Home thoughts from abroad nu 2 ................. walking home from Woolwich on a summer’s night in 1966

Woolwich Common, 1970

Some memories stay with you and are as vivid now as they were then.

I was sixteen, it was the summer of 1966 and I was walking home from Woolwich to Well Hall.
It was a journey I must have made countless times and it was one I always enjoyed, especially once you had cleared the town and made it up to the common.

It was that mix of peace, the lingering heat of a hot summer’s day and the smells from the grass, the bushes and the trees.

The bonus was always those nights that brought on a thunderstorm.

And almost the same spot in 1906

If I was lucky I got home before the rain but either way there were those magic moments when the woods above our house were lit up by the jagged streaks of lightening followed by the roll of thunder.

The best place to see it was just past the police station as the road fell down towards the roundabout.

And usually I was alone which made the event all that more awesome.

After all back in 1966 few people were daft enough to walk out of Woolwich at nearly midnight and so the only company were the occasional passing car or the odd 161 with all its lights off heading I knew not where.

And now a full half century later I still think of those nights.

Location; Eltham, London

Picture; Woolwich Common, 1970, from the collection of Jean Gammons and the Royal Military Academy, from the series Woolwich, 1906 and the Royal Military Academy from the series Woolwich Town and City 1905 issued by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of TuckDB http://tuckdb.org/history

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)

Chubby Checker, cowboys and Pathe News ........... Saturday morning at Well Odeon with a thank you to Sandra

Now  I am revisiting Saturday morning pictures and in particular the Odeon at Well Hall.

And as ever the memories came flooding back with a fair number of people sharing their stories which got me thinking that so much of our recent history gets lost because we just take it for granted.

But these bits of our collective story are as important as any of the great events and are often just lost.
So here is Sandra Axford Wilcox’s own vivid recollections of the magic that was Saturday morning pictures.

"I remember Saturday morning pictures at We'll Hall Odeon. 

Everyone stamping their feet when the cowboys were chasing the Indians. 

The unmistakable voice of Pathe News. 

And the competitions, my big sister made me go up on the stage for a dance off - doing The Twist to Chubby Checker. 

The manager would walk along the stage holding a much coveted biro over each dancers head and whoever got the most cheers would win the pen.... and no, I didn't win."

All of which just leaves me to hope that a shed full of more memories will tumble out.

Painting; The Well Hall Odeon © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

Home thoughts from abroad nu 3 ................. lost in the woods in the summer of 1964

An occasional series on what I miss about the place where I grew up.*

Now I say lost but that would not be strictly true but thinking back to that summer of 1964 I might as well have been.

This was the first summer after we had moved to Well Hall from Peckham and it was magic.

After all how could it be other wise?

True there were parks in Peckham and neighbouring New Cross but the woods above Well Hall were something different.

For a start they were big, stretching all the way to that unknown place called Welling, offered great views down across Eltham and Woolwich but above all were just somewhere to wander.

And as the next few years rolled by and I was faced with yet another broken romance, walking alone in the woods got me out and pushed away that feeling of teenage melancholy.  
.
I was too old to see the woods as an adventure playground but they were still a place of fascination.

We went back recently took the old familiar routes up to the Castle looked down towards Eltham Park and then headed across to Shooters Hill Road and the Red Lion.

Of course back in 1964 the pub would not have featured over much on my journeys, but a little over three years later the Welcome Inn would be a fine finishing point to a long wander through the woods.

None of us were 18 but we looked it and that was enough.

And it was here sometime around then that I got to watch one of those first colour transmissions of a tennis game on TV.

It’s hard now to think all we watched was in black and white and I have to say that afternoon in the Welcome was a revelation.

Today of course we take it for granted, the welcome has gone and I seldom walk the woods.

Location; Oxleas Woods, Eltham

Pictures; the Woods, 1976 courtesy of Jean Gammons, and looking down, 2015 from the collection of Ryan Ginn

*Home thoughts from abroad, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Home%20thoughts%20from%20abroad

Passing Burton's on Well Hall Road to the sound of Betty Everitt and Judy Street

Now I have fond memories of the old Burton’s at the top of Well Hall Road.

