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/

The story of one house in Lausanne Road number 48 ............. the Evelina Mission Hall, a chair and a promise

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

The chair, 2015

Now I like the way that what seem to be totally random bits of the past come together to tell a story which in this case brings together a Mission Hall, an old chair and a promise.

What connects them is this chair which I am guessing must be at least a century old and in its time has travelled from Peckham to Eltham and on to Manchester and now resides in our dining room.

As far as I know it began life in the Evelina Mission Hall on Evelina Road close to where dad had worked for forty years.

I don’t remember the hall which was just past the railway arch on your left heading back towards Lausanne Road or when it was built but it will be sometime between 1896 and 1914 which I grant is a  dollop of history but it’s a start.

I know this because while it doesn’t show up on the OS map for 1896 it was there by 1914, listed in the Post Office Directory for that year.

There were plenty of similar halls in the area but by the mid 1960s if not earlier it was struggling for a congregation and closed.

And Dad always scenting a bargain came home with it one winter’s day in 1964.

By then we had moved from Lausanne Road to Eltham but it remains a little bit of the place where I grew up.

Now it may well be that there are people who remember the hall and if I am very lucky will have stories of attending the services there and perhaps even the odd picture.

But I doubt it such bits of our collective history vanish all too quickly although I did find a reference to the hall being bombed on September 7 1940.

According to the official records it took a direct hit from an explosive bomb just before 11 pm which “severely damaged the mission hall.”*

Given the time I doubt that there were any casualties and the hall must have been rebuilt which opens up a fascinating bit of research, all of which is for later.

That said there are so many unanswered questions of which how it survived the explosion, when it was made and by whom will I suspect never been answered.

And I have to say until recently I didn’t even know where the hall was, but guessing it was close to Dad’s garage on Brabourn Grove  it was fairly easy to track down.

The Mission Hall on Evelina Road, 1952

In turn I have to wonder if this was the location for his other great acquisition which were loads of those old wooden blocks which had formed the original road surface back in the 19th century.

Back then there had been a spirited debate about how roads should be surfaced with some favouring wooden blocks which it was argued would be quieter.

What I do know was that when they were finally lifted and arrived in our house in Lausanne Road they offered a superb fuel for the kitchen stove.

All of which may seem a long way from the chair so I shall close with that promise, which was that a long time ago one of my sons made a claim for the chair for the future.  He got in before his brother’s which means that at some point in the future our chair will be on the move again.

But I hope not for some time yet.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson 2015, and detail of the Mission Hall on Evelina Road, 1952,  courtesy of Southwark Council at http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200212/egovernment/1776/old_maps_of_southwark


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

**London Blitz 1940: the first day’s bomb attacks listed in full, Simon Rogers, The Guardian Datalog, September 6 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/sep/06/london-blitz-bomb-map-september-7-1940#data

The Lost Adventure ......... the eight year old and the disused railway line

All I have left are some vague memories, but they have persisted with me for nearly sixty years, and I can’t shake them.

We will have been no more than ten and maybe younger, and as we all did in those days we roamed free over our bit of south east London.

It might be east towards Blackheath and Greenwich or out beyond Peckham into Dulwich.

Back then the extent of our adventures were governed by how far we could walk, although within a few years that had become the whole of London and beyond with the help of a Red Rover and Southern Region.

On this particular day we had come across a disused railway track which I think was somewhere around Nunhead, and the game was to walk along the stone parapet of the road bridge over the line.

I chose not to do the walk of chance, but we were all so close friends that no one thought the worse of me for declining.

For a while that disused railway track became our playground and we would walk along its bed, climb up the slope of the cutting and look for discarded treasure.

But time is cruel to such hidden hideaways and within a few months it was all but forgotten and we had moved on.  Partly I suspect because it was some distance from where we lived and in my case I was never quite sure how to get there on my own.

And anyway even a gang of lads in short trousers, dirty knees and torn jumpers, eventually tire of a long straight piece of ground.

Now sixty years on I have wondered where it was and so todayI roamed over google street maps, carefully scrutinized the OS map for 1872 but found nothing.  Neither did an online search for the disused railway lines of south east London prove any more fruitful.

Of course the line may well post date 1872 and it may now be lost under redevelopment.

Here in Manchester many of our old abandoned tracks have become the route for the new tram network.

But I won’t give up looking and next time I am home I might try and track that adventure of sixty years ago.

And within ten minutes of posting the story, Kathy Penney wrote to me, "Try at the top of Athenlay Road. As you turn left in to Merrtins Road there are the remnants of a stone bridge and if you take the next right it leads you in to Brenchley Gardens. I think the line there ran all the way up to Crystal Palace, but sadly was axed by Beeching. 

