Kidbrooke And My Childhood

A Memory of Kidbrooke.

My dad returned from the war in 1946. My mother and I were living in Eltham with my grandparents and her brothers and sister. It was pretty crowded. We moved into the prefabs on Kidbrooke Way shortly after and my sister was born in 1947. We all loved it. They were not large but there were only 4 of us and we were only about a mile from my grandparents.
I went to Ealdham Square School as there was not a school in Kidbrooke at the time. After the new school was built I went there for one year and then decided that I did not like it and went back to my old school.
I met my best friend but you wouldn't have thought we were friends. We fought all the time. Finally my mother took the two of us aside and said, "If you can go a whole week without fighting I will give you sixpence each." We were SO good and we both got sixpence. But the best thing was we became best friends. She had an older sister and a younger sister about my sister's age. We also made friends with the girl who lived beside us and we broke down the chain link fence between our prefabs. The other part of our group of friends was about the same as our next door neighbour. We were a group of 5 with me being the youngest by 6 months and did we stick together.
We used to collect money for the guy to buy fireworks with. One year my dad had a brilliant idea of having the bonfire and fireworks at our house as we had a fairly large garden. We had the guy on the bonfire and my dad was setting of some Roman Candles. My Mum told him to move the box of fireworks out of the way BUT he didn't. The next thing we knew a spark hit the box and there were fireworks going off in every direction. We all ran in the house. When it was over the only thing left was a lone Catherine wheel that had been nailed on to the post for the washing line and some potatoes baking on the fire. Talk about disappointment. I think it must have been a spectacular display but we didn't see it. We were all hiding our faces and crying as it was very loud and scary. Never did my dad make the same suggestion again. It wasn't just our fireworks but all the neighbours had brought all there fireworks as well.
We moved to Canada in 1952 when I was 10 and then to San Diego in 1957. I will always remember living in Kidbrooke and have many fond memories. Unfortunately the prefabs are gone now and so is my grandparents house, but they can't tear down my memories.
Sorry this is so long. Jean

---

---