Memories from old Maypolians

Memories of the below is still being 'tweeked'(13/03/2023) and is almost 95% complete.....  If yours is not there and want to add or re-send then please contact us via the E Mail on the Homepage.  Thank you - Maypoleman.

List of memories in this order:-

David Fergusson

Kim Button

Susan Kirby

Audrey Jackson

Tony Helyar

Ann Martin

Pat Richardson

Sheila Houltan

Perran Newman

Barbara Houlton

Frankie Gemmell

Janet Lee

Bernard Lodge

Stuart Grieve

Steven Parker

David Bainbridge

Peter Walker

Barbara Thomas

Margaret Cadman

Michael Jennings

Alfred Peters

Barbara Ireland

Derek Lott

John Burton

Edmund Wainer

Ronnie Potter

Lee Smith

Robin Healey

Richard Wight

Barbara Rivers

Ron Evans

Jerry Wilkins

Janet Cushion

Nicholas Milsum

Susan Smith 

Antony Wilkinson

Charlotte Grimshaw

Dorothy Grimshaw

Mary Relf

Sandra Webb

Memories of David Fergusson

I was fascinated to read your website and it brought back so many happy memories of my time at The Maypole School and of living in the area where incidentally I still live. I found the above picture of our class of 1956 to 1962 amongst my mothers papers when she passed and thought that it might be of interest to any of my old classmates with whom I lost contact many years ago. To my recollection the photo shows us in our final year and was taken in the summer of 1962 when our teacher was Mr Rawlins and Headmistress Mrs Chambers. Their names as far as I can remember are as follows but apologies if my memory is not quite right for some of them and very possibly the spelling! :-

Back Row from Left to Right

Malcolm Wall, Nicholas Higham, Susan (HIckman?), Malcolm Crosby, Murray Chick, Michael Millard, me - David Fergusson, Vincent Cross, Vernon Wilkie, Rosemary ?

Second Row from Left to Right

David Truscott (standing) , Marilyn Price, Ian Sims, Robert Rivett, Christine ?, Peter Goodfellow, Carol Moss, Malcolm Benson, Mary Webb, Stephen Earl, John Elliman,

Front Row from Left to Right

Michael Newby, Jim Crawford, Denise Barker, Richard Ward, Caroline ?, Ian Davies, Carol Morgan, Ian Smith, Rosamund Hall, Wendy Blackwell, Nina Hatch.

Also in our class and not shown in the photo were:-

Tubs (sorry cannot remember his name as he was always known as “tubs”) Taylor, Adrian Upchurch, John Walker, Peter Davies and Christopher ?.

Good to see the memories and many of the names from my era which I remember and particularly Frankie Gemmell’s recollections as she was one of my Cub Mistresses at the 1st Baldwyns Park Scout Group which met at the Baldwyns Park Pavilion until they acquired their own premises in Eden Road.

Needless to say, it would be great to hear from any of my old classmates and chums generally.

David Fergusson

Memories of Kim Button

The first memories of my life on Maypole Estate I have start at about the age of 4 years old, in the latter half of the 1950s. I lived in Beaconsfield Road. The alley way behind the houses was our playground. Although we would be in earshot of our mothers (who, incidentally in those days seldom went to work, but stayed at home to look after us) we had our very own world away from the grown ups. We played Cowboys and Indians, pilots of rockets to the moon or we could be anything or anyone we wanted to be. It was such a safe environment. This is a far cry from the way I am having to bring up my children in today’s world.

My first friends were Keith Hawkes and Penny Smith from Baldwyns Road. We would occasionally go to the back alley of Baldwyns Road where I met Alan Booth who lived in one of the houses there. He became my next ‘best friend’. As we grew older we would be allowed to play ‘out of earshot’ of our mothers - but always within two or three minutes of our own alley. I rode my first bike down our alley and also ran hell for leather there in my first American Baseball ankle type canvass shoes pretending I was Batman.

As a treat we would occasionally be given some money to buy sweets from 'Vines' the Post Office or 'Barretts' shop. I can remember ‘Jamboree Bags’. These were bags containing a mixture of sweets and small plastic toys. On hot summer days we would buy ‘Jubbly’s’ These were triangular shaped cartons containing orange flavoured ice - if you rubbed them up and down you would end up with a very cold and refreshing orange drink. Sadly, the shape would occasionally mean losing the ice as it popped out of the carton and into the dirt. We also bought ‘Black Jacks’. These were small liquorice toffee sweets costing 4 for a 1d so they were great value. The next favourite purchase was ‘Wagon Wheels’. These were ginormous circular chocolate coated biscuits. They were 4d and we could only get these from the café and mum didn’t really like us going in there because there were Teddy Boys who smoked and played Rock and Roll on the jukebox ! One must remember that our pocket money was only 6d a week so Wagon Wheels were a real treat. We would occasionally buy ‘transfers’ which we would wet and stick on our arms. We enjoyed this because they looked like tattoos.