There was a time you could walk the route up to Crystal Palace but I think there are a few new developments in the way now.

I think if you look at the London, Chatham & Dover Railway or LCDR who established the Highline railway at Crystal Palace in, may have been the 1850's, you should be able to see the route it took. Good luck".

And this I will do!

Location; south east London

Picture, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Painting Nunhead ........ Nu 1 a pub and a shedful of memories of walking to school in 1961

Now when you are just 11 and on the way to school pubs don’t feature very heavily and the Old Nuns’s Head was no exception.

It is on Nunhead Green and I will have passed it pretty much every day on my way to the Annexe on Old James Street which housed the over spill for Samuel Pepys.

There were other routes I could have taken from Lausanne Road but this was I think the most direct.

And when I was passing it the pub was coming up for its twenty-seventh birthday, although according to that excellent pub blog, London Pubology* there was a pub here in the 18th century when “the pub was known for games (it had a skittle alley), dancing and particularly for its tea gardens. 

These were a fashion of the era — tea had only been introduced to the country during the 17th century and had built up an immense popularity during the early parts of the 18th century to become effectively the national drink. 

The tea gardens were suburban relatives of the pleasure gardens (such as the famous one at Vauxhall), where high tea was served in the afternoon. 

To a certain extent, too, they were tainted with the same negative connotations, being the playgrounds of the frivolous leisured classes, encouraging licentious behaviour and gambling, and frequented by prostitutes. There is no indication in the sources that the tea gardens in Nunhead were anything less than respectable.”

In the mid 19th century it was run by Sarah Dyer and I rather think there might be a rich history here to trawl.

But of course all of that was unknown to me back in 1961.

Today one guide describes it as a “large, airy and child-friendly pub with a mish-mash of old furniture, serving modern British meals” and perhaps when I next get down to Nunhead I might call in.

I think Peter’s painting pretty much captures the place although straying from side to side is to be shocked at the new development which aren’t in keeping with the green or the old alms houses.

That said I bet there were a few back in 1934 when the pub was built who muttered darkly at “pretend Tudor buildings” and lamented the earlier one which just leaves me to go and search for an image of that older pub and reflect on all those trips along Evelina Road and Nunhead Lane half a life time ago.

Location; Nunhead, London

Painting; The Old Nun’s Head Nunhead Lane © 2015 Peter Topping from a photograph 

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

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

*London Pubology, https://pubology.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/old-nuns-head/

The nowhere adventure ........ out of Peckham and on till morning

Now I say on till morning, but the adventure will have started sometime just before mid day and would have all been over in a few hours.

Me in 1959

Our trip to the small park on East Dulwich Road is all but a vague memory but then it was almost sixty years ago, and I have no recollection of whether we made a deliberate decision to go there or it was just the end of a long walk.

And a walk it would have been, starting from Lausanne Road, and by degree, along Evelina Road, past Nunhead Green, and Peckham Rye.

Back then, walking was what we did, often with a vague idea of a destination but not always.

On this day we may have been heading for the Common, and then just pushed on with that optimistic observation that “it is always better to travel than arrive”.

What we found was a small Corporation play area, with a mix of play furniture.  There will have been a roundabout, a rocking horse which seated eight, a seesaw, a slide and swings.

I do remember it was wet and having exhausted all the damp attractions we headed home.

That water trough,  1928

Now, anyone who has ventured “out of district” will know that there is always a slight tension in that you are on someone else’s turf and while kids are kids and just want to get on with playing there can be those sticky moments when you are seen to be “on the trespass”.

That and the dampness will I think have done for the adventure.  After all we were at the limits of our known world, and there was always the long walk back, which I now know was not that long.

When I started the story I assumed the distance between our house on Lausanne Road and the park was quite some distance, but it is only just over a mile and according to the AA Route planner would take just six minutes in a car.

Banfield's, circa 1960

Of course it would have taken us longer, more so because of the obligatory stops along the way which will have included the horse trough at the start of Evelina Road, Nunhead Gardens, and a lingering look at the coaches in the depot by Banfield Road.

And no nine year could ever pass Peckham Rye Common without a couple of races, and roll in the grass.

Such was the nowhere adventure.

Location; East Dulwich

Pictures; me, aged ten, 1959 from the collection of Andrew Simpson &Evelina Road, circa 1920-26, and Banfield  Garage, circa 1960s supplied by Adrian Parfitt

When the ghost sign wasn’t .... travels through Nunhead

It will be pretty much 60 years since I last walked down Avingnon Road, and even then it will have been just one of the many random adventures you do as a kid.

I am guessing that after playing in Pepys Park we set off in the general direction of Nunhead, with no particular plan fired by curiosity and the fact we never really strayed far from Lausanne Road where I spent my early years.