It was here that I bought my first suit, more than a few shirts and the odd tie, although I do confess it ran a poor second to Harry Fenton's and even Payne's on the High Street.

Of course there will be those with equally happy stories to tell of the dances that were held upstairs.

Not that I ever went.

During the mid 60s I still commuted back to New Cross for school and so had yet to find friends in Eltham and by the time I started at Crown Woods in 1966 there were plenty of other places to go with the shed load of new people I had met.

That said on the long walks back from Grove Park after an evening with Ann I did sometime pass the dance hall after one of the more rowdy evenings.

And that is a shame because it will have been there that I guess I would have herd live versions of Betty Everitt’s  Getting Mighty Crowded* and Judy Street’s What.**

It would be years later in Manchester at the Twisted Wheel and later still at Placemate that I would fully come to appreciate these songs.

And I still have a fond spot for the opening lines of Getting Mighty Crowded, with its message of losing a lover ........................

“I'm packing up my memories
And I'm gonna move
On out of your heart

Turning in my keys
And I'm gonna move
On out of your heart

Cause there ain't
Room enough for two
And sharing your heart
With someone new
Will never do"

At which point I suppose I should launch into the story of Burton’s which replaced the Congregational Church and was itself supplanted by a Big Mac.

But I won’t instead I shall go off and listen to Betty Everitt who sadly is no longer with us and Judy Street who still is.

Picture; looking west down the High Street, 2014, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick & Jean Gammons, 2013

* Getting Mighty Crowded, Betty Everitt, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AmwoK6uw5Q


** What, Judy Street, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2NySUcbv3w

Well Hall on a wet day in 1964

Now just what do you do on a Saturday morning in early July when the rain is coming down like stair rods?

I rather think an adventure in the woods is pretty much out of the question and likewise the attractions of the market in Beresford Square or the ferry fall away as the rain just keeps falling.

After all even the upbeat market stall holders found their quick fire banter and optimistic sales pitch a bit harder when everything felt damp, while the sight of the Thames held little appeal when the rain clouds all but touched the water.

There were Saturday morning pictures but at 14 that all seemed a bit below me which just left the Library on the High Street and the bus ride down to Avery Hill.

In 1964 it would be a good two years before I started at Crown Woods and so this end of Eltham was still unexplored territory.

I am guessing I went into the hot house but I may have got that all wrong, although fast forward a few years and  I am convinced it was one of those places I visited on Sundays with new girl friends following the Saturday date at the ABC in the High Street.

There will be plenty who remember the scenario ........ the evening went well, you both wanted to see each other again but wanted a place more casual, and above all cheap.

So Avery Hill fitted the bill giving both of you that added advantage of being able to close down the romance and go your separate ways, allowing the rest of Sunday to be salvaged.

But all that was in the future, back in 1964 my options were more limited and ended up with a walk round the Pleasaunce, a trip up to Wilcox’s opposite the parish church and a trip up to London.

The train journey in itself was an adventure and the noise and bustle of London Bridge or Charing Cross could make up for what had been a dull morning in Well Hall.

At 14, pubs were still off bounds, but there were museums, art galleries and monuments to look at. All were free and most were out of the rain.

And of course by the time you got back the clouds had cleared, the pavements dry and the night held out all sorts of promise.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; Eltham, 2013 from the collection of Jean Gammons

Painting Well Hall and Eltham ....... nu 8 ....... magic days and evenings by the Tudor Barn

An occasional series featuring buildings and places I like and painted by Peter Topping.

The Barn, 2017

I am guessing we all have our favourite memories of the Tudor Barn and the Pleasaunce.

Mine run from wandering around the gardens on warm sunny days with a girl friend enjoying that heady sense of romance mixed with the memories of the sunlight playing on the moat and the orange coloured brick work of the Barn

And if there is one special memory it will be of a Blues and Folk night sometime in the summer of 1966.

I can’t remember who was on but there was something magical about sitting in the small open air theatre listening to the music with all that history as a backdrop.

