Painting Peckham and South Kensington ….. 64 years ago

It was in 1959 when Howard Love recorded some of south east London while attending art college.

And knowing that I was born in Lambeth and spent my early years in Peckham he has begun sharing some of his pictures with me, which instantly transport me back.

The first I think is Rye Lane, which I last visited in 1963 when Joans and Higgins still dominated the shopping experience of many, and that model shop on Bleinham Grove under the railway station.

Wandering back down Rye Lane in the December of 2021 is to be confounded by long forgotten memories and a landscape I only barely recognise.

Still despite the departure of Joans and Higgins, I was pleased to see it features in one archive and has its own Facebook site.*

And in the same way Howard’s second picture offers much for some one born in the first half of the last century.

We are in South Kensington Station, circa 1959, with its wooden ticket office, and machines for tickets, when the price of an Underground trip was charged in pennies.

All of which comes with that distinctive smell that enveloped you and was a mix of warm dust, oil.

Leaving me just to thank Howard and Ann Love who happily pass over their art work for me to write about.

And reflect that it's so exciting to view these images of my youth and more importantly in the form of sketches and paintings.

Location; Peckham and South Kensington Station

Pictures; Peckham and South Kensington Station, circa 1959, from the collection of Howard Love

* A peek inside Jones and Higgins, Southwark Heritage Blog, https://southwarkheritage.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/a-peek-inside-jones-and-higgins/

Travels across the Universe with a good guy .......... Dan Dare Pilot of the Future with that gentle optimism that was the 1950s

Now you can either face the world with the simple philosophy that the bottle is always half full or retreat into a dismal dark place, where it is always half empty, the sun never shines and the number 86 will always be late.

Of course in the real world there are plenty of awful things which no matter how many half full bottles you have they will never make it any better.

But the optimist in me always wins through and it is how I like my science fiction.

I have never been one for the disaster movie, the bug eyed monster or the evil supernatural beings, and I think that must be in part because I grew up with the Eagle Comic and in particular the exploits of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future.

He was simply the best.

A clean cut brave chap who put loyalty and truth and fair play above all else and when faced with evil dealt with it in an honourable way.

Today those attributes wouldn’t count for much in many films but back in the 1950s with the backdrop of the Second World War that sort of hero could still be presented to young boys who lapped it up.

Dan Dare was the chief Space Pilot of Space Fleet, had been born in Manchester in 1967 and in his travels across space encountered a whole range of people most of whom shared his belief that peace and co-operation were better ways of doing things.

Of course he encountered the not so nice aliens but even these could be won over and usually their defeat was at the hands of a mixed bag of races from across the Galaxy.

He was created by Frank Hampson and appeared in the Eagle Comic from 1950 into the 1960s.

And while the world Mr Hampson created looks decidedly old fashioned today it was one that fitted that post war period of optimism and filled me with that simple belief that no matter what planet you were from or what you looked like you were bound to be decent, trustworthy and above all much the same as the people of Earth, which was and is a fine start to the day.

Nor is that all for I should have added that these models were made by Howard Love who like me has a long held fashion for all things Eagle.

His wife Ann, "Howard made them a few years ago from clay, air dried and painted.  He remembers getting the first magazine, and it was by copying the drawings of Frank Hampson that he became interested in drawing. this lead him into studying Art at College, and working in a design studio, before going into teaching"

Now you can't saying fairer than that, .......... not only did Dan Dare save the world umpteen times but set Howard off on his successful artistic career

Pictures; models of some of the people featured in the Dan Dare stories, courtesy of Howard Love.

Remembering Park Brow Farm on St Werburgh Road as it was

You have to go looking for pictures of working farms in Chorlton.

I have two in the collection from the 1880s showing Higgnbotham’s farm on the green, a couple more of Ivy Farm on Beech Road and a few of when Hough End Hall was still producing food which just leaves five or six of Park Brow  from the middle decades of the last century.

Nor is there much in the way of written descriptions.

I can think of one short account of Ivy Farm matched by a mix of anecdotes about collecting milk and working on the land at Turn Moss with some detailed stories about Park Brow from Oliver Bailey whose family ran it during the 20th century.

So I was more than a bit happy when my friend Ann sent me a collection of models of Park Brow made by her husband.

“They were” she wrote “  made many years ago,  and may not be accurate, as he used it for his layout, but most of it is as he remembers it from 40 years ago when he walked past it every day on his way to work.”

All of which I think is a tad modest of Howard.  If you compare them with collection of photographs from the 1930s and 40s along with and Oliver’s description of the farm and the present buildings the models are a pretty close reconstruction.

And that is pretty much all I am going to say for now, but reserve the right to come back with lots more at a later date.

Location Park Brow Farm, Chorlton-cum-Hardy




Pictures; models of Park Brow, circa 1974, courtesy of Howard Love