And what set off these memories was Paula’s picture of the ghost sign on the corner building.

Now ghost signs are all that is left of a product or business which once advertised by having their names and products painted on the walls of buildings.

So, this one attracted me, if for no other reason than I liked Hovis.

But the sign is false, dating only from sometime between April 2015 and May 2016, and was originally for Daren Bread, the ad reading “A Taste for Daren Bread”.

Which of course set me researching Daren Bread which  was a household name in the 1890s through into the next century, and the answers came from a delightful site on London Walking Tours.*

It was produced from flour ground at the Daren Mill in Dartford Kent.  

The Mill went bankrupt in the 1930s and Daren Bread was merged into the Hovis brand and  phased out.

So, the new sign sort of makes sense, but ghost sign sadly it ain’t. 

However, for those of an inquiring mind, the original can be found on street google from 2008 till that change roughly four years later.

I will have clocked the old sign, but I doubt it would have registered.

Location; Nunhead

Picture; the Hovis sign, 2021, from the collection of Paula Griffin

*DAREN BREAD - THE GIFT OF GIFTS, London Walking Tours, https://www.london-walking-tours.co.uk/secret-london/daren-bread.htm 

Glenton Mews ……………… remembering Dad, and Glenton Tours

Now, I have no photographs of the garage off Brabourn Grove, which was home to Glenton Tours, but I do have plenty of memories.

They would start with Dad calling in at home, dropping of his suitcase, and collecting me, before driving from Lausanne Road to the garage and dropping off the coach after a trip across the Continent.

He worked for Glenton Tours, and had done so since the late 1920s or early 1930s, and by the time I was growing up had moved from coach tours of Britain to seven, and fifteen days trips across mainland Europe, taking in the sights and offering luxury holidays to those who could pay.

The turn around was quick, having arrived home at seven, he would be off again in the morning, and the trip to the garage was an essential, not just because it meant that the coach would be deep cleaned and washed for the next tour, but involved Dad talking over any faults the coach had developed.

For me it was a treat, which included the drive up to Brabourn Grove, a bottle of lemonade and packet of Crisps from the Swiss Tavern on the way home, and of course an opportunity to talk to Dad, who from Easter through to late September spent just one night at home before setting off again.

To be honest the time waiting for dad, while he discussed the coach with Frank the foreman or Taffy the deputy could be boring and I often ended up playing on a pile stones or talking to “Wishy Washy” who washed the coaches, lived with his mother and had an extensive model railway set.

He also used a short cut home from work which involved him crossing the line railway track which both fascinated and frightened me.

I stopped going up with Dad round about the time I started at Samuel Pepys in 1961, and Glenton Tours vacated the site sometime in the 1970s for a place down by the river.

And as you, do, the memories faded until recently when I went looking for the garage, which is now a residential development, but with a nod to the past the road has been called Glenton Mews which I like.

The pictures of the mews are courtesy of Ian Boxall who posted them yesterday on social media and gave me permission to use them.


And they have taken me back over sixty years to to those carefree days when I sat beside dad in the empty coach up to the garage, and brought back memories of Frank, Taffy and Wishy Washy, along with that bottle of lemonade and crisps, which for those who can remember came in just the one flavour, which in turn came in the form of a twist of blue paper with a pinch of salt.


Glenton Tours had begun in the 1920s when the family who ran an estate agents acquired two coaches as payment for a transaction.

Dad joined soon after and stayed with them almost to the end of the business.

Location; Nunhead

Pictures; Dad, a coach, a tour guide, 1951-65 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Glenton Mews, 2019, courtesy of Ian Boxall

The Prefab Challenge ............... saving our shared heritage

Now someone will have written the book on the prefab, but I wonder if anyone has documented just where all of them were in south east London?

Judging by the responses to a story I ran on the prefab on Lordship Lane, there were lots, which given the shortage of houses after the last war will be a surprise to no one.*

But back then we were grateful that they were being built and during the next two decades of peace took these instant homes for granted.

Now, most have gone and soon a part from OS maps and dusty plans hidden away in City and Borough archives the evidence of where they were will be lost forever, and that is a shame.

So it needs someone who like me loves prefabs but also lives in south east London and has the time to do the business.

So there it is ........ the Prefab Challenge ...... just get in touch and will send the data, and with luck there should be a few stories along with some more copyright free pictures of prefabs.

Location; East Dulwich

Picture; the Prefab, Lordship Lane, 2018, courtesy of Rosie Jones.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So the project has just started.

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

So as they say watch this space.

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

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

Drinking Troughs I have known

The drinking trough was one of those bits of street furniture I took for granted.

