Shops, Red Squirrels And Bad Men

A Memory of Bromley.

I remember that first row of shops quite well. There was a greengrocer on the right which I was sent to sometimes to buy 3lbs of King Edward's (why did he have potatoes?) My brother and I argued about carrying the shopping bag - he was older and usually ended up dumping it in the road, so I had to take it home. Once I remember seeing a red squirrel in the fenced off woodland on the left of the picture, this was before it was opened as South Hill Park. There was more woodland; out of the right hand side of the picture. More shops were built there soon after this photo was taken. We used to play there, but there was one time when we were banned for a few weeks - a 'bad man' had been hanging out there. I'm not sure if the bad man was caught, we never saw him and we started playing there again. However, fairly soon after that the shops and bank were built and that was one more bit of wild land that had gone.