When We Played In The Road

A Memory of Wellings, The.

Gipsy Road in Welling where I lived as a child in the 1950's was a long one. It stretched from Okehampton Crescent near Bostall heath and woods at its north end, down to the Welling/Bexleyheath mainline railway and a short walk to Danson Park in the south. If you went upstairs to my parents' bedroom in our typically 1930's semi-detached house and looked out the big bay window, there were views to both ends of Gipsy Road, uninterrupted by the presence of a single vehicle. This was a gift from heaven for all us kids because we could play and do whatever we liked, safe from harm in the middle of an empty road apart from the occasional bicyle. Cricket - using empty bottles as stumps - football and other ball games, bike races and scooting around on roller skates, were everyday events after school and during the holidays. We held birthday and Christmas parties on the road, had picnics, and during the hot summer months, some of us even slept there too. When people's lives improved and with it the means to own a car, we lost that wonderful freedom of the open road and said goodbye to another precious innocence of childhood.

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