A water trough I knew .... St Mary's Road, date unknown

Thinking back they were all over the place and given the number of horses in use until the middle of the 20th century that is no surprise.

But they owed their origins as much to cattle as horses.

In the middle of the 19th century  cattle along with other livestock were still being walked into our city centres and while the days of bring them in from the country were over they were still being walked from main railway stations to dairies and abattoirs.

As late as the 1950s my old friend Oliver Bailey had the job of transporting pigs from our local station to his farm through the streets of Chorlton-cum-Hardy and the family still kept a herd of cattle on a patch of land in the heart of the township.

So the water trough during the years I grew up in Lausanne Road was still in use although by then its use was pretty much limited to offering water to the horses pulling the milk floats and the rag and bone man’s cart.

An on Bexley Road a water trough with flowers

And if I think hard enough the one on the corner of St Mary’s Road and Evelina Road was more often dry and a place for us lads to sit in and be silly getting our clothes dusty and a tad grimy from the accumulated muck which was a mix of dried leaves, the odd discarded crisp paper and street grit.

Some troughs can still be found like the one in Eltham, others were taken over as flower beds before finding their way into Corporation Yards and finally broken up as rubble.

Now I have decided to begin looking for them and plotting their presence around the area where I grew up.
And to help me I have fallen back on an excellent set of historical maps of Southwark.*

The trough on St Mary's Road, 1953

They cover the period from 1896-1953 and offer up a fascinating resource more so as the later ones cover my own time in Lausanne Road.

Added to which there is the facility to compare them with modern street maps and switch to contemporary street scenes.

From which I know that my water trough at the top of St Mary’s Road has long gone.
And as you would expect the story behind the maps is a tale in itself.
They were found in a cupboard by Mr Carter in the council offices who decided to have them digitized and made available on line.

That Peckham water trough again

They represent an invaluable resource for any one engaged in family research or like me have been drawn back to write about the place I grew up.

All too often my memory is hazy to the point where I wonder whether they actually happened.
So trying to track where my old friend Jimmy lived proved almost impossible.

I knew it was a street off Queen’s Road between Mona and the fire station.  Sadly google street maps offered no help but there on the 1953 map was the place and by using the electoral roll I found him and his house all over again.

And the same 1953 map offered up the corner of St Mary’s Road with Evelina Road that water  trough which was good because despite Adrian’s picture I had come to doubt that I had ever sat there.

All I have to do is find the rest.

Tomorrow, Ghost signs on Evelina Road .............. along with an old telephone kiosk and much more

Picture; St Mary’s Road with water trough, date unknown supplied by Adrian Parfitt, water trough, Bexley Road, 2015 from the collection of Jean Gammons and detail of St Mary’s Road 1953 historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at Historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp?mapcfg=Historical_Selection&style=historical&banner=historical.
 with mapping provided by Landmark Information Group

Losing the Railway Tavern on Gibbon Road and remembering the chip loaf ............... an August day in 1960

Now it’s almost impossible to recreate an adventure you had when you were ten back in the summer of 1960.

But as you do I tried and it was doomed to failure.

That summer had hung heavy and although some of it had been spent with my grandparents  the rest was the usual mix of various parks, the odd long walk and when flush with pocket money a train ride or a Red Rover bus pass which seemed to offer up the world.

Me, I preferred the train but there is no doubting the freedom those Red Rover’s gave you to wander the city for what was just 2/6d.

I never planned my routes just turned up, bought the ticket and went off.  Sometimes you struck gold and others were one of those long journeys to nowhere.

But for now it was that adventure in the August of 1960 which took us out beyond Lausanne Road and up Gibbon Road.

We had planned to spend the morning in the park at Rye Lane but instead of staying on Evelina Road had turned off on to Gibbon Road and by degree discovered the cemetery which was I have to say a bonus.

Once inside it was far more magical than a park, afforded the potential for all sorts of scary and daft things and held out the promise of a return when the conkers had fallen from the trees.

Of course when you do these things for the first time and especially by accident it’s always a bit problematical if the trip can be repeated.

All of which I knew when I set off to recreate that walk, but the passage of  55 years can be hard on the memory and confronted me with more than a few disappointments.

The first was losing the Railway Tavern which has lingered at the back of my mind ever since we came across it because t was here that we had stopped to ask directions.

The pub was closed but the cleaners were in and the doors wide open and that distinctive smell of stale beer and polish permeated the entrance.

And if that wasn’t memorable enough this was where Jimmy dropped the bottle of Tizer which we had carried from home and which still was half full although by now it was warm and a little flat.

So I had good reason to look for the Railway Tavern only to find it had finally shut up shop in 2003 and been demolished three years later, making it another bit of my past that has been taken away from me.

