The story of one house in Lausanne Road number 35 ............ New Cross Library, the Police Gazette and the London Music Room

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

Dad, 1962

Both mum and dad were voracious readers devouring two or three books a week.

In the winter dad would prefer the battered old armchair in the kitchen.

Here beside the equally battered stove he would pass the evening with a succession of historical novels.

Mum on the other hand preferred the front room with the telly mixing the news, light entertainment and those kitchen sink dramas with a variety of reading stuff.

She also wrote short plays, stories and was working on a novel based on the people she came across in our bit of South East London.

Meanwhile Dad would also spend part of those long winter evenings making toys for the five of us for Christmas.

I didn’t think at the time we were unusual and I still don’t and that I suppose is the point, because it is all too easy to slip into simplistic stereo types when you are writing about growing up in Peckham.

Mum, 1956

But like any working class area it was a place rich with variety.

There were plenty of pubs, cinemas and characters who could have stepped out of a Dickens’s novel but at the same time the library on New Cross Road was always full as was the private circulating library based in the local book shop.

Both of them I remember vividly.

The book shop which was opposite the library was stacked full of books to buy and borrow.

It was one of those dark cavernous places where the shelves ran up into the ceiling and each book carried a blue sticker with the name and address of the shop on the back.

Conversations were conducted in hushed tones but they were always animated as mum swapped her opinions on the book she had just read with the owners who in turn would suggest different titles.

Some were by the same author in the same style but other’s would offer up an alternative, “Well Mrs Simpson if you enjoyed that one, why not look at this, it’s only just come into the shop and I think you would find it interesting.”

By comparison New Cross Public Library was that old fashioned style of library with neat solid reading tables, matched by sturdy bookshelves full of everything you might ever want to read, and laid out in meticulous order.

And it was visited with the utmost care to remain as quiet as possible, which if you forgot you were quickly made of aware of by the signs requesting “Silence which were everywhere.”

It was a Carnegie Library built in 1911 and not unlike our own here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.**

I always thought it was a place to endure rather than enjoy and always tried to avoid visiting.

And yet now as I hold a copy of a book mother forgot to return that smell of disinfectant which still permeates the book takes me right back to the library which I miss.

Now the book was James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I have to confess I have never read and I rather think mum didn’t either.

The Music Room London, 2015

I have thought of returning it but the library has long since relocated but just possibly the current owners would welcome a little bit of the building's past history.

They are the Music Room London, who according to their site established their "first rehearsal studio in 1985, when it was located in the basement of The Garden Gallery on Monson Road, New Cross Gate. This small basement studio, famous for its toasted cheese sandwiches, was frequented by many including Daevid Allen’s Franco-British progressive/psychedelic rock band Gong."***

It offers, "offers 

Now that I think mother would have approved of given  she was always one for anything which shook the trees.

She was I suspect the only person on Lausanne Road to take the Police Gazette.

Looking down Lausanne Road to our house, 2007

In mum’s defence she found the stories of robberies fraud and much worse a fascinating  starting point for stories, and possible chapters in that book.

In fact thinking back our paper bill must have been mega, because along with the newspapers, Police Gazette and a shed full of comics ranging from the Beano, Eagle and Look and Learn there were also Punch, Knitting Weekly and Railway Monthly.

All told a vast acre of news print which came into the house and was devoured before being passed on to mum’s best friend, B who lived at the top of Kinder Street.

That said my Eagles were carefully stored away along with the Lion and Tiger and later the Look and Learn to be brought out on rainy days.

Alas all were junked when we left Peckham, although just last week I came across one of those knitting patterns, but that as they say is for another time.

Pictures; Dad 1962, and mum 1956 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, The London Music Rooms, New Cross Road courtesy of the The Music Room London,  2015, and Lausanne Road, 2007 from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick

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

**Debates which never go away, ......... the story of our public library, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/debates-which-never-go-away-story-of.html

***Music Room London, http://www.musicroomlondon.com/

Discovering what happened to our library on New Cross Road ............. a pretty neat story

The library in 1911

Now this is how I remember the library at New Cross.

It was an old fashioned style of library with neat solid reading tables, matched by sturdy bookshelves full of everything you might ever want to read and laid out in meticulous order.

And because it was an old fashioned library the rule of silence sat on the place so that even the most accidental noise was greeted with a fierce glare by the librarian.

Of course it was impossible to completely screen out all sound.   Across in the Reading Room there would be the rustling of paper as the pages of the Times and Manchester Guardian were turned and along with that came the thump of the date stamp and the occasional loud bang as someone dropped their pile of books.

I had almost forgotten about the place until I came across an old library copy of a James Joyce book which mother had borrowed and never returned .

Sometime in the 1920s

And as you do I went looking for the library with little hope that it would still be there but the building has survived, although it no longer deals in books but has become home to the Music Room London which offers “a unique building with 5 different rooms ideally suited for a wide array of creative applications. Full bands, practicing drummers and instrumentalists, dance groups, theatrical productions, Photographic and video shoot applications will all find our facility an amazing resource for rehearsals and other sessions."*

In time I will take up their invitation and visit them but in the meantime I am very pleased that they turned over a collection of old images of the place with the promise of more to come.

Back in the 1950s we didn’t take pictures of the buildings we visited, after all if you went there regularly why would you?

But now a full half century on I wish I had access to more photographs of where I grew up especially given  trying to locate them is made just that bit more difficult when you live 180 miles north of New Cross.

Part of the problem is that some of the official images are copyright while the thousands that might have been taken as snaps have been lost or thrown out which in turn means that it can be difficult to get the picture you want.

So with that in mind here courtesy of the Music Room London are a fine collection pictures of the place.

The first was taken when it was opened on July 24 1911 and the second sometime in the 1920's

It was built as a Carnegie Library with money from the steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie, and was one of 660 which he funded in Britain, 1,689 in the United States, 125 in Canada and more elsewhere between 1883 and 1929.

And a day when the snow fell

From humble beginnings Mr Carnegie had built up a huge steel business before selling out for an estimated $500 million in 1901 and devoting himself to philanthropist projects.

Even before he retired he had been spending money on all sorts of projects of which the establishment of public libraries was just one.

And because everyone loves a then and now image here is our building again, but just a century or so later on a day when the snow fell from the sky.

All of which just leaves me to return to the story later in the month with more reflections on, New Cross Library, the London Music Room and the Police Gazette

Pictures; New Cross Library, July 1911, circa 1920's and after it had become the Music Room London 2014, courtesy of the Music Room London.



*Music Room London, http://www.musicroomlondon.com/