord Chancellor to Henry V111.

They had married in 1521 in Eltham and lived on a moated island to the south of the barn.

The barn was used for storage but may also have been occupied by servants because at the western end there there are two huge chimney and is all that is left of the buildings they would have known..

Maragret Roper 1539

Margaret and Thomas were the very embodiment of the Renaissance.

She was an accomplished writer and translator while he wrote a much praised biography of his father in law.

The Roper’s home was demolished in the 1730s and a new house called Well Hall House was built between the moat and Well Hall Road.

Its most famous occupant was the children’s author Edith Nesbit, who wrote The Railway Children, and lived here from 1899 until 1922.

After its demolition in the early 1930s Woolwich Council decided to use the renovated Barn as the centrepiece of a new park, the Well Hall Pleasaunce.

Well Hall House, date unknown

"The park was opened in 1933 and the Tudor Barn as a restaurant in 1936.

Although it was intended that a library should be situated there, this never happened and for many years after the War, the Barn was run by the council as a restaurant and upstairs an art gallery and function room for weddings and events.""**

And that brings me back to that summers day in 1964 and the concert area.

It was a popular venue where I attended a mix of blues and folk nights while Brian Norbury remembers “seeing the Strawbs there when Rick Wakeman was making one of his first appearances, about 1970.”

So a nice mix of personal memories a bit of Civic enterprise and a link with Tudor history.  Not bad for a small piece of south east London

Pictures, Well Hall Pleasuance, August 15 1964 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, the moat and Tudor Barn, 2013 ©Scott McDonaldcourtesy of Bernard Skinner, Estate Agents, http://www.bernardskinner.co.uk/ Maragret Roper, from a 1593 copy of a now lost painting by Hans Holbein,, Well Hall House, courtesy of the Edith Nesbit Society, http://www.edithnesbit.co.uk/wellhall.php#picture

* Leisure and Pleasure in the Open Air  Parks Committee, Manchester Corporation, 1963
** http://www.tudorbarneltham.com/

On Eltham High Street ......... looking for Mr Brown

Now, it is so easy to get lost in an old picture of Eltham.

Eltham Village, date unknown

This is one that my friend Tricia found and posted recently.

The caption says Eltham Village and the post mark on the back is 1904.

That said I think the photograph maybe much older, given that the picture has been heavily retouched.

It is a familiar one showing the old brewery and the High Street.

And as you do I went looking for clues, and there on the corner of the wall on the southern side is a shop sign for Thomas Brown.

The shop of Mr Thomas Brown

This usually offers up a way of anchoring the scene in a time, because Mr Brown should show up on a census return and a street directory.

But he doesn’t.

There is a Thomas Brown and this one lives on Eltham High Street but in the 1880s and 90s he was residing in Sun Yard and gave his occupation variously as a road labourer and gardener.

Nor did he appear to have a son called Thomas.

The earliest street directories I can access are from 1914 and no shop keeper called Thomas Brown appears on the list.

That said I did discover that four doors up from the old Chequers pub were the “dining rooms” run by a Mr Charles Wollard who was still there four years later.

His near businesses included a cycle manufacturer, a watch maker, two confectioners, an oilman, a linen draper, and Mrs Alice Brotherton’s refreshment rooms.

Eltham Brewery

I will in due course go looking for Mr Wollard’s dining rooms which may have been a cut above his rival.  Mrs Alice’s premise were a modest affair and no doubt consisted just of the front room of her five roomed house.

She was there from 1911 and it may well have been a way of making an income after her husband who was a parish road builder had died.

They had lived just over the road in Jubilee Cottages and it would be nice to think that some of her neighbours might have dropped in or that she had a small order delivered from the brewery opposite

Of course that is just fanciful tosh and gets me no nearer a date for the picture postcard, which does not even provide the name of the manufacturer of the card.

Still it is a nice picture and I thank Tricia for finding it.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham Village, circa 1904 from the collection of Tricia Leslie

Mr Brasch, and the ongoing tale of our own brewery

Now this is another of those stories which is just about to give up its secrets.

The Bavarian Brewery, 1887

Most will know we had a brewery but my old friend Tricia has uncovered a bit more.

She told me, “I found the following entry in The Post Office Home County Directory for 1887.  Bavarian Brewery Co Ltd  (Moritz Brash Manager) High Street Eltham. 

