Swanley Born And Bred
A Memory of Swanley.
My parents were Gerald and Phyllis Smith, we lived in Goldsel Road from about 1939/40, having moved from 'Crescent Gardens'. My father worked at Philip Ladds Nurseries, which was owned and run by his uncle Philip. My father suffered from MS and in those days, with not much known by the medical profession, there was very little help for him, he managed to work only occasionally when having a good day when his legs would work.
He died in 1953 at the young age of 47 in the old Southern Hospital, Dartford. This meant two bus trips for my mother, changing at Dartford to reach the hospital, this took two hours and my mother did this twice a week, as well as looking after my brother Peter and I. ( later to become 'Crispian St.Peters,' he had hit records in 1966 with 'You were on my mind' and the 'Pied Piper'. He passed away in June 2010, and is now buried at St.Mary's Church, Swanley.)
Times were very hard during the War years, and we remember my father's aunt's house 'The Beeches' in Swanley Lane, had a flying bomb land in her garden. This caused a lot of damage to the surrounding area, including Goldsel Road, when all our windows were blown out. My dad who could not get down to the shelter, was found in his bedroom, fast asleep, covered in broken window glass!
My brother and I went to my Aunt Muriel's infant school at 'Buelah' Birchwood Park avenue, (now covered up by the awful ASDA) just across the road from the 'Corona' Cinema, which was designed by my dad's cousin Donald Edwards (who later took over the running of Philip Ladds Nurseries, and when the site was sold for housing development, he moved to smaller premises in Crockenhill). We later went to the St.Mary's School, in Goldsel Road, and then Swanley Central, later known as a Comprehensive.
As a family we spent many happy times in the Corona, and were always there to see Roy Rogers and Trigger.
I have a photo of Swanley High Street taken in 1942, and will post it another time, it shows 'Readmore Libraries' run by Miss Simmons and I spent many happy hours there.
There is a lot more to tell, but will save it for a later date.
p.s. To my knowledge no one has produced Tomatoes that taste like the ones from Philip Ladds nursery. (They were simply the best)
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I started school at Birchwood. I gather there is still a primary school there, but I'm sure it isn't in the same place as the one I went to, which was behind The Bull, which was then just a pub but is now a Premier Inn hotel.
Although I was very young at the time, I still have some World War II memories apart from the night in Chiselhurst Caves: the air raid sirens; being carried to a neighbour's shelter during an air raid, wearing my father's Home Guard tin hat; collecting shrapnel from the road and pavement after a raid; a Messerschmitt 109 flying so low over our house that I could see the pilot's face; sticking National Savings Stamps on bomb casings outside a building in the High Street - the bomb was supposedly dropped on Germany; - the coughing noise of the V1 "doodlebugs'" engines as they flew overhead and the deadly silence after they cut out before hitting the ground and exploding. My mother told me of an occasion when she and a friend were in a greenhouse buying some vegetables when a V1's engine cut out and headed straight for them. They hid under a table, which would of course have afforded no protection whatsoever if it had hit the greenhouse. Fortunately, it levelled out at the last minute and flew over them to explode elsewhere!
My father used to paint the greenhouses at Ladds nursery and replaced glass.
Remember the Corona ( flea pit ) and enjoyed Saturday club there every week.
We went to the little Catholic Church ( a hut ) next to the Corona. After it burnt down they bought the Chaple of St Bartholomews Hospital where Catholics still worship
Also remember a circus or a fair turning up every year on waste ground where the Northview estate is now built.
Behind Crescent Gardens and to the North of Brook Rd there were numerous pig farms that I remember on walks with my parents. Swanley derived it's name from these farms ( Swain Ley ) or Lee of Pigs. Swanley sounds more romantic