please add more into the archives

1970-90s

I live in Medina, Ohio. My mother Catherine Baker, her brother Jack and sister Mary grew up in Home Cottage, Mill Gardens Sydenham with their parents. If I'm not mistaken the house was built in 1844. I believe it has been in our family most if not all of those years. My mother married Eric Tompkins from Chelmsford around 1940. My parents and my sisters Barbara and Pauline then moved to Canada around 1949. My Aunt Mary passed away in January 2002 after the death of her brother Jack. We sold Home Cottage in 2003. My reason for writing is we have many photographs from the area and I would be happy to share if there is an interest

Can anyone help ? Looking for friends of my brother Lee Barry. Going back to around 1950 s and 1960s.lived in flats around Sumner rd area. Joey o.doner? Billy Francis? ???? Callefarno icecream related?. All about 70 now . any help or knowledge would be really good. Time running

Cover more dates of the archives we have very little to go on

Hi, I'm intrested in anyone who can remember Lambeth Market between 1920s/30s and can tell me exactly where it was held. Also can any body recall a market stall holder by the name of Fred Wartnaby he was my grand-father, I think he sold meat and poultry. I've been told he got hold of a vehicle around this time and sometimes he'd give all the stall holders kids a ride round the market. He had two sons one who was also named Fred and the other one named David. They lived in Newport Street, Lambeth.

Our local corner shop was called Dickins' and was situated on the corner of Goldsmid Street and Sladedale Road. It was owned by a lovely elderly couple, Mr & Mrs Dickins. They were related to the Dickins who had their own shop in Parkdale Road who also later owned another shop on the corner of Parkdale and Sladedale Roads (ex Welsh the Greengrocers) and which was run by Lennie Dickins their son. Dickins' was a typical corner shop. To us local kids it was known as 'the sweet shop' as indeed all local kids called their own local shop. These shops all had that very recognizable corner shop smell, a familiar aroma they shared in common. A bouquet of smells that incorporated hints of soap, paraffin, confectioneries, kindling wood, mothballs and other smells more subtle. Often stacked up on high shelves that reached the wood-lined ceiling, an array of rows of large glass jars, each labelled jar containing varying amounts of different coloured sweets for our young eyes to feast on, whilst we pondered on what to get with our penny held tight in our hand.

I was born at the Woolwich Home For Mother's and Babies in June, 1930.

Between the years of 1930 to 1937 we lived in Burwash Road, Plumstead.

I was a very sickly baby and I had badly twisted legs, probably owing to rickets. Mum told me that grandma wouldn't allow her to take me in the pram into their house in case I died there!

I was about six or seven when mum was having a birthday party for one of us three kids; I can't recollect who it was for, but she reckoned that every kid in the neighbourhood turned up. They turned up with old book covers torn comics and all sorts of things as presents, it was all they had to give; some came from poor families. Mum would have filled them up with plenty of food and drink though, as they were spilling out into the front and back gardens.

I went to Foxhill Primary School from the age of seven. This waswhen we moved from Plumstead to Woolwich. Foxhill School was situated in Nightingale Vale in those days. Cyril Bull was the headmaster. Woe betide any boy who was caught in the street not wearing his school cap by Mr Bull. I enjoyed wearing my cap as it proudly displayed our school badge, depicting a white fox on a black background. Us boys used to go to a sweet shop at the bottom of Foxhill and we could buy half-penny bags of sweets in which you might find a piece of cardboard, if you was lucky, as it entitled you to your money back. Another type of 'lucky dip' was a board that had lots of small holes drilled in it. You'd choose a hole and with a nail or matchstick push a piece of rolled up paper out of the hole and unroll it to see if you'd won a pennyworth, or more, of extra sweets. Our own corner shop was situated on the corner of Fox Hill and Elndean Roads. It sold just about everything you needed; a kind of general store.

It was good growing up in the prefabs on Winn's Common. I am now 58 *(2019). My brother Joey and I (that's us in the picture) lived at 46 Winn's Common, by the bus stop where the 53 bus used to stop, before going down King's Highway to Plumstead Bus Garage.

Christopher and Dennis Gates, Barry Smith, Joey and myself, Kathleen Faithfull and my dad Joe.
We were the first prefab in our turning; (they had no names) it was a strange shape. Straight for about four prefabs and ballooned out with a grass circle in the middle, it then narrowed and went straight again to the road called Winn's Common Road (although I was never aware it had a name at all). All the prefabs had their own gardens. Ours had a corrugated iron shed which coal was kept in (an old Anderson air raid shelter). We had a pull-down table in the small kitchen; on winter mornings the oven rings were on full and our clothes would be placed around to warm them. We would eat our breakfast sitting round the oven. We had a bathroom but when it was very cold we bathed in a tin bath in front of the fire.

