Tulips From St Mary Cray

A Memory of St Mary Cray.

I lived in Station Road no 24 i had the Surname Sheppard back then i moved to the area back in 1964 or thereabouts,went to Leeson's Hill primary school my neighbours to the right were the Sturge family i cannot remember who lived to the left of us remember playing down by the river at the end of our alley a whole croud of us kids would paddle in the river there and in those days it was freezing,no matter how hot the Summer was we enjoyed it also the river was quite alot deeper than it is today at the end of the dirt road by the river in those days was a field full of the most beautiful tulips you could imagine i remember them being only Red and Yellow though,the field was actually owned by a Dutch couple,it was opposite Meadowview we as kids used to always go and play up the "Sandbanks" as we used to call it in those days they were based under the bridge near to the Roma camp top of Star Lane, we used to slide down these banks which when at the bottom was very close to the railway tracks kids eh! none of us really seemed scared of the dangers there our parents would have gone nuts had they known and kept us in ie Grounded,in toda's language,lol, today the families i knew there were, Paul and Yvonne Sturge (neighbours) Timmy Grace, Ian Pomfrey, Dawn and Royston Chorles, the Donohue family at the other end of the High Street,consisting of Eileen and Fergus the parents and kids were Ann,Carmel,Eammon,Brendan,Bernadette and lastly Martin we went to mass at the then St Joseph's RC Church at the other end of the High Street the priest then was Father O'Conner long gone now, these are some of my happy memories of my life in St Mary Cray and miss this time