The site is now new housing and comparing it with Adrian’s picture you would be hard pressed to make a match.

Still the old sign has been left although it’s not the picture I remember.

That said there had been one final bonus of the Gibbon Road jaunt and that was the discovery of the chip loaf.  Early on in the trip we had bought those small round loaves, and as walked we ate the inside.

Then at dinner time we filled the inside with chips and sitting down somewhere along the way home ate the lot.

That at least is something I still occasionally do much to the horror of Tina who being Italian thinks the inside should be filled with a mixture of roast vegetables, a few slices of mozzarella cheese and handful of basil leaves all covered with a dash of olive oil.

I can’t disagree with her but point out that in 1960, the inside would be less sun dried peppers and more likely a pickled egg or onion with a sliver of cheddar and a dash of vinegar.

And they say nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

Which is certainly true in this case because I indebted to Simon Mitchell who has corrected the date of the picture, commenting, "sorry to disagree Andrew, but that photo can't be 1960 as there is an Austin Allegro in the shot and they were not on our roads until 1973."

Not that Simon should apologise I am just pleased we have got it right.  Thank you Simon.

Pictures; the Railway Tavern, 66 Gibbon Road, circa 1970s, from the collection of Adrian Parfitt and a London Transport single deck bus courtesy of Jean Low, 2015

Walking down Nunhead Lane on Christmas Day 1958

Now I was reminded of that oft quoted line “you can wait for a 21 from Lewisham and then three come along at the same time” which could apply to any bus anywhere in the world at some point, usually when it’s raining and you are late.

All of which is a contrived way of saying thank you to Adrian Parfitt who sent me  a shedful of new pictures from his mum’s photo album including heaps of Peckham Health Centre, the park at Rye Lane and Austin’s furniture store.

And among them was Banfield’s depot on Nunhead Lane which I had written about only recently and will lead someone to mutter about waiting for a coach garage and finding three in the same day.

Despite lots of thinking I still don’t remember the place although I must have seen it almost every day during the year I was at the annexe on Old James Street.

And I will have passed it on a Christmas Day morning sometime between 1957 and 59.

Now I can be pretty sure of those dates because I remember being fascinated by the newly rebuilt St Anthony’s church which was finished in 1957 replacing the one destroyed in 1940.

Although to be accurate it was the figure of Christ beside the church notice board which attracted me.

Looking back fifty seven years I could of course be mistaken but I am fairly sure that is what I saw.

It is an image that has stayed with me and like so many recently has bubbled up to the surface.

I was with my dad, and Uncle George and I think also my twin sisters who would have been two and it was one of those pre Christmas dinner walks that people went in for at the time.

We will have walked up to Rye Lane Park in the morning after opening the presents and the trip was mother’s way of emptying the house so she could prepare the dinner.

All of which will have placed us at the corner with Carden Road around 11.

Any later and we would not have been back to have settled down had dinner and cleared away ready for the Queen’s speech which I am also fairly confident we would have watched on the telly.

Like so many of the memories from when we lived at Lausanne Road I had begun to think many were just my imaginings but Adrian’s picture has brought it back and confirmed what I thought.

Added to which it also brought back one of those more shameful episodes when not much older and in the company of two friends I shocked an elderly couple on Nunhead Green with a series of foul outbursts which even at the time I knew were wrong and in the face of their disapproval I blushed.

What interests me more than the memories is that simple fact that as more pop up each in turn is confirmed by an old picture or by someone else.

So the cocoa factory on Kender Street, the tally man who called on a Friday and the wool shop on New Cross Road have all been vouched for which means more than a little of my life in Peckham and New Cross really did happen the way I thought it did.

Nor is this some silly little piece of nostalgia because it points to that important lesson in sharing our history especially if that history happened a long time ago and for some of us those memories are separated not just by time but also geography.

We left Lausanne Road in the spring of 1964 and when I returned six years ago much of the area was unrecognisable which I know is only to be expected but I bet with that change much has been lost.

Still that said the clock tower of the garage is still as is the church even if the ownership has changed and that row of houses don’t look so different.

Picture; Nunhead Lane, date unknown, from the collection of Adrian Parfitt

V Bombs over Peckham and Nunhead ..............a story from Barney

The V1 was one of Hitler’s secret weapons which  he had told his generals would turn the war.

Rolling out a V1, 1944

The V1 was first launched against Britain in June 1944, just one week after D-Day.

The V1 is difficult to classify as a weapon as it was not a true rocket in that it did not leave the atmosphere, but it was also clearly not a plane. Perhaps it could best be described as a winged but pilot-less, fuel propelled, flying bomb.

