Searching The Tombs!

A Memory of Camberwell.

Oh I know it always seemed so huge and scary, with its giant red doors, but my brother and I had such fun in the churchyard climbing the trees and exploring the broken tombs and crypts. Pretty scary as I always expected a monster to grab me and take me down inside never to be seen again! I think the horror movie of the time was about zombies and living dead and stuff! We also used to pick the daffodils and sell them in bunches for a tanner a bunch till one day the vicar caught us and gave us a right telling off!
The canal ran alongside the churchyard and we used to 'boat' up and down it on a bit of old wood we'd found or anything that floated! We had no fear!! I used to catch the sticklebacks and take them home. I wondered why they died when I'd carefully filled my plimpsole with water for them to live in? Mum wasn't too pleased either!!
My brother Dennis fell in on one occasion and since we weren't suposed to be playing there anyway, he didn't tell mum or dad that he'd cut his wrist on a broken bottle! He nearly severed an artery but I told my mum and after the screaming abdabs dad took him to hospital. He still has a really nasty lumpy scar, surgery then wasn't as good as it is now!
I forget the name of the road but mum used to get us to drag bags of rags weighted down with stones to make them heavier to the scrapyard up the road from the church. I remember one time the bloke opened the bundle (I think we might have overdone the rocks a bit!) He was furious and bellowed at the pair of us and tried to clip us round the ear. We were really scared and told him that mum didn't have any money so he gave us some anyway but told us never to come back again. I don't think we ever did? Blimey how things have changed eh?