Junior Showtime in the Pleasaunce, 1967

For years afterwards I cherished the poster of the event which I bought for a shilling  from the entertainments office of the Council, and as you do I pasted it on the wall of my bedroom.

It featured a guitar and a pair of Chelsea boots in black on a white background and always reminded me of the Pleasaunce.

For my sisters one of their special moments might well be those summer entertainments put on during the holidays and featuring all sorts of kid’s entertainers.

By chance one of those Junior Showtime’s was photographed by the local paper and the clipping with our Jill aged about nine staring back at the camera has survived.

And there hangs a perfect moment in time down at the Tudor Barn.

Painting; The Tudor Barn © 2017 Peter Topping from a photograph by Scott MacDonald circa 2013

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

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

Picture; Well Hall courtesy of Scott McDonald and Junior Showtime, August 20 1967 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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

Listening to Leonard Cohen opposite the Yorkshire Grey on a cold December night in 1966

I like the music of Leonard Cohen.

Me in 1966

They are songs I dip into now and then.

And today I want to reflect on the very first time I heard him sing.

It was on an LP featuring the song Suzanne which belonged to the sister of my friend John Coward.*

John was one of those new friends I made when I started at Crown Woods in 1966.

We were just 16 and beginning to see the world in a new way, revelling in every type of music and  poetry and fascinated by the work of Picasso, and the Pre Raphaelites.

I can’t remember the exact night I heard Suzanne, but it must have been sometime in December of 1966.

We were at his house opposite the Yorkshire Grey and with a slight air of conspiracy he said I should listen to the song Suzanne which came from the LP,  The Songs of Leonard Cohen.

The record belonged to his sister and carried a dedication from a friend "who wished he could have written the lyrics."

It was he said her favourite song and I could see why.

It still has the power to move me, but when you are sixteen and everything is more intense than it will ever be again Suzanne took me over.

We must have played it a few times and on the promise of looking after it and returning it the next day I walked out into the night with the song.

I have to confess it was more than a few days before John got the LP back but it was before his sister Susan came down from university so all was well.

We remained friends sharing music and LPs and then in the fullness of time John took up a place at Queens University in Belfast and I moved up to Manchester.

Even now when I hear that particular song I am still transported back to that moment, when we were young and everything was an adventure.

That said 58 years on I still think it is all an adventure and that is a good enough way to close.
Location; Eltham

Picture; me in 1966, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Suzanne, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o6zMPLcXZ8

When pop music was Saturday Club at home in Well Hall

Saturday Club on the Light Programme still has the power to invoke fond memories.

Now if you are my generation, born in the decade after the last World War who entered their teenage years to the sound of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Cliff Richard and who can still remember listening to “She Loves You” for the first time, Saturday Club was essential listening.

It had begun in 1955 but I suppose I was not really aware of its existence for another five years.

Back then if you wanted to listen to pop music on the radio it was slim pickings.

There was of course Radio Luxembourg which I listened to on my small transistor radio but the adverts for Horace Batchelor* plus the way the signal would fade and wane irritated me.

And on Saturday nights after the football results there was Juke Box Jury and later Thank Your Lucky Stars which showcased the latest singles and passed judgement on them.  But all too often these were shows watched by the whole family and as much as I loved my parents and young sisters there were times when you wanted to listen alone.

Now Saturday Club just fell into that requirement.

It went out after my sisters were at Saturday Morning Pictures and mum and dad were doing things.

It’s only real rival for me was Pick of the Pops the following afternoon, that rapid whizz through a week’s chart ups and downs.

This after all was the time when I was still too young to go to the dance hall above Burton's on Well Hall Road and those other live music venue like the Welcome Inn and the Yorkshire Grey were out of the question.

But then came Radio Caroline in 1964 followed by its rival radio London and things just were not the same again.

All of which is teetering on nostalgic tosh and so to the point.  Saturday Club was one of those programmes which didn’t just play records but offered up live performances with interviews which always appealed to me.

But the attention span of a teenager is fickle and with the arrival of Ready Steady Go with its visual and slightly edgy feel I was pulled in a totally new direction.

Top of the Pops might be required viewing to be shared with the whole house and discussed the following day at school but RSG had me hooked.