The V1 was so-called because Hitler saw it as a reprisal weapon – a Vergeltungswaffen.
Wernher von Braun (23 Mar 1912 to 16 Jun 1977) was a German / American aerospace engineer and space architect credited with inventing the V2 rocket for Nazi Germany and later, the Saturn-V for the USA.

V1 & V2 Peckham and Nunhead.

The Peckham and Nunhead areas were badly damaged by "Doodle Bugs", (V1 and V2, flying bombs).
The rockets were to devastate many parts of the capital. Here are just a few examples of the damage and loss of life caused by the V1.

22nd June 1944 at 08:50

After a V1 ....... Upper Norwood, 1944

There was a very serious incident on the corner of Nunhead Lane & Peckham Rye on the 22nd June when 23 deaths occurred when a V1 hit a corset factory.

Many of the casualties were young female workers. The area today has been re-developed as a housing estate. 18 were to die when a V2 hit Waite street on 14th February 1945. This area today is still undeveloped and forms part of playing fields but the original line of streets can still be seen.

The area to the North of Peckham High Street was very badly hit by 10 V1's and 2 V2's.  This is probably one of the highest concentrations of V weapons that I have found anywhere in London. There would have been very few, if any, undamaged buildings in this part of Peckham. This has resulted in the area being more or less totally re-developed post war.

23rd June 1944 at 02:12

50 private houses damaged in Hollydale Road, surrounding property in St Mary's Road, Stanly and Lugard Road, slightly damaged by blast.

Picture; rolling out a V1, 1944, German Federal Archive, and after the V1Men of Civil Defence heavy and light rescue teams and men of the National Fire Service (NFS) listen for survivors as they search a cavity in a large pile of rubble, timbers and debris following a V1 attack in the Highland Road and Lunham Road area of Upper Norwood, 1944, Imperial War Museum, from V-1 flying bomb, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb

Dark deeds in Nunhead and Blackheath ............... another story from Barny

My dear old dad used to mention, on more than one occasion, a notorious villain that resided in the idyllic hamlet of Nunhead, name of Charley Peace.

Newspaper account, 1879

It was only just a few years ago that I decided to "Google" that name. This is an abridged piece about Mr. Peace.

Charles (Charlie) Peace

Charles Frederick Peace (14 May 1832 – 25 February 1879) was an English burglar and murderer, who embarked on a life of crime after being maimed in an industrial accident when a boy.

After killing a policeman in Manchester, he fled to his home-town of Sheffield, where he became obsessed with his neighbour's wife and shot the husband dead.

In early 1877, he moved to London, where he felt safer from arrest, and sent for his wife and son Willie to join them in a respectable villa at 5, East Terrace, Evelina Road, Peckham),

Charles Peace was a notorious cat burglar and murderer who evaded arrest for over twenty years. Peace was a master of disguise due to his almost rubber like features, and often carried his housebreaking tools inside an old violin case, an instrument on which he was very proficient.

In 1877, while living at Banner Cross Terrace, Sheffield, he began an affair with a neighbour, Mrs Katherine Dyson. Although she was a willing instigator of the relationship, she soon decided that she wanted no further part of it and tried fruitlessly to be rid of him.
Eventually Peace took the hint and left the area. Around this time, Peace shot dead a policeman, PC Nicholas Cock, in Manchester but the crime was attributed to a young Irishman, William Habron, who was convicted and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment on account of his young age.

The execution of Mr Pearec, 1879

During the summer, Peace returned to Sheffield where he again chased after Mrs Dyson. One night her husband caught him as he pestered her and Peace shot him dead. He fled to London and set up with a new name but was soon in trouble again, and while robbing a house in Blackheath he attempted to shoot a police officer.

Peace was arrested and gave his name as John Ward. He was tried for the attempted murder of a police officer and sentenced to life imprisonment but no sooner had he begun his sentence, than he was recognised as being wanted for the murder of Katherine Dyson's husband at Banner Cross, and he was returned to the north to face trial. On the journey, he attempted to escape from the train by throwing himself through a window but was thwarted in his bid.

WINTERINGHAM - and the convict Peace.

Police-constable Robinson, who so successfully arrested Peace at Blackheath, is a native of Winteringham, and was for a considerable number of years employed as labourer at Sand House Farm, near Appleby. That no-one needed telling any more of the story suggests that in the late 1870s, everyone had heard about Peace! Indeed, his life was featured in films (in 1905 and 1949), and even in comics of the 1960s such as Buster. Until Jack the Ripper, he was the most infamous of Victorian criminals.

At 2 am on 10th October 1878, former Winteringham man, PC Edward Robinson, was patrolling the streets of Blackheath when he suddenly saw a light appear at the back of a house in St John's Park, Blackheath, home of Mr Burness.

