Bellenden Road School

A Memory of Peckham.

Having been born in Camberwell Hospital in 1935 and after being bombed out of three different houses during the war around Queens Road, (St Mary's Road, Consort Road and Raul Road), my sister and I were then evacuated to Ifracombe in Devon where two buses collected all of us children to travel two miles to the village of Northam where we went to school. Eventually we came back to Peckham at No. 74 Danby Street, where we continued our schooling starting off at Bellenden Road School for infants, then progressing to Ady's Road School then on to Choumert Road School, then with one year before leaving School I went back to Ady's Road School to decide what I was going to do when I leave. My interest was in the classroom where they did Bookbinding, we actually made and bound our own books. I used mine for drawing Bren Guns etc for the two years I was in the School Army Cadets. Then one day a case of type was brought into the class room, so now I could name and print all the parts of the Bren Gun etc. Now I knew the job that I wanted to do. So, when I told my father that I wanted to go into the printing trade, and my father who was a policeman for 25 years at the Queens Road Police Station, knew where to take me for an interview, so from thereon my indentures were signed to start a six year apprenticeship from April 17th 1951 to 1957 at Haycock Press, Neate Street Camberwell.