The Wonder of Woolworths
In the 70s the tune that was in everybody’s head certainly wasn’t Punk Rock, but the annoying television jingle ‘That’s the Wonder of Woolworths’ sung by end-of-the-pier celebrities of yesteryear.
Woolworths were a low-price shop with everything for everyone that dominated every High Street in the country and their famed Pick ‘n’ Mix sweet counter was a rite-of-passage for school child to practice, thieving!
At that time Beckenham, was safe and comfortable, inhabited by ex-army colonels and fur-coated old ladies who shopped in decaying shops unchanged from the 30s.
One day my mum came back from shopping in the High Street where she’d bumped into David Bowie in Woolworths who was buying himself some tights. Considered as a local eccentric struggling to make it big, she wasn’t really a fan, except when singing ‘Starman’ whilst ironing but, “you should see his hair, he’s gone bright red”.
So, I have him getting the Ziggy Stardust look together as he buys his tights in good ole Woolies. Dressed in his latest Freddie Buretti daywear he could indulge the Winfield range of Christmas glitter, buttons, thread or even a rip-off of his latest hit courtesy of Pickwick.
Though, he just might buy that jigsaw to take back to Haddon Hall, and whilst he slowly pieces together ‘Golden Hours’ he might get some inspiration for a new song!
“Run for the shadows…
The Man Who Wasn’t There
It would certainly be an underestimation to say I had a childhood interest in the supernatural. Anything from comics, books, models, cartoons TV programs; anything with a hint of a ghost of a monster, I was interested. From Scooby Doo to Doctor Who and anything in between it was my obsession until one day something happened. It was a normal afternoon in the early 1970s walking home from school, going up Bridge Road, and crossing over onto Blakeney Road. Suddenly I became aware of a man walking in front of me who just seemed really weird. This section of the road was bounded on one side by a 6ft high wall separating the pavement from the railway so my mind was really focused on this man. He was attired in an old style suit, wearing a trilby hat and holding a little case. What eventually struck me after following him for a few minutes was the colour; I’d only ever seen people dressed like that in black & white films that my father watched. Then in the blink of an eye he just wasn’t there, I was startled and looked all around but the street was totally empty. Feeling suddenly scared I ran all the way home to tell my mum I’d actually seen a ghost.
Smoke and Bangs
Hayne Court was a massive dilapidated Victorian mansion along the street from where we lived. Despite its size, at night it seemed to be lit by a single bare bulb in a side window, which made us think it must be haunted. The garden was an overgrown jungle and only ever visited by some naughty neighbours who let their pet gerbils run free! It was however inhabited by an eccentric gentleman called Russell-Kitchen who collected vintage cars that he kept in a massive garage at the side of the house. It was probably this which gave rise to my own collection on vintage cars… made by Airfix. Occasionally Mr Russell-Kitchen made it into the outside world on the road in one of his cars, seen through clouds of smoke, accompanied by the sound of loud bangs.
The Last Days of Mr Griffiths
The legendary Mr Griffiths was the woodwork and craft teacher at my junior school; his infamy coming from his attitude towards the boys, whom he terrorised. I have never witnessed such extreme violence towards young children, and I’m surprised he was allowed to get away with it. Just the thought of him made me feel sick so once after a lesson where we had to make a tetrahedron, I took it home and burnt it in our garden in some sort of childish exorcism. Unfortunately, later he asked for it back to put in the end of term exhibition; scared of his possible anger I had to ask my dad to track down the peach-coloured cardboard to replicate it. Years later some friends practicing their newly found driving skills saw him, now retired sitting opposite the school on his old Honda Club moped; just watching.
End of Eden
The floods of September 1968 had been catastrophic for the town. By the time we had moved there in the early 70s, plans were afoot to make sure it didn’t happen again. It was about 1973 when the suburban countryside idyll started to go. Before this time the River Beck used to trickle down the end of our road, then along by Blakeney Road where mighty Elms lined the street. The first to go was the river, encased in concrete to stop any flooding. The temporary bridge over the construction, named Tower Bridge by my sister; some reference to the Keep Britain Tidy Campaign at the time fronted by David Cassidy who she had a crush on! I quite like the construction lights which looked like little Daleks, but they were not responsible for the extermination to follow; Dutch Elm Disease. One-by-one the avenue of trees that lined Blakeney Road fell to beetle and then eventually the saw.
In Every Dream Home a Heartache
When walking to Beckenham Junction Station along Rectory Road in the early 1970s, I always looked through the railings at the old water tower, long since redundant by the demise of steam trains. Not that my 8-year-old mind was bothered by that, I wanted to move in and live there; away from my parents with the possibility of the biggest model train layout up in the water tank itself. Eventually it was swept away with my dreams and today no sign of it ever existing remains.
Black Snow
Still to this day between Beckenham Library and my old orthodontist there is an empty plot of land. It was once the site of the Beckenham Arts Centre, a corrugated iron roofed bungalow, looking like something from an Indian Tea Plantation. For 46 years the infamous Quintin Crisp commuted there from Clapham Junction to be the life model, all made famous in his book The Naked Civil Servant. He retired in 1978 and a few weeks later it burnt doen. One night my father woke us up to tell us that the Arts Centre was on fire, and we should be ready to evacuate. We could see the trees silhouetted against a glowing sky, which suddenly lit up as gas cylinders started to explode. The next day there was an eerie silence with an all-pervading smell of smoke and our back garden was covered in a strange snow consisting of tiny blacken pieces of canvas from lost art.
Bob’s Full House.
I always seem to forget birthdays the other day it was Bob Monkhouse or was it?
It was in my sister’s TV Times magazine that I read that Bob Monkhouse had ‘acquired’ all the old railway memorabilia from Beckenham Junction station, and being an eight-year-old train fanatic this really annoyed me. Bob was born in Beckenham and was well known for his obsessive collecting so there was some truth. Here I have him by a local landmark in the most suburban part of the area, The Park Langley Garage. This unique building was modelled on a Japanese Temple but commonly called the ‘Chinese Garage’. In my painting Bob doesn’t want to cause attraction, so he’s going via Kelsey Park to his mock Tudor abode in ‘Greenways’
Out of the Woods
It must be about 55 years since the Silurians first aired! Bounded by Beckenham High Street, The Drive and Church Crescent lies a secret little piece of woodland through which the River Beck runs. Who knows what lurks there, but in the early 1970s a classmate of mine used to live in a house which backed this spooky place where we played in the river when it still ran free, before it was later encased in concrete to stop flooding. Once when playing hide-and-seek there I chased him as he ran through the trees and over a garden wall. I followed only to find that the garden wall was directly against a shed and there was nowhere he could have gone. Then I heard him calling from behind me in the woods asking me where I was running to; it was all a bit weird. Composer Carey Blyton; Enid’s nephew had also once lived a house over on The Drive which backed onto these woods. He became famous for his ‘Bananas in Pyjamas’ but my interest was that he did the incidental music for Dr Who and the Silurians, using strange early English instruments.
Moonlight Dig.
We moved to Beckenham in early 1971, to a modern terraced house built on the site of two Victorian Villas, many pieces of which we dug up in the garden! This was the age when these behemoth houses were being demolished, but some still survived down the end of our street including the sublimely named Tespor with its next-door neighbour villa that featured an enormous verandah. To this house by the light of the moon my father and I went one night to rescue some hydrangeas for our garden when the house was being demolished. The 70s were here and the bricks and mortar of the Victorian age were redundant.