So bit by bit Saturday Club faded but has never quite left me, and as I head towards my 77th year I still have Tony Blackburn offering me something of the same on Radio 2 with “Sounds of the Sixties.”

Now that is perhaps the point to close but not before one last observation, which is that I know I am growing old when the music of my youth is now played on Radio 2.

Pictures; of Brian Matthew & Saturday Club, featured on Saturday Club** and Burtons in the mid 1960s


* Horace Cyril Batchelor was as an advertiser on Radio Luxembourg. He advertised a way to win money by predicting the results of football matches, sponsoring programmes on Radio Luxembourg.

**Saturday Club
This site is non profit making and solely for fans of Saturday Club to trade/swap off - air copies of the programme in whatever format eg reel to reel, cassette, cd etc, http://www.saturdayclub.info/

A bit of nostalgia for the Eltham of the 1960s

In the garden of 294 Well Hall, June 1964

Today I have descended into bit nostalgia for the Eltham of my youth.

Now this is not something I do often, after all nostalgia is a bit of a false trail.

In my experiences the sun didn’t always shine, ice cream was limited to those blocks of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate and you only ventured upstairs on a bus if you wanted to breathe in clouds of tobacco smoke.

And yet there was something special about growing up in Eltham in the 1960s.

I guess it started with the discovery of the woods just above where we lived on Well Hall Road.

Once in there they just seemed to go on and on.  Never underestimate that sense of adventure and sheer freedom that comes from walking the woods which of course is also matched by the knowledge that you can’t really get lost, for eventually if you walked far enough there was Welling while to the north was Shooters Hill and south Eltham Park.

All of which was pretty exciting to someone whose had grown up around New Cross.

© Scott Macdonald

And then there was the Pleasuance which with its barn and moat had a charm all of its own.  Not that I knew of the depth of its history, or of Well Hall House that 18th century mansion or the connection with Edith Nesbit.

But the place still had a magic with its Tudor walls and garden and summer evening concerts which the ever present railway station and trains did not spoil.

Thinking about I spent a lot of my time at Well Hall Station travelling back to school in New Cross for nearly three years and the crowded homewrd jorney in the afternoon rush hour.  Even now I can picture the scene as the train slowed to take the curve into the station and there in the distance was that impressive view of Shooters Hill, all trees dominating the horizon.

Not that the morning rush hour was the best time to take in the place.  For me that had to be late morning on a hot sunny day with just one other passenger on the platform.

There was stillness about the place and the only distraction was the smell from the warm oil which had soaked into the old wooden sleepers and  left its trail on the ballast stone.

© Scott Macdonald

All of which was shattered with that twanging noise from the wires to the signal box alerting you and the railway staff that the train was on its way.

I continued to use the station as a way of escaping back to New Cross and my old friends for a few months, before this gawky ill at ease teenager discovered that apart from the woods and the Pleasaunce Eltham had even more to offer.

That started with exploring the High Street and continuing on down along Bexley Road past Avery Hill Park.  And had I known it to the north was Crown Woods which a little over two years after we washed up in

Eltham was where I would go.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Scott MacDonald.

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

Peck's meat and fish pastes ............ a meal on its own

Peck's meat and fish pastes were something I grew up with.

They came in small glass jars and offered up a variety of tastes, from fish, salmon, beef and chicken and were spread on bread.

I had all but forgotten them until my friend Lois opened up the flood gates of memory with a story on her blog.*

I did go looking for the story of Peck's a few years ago but the research led nowhere and I gave up.

Now I knew there was an Australian connection because the jars arrived via a friend of mums who was given them at work and she said they were from Australia.

We always just called her B and it never occurred to me to ask how she came by the regular supply of the paste but I think she worked for a wholesale firm and these came as one of the perks of the job.

You were never quite sure what would arrive and I suspect that was also how it was with B.

I remember they dominated our lives and were a quick meal, although now I have no idea which I preferred.

Looking back now over sixty years I see they sit along with dripping, blancmange and tinned fruit salad as part of our basic diet and would only be replaced by the fish finger, beef burger and instant whip sometime in the 1960s.

