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My Peckham .............. nu 4 New Cross Library
A short series of places I grew up with. Some have already appeared and others will be familiar because as iconic buildings they are well known.Now this was what our library looked like in 1911, and...
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Walking along Shooters Hill in the 1840s with the help of Darrell Spurgeon
Severndroog Castle, 1784It’s another story from Shooters Hill.Over the last few days I have been wandering over the tiny community that lived on this northern edge of Eltham.And today it’s the...
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Summer in the City
Now for no particular reason other than I took them and they are of Manchester, here is a short series celebrating places I like.All have appeared before and some a long time ago.Pictures; around...
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“unquenchable vitality has pulsed through it for ninety years” ...........
Now I can’t quite make my mind up about this description of Rye Lane in the summer of 1963.It comes from Nairn’s London which was written by Ian Nairn and published in 1966. The notes on the back of...
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Growing up in New Cross nu 11 ............ of mission halls, synagogues and a...
Yesterday I went looking for the South London Mission Hall on Lausanne Road.That Baptist Church on Lausanne Road, 1872And today I found it and got a lot more than I expected which is what often...
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Waiting for the tram at Southern Cemetery in the summer of 1915
Now, I am on another of those tram rolls. So here are tram cars numbers 46 and 45 on Barlow Moor Road on a summer’s afternoon in 1915 hard by the entrance to Southern Cemetery. Just visible beyond the...
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Growing up in New Cross nu 12 ........... down in Deptford and across the...
Now if you have to go swimming I can’t think of anywhere better than the baths at Deptford which was a grand old building and one which made you feel special because it had all the magic and grandeur...
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My Peckham .............. nu 5 the park on the top of the hill
A short series of places I grew up with.Some have already appeared and others will be familiar because as iconic buildings they are well known.Now we seldom played up here. The views down to where we...
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Be careful which tram you choose to get home to Chorlton in November 1913
I never tire of this image of Barlow Moor Road sometime just before 1911 and it is one I keep coming back to.But for now it is the postcard and the company that interest me more.It is the fourth in the...
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On Court Yard in 1911 with Mrs Morris and memories of Eltham in the 19th century
I am looking at number 25 Court Yard, and there in the picture are Mrs Annie Morris and her sons David and Harold.I don’t know the date but I reckon it will have been sometime around 1911 because in...
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On Shooters Hill in 1909
Looking down Shooters Hill in 1909Yesterday I was on Shooters Hill in the June of 1841 thinking about the small community of 58 people who lived on this northern boundary of Eltham.I had planned to...
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523 Barlow Moor Road back in 1961
The Stables, 1961The recent past is a time I take for granted. I guess for some of us this is because it really doesn’t seem history. I was born in 1949, grew up in the 1950s and 60s, came to...
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Memories of New Cross in south east London in the 1950s
I like reading other people’s memories of their childhood, especially when they are about the same part of south east London that I grew up.So here are the memories of David Easton who I first met...
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Painting New Cross ............ that telephone exchange just over the border
Now I recently used that well known phrase “you can take the boy out of Peckham but you can’t take Peckham out of the boy.”It was during a conversation with my old friend Peter who reposted “you can...
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The Dark End of the Street 1967 .............. songs you never forget
I can’t remember listening to The Dark End of the Streetwhen 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...
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Home Thoughts of Well Hall from a distance .......... nu 1
Now I am not one to get over homesick but this is the time of year I left Well Hall for Manchester.In the intervening 45 years I haven’t been back as many times as I would wish and so for all those...
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Drinking in the Bowling Green
There will be no one left who remembers drinking in the old Bowling Green Hotel. Nor for that matter anyone who could tell me about how it was demolished in 1908 after the present pub had been built. I...
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On a warm sunny afternoon on Barlow Moor Road, sometime before 1939
I like the way that old postcards can reveal our past in many different ways.It’s every much as good as a detective story.You start with the picture, move on to the postmark and the message and if you...
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Walking down Kender Street looking for the cocoa works and finding a lost cinema
It will be something well over half a century since I last walked down Kender Street and even now it’s the smell of cocoa which is the first thing that comes to mind.Kender Street, 1872We lived at...
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Summer in the City
Now for no particular reason other than I took them and they are of Manchester, here is a short series celebrating places I like.All have appeared before and some a long time ago.Pictures; around...
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