My Own Memories Of Eltham

A Memory of Eltham.

I lived at 27 Kingsholm Gardens in Eltham from 1961. I have nothing but great memories of growing up in Eltham until we left around 1971.

At 5 years old, running to Glovers or Wally's close to Brisset Park to pick up cigarettes for my mum at Mr Glovers (they sold them in fives and tens back then) or buying potatoes at Wally's. I am amazed that Glovers little shop under the railway bridge was still there when I last looked a few years ago.

Shaws the sweet shop on Westhorne Avenue. The Co-Op.

Going with my Mum to the Family Allowance building on Westhorne Avenue every Tuesday morning for our much needed extra funds..
Getting caught shoplifting when I was five at Thorntons the bric a brac shop on Well Hall road near the Odeon (and being scared to within an inch of my life in case Mr Thornton told my Mum) and of course the Pleasance. My Nan worked at the Tudor Barn in the evenings, and walking through the Pleasance at Well Hall and seeing what I remember as beautiful gardens with fish ponds and fish and all kinds of interesting stuff was enough to keep a 5 year old quite amazed!!

Playing on the swings at Brisset Park.

Getting my haircut every few weeks with my Dad at the bottom of Well Hall road where there was a Men's Barber Shop and a woman's hairdressers with a shared entrance. Next to a bike shop if I remember.

Long hot summers walking the streets at 5 and 6 and 7 years old.

Would we do that today?

Every Saturday morning was an adventure, and an expedition to the Quaggy was a schoolboys dream. Back then half if it was underground and walking the tunnels and surfacing in Kidbrooke seemed like an expedition to another land!! There were still WW II 'pill boxes' at Kidbrooke near the railway lines, full of unsavory rubbish but an absolute delight to explore as a young lad. An RAF base at Kidbrooke too which we used to sneak into through the fence!!

The Nissen Huts in Kidbrooke hat were a relic of WWII, and which there seemed to still be many.

I watched the Beatles Movies as and when they came out with my Aunty Kay at the Odeon, and also saw Dr Who and the Daleks in 1965. One of the first Colour Movies I remember.

Special memories of winter 1963 and the snow. And of course of my wonderful years at Henwick School. Headmaster Mr Rees who I was in awe of, and Mrs Chase my teacher who I loved and standing on a school bench in 1965 singing 'She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah' with three other boys while a gaggle of six year old girls watched. I was a Milk Monitor and nothing was as good as frozen milk on a winter morning!!

On those densely foggy 'smoggy' mornings of the early sixties, walking to school ( yes at 6 years old) by holding onto the picket fence until the end of the road and then crossing the Rochester Way with Mrs Webb the Lollipop Lady. The Fog Horns of the Woolwich Ferry audible in the background!!

Watching the Moon Landing in 1968 on black and white TV at Henwick School.

In 1968/69 the Concorde started its test flights and every time it went over we were allowed to leave our classroom and watch it on it's flight path back towards Heathrow.

Great memories and today with four children and a life outside of the UK since 1978 it all seems much more complicated for a young boy than in my own day at that age.

Gary Wright

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