Working In Dartmouth Road

A Memory of Purley.

I worked at the gas board showroom on Dartmouth Road. It was next door to the bank on the corner of London Road. As well as selling gas appliances and receiving payment on gas bills we used to sell bags of "shillingsis!" for consumers to feed their slot meters. Black men used to call them punch meters! I used to park on one of the side streets off Dartmouth Road and one day the handbrake broke and I had to leave it in gear. My uncle helped run "Days Garage" on Sydenham Park Road. It was originally owned by a Peter Day (no relation). Today there are houses built over the old garage. My neighbour worked in the china shop along Dartmouth Raod and I can remember the big station with a W H Smiths store alongside.
I lived in Queenswood Road next door to a bomb site. There were loads of 'em in the fifties and us kids used to play in the houses that were condemned down Miall Road in Lower Sydenham.
One of my earliest memories of Forest Hill was when my parents voted in the 1951 general election. The polling station was in one of the big houses along Dacres Road. I can still remember the little pencil hanging on a string for voters to mark their ballot papers. All around Dacres was unmade road with loads o' trees overhanging the road. It really was like a country district in them days.