Underneath The Arches

A Memory of Camberwell.

My earliest childhood memory of Camberwell is sleeping on the floor of one of my father's taxis during the Blitz of the 1940's. I will never forget the noise of those air raids.My father, Harry Blowes, had a taxi service operating out of 50 Camberwell Station Road.
After the war, my father took on another two railway arches (rented from British Rail) so that he could start up a new business called Blowes Cellulose and Coach Works. When I left school at fifteen, I would help him with various jobs such as selling paraffin, charging wireless accumulators, washing cars, and learning the trade of a panel beater.
At eighteen years of age I went into National Service as a Sapper in the Royal Engineers. When I was demobilized in 1956, I went back to work with my father as a panel beater. In 1970 I moved to Hampshire with my family and continued in the automotive repair trade until my retirement in 2001.
In my growing up years in Camberwell, there were trams, taxi stands, and a working man's cafe called Frank's. Frank's Cafe at Camberwell Green served up the best slices of dripping on toast that you could ever wish for!!
Looking back to my years in Camberwell, I can honestly say, like so many others who lived through the Blitz, that we "slept underneath the arches" and survived!

Kenneth Blowes

---

---