Un Expoded Bomb In The Back Garden!

A Memory of Streatham.

My family and I have lived at 48 Streatham Common North for the last 30 years. Next door to me at one time lived an elderly spinster who often regaled me with stories.
She particularly loved to talk about her Army Major father who, seeing the houses being built on Streatham Common North in 1920, requested that all ground walls were covered with oak wood panelling- the only house in our group to be so.

She described how her parents often had parties and how she loved to sit upstairs at the window watching the horse drawn carriage struggle up the hill slipping on the snow and ice.

Sadly she died, the house was sold and the builders moved in starting in the 100ft garden which was badly neglected and over-grown, however, the builders with their mechanical digger half-way through the garden hit buried metal - an unexplored bomb!
Police were called and in-turn Army Bomb Disposal, all residences on both side of the house were told to evacuate, all in all it probably took a couple of hours before Bomb Disposal finished the job allowing us all back into our homes …..a little bit of history was safe and gone.

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