Growing Up In Selsdon

A Memory of Selsdon.

I was 9 when we returned from Australia in the summer of 1967, we lived at 37 Farley Road after three different houses in Littleheath Road all belonging to friends of my parents, who conveniently were away on holiday by consecutive dates that preceeded a rented house in Arkwright Road Sanderstead called The Hendry, which was one of two detached house on a large garden plot. At the end of the field garden was a piggery owned run by a family/company called Dabners, it was later a housing development, they also had an animal feed stall in Surrey street market, we stayed there until my parents completed the purchase of the house in Farley Road.
We’d left for Australia from our home at 65 Littleheath Road, in the winter of 1963. My father had been diagnosed with viral pneumonia and following doctors advice for a warmer climate, my father decided to move us to Australia for a drier and more congenial environment and an adventure. Prior to leaving my sister Vivienne and I had both been at Selsdon Primary school.
After returning we picked up again at Selsdon Primary School, taking the 54 bus from the stop at Arkwright Road, a keen memory was the bus arriving on time during very heavy snow complete with snow chains, the bus always on time and subsequently we arrived in class on time.
Two of my teachers were, Mr Younghusband and Mr Worth, are both well known and mentioned elsewhere by others on this site. There was a huge school canteen and the smell of lunch would permeate throughout the school given the right or wrong wind direction, those were the days of school milk at morning break time and then typical dinners of meat and two veg. Children moaned about the food but it didn’t do any of us any harm. Unfortunately, the canteen was destroyed by fire during my final year at the school.
There were games of football at lunchtime on a hard surfaced netball pitch that was on a slope, sometimes 15 or 20 boys to a side. We often went back into lessons with horribly skinned knees and elbows but were back out again in the afternoons at the ‘rec’ for more.
I’ve many vivid memories of primary school and also the boys that were still my friends after we started at different secondary schools and during college or work.
Long school summer holidays stretched out before us and we were never at a loose end for entertainment, we played mostly around the Queenhill Recreation Ground by the golf course. Football matches that lasted, what seemed forever with many boys on each side or sometimes just three of us knocking a ball around with (yes you’ve guessed correctly) jumpers for goal posts....what else!!!
Often we would play 20/20, runout, “he” or it, using the Queenhill Road ‘rec ‘and what we called the ‘second field’. The boundary of our games were the back gardens in Farley Road and the Croham Hurst golf course. The ‘second field’ was a mass of places to hide or seek and often we were so engrossed in it that it had became dark and we were often late home.
Peter Baker lived around the corner from me in Byron Road, Graham Dobney and his brothers in Arundel avenue, Dennis Bainbridge in Littleheath Road, Martin Smith in Langley Park Avenue.
Pedal power was very important. When we were younger we tended not to go too far from home. Maybe up to the Farleigh Road Recreation Ground where there were swings etc and other boys who went to the same primary school. Paul Dench lived in Wincote Way, Chris Smith with his sister in Abbey road. Farleigh Road Recreation Ground had an attendant who kept everything and everybody in order. There was always a Council Official to take care of the rec and all it’s facilities. It wasn’t a vast area but was well cared for and by the council’s provision and so were we children.
Littleheath Woods was another of our favourite places with plenty of trees to climb, camps and tree houses were built and destroyed and on our tired journey return home through the quiet solitude of the huge and comforting trees we’d make plans for the next day.

The woods had a keeper. There was a hut where he could shelter, cook and rest and another for his tools and implements. The woods were discretely supervised over seven days from light till dusk and the tranquillity was not spoilt by the keepers presence. Sometimes a mounted colleague would ride through on horseback, I can’t recall where from, perhaps it was Croham Hurst Woods, which was a much bigger area. There are two photographs in the Frith collection of LIttleheath Woods, one looks down the main path to what was known as Brent field and the other is the same aspect but looking up the path. We have a picture taken on Christmas Day 1969 of my dad sledging down the path moments before he comes a cropper and tumbles through the snow.
I didn’t know the old Selsdon library at the time I used the new one, I was always in and out on a daily basis ,a very keen reader and had no idea there was an abandoned building in Langley park road that had once contained all the books and not the convenient location of the new one, Frank and Peggy Spencer gave ballroom dancing lessons in The Selsdon hall next door.
Shortly before the old library was demolished we used to explore and play in the old house and also in what I remember as a stable block, one early evening we discovered a full pentacle chalked on an upstairs floor!
On decimal day I was sent to the Express dairy shop on the corner of Farley road and Addington road by my mother, I received change for the shopping in decimal coinage, the first I had seen. Buckinghams the Post Office wasa few doors down then Coopers the newsagent (no relation), there was a little joke shop tucked away in a tiny shop by the ramp that came down from the parade of elevated shops. Bakers stores became later became Lloyds bank, Hubbard and Nash hardware and Edward Adams school and gentleman’s outfitters at the end.
For along time my sister worked at Tudor Library, even when she was in full time employment, some of my friends had paper rounds with them. Sainsburys changed overnight into a part self service at the back of the store, retaining the traditional counter service for meat and fish etc.
My mother and sister still live in Selsdon and I like to visit when I can or if they’ll have me!