Not that any of this helped with Peck's products.

The best I could do comes from the site of General Mills which is a food company based in Minneapolis and which has  factories still producing the pastes in Australia.**

It would appear that Peck's were making their spreads in Britain by 1891 and opened up in Australia in 1904 reaching their highest sales in the 1950s and 60s.

All of which fits and confirmed that I hadn't mistaken our Australian paste jars and of course offers up that simple observation that more often than not childhood memories are more likely to be true than imagined.

And in turn reminds me of that post war period when rationing had ended but the full impact of the consumer revolution had yet to arrive and in the absence of a cornucopia of instant foods, Pecks pastes on sandwiches did the job.

And all the way from the other side of the world, Matthew Lock, messaged me with a picture of the said product with the comment, "Still on the shelves in Woollies in Tasmania", so I guess Peck's have gone home.  

Thank you Matthew.  I wish I could offer a jar of the meat past to any UK reader who comes up with a similar find, here in Britain ..... we shall see.

Pictures; adverts for Pecks product date unknown, taken from Spreading the love for a vintage Australian brand

*Paste sandwiches anyone?  http://loiselden.com/2015/04/29/paste-sandwiches-anyone/

** Spreading the love for a vintage Australian brand, Taste of General Mills, March 2015

Home thoughts from abroad nu 4 ................ catching a train and borrowing a book

An occasional series on what I miss about the place where I grew up.*

Now when you leave the place you grew up and pretty much only go back for the odd short visit it becomes frozen in time.

Not so of course for my sisters and their families which of course is just how it should be.

All of which has made me come back to these two pictures of Eltham from the collection of Steve Bardrick.

They were taken by his grandfather sometime in the 1950s or 60s, and are just as I remember home and both in their way are special.

And the station is the first I would single out for having moved to Well Hall in 1964 I still made the train journey every week day back to New Cross and Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern School.

I can’t say I ever felt that happy about the school and so the walk up along the station approach was a mixed one and was something I did like the visit to the dentist.  You did it because you had to but it was never going to be something you chose to do.

Added to which as the trip was done during the rush hour the chances of getting a seat were never high.

That said the journey back was always something to look forward to and even now I can remember the train taking the curve past the signal box and pulling in to the station with that view of the woods above where we lived.

I never tired of it then and I still have fond memories of the scene  which signalled I was home.

The new station might be more shinny and look the part but the old one with its wooden booking hall giving out onto the platform and that cast iron footbridge are part of my Eltham.

And in much the same way so is the picture of the High Street offering as it does Woollies, the library and the electricity showrooms.

If you are of a certain age the old Woolworths will have powerful memories.
It starts with that special smell, continues with the wooden floorboards and those mahogany island counters and culminates with the sound of Apache or Telstar blaring out and those small round ice creams.

The library was to become one of my favourite’s haunts, a place you went when you needed to do some homework and better still the place to borrow an LP.

Even the electricity showroom was not without its charm with those odd shaped windows.

And by 1966 the library won out over the station, because in that September I had swapped schools and was going to Crown Woods, a place which will always be special.**

It was there I met friends that have stayed the course over the last sixty years and it was there that I discovered the magic of books, and history and a way of looking at the world which I have never lost.

All of which meant that it was looking down at the High Street from the top of the bus twice a day which pretty much took over from the walk up the station approach.

And then one day in the 1980s I returned to find that the station had moved, and later still Wilcox’s and Woollies were no more and even later still the Greyhound had been transformed

Of course there is that simple response that I should get back more often and there is much in that idea.

But even so I rather think I would still miss the old station and if I am pushed hard it will be that slow final pull into Well Hall with the view of the woods which were best seen from the old site.

And before I forget that look down on the Pleasaunce which in the summer would always be a place to stop and sit for a few minutes beside the old moat and equally old garden wall.

Location Eltham, London




Pictures; Eltham Well Hall Railway Station & the High Street circa 1960s from the collection of Steve Bardrick

*Home thoughts from abroad, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Home%20thoughts%20from%20abroad

**Crown Woods School Eltham, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Crown%20Woods%20School%20Eltham

A name …… some reports ...... a heap of friends ...... and the memories …… Crown Woods ..... 1966-68

Just what survives from our school days is a lottery.

