My Playground

A Memory of Swanley Village.

The Priory was my playground from 1936 untill I started work in 1948. My father was Nip Turner, and he worked for Sir Edward Bligh as his chauffeur/gardener from 1920s untill 1972.
I was born in 1933 at Lower Daltons. My parents moved to Swanley in1936, and from then on my father cycled to the Priory twice a day, once in the morning and then again in the afternoon. I spent all my holidays at The Priory, mainly playing in the loft above the stable block. It was a child's paradise up there. It was full of toys, that had belonged to Tim and Guyon Bligh. Apart from driving The Old Boy to the station at Swanley, my father ran the nursery behind the house and grounds. I think there was about 25 acres, including three large greenhouses and an old potting shed.
Mrs. Bligh was involved in charity work for the poor of London. Every summer she gave a garden party for about 200 people from the east end of London.
There was some excitement one year when one of the children fell in a pond. The mother shouted "My baby, my baby!" Somebody said "Well get her out then" and pushed the woman into the pond. They didn't come back next year. Mrs Bligh died in 1940.
During the war The Old Boy went to stay in Surrey somewhere, away from the Blitz. He worked for government at Whitehall, I'm not sure what he was involved in.
I left school in 1948, and then went into the Merchant Navy in 1950. I still go back to the village. To say that it's changed over the years would be an understatement. My parents are now in St Paul's graveyard as are my grandparents and my great grandparents.
I now live in Bournemouth but Swanley Village means a lot to me.