Apparently it was originally  established under the name of Bavarian Brewing co in 1866 in Covington, Kentucky by Julius Deglow but became known as Bavarian Brewery in the 1870's. It was family owned until it was acquired by International Breweries in 1959. 

I wonder if this was the brewery at Outtrims Yard by Jubilee Cotts? I would love to find out more”.

The page with the clue, 1887

And so would I, and knowing Tricia she will uncover more.

A quick trawl of the records uncovered an entry in another directory for a Moritz Brasch at 6 Grove Terrace in High Road in Tottenham.

The date was 1882 and while there is an inconsistency in the way the name is spelt, I think this is our chap.

And that will allow us to find out more.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; extracts from The Post Office Home County Directory, Kent, 1886, sourced by Tricia Leslie

* The Post Office Home County Directory, Kent, 1886

**Post Office County Directory, Middlesex, 1882

The pungent aroma of Brylcreem and Old Spice …. defining an era

My Brylcreem days were limited.  

They lasted for just a few years when mother insisted on using the stuff and then adding a hair grip to keep the quiff in place.

I rebelled early and never went back although dad would regularly brush his hair through with a dab even on days when he stayed indoors.

But Old Spice was different, I used the aftershave, the deodorant and the talc from those distinctive shaped white and red jars.

On reflection I must have cut a powerful presence when meeting Pamela, Jennie or Ann on a Saturday night outside the Eltham ABC on the High Street.

But then my aroma would mix with their perfume and blend into a romantic haze.

Leaving for Manchester and college coincided with growing my hair, and the application of Old Spice became redundant.

I had all but forgotten that ritual of adding the stuff, but it all came flooding back the other day when on a warm summer’s evening I passed the man resplendent in his “going our clothes” accompanied by a cloud of male deodorant.

And in turn that took me back to a moment in the early 1990s when I visited a house full of bedsits each inhabited by a student and each with a different male deodorant which collectively hung in the air making a mis mash of smells.

Judging by the supermarket shelves “smellies” remain as popular, but I think not hair oil.  My generation long ago forsook it, if we really adopted it and nor do my kids, although occasionally one of them will use a gel.

It may be the end of an era, but at least it means the head rests on our armchairs are free from the grease stains which meant the addition of an embroidered cloth covering or even plastic head rest.

Of course I may have got it all wrong and out there countless heads will still have their Brylcreem addition.

We shall see.

Pictures; Advert for Brylcream and Nutriline, 1949, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and 1944 advertisement for the Old Spice Shaving Soap in a pottery mug, Old Spice After-Shaving Lotion, Old Spice Talcum, Old Spice Brushless Shaving Cream, and Old Spice Bath Soap, April 1944, The Saturday Evening Post, 1944, April 1, page 95, Author Shulton, Inc.

Shopping on Well Hall Road in the summer of 1907

Well Hall Parade in 1907

Now I am back with two more from Greenwich’s collection of old photographs.

They are both of Well Hall Road and are separated by just eight years.

Of the two the first offers up much more detail of what this row of shops looked like just over a century ago.

And it is a world away from today.

It starts with those ornate lamps protruding from the shop fronts which may have been lit by oil but I suspect will have been gas.

The chemist,  the fancy draper and the watchmaker, 1907

Then there are the large windows  with their iron frames which have just a hint of ornate decoration, which are topped by the names of the owners some of which will have been painted but others might have been etched on glass.

And finally there are the shop displays some of which adhere to that old Edwardian maxim of pile them high and sell them cheap.

Now I rather think it must either be a Sunday or early one morning as most of the shops have their blinds down, even though some have opened their large canopies.

On balance I would go for a Sunday afternoon sometime in the summer judging by the number of  pedestrians and the way the light is falling.

And for those with an even keener eye for detail there are no tram lines and of course a total absence of traffic bar the solitary horse and cart.

The caption says 1907 and assuming that there hasn’t ben a rapid turn over of shop keepers the shop on the corner with Greenvale Road opposite the Co-op was Mr William’s who was a cycle maker and seems to have left his shop signs propped up outside.

Little change in 1915 on Well Hall Road

And using the same street directory for 1908 it is possible to identify all the shops and their owners up to the chemists run by the London Drug Company.

Nor has much changed in the eight years that takes us up to the second picture taken in 1915.