There was a church hall right at the top of Lakedale Road, at an odd sort of angle (*The Ascension Hall, long demolished). The paddling pool is still there, but the sand has been replaced with volleyball. We used to jump from one concrete block to the next and spent many happy hours every summer there

For several decades 26 Brookhill Road was home to three generations of my family. This was where my grandparents raised their three daughters. It was also my home for over twenty years.

My mother Lilian (named after her mother and both known as Lily) was born in 1913. She would have seen very little of her father during her infancy as the Great War was being fought in Europe.

My grandfather, Percy Tomes, returned home at the end of the war (WW1) but my grandmother’s brother, Robert Edwards, did not. Robert was the thirteenth child and only son born to my great grandmother. Sgt. R.H. Edwards MM of 11 Bn. Sherwood Foresters died in October 1918, four weeks before Armistice was signed.

I remember my grandfather as a stern solemn man, always smartly dressed with a button hole. He was a Mason and Hon. Secretary of the Woolwich Branch of the Old Contemptibles. Until the day he died, he represented the ‘Old Contemptibles’ on remembrance day at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. He was also a Pearl Insurance Agent and had a brass plaque on the wall by the front door for all to see. This was cleaned everyday by my grandmother who also whitened the half dozen steps to the house daily. My grandfather faithfully attended commemorative services at the Garrison Church, proudly wearing his medals. He frequently returned home for lunch with a complete stranger he had met at Church. My grandmother would quietly set another place at the table.

My father came from Yorkshire, married my mother at Woolwich in 1936 and worked as a lorry driver in Leytonstone, East London, before war broke out. I was born in December 1939 when another World War was escalating. My father had leave for my christening early the following year. My father’s uncle and aunt from Yorkshire were my godparents

I am trying to trace an old pal of mine called Alan J Good, he lived in Napier Road in Bromley and his brother had a warehouse behind the house. His family lived in Fordcombe and he went overseas working. It would be great to get back in touch

I went to Earl Rise Juniors 1960-66 and Bloomfield Secondary Modern (sometimes) between 1966-71. Drank in the Rose & Crown on Plumstead Bridge (often) Lived in Swetenham Place and Roydene Road. If you know me get in touch

Hi I used to live in Abbey Wood,went to School just after the war at Parrot Rd Plumstead, then to Wickham Lane till 1948, then worked and did my time in Woolwich Arsenal, I then lived in Gravesend Kent, befor coming to Australia in 1968.

Hi i lived in 9 benares rd till 1949 then moved to st margarets terrace,went to st margarets sch on the common,then to bloomfield sec sch till 1961,left and worked for the gas board,then movedto northamptonshire in 1967 with my wife Mary(DONO).
She used to live in Barnfield Gardens, went to burrage rd sch
does anyone remember us?

Searfhing for Family Tree members of: Edward & eda
Fitzgerald (nee Grosse) 1871-1909 Woolwich & district. My father was Edward George Fitzgerald 1899-1961 late Examiner Department of Naval Ordinance Woolwich Arsenal. Mother Jennie Harding
formaly Fitzgerald late Bayne nee Dunn.

Hi there I am trying to find any membors of the Naylor Family that lived in Wollwich in Spearmint Street. I left UK in 1961 as a boy and would love to contact the Naylor family can you help please!

Hi, I live in Fredericton NB Canada.
I am looking for City Hall records about my Great-Grandmother. Her name was Jeanette Vincent. She was Mayor Elect in Deptford some time after WW1. She was a suffragette with Mrs. Pankhurst and ran a second hand shop. Her husband was a police officer. Apparently he had to arrest her once for hand-cuffing herself to the Palace!!

If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it.

I am am trying to trace ( and have been for a number of years) the wearabouts of Christine Osbourne formally of Burrage road Woolwich, If you have any info PLEASE contact me, I hope the following info will help recall her, born around 1968, blonde hair, tiny scar over her right eye, her mothers name was Pearl, i van only remember some her brothers names, they are mick, dave the others escape me, hope you can help

hi i am looking for anyone who attended foxfield school in 1985, i am 21 and left there in the late 1980's because we moved home. i am very interested to hear from anyone who knew nicole benford and still does. thanx

My Dad was named William Leslie Gates (known as Bill) he lived with his Grandparents in Mann Street Walworth, from about the age of 2, his mother was found murdered in a wood at Sunningdale, he attended English Martyrs School and during WW2 was in the army (Desert Rats) serving in North Africa and Italy. Bill died in 1974 and as I am an only child I am seeking anyone who might have known him or had any memories of him.

im doing this on behalf of my father.my dad used to live at the top of weston street Bermondsey in the school were his dad was the caretaker and also attended tabbard infants.i think it was the early 1950s and my dads name is kennith davies ,ken davies does anyone remember him... many thanks