We played ‘fag cards’. They were picture cards in cigarette packets and we would place one on the ground then drop one of ours on to it. If it landed on it we would pick them both up. If not the next child would drop one of theirs and if it landed on the two they would pick all of them up - and so it went on. A favourite cheap toy was a water whistle. Rather like a Sherlock Holmes pipe made out of plastic you would add water in the bowl and blow. The sound was a warbling whistle - rather like bird song. Talking of ‘fag cards’ we would find old cigarette packets, fold them up and attach them on the forks of a bike with a clothes peg. We would then place the other end into the spokes so as we rode down Baldwyns Road (The only 'made up' road in the interior of the estate) we thought we sounded like motorbikes. Not a computer or TV in sight. TV’s only really came in a bit later - and then for only a portion of the day.

We eventually ventured on to the heath. This is where my imagination was allowed to explode. What adventures we had over there. The ferns were taller than us and the trees were hundreds of feet high - well that’s how it seemed. You know when you smell the earth or damp leaves or grass it takes you way back. Most of these smells and sensations take me back to the heath. The smells of late autumn, the mist shrouded, dampness in the valley of the Dell. The sensation of running through piled up leaves down the Paddock near the A2. The sound of broom seed sacks popping open in the heat of summer. The magical feeling upon hearing your first real cuckoo in a copse a mile off. The aching thirst after running around in the sun for a whole morning. Hearing the first crack of thunder in the outside world away from the protection of your parents. The glorious feeling of snow up to your waste. The sight of the first daffodils in Spring growing wild in the valley of Heathwood and the pride of producing some picked ones to your mum. The feeling of being in a ‘Hansel and Grettle’ forest in the silver birches near the Sandpits towards Leyton Cross. I can remember the first time I saw mist, in layers, over where the swings used to be and where the camp hole is. It was magical. Like horizontal curtains of chiffon where your head would be above and your feet below and you could only just see them. All of my earliest perceptions started here and on the Maypole Estate. I have carried these through my entire life. This is why I am so very, very fond of the dear old Maypole Estate.

As we became older and more adventurous, so we started taking risks. Not so much risks of health and safety as in today’s society - more a risk of being caught ! The lure and sense of mystery over that fence or behind those locked gates kick started the magnetism of 'civil trespass' in me when I was about 8. It happens to all of us at some stage. My first incursion was into the Broomhills Field, with some mates to stroke the cows. So innocent and so trivial. It was my first positive and pre-emptied wrongdoing. I can remember the cowman shouting at us as we ran away - and my heart pounding as I went back to him. I thought I was going to be sent to Borstal (Homes for delinquent kids) and my family would be shamed for evermore. I was only slightly scolded and, in fact, praised for returning whilst my mates buggered off - leaving me to it. No Borstal.

Maypoleman with cat - Tim - rear garden in Beaconsfield Road c1960

Afterwards I always made preparations for escape - coupled with an excuse if I ever got caught. You see, in those days, Maypole Estate was surrounded by fenced and gated places. Boys have a fascination with climbing, digging, holes, caves, water, trees, birds nests, catapults, bows and arrows and so on. It is in our genes and I knew there would be times when it would be impossible to resist. The next incursion was into the rear of Broomhills by the old Institute Hut. There was an air raid shelter we had heard about from the bigger boys and this challenge incorporated most of the aforementioned activities. Instead of climbing the fence behind Baldwyns Road we decided a safer approach was from the stream by the allotments, that ran form the dip to the A2. We could then go through the bushes along the boundary with Maypole House, past the Cowshed (Nissan Hut) behind Broomhills and along. The journey was fraught with difficulties - the first and foremost for me was cowardice. The fear of being caught still pervaded. I had promised the cowman I would never do it again. Then, I thought, it is not actually his field I am going back to. Simple in a child’s mind and this, I am sure, is the experience of many of us. You see, I had excused myself already. I had stifled and delayed that all important alarm bell in our heads. We did not venture on to Maypole House property as we knew Mr Stockford would catch us and take us to Mr Winter who had a gun and we would be shot. Much safer being told off by the Nurses from Broomhills. The cow parsley was high and shielded us most of the way. The nettles stung us the rest. We eventually came to this magnificent manmade cave. It was like a holy shrine to our achievement. None of us actually went in the first time as we didn’t have a torch and there must be dead bodies in there from the war. Such is the imagination of kids. The smell of nettles, cow parsley and the sound of buzzing insects always takes me back to this one escapade.

Below - view from my rear bedroom window at 2 Beaconsfield Road - I looked out from here c1964-1982.  Taken 2006 - just before my father sold the house.

Below - contemporary sketch by Maypoleman 1967 of the air raid shelter entrance. The figures are not using it as a urinal but Kim anda friend entering ! It was known by us lads as the 'Skull' as the two doors were dark and like a pair of eyes.

