Born In Palace Road, Crystal Palace Se19

A Memory of Crystal Palace.

I was born in Palace Road in 1959. I lived with my sisters Fay Barbara and parents John and Audrey Langford. My aunt Joan and Uncle Tom Martin owned the house and we rented the top floor flat. Because we didn't have a garden our washing was hung out on lines between the houses high in the air and the washing was out out through a window using a pulley system. I remember rows and rows of washing blowing in the wind high above the gardens. I only lived here until just before I was five, when we moved to Croydon Road, Beckenham. I started Anerley school for a term and remember the headmistress had a dog, before we moved and I then attended Marion Vian.

My nan and Grandad Ethel and Arthur Bale lived at 44 in the basement flat and my aunt May and uncle George Evangelides lived next door. We spent all our time with our aunts and cousins.

I remember the bomb site at Palace Square you speak of and the play park nearby, also the Boxer dog outside the Paxton Arms. I used to walk up Anerley hill regularly to the shops with my family and often went to Clouds greengrocers and often begged for a penny to make the train go round in the shop window you speak of. Crystal Palace Park was so beautiful in those days and what with the motor racing, stone dinosaurs and lakes was a very exciting place to spend long summer days. Everyone knew their neighbours well in those days and I remember listening to lots of local gossip and stories of the war when barrage balloons used to float above Crystal Palace and the Palace burning down. I remember a coal truck catching fire one extremely hot summer and was told of a steam roller losing control of its breaks and rolling down Anerley Hill crashing through the fish and chip shop window and trapping a lady by her legs. I had nightmares about that for years after.

My mum told us of her childhood days at St Anthony's school being taught by nuns with her young sister and heard about when they were machine gunned by German airplanes as they came out of school and having to run for their lives. She also told us of terrifying nights in their Anderson shelter damp and miserable listening for the doodlebugs, and the local butcher saving her and her sister on their way home from school when a doodlebug engine cut out above them. The butcher pulled them into his shop and the bomb landed where they would have been. Her older sisters worked in the munitions factory working hard and then putting on shows for the local kids and going to dances.

In 1963 we had such a cold winter with deep snow and we enjoyed jumping off my Nan's garden wall into the snow although only 4 it's a memory that stays with me as does catching the bus to Brockwell park to enjoy the open air swimming pool.

I didn't know it then but my future husband Stephen Thomas was born in Brunswick Court Anerley Road just at the bottom of Palace Road. Our families didn't know each other but Crystal Palace is a special place for both of us.

My parents in law have cine film of Anerley road and it's lovely to see the old cars and how the place used to be when we lived there.

I have very happy memories of my early life with all my family around me and miss the times when we all lived in the same street.