Quickly realising that there was something untoward, he called for back-up from two of his colleagues and hid in the back garden.

PC Robinson, 1878

One of his colleagues went to the front door and rang the bell. Charles Peace quickly made his way out of a back window and down the path pursued by Edward. "Keep back!" he said, "or by God I'll shoot you!" 

But the courageous Edward did not keep back and when Peace fired once, twice, three times, he still advanced on the double murderer!

A fourth shot was fired and missed PC Robinson, who was now close enough to strike Peace in the face. Peace threatened to "settle" with one last shot, and this time he did hit his target - but in the upper arm.
Despite this wound, Edward managed to fling Peace to the ground, held him, and grab Peace's pistol and hit him on the head with it! The other two PCs ran to help their colleague, and Peace's burgling days were over.

Peace was convicted at Leeds Assizes and sentenced to death, he was hanged by William Marwood after confessing to the murder of PC Cock at Manchester, which resulted in the release from prison and also compensation for William Habron. The sentence of death was carried out in Leeds on the 25 February 1879, Peace was forty six at the time.

Despite his execution for the murder of a Mr Dyson, Charles Peace was ‘primarily celebrated for hid larcenous rather than his murderous achievements’.

Conducting a number of burglaries in Hull, London, Sheffield and the surrounding areas, and on many occasions outfoxing the police, Peace became something of a celebrated and comedic character.


Pictures; supplied by Barny

References

http://www.winteringham.info/Local_History/Police/PC_Edward_Robinson

https://johnjohnson.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/charles-peace-and-kate-webster/

FULL STORY - http://murderpedia.org/male.P/p/peace-charles.htm

Looking for great grandfather .............. new online records available

Southern Cemetery, Manchester, 2015

Now I spend my time searching for relatives and many others whose stories have been forgotten or never told, so I am pleased that more cemetery records from south east London will now be available online.

They can be found at Deceased Online, span the period 1858-1999 and cover details of people interred at Brockley Ladywell, Grove Park and Hither Green cemeteries as well as those cremated at Lewisham Crematorium.

And according to WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? magazine,  “although the level of detail may vary, each entry is accompanied by a scan of the page on which it originally appears [and] for around 90% of the graves users can access a map showing exactly where the final resting place of their forbearers is located.”**

Nunhead Cemetery, 2015

Deceased Online now have eight million records with 14 councils represented and they expect to add another two London councils, as well as many other councils across the UK over the next six months.

Now I have never used the site mainly because as a first generation Londoner all our lot are scattered across the country but there will be plenty who may want to go and look at the site.

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

And there is now a facility to subscribe for £89.

For those wanting to access the records for Manchester there is  Manchester Burial Records which is also an  the online service run by of Manchester City Council,.***

It is an excellent site and covers the city.

Pictures Southern Cemetery, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson; and Nunhead Cemetery, July 2015, from the collection of Sue Simpson

* Deceased Online, deceasedonline.com

**South London Burials go online, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? magazine, Issue 107, December 2015, www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com

***Manchester Burial Records, http://www.burialrecords.manchester.gov.uk/

Walking in Nunhead Cemetry

I have decided to find out what I can about the Chicken family.

They were buried in the cemetery between 1872 and 1917 and between them their lives spanned the 19th century.

The first was Mary Ann Chicken who was born in 1799 and that last was William who died in 1917.

And the historian in me wonders what events of that century and a bit impacted most on the family.

After all Mary Ann would have been sixteen when the news of Waterloo came through and just 38 when the old Queen ascended the throne.

I would like to know where they lived, how they made a living and their connection with Nunhead.

And perhaps I might also find a little about the people who the thoughtful or perhaps mournful angel stands over.

Pictures, Nunhead Cemetery, from the collection of Sue Simpson

Ghost signs on Evelina Road .............. along with an old telephone kiosk and much more

Now yesterday I was looking for water troughs and found my old one at the top of St Mary’s Road.

It’s gone now and I have no idea when it was hauled away and replaced by the big flower bed.

But the tall old iron ventilation shaft is still there like its partner on Lausanne Road which were built to vent gases from the sewers below.*

It features in front of the trough in Adrian Parfitt’s photograph of this corner of St Mary’s Road.

The picture is one he sent me a while ago and it’s not until now that I have really looked at it.

There was no date on the picture, but I know it will be after 1911 because at the time there were no buildings listed between Gibbon Road and Hollydale Road and if pushed it will have to be after 1920 when the Post Office began introducing the K1 telephone box to our streets.

The K1 was made of concrete and was replaced with the more familiar red K2 from 1926.

I suppose this one could have lingered on into the 1930s or even later which led me to the adverts on the side of what was the post office.

The detail is hard to make out and the product lost but the hair style of the woman places it in that period.

