Street Life

A Memory of Welling.

Welling in the Fifties had never been short of colourful characters plying their trade in and around the suburban Streets. I can fondly recall three from my childhood, the most memorable being the old rag and bone man who sat perched on his big wooden cart drawn along by his equally old nag of a horse. He always cried out his arrival with words no one understood, inviting residents to offload their unwanted junk which he piled up on the cart. On any given day there would be chairs, tables, sofas, bicycles, toys, boilers, drain pipes and a motley collection of metal bibs and bobs.
The onion seller was another regular visitor to our street. He arrived on an ancient beast of a bike on which trusses of stringed onions were carried on the cross bar and panniers. No one knew where he came from but when he knocked on doors he spoke with a foreign accent which sounded Spanish.
Most fascinating of all was the knife sharpener man, Mr Beecham. He travelled the streets with a pushcart fitted with pedal-powered grinding wheels and brushes. During one memorable summer school holiday I was hired as his assistant, to knock on residents doors for custom. He would sharpen anything, including every kind of knife, scissors, secateurs, even lawn-mower roller blades. After sharpening It was my job to return the items and collect the fees. He made a very respectable living working around Welling, but also Bexleyheath, Blackfen and Eltham

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