Downham, Kent.
Approx. 1925-1930
It was sometime in 1925 or 1926 that we moved from 106 Westmoreland Road, Walworth, the family home where we had lived since birth, to our first new home “in the country”. This house was on a council estate run by the London County Council at Downham, near Bromley, in Kent.
I travelled in the removal van – I clearly remember sitting in the back of the van with dad, looking out over the tailboard watching the traffic. I remember seeing a funeral procession travelling in the other direction; dad took his cap off, I was puzzled but obviously impressed. Fred, who was only about one or two years old, must have travelled with mum, probably in the front of the cab with the driver, or they may have travelled by public transport.
I remember we arrived to find that the milkman had left some free groceries with the milk as a welcome gesture. Within a few days, mum took me to the school near to where we lived in Rangefield Road, but they couldn’t register me because I was under five years old; my fifth birthday wasn’t until 2nd August 1926.
My longest memory is that I previously attended school at Westmoreland Road, near to where we lived at Walworth. Apparently it was a nursery school and I had started there when I was about three and a half or four years old. Mum also had attended the same school when she was young.
Sketch by Alf of a gramophone, early player of shellac (before vinyl) records.
Sketch of a barrel piano, played by turning the handle attached.
A few memories of Rangefield Road: The house was No. 151, and it was terraced. We had a small front garden and a fair-sized back garden, where dad excelled at growing sweet peas, and we also had a pet rabbit.
When I eventually started at Rangefield Road School at five years old, Fred, who was aged about two and a half at the time, would run after me up the garden path wanting to go to school with me. I remember the school well; one of the subjects that they specifically taught was “how to read the twenty-four hour clock”.
Empire Day was celebrated with great enthusiasm at that school and I can still recall some of the activities in the playground, a day when all the parents would come and watch. Fred joined the school when he was aged five and we both stayed there until we moved out of the district in 1930.
Other things I remember about Downham is that there was a large field near to where we lived in Rangefield Road, with a stream which I once fell into. I also remember the street traders who regularly pushed their barrows up and down the road; one I particularly remember was the fishmonger who called every Sunday with shrimps and shellfish.
One Christmas, Fred and I were given a wonderful Christmas present, a two-seater pedal car by Aunt May who lived at Tooting. We also took piano lessons while we were at Rangefield Road, as mum had bought a new piano especially for Fred and I to learn on. She could play quite well herself, but couldn’t read music. I managed to play the music scale and eventually progressed to playing a tune called “Down on Misery Farm”. Very apt, now I think about it, as I was hopeless and the neighbours probably thought so too. I believe Fred progressed a bit further but we both discontinued after we left Downham.
While we were still at Downham, dad must have joined the British Legion Club because, as a child, I well remember going to the “Family Nights” when children were allowed in, and in particular, the Fancy Dress nights.
The one day at Downham which sticks in my mind was the 19th November 1929. I was quietly playing alone with my toy soldiers in the living room and mum was upstairs in bed, when suddenly the midwife came down the stairs to tell me I had another baby brother.
Derek had been born!
Fred was away from home at the time, apparently in hospital at Dartford, I believe. I don’t remember where our dad was, but I do know he was making periodical visits to Brompton Chest Hospital in London for treatment at around that time. He fetched Fred home from Dartford shortly afterwards.
I remember the local shops at Downham where mum went shopping and on Saturdays we would all go by bus (or was it by tram?) to the bigger shopping centres at Bromley or Lewisham.
I recall we always had liver and bacon for Saturday dinner. I remember going to the Schools District Sports Day, probably in Bromley, and taking part in a three-legged race.
We made friends with many of the neighbours in Rangefield Road, and some of them I remember visited us when we later moved to Tooting.
One of our neighbours in Rangefield Road was a cousin of mum’s, Rose Nash, although I don’t remember her very well.
Our grandmother, Mary Ann Hobbs, whose home at Walworth we had shared, died on 10th January 1929, while we were living at Downham. I remember being told later that it poured with rain at the funeral, which was at Nunhead Cemetery.
Fred, Derek and I were baptised together, at the Wesleyan Methodist Church, on the Downham Estate on 12th January 1930. Fred was aged six years; Derek was only three months old and I was aged eight and a half years. The church was only a short distance away, as I remember we walked there from Rangefield Road.
Points of history: John Logie Baird gave his first demonstration of television on 27th January 1926, the British Broadcasting Company became known as the British Broadcasting Corporation and the annual fee for the wireless (radio) remained at 10/- (£0.50) in March 1926.
The first general strike in British history was on May 4th 1926.
London buses had their tops covered-in by August 1927.
The Morris Minor was launched in UK in August 1928 and in November 1929 petrol prices fell to 1/7d (£0.08) a gallon.
In April 1930, Amy Johnson flew from Croydon Aerodrome in a second-hand Gypsy Moth to Darwin, Australia in nineteen days – now that is something I remember, we were living at Downham at the time and I was almost nine years old.