What fascinates me more is the painted sign above it and what is remarkable is that it is still there today.

Or at least a painted sign is still there although I can’t quite match the two up.

And for that I need a modern photograph of the shop and sign.

Looking at street google the present if now redundant sign seems to be advertising a chemist which had been established for 55 years.

I can’t think it will be the same as the earlier one but there’s the challenge.

So if anyone regularly walks past the spot or fancies a trip out I would welcome a new photograph which will help solve the mystery and present me with two ghost signs for the price of one shop.

Which just leaves me to add a comment from Adrian, "hi Andrew, I have just seen your item on the post office, I can remember it as a chemist named Kebbles and the post office was also in there.

Then the post office moved up into Gibbon Road, past the butchers shop, I can remember this back in the early 50's."

Picture; Evelina Road, circa 1920-26, supplied by Adrian Parfitt

*When a smelly sewer was just one too many, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/when-smelly-sewer-was-just-one-too-many.html

So why can't I find pictures of the inside of the Swiss Tavern?

Now one of the things that continues to puzzle me is the absence of pictures of the inside of pubs.

I suppose the grand professional photographers never saw it as a suitable subject while everyone else was too busy enjoying themselves to bother.

Of course tucked away in cupboards and family albums there will be a shedful of snaps recording birthdays, nights out and romantic moments but for obvious reasons these rarely get entered in to the archives.

There are exceptions.

I have some fine pictures by Bill Brandt of London pubs in the 1940s and Humphrey Spender’s Bolton pictures from a decade earlier but there must be loads more.

But so far none of where I grew up.

Now in the case of Lausanne Road that is not surprising as I was only 14 when we left for Eltham, and even though this was where I came of age I never took any of the inside of the pubs I visited and haven’t found any.

All of which just leaves the appeal for pub pictures and perhaps even some stories.

In the meantime here are some from Tommy Ducks, famous for what was displayed on the ceiling along with its coffins and the fact that it was demolished one night in 1993 between the time the preservation order ran out and a new one could be issued.

Back then it was a pub with little in the way of frills.

It served beer, offered companionship and like all pubs of the time, opened at 11, closed at 3 and reopened in the evening till 10.30 with an extension of just half an hour on Fridays and Saturdays.

And woe betide any landlord who infringed those licensing hours because they remained one of the reasons why they could lose their pub.

For most of us back then those time slots pretty much suited our lives.  During the week you were at work and while you might slip in for a pint at dinner time it was usually just the one.

Nor could most of us afford going down the pub every evening and even if you did 10.30 was a sensible time to be turfed out if you had to be at work for 8 in the morning.

And I have to say after a couple of hours I had had enough.  We always went down for the last hour, doubled up at last orders and went away satisfied.


That said it would only be in the morning when you smelt what you had worn the night before that the enormity of what you had inhaled from cigarette smoke really hit home.

Nor did it matter whether it was the vault or the saloon they were full of the stuff.

I can still remember the odd late afternoon in a city centre pub watching the sunlight mingle with the smoke and catching sight of the yellowing ceiling and paintwork which had once been white but was now a darkening yellow.

Added to which if you touched the woodwork it had a slightly sticky feel which clung to your fingers.

Not that I was over bothered back then by such things because  that was just how it was.

In the same way the decor of most pubs I visited was pretty basic.  You might get the odd framed picture which unlike now didn’t trade on nostalgic Manchester.

Instead there would be the tired painting of an elk which competed with an equally faded photograph of a pub day out to Brighton and a dozen or so  posters for the breweries best bitter along with a hand written notice of the next four darts fixtures.

All of which made this discovery of these three both a bit of a find and an introduction into a world of pubs which we have pretty much lost.

They date from 1960 and were taken in Tommy Ducks on East Street, and come from a time long before the coffins or the display on the ceiling.

Pictures; inside Tommy Ducks, 1960, H W Beaumont, m50721, m50272, and m502775, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Warm days in Nunhead Cemetery

Soon those warm summer days exploring Nunhead Cemetery will be over.

Already the mornings are cooler and as the nights draw in there will less opportunities to walk through the place.

So with that in mind here is another of those photographs from Sue Simpson taken in July









Picture; walking in Nunhead Cemetery, July 2015, from the collection of Sue Simpson

Walking again in Nunhead Cemetery

Now we are entering that time of year when more than 55 year ago I wandered into the cemetery in search of conkers.

It’s a story I have told before and it is a moment shrouded in shame.

So I shall say no more of the event but given that many more have and will continue to follow my footsteps I think it is time for a few more of those evocative photographs by Sue Simpson taken in the summer.

Picture; walking in Nunhead Cemetery, July 2015, from the collection of Sue Simpson