By then the tram has arrived, there is a little more traffic which might just be explained by the fact that the shops are open and there are a fair few people about.

It is easy to forget that our parade of shops would have been as colourful as those of today and each would have displayed their names on the awnings which on this sunny day were pretty much all down.

Picture; Well Hall Road in 1907, GRW 378, and 1915, GWR380 http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/ courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

Mr. Topping paints Eltham Palace …..

 Now, I maintain, and I maintain most strongly that you can never have enough paintings of Eltham Palace.

Growing up in Well Hall with the Pleasaunce and the Tudor Barn, that magnificent medieval Palace was always a counter attraction.

True in the 1960s you could only gain access on a Thursday but that was enough and as a kid with a vivid imagination my day would be spent with a host of kings, and barons down to the cooks and servants who waited on. 

Even then I was well aware that had I been in the Palace in the Middle Ages I wouldn’t be giving the orders, instead it would be my task to fetch, obey and generally be the dogsbody.

And then our Jill moved into a house nearby with views up to the Palace and as the book says, “my cup runneth over”.*

All of which made the Palace a perfect topic for a Topping painting and like New York I just had to repeat it.

Location; Eltham Palace

Painting;2024 © Peter Topping Paintings, from Pictures from an photograph by Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick 2015.

When a chunk of your history takes an unexpected turn ….. Glenton Tours

I have lived with the story of Glenton Tours for 75 years.*

Luggage label, undated

It was a coach company, offering tours of Britain and the Continent from the 1920s and was at the luxury end of the market.

They began when an estate agent in south east London settled a debt by accepting two coaches and entering the touring business.

Dad & Elizabeth, undated

It was the right thing to do at the right moment, as the growing middle class with money to spend sought holidays which combined a bit of culture, with a lot of sightseeing.

 Added to which Glenton’s promised to do the lot, and the lot included the itinerary, the hotels and meals with drivers and couriers who were pleasant, knowledgeable and always attentive.

In the age before cheap air travel and decades before the internet this was the way to see Britain and a host of European countries. 

Tours lasted between seven, twelve and fifteen days, with plenty to take in and free time built into the journey.

Brochure, 1951

And our dad drove their coaches across the UK and on to France, the Low Countries as far as Switzerland and Northern Italy.

He joined the firm sometime in the early 1930s and continued working for them until he retired in 1986.

Very early on in his career he was chosen as one of the two drivers to take coaches into Europe, and apart from a break during the last war, dad did the business and was highly thought of by the firm, his colleagues and the passengers.

And we grew up with that job, which from spring through to autumn would see him leave one morning to return seven, twelve or fifteen days later.

My treat when younger was to be picked up by him at the end of a tour and after the passengers had been dropped off Dad and I would go up to the garage in Nunhead where the coach would be serviced before starting all over again in the morning.

Now, while we had accumulated a lot of memorabilia from Dad what was missing was the detailed story of the firm itself.

And despite years of research, I had drawn almost a blank, until someone who worked with him got in touch. The message was simple enough with “I ran Glenton Tours until 1985. I am happy to supply information” and the promising news that “the archives are held in the Dover Transport Museum”.**

Dad,ready for the off, undated

So the next chapter is about to open up.

And like all such new twists, the story will offer up much about Glenton's along with how some of us spent our holidays during the last century, and maybe even something about our Dad.

We shall see.

And just before the story went live the museum got back to me with a picture of a vehicle Glenton's acquired in the 1960s. 

It is CC 9305 which Mr. Flood of the museum tells me "is a 1929 Dennis GL fitted with a 'toastrack' body by J.Roberts for Llandudno Urban District Council who used it for tours of the Great Orme until 1953. CC9305 was acquired in the 1960s by Glenton Tours of Peckham Rye and still carries the Glenton Livery".

Now l remember Dad talking about it and given that in the winter he worked in the paintshop of the garage he may well have worked on it.

CC 9305 which is a 1929 Dennis GL, bought by Glenton's in 1960

All of which adds to the excitement of the new chapter.

Pictures; Glenton Tours memorabilia from the Simpson collection, and the Glenton's coach, courtesy of Dover Transport Museum

* Glenton Tours, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Glenton%20Tours

**Dover Transport Museum, https://www.dovertransportmuseum.org.uk/