It’s usually a mix of luck, self-interest, and our parent’s determination to save something of our childhood.

Me …….. I have just five school photos from my days at Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern, nothing from my Junior School and little from my time at Crown Woods.

 And I guess it’s the absence of much from Crown Woods that irks me the most given that they were the happiest of my school days.

Just why they were lost is still a puzzle, but I have rediscovered the reports from our Stella.

All five of us went through its doors, from September 1966 when I was 16 and new to the Sixth Form to my four sisters who attended in the late 60s into the next decade.

The reports span the winter and summer of 1970/1971 and are fascinating on many levels.

First of course they remind me of our sister and that in itself is a bonus.

But then there is the school badge and the names of the teachers including Mrs. Husain who was my first tutor and head of History but who had become a deputy head by 1971.

And there is the style of reporting which I recognise so well from my 35 years of teaching.

Some of the comments are spot on, others very subject specific and some vague and generalized.

All of which I can vouch for over the decades in what I struggled to write about my students, running from the supportive, constructive to the diplomatically critical.

“Always remember” I told myself that “this is a person, not a number on a register who should always be treated with respect”, unlike one poor soul who a colleague of mine in the 1970s summed up as “feeble”, no more no less.

But reports are not all of what lingers with most of us.  For me it is the friends I made, and who I still talk to today fifty-eight years after I met them along witha heap of memories which range from the good to the indifferent and the bad.

In there I include some girlfriends, some impressive teachers and the drama and musical evenings which still live with me.

And now I read that the successor to the Crown Woods I knew is discussing changing the school’s name.

Am I sad? Well, a little, but then the building I knew has already been demolished and it is over half a century ago that I went there.

Added to which of the seven educational institutions I studied at and taught in, only one has survived, and that was Edmund Waller in New Cross. The rest from my secondary school to Crown Woods, the places I did a degree and obtained a Cert Ed along with the schools I taught at ... all have gone. Some are now apartments, or housing estates while one changed its name, was then demolished and is now an academy with a new name.

So, not much to show for the biggest part of my life as a student and teacher.  Still to misquote Rick Baine from the film Casablanca we will always have the memories.*

Location; Eltham

Pictures; report for Stella Simpson, 1971 in the Simpson collection

*“We will always have Paris” Rick Baine, Casablanca, 1942

The class of ’68 part 8 ……. doing drama the big way*

Now if you went to Crown Woods in the 1960s and into the next decade, chances are you will have been part of the big block buster performances, involving the English, Music and Art departments.*

The Price of Coal, November 1968

And if that performance was The Price of Coal which was performed in November 1968, then you could add the History department to that list.

These were the inclusive productions which set out to include as many students as possible from all age ranges, skills and talents to show case the school and show just what a comprehensive school could achieve.

The Price of Coal, not only brought together the traditional departments but was researched by students doing history, and told the story of the impact of coal mining in the late 18th and 19th century.

It was performed in the same year that Newcastle Playhouse’s production of "Close the Coalhouse Door" which was written by Alan Plater, based on his friend and mentor Sid Chaplin's mining stories, and with music by Alex Glasgow – all three of them born in the County Durham mining area.

I should remember The Price of Coal, and Peter Grimes, because I entered the school aged 16 in the September of 1966.

Peter Grimes, March, 1968

But I did perform in two others which were All that life can afford and Crown Woods at southwark.

These productions were were spoken of with a mixture of pride, but also a nonchalance, based on that confidence that this is what a comprehensive school can do.

I have no doubt that the neighbouring schools of Eltham Green and Kidbrook did the same, but Crown Woods was my school.

And for someone who came from a small all boys secondary modern, on the borders of Brockley and New Cross, Crown Woods was something very different, very exciting and ultimately very rewarding.  

Not only for his academic standing but also because it was a co-educational school and for a lad from a single sex institution that was something else.

