So Far Away Yet So Near

A Memory of Bromley.

Such a familiar sight - the High Street with what looks like a number 47 RT AEC bus approaching. I actually lived in Coney Hall, but Bromley was only a 5d ride away (or 6d to the North if going to the Odeon or Pullman cinemas).

My first ever visit to a cinema was in Bromley (The Gaumont) to see "A Shaggy Dog Story". There were visits to the New Theatre for the annual pantomime; there was the overpowering smell of fresh coffee coming from the grinders in the front of the coffee shop; floating my toy yacht in the gardens; that scary foot xray machine in the shoe department in Medhursts; catching the train from Bromley South for our annual hols on the East Kent coast.

Later the place had other attractions: drinking in - was it Hennecky's bar? Bromley Technical College to see Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin; cheap LPs in the market; a place to meet up with girlfriends and indulge in a cup of tea and sticky bun in Lyons Tea House on a Saturday; trawling round of a weekend trying to find parties to gatecrash.

Good times I think. I know it is easy to see things through rose coloured spectacles, but I genuinely think the 60s were a great time to be a teenager, and Bromley was a backdrop for quite a lot of my growing up.