But that is for another story, leaving me just to thank Margaret Copeland Gain, who sent over the two covers from the productions of The Price of Coal and Peter Grimes.

crown woods at southwark

Location; Crown Woods, Eltham

Pictures, covers from the productions of The Price of Coal, crown woods at southwark,and Peter Grimes, 1968, courtesy of Margaret Copeland Gain

*The class of '68, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20class%20of%20%2768

**Close the Coal House Door, Alex Glasgow, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGPSqE74F0Q

On going to Crown Woods and attending a Conference at Eltham Green

The class of '68 outside Crown Woods

I went to Crown Woods.

I started there in the September of 1966 as a sixth former having come from a secondary modern school in New Cross.

It was at the time and remains one of the most exciting periods of my life.

Even leaving Eltham for Manchester three years later to do a degree never offered up the same mix of magic, discovery and sheer fun as those few years I spent at the school and so it is something I keep returning to.*

Take one fairly ordinary working class lad with a love of history, provide him with some excellent teachers in a stimulating environment, throw in a mix of fascinating friends and the result is something very special.

This was what learning was all about, and like all good learning it led off in all sorts of directions, from Shakespeare to Marlow and John Donne and onto the machinations of 18th century politics and the grand duels between Disraeli and Gladstone.

Later I was of course to learn that history is more than a few famous individuals, as one of my teachers at the time scrawled on an essay on Italian unification, “forget Verdi and think Marx.”

That said the rest including my love of 17th and 18th century literature, and that understanding that you can’t separate culture, history and economics came from those years at Crown Woods.

All of which says something about both the value of good state education and in particular comprehensive schools which some today would deny ever delivered the goods.

Well I can tell you they did and I am grateful for that.

Nor did it stop at Crown Woods.  Every year Eltham Green that other school just down the road hosted a Sixth Form Conference.  It attracted schools from across London had some pretty impressive speakers.

The year I went there was Arnold Wesker, A. L. Lloyd and Margret Drabble.

There were set piece lectures followed by group discussions and time just to meet other young people some of whom came from the other side of the river.

Of course after 47 years much has now become a blur, but I remember the debate about the role of culture the theme music played throughout the two days.

This was Sgt Pepper by the Beatles which had been released earlier in the month and which by coincidence was the name of the teacher from Eltham Green who organised the event.

I made new friends, sadly none of which lasted the end of the summer, gained in self confidence and felt very special.

Now almost half a century later I look back and I have to say it was a good few years.  I learned a lot, discovered a love of literature and am proud of what these comprehensive schools achieved.
Location; Eltham, London

Pictures; the class of '68, 1968, from the collection of Anne Davey  and the badge of Eltham Green, date unknown courtest of Ryan Ginn

*Crown Woods School Eltham, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Crown%20Woods%20School%20Eltham

Eltham High Street in the summer of 1915 and again sometime in the 1960s

At first glance it looks familiar enough.  

We are looking at the parish church  on a warm summer’s morning sometime in 1915.

It is a picture I have grown to like and given that I have just bought the postcard I am quite pleased with myself.

Now I say bought, but in fact I have ordered it up and if it hasn’t been sold I shall soon be the proud owner of a little bit of old Eltham.*

So back to the picture which has enough detail to mark it off as an image from almost a century ago.

The tram is about to leave travelling along Well Hall Road which was cut just over a decade before and on the eastern side of the road there are none of the familiar shops while just out of the picture on the extreme right was Eltham’s third Congregational Church.

It was built in 1868 “in a strong Gothic Style with a tall spire and was demolished in 1936.”**

And while I don’t usually do then and now pictures I couldn’t resist adding the second photograph which I guess is from the 1960s.

This is the Eltham I remember.

They say you should never go back and I have to admit the first time I returned after Burton’s had gone, along with the newsagent/bookshop it was rather like a little of my childhood had been consigned to the rubbish bin..

But all of that smacks of nostalgic tosh, and no doubt any youngster who had stood beside the photographer in the summer of 1915 may well have muttered something similar when Burtons opened its grand new shop on the corner of Well Hall Road and the High Street in 1937.

Now I have to confess the shop with its great Ionic columns and pilasters at first floor level still dominates the corner even if the sleek 1960s Italian suits, jackets and ties have been replaced by fast food and soft drinks.

And while I bought my first suit from the shop it will always be the memory of the crowds turning out from the dance hall above the shop on a Saturday night that I remember along with the newsagents which occupied part of the Well Hall side of the building.

It was there that I would buy my Penguin Classics many of which still sit on the bookshelves here in Chorlton.

But again I am in danger of sliding into nostalgia so it’s best to leave these two pictures in the past, until my post card arrives from Mr Flynn which no doubt will set me off again.

And in the meantime I would welcome any images of Eltham which will provide the material for more stories.

Pictures;  Eltham in 1915, courtesy currently of Mr Flynn and Eltham in the 1960s

*MARK FLYNN POSTCARDS http://www.markfynn.com/index.html

**Spurgeon Darrell, Discover Eltham, 2000

The Dark End of the Street 1967 .............. songs you never forget

I can’t remember listening to The Dark End of the Street when it was released in 1967 and it was only years later that I came across it.*

All of which is a shame because it is the sort of song that my 17 year old self would have instantly fallen for.

And it has the lot from unrequited love mixed with a big dose of a relationship based on a lie and of course some fine music.

It begins

“At the dark end of the street
That is where we always meet
Hiding in shadows where we don't belong
Living in darkness, to hide alone
You and me, at the dark end of the street
You and me”

And after that you are pretty much hooked.

It was written by Dan Penn and Chips Morgan and according to one source was inspired by a card game where the two were cheating and led them on to write a song on the theme of cheating.**

It took them just 30 minutes and was first recorded by James Carr and later by Percy Sledge.***

 Percy Sledge has always been one of my favourite singers but on this occasion I have to say that James Carr wins it for me.

But I am well aware that the jury will be out on that, so I shall just return to the story of  a love that they stole and the pain of having to let go.

Now you can’t get better than that either back them in 1967 or now a full 54 years later.

Picture; a young Andrew Simpson in the spring of 1966

*The Dark End of the Street, James Carr, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC3AXQ8dPJM&feature=share


**The Dark End of the Street, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_End_of_the_Street

*** The Dark End of the Street, Percy Sledge, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj3UdRmhgvM

Passing Burton’s on the High Street ...... on a spring day in 1966 ............ with a thank you to Tricia

Now, there will be many people who saw this postcard of Eltham High Street and remembered the scene with fondness.

It belongs to my old friend Tricia who posted it on our “Well Hall in Eltham, its stories and its history” site yesterday.*

And I am one of them. 

What makes it even more special is that it is dated 1966, the year I started at Crown Woods Sixth Form.

The original postcard was undated, but that didn’t stop a few people suggesting dates for the picture.

These tended to use the vehicles as clues, and I suppose with a bit of ferocious detective work it might be possible to track the date of the advert on the side of the bus passing the church on its way down Well Hall Road.

But as it turns out there is a simpler way, because the picture postcard was produced by Judges Ltd, and it just so happens I have a full list of when each of their  cards were issued.

The list is the work of the Judges’ Postcard Study Group and was published in their September 2005 newsletter, and then reproduced in an article by SUSSEXPOSTCARDS.INFO.**

In the case of Tricia’s postcard, the company had included the serial number which according to the list was produced in 1966.

Now, I am not quite sure if the date 1966 was the year the postcard was published or the year the photograph was added to the collection for later use.

I know in the case of the company Valentine, the date refers to when it was added to their catalogue, but I have yet to check on the list for Judges’.

And that will take me back to V & G Harris who have an extensive collection and were most helpful when I was tracking other picture postcards by the company.

But for now, I am just pleased that I can match Tricia’s card with my own trips up to the High Street, with visits to Burtons, Wilcox’s, the Library and lots more places.

Although, I am fascinated by the identity of the three young men standing at the entrance to the church.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham High Street, 1966, from the collection of Tricia Leslie

*Well Hall in Eltham, its stories and its history, facebook

** SUSSEXPOSTCARDS.INFO, www.sussexpostcards.info