Below:- David Richardson (West Lodge Bexley Hospital, Alan MacLean (East Lodge Bexley Hospital) and Kim Button. Photo taken in 1967 in rear garden of Beaconsfield Road. We thought we looked so 'macho' !

Not to be 'outdone' by Perran Newman . . . . .

Me on the Excelsior Talisman Summer 1968

To be continued . . . . .

Original Recollections

My earliest recollections of the estate (c1957-1965) are

• Playing in the back alley of Beaconsfield Road with my first friends Keith Hawkes and Penny Smith. The back alley was our little world when we were small.
• Childrens games. Amongst the games we played were ‘Peep behind the curtain’ and ‘Cowboys and Indians’. I first learned to ride my bike when I was about 5 down the same alley. I thought dad was still holding me up as we trundled along. I turned round, he wasn’t - and I promptly fell off !
• My first day at the Maypole School. It was miserable - cried most of the first morning.
• The smell of coal burning from the fires in peoples houses in winter. Carrying a bow saw to collect wood over Dartford Heath with my dad. The smell of the damp leaves down the Dell and the fogs which always seemed to persist in those winters.
• Seeing Tom Gosling who lived in Baldwyns Road. He walked up and down the alley several times a day, every day, for what seemed years . He spoke with an impediment and wore very thick glasses. Would always say to us boys, ‘You allright boys ?’. He was a happy soul most of the time - always cheerily going about his errands.
• Piano lessons. Hated them. Went to a very large and ‘posh’ house in the Dell for this particularly brutal form of punishment.
• Playing with mud made in the old galvanised tin bath in my rear garden with Keith Hawkes. I remember it hung at the back of the house near the coal bunker - we all had those !
• Sundays. Hated them as well. Boring. Having to attend Sunday School at the Baptist Church along Dartford Road. Having to hang around all day whilst mum got the dinner ready. If I wasn’t in ear shot when it was ready there would be hell to pay.
• Teddy Boys. Was frightened of them.
• Playing in the long ferns over the heath and making camps in them.
• A horse being owned by Mr Pope - or was it Piper ? Big thing which pulled a cart. Don't know where he kept it. Rag and bone men on horse and cart shouting in a loud voice, 'Lumber, Lumber'.
• The Salvation Army coming round playing carols at Christmas.
• The Esso Blue Man. (Or was he the Esso Blee Dooler ?)
• Don the veg man who came round in a van
• The man from the Pru - collecting weekly insurance subscriptions - in cash !
• The annual Sports Day in the summer in Broomhills / St Barnabas
• Collecting wood / garden waste from residents for the annual bonfire on trolleys - and getting up to half a crown for doing it. This went towards our fireworks. Can remember knocking on doors asking if they wanted any rubbish taken over. Can remember the delight of counting out the coppers at the end of a fruitful Saturday.
• Neighbours collecting money for wreaths for any neighbour who had died.
• Watching traffic on the old A2 as a passtime on Dartford Heath
• Standing / sitting on the pavement outside the cafe waiting for cars so we could collect 'car numbers'.

My recollections of Maypole school (1958-1964)

• The smell of pencils, crayons, wax and that ghastly floor varnish after the summer holidays.
• George Stockford - the caretaker. Grumpy but kind. Always wore a trilby hat. I remember being chased out of Maypole House grounds by him a couple of times. He worked there as well. He seemed to be everywhere to catch us out!
• The Institute Hut in Baldwyns Road which acted as an ennexe to the school. Miss Hunt who taught there. The smell of the gas fires which hung on the side walls. The creeky steps to the kitchen at the back.
• Fractions and how Miss Alley was there when they finally clicked.
• Teachers - Miss Janet Lee, Miss Tozer, Miss Alley, Mr Deer, Mr Hembury, Miss Tilyard ?, Mrs Cridge, the Headmistress Mrs Chambers.
• Playing ‘British Bulldog 1-2-3’ and ‘It’ in the playground.
• Racing matchbox cars down the straight behind Barratts shop.
• My classmates, David Richardson, Philip Read, Penny Smith, Michael McKeogh, Jeremy Stevenson, Brian Hunt, Ann Martin, Stephen Cooper, Jacqueline Grossman and Terry Warner just to name a few.
• The bad winter of 1963 - school closed for several weeks.
• The clay bins in the cloakrooms and the glorious feel of fresh clay between the fingers.
• Milk - being placed on radiators in winter to defreeze them. Aaaagh.
• Nature Walks on Dartford Heath.
• Country dancing to an old gramaphone - double Aaaagh.
• Listening to teachers reading to us - bliss.

Later recollections from childhood / adolescence c1965-1970

• Heath fires, fire engines and that peculiar damp, earthy, smokey smell as it was being extinguished.
• Heathwood Lodge and Mr Whitehead who always wore a beret and always had a bike with him. Going down the deep well at the side of the old house when he had moved out in the summer of 1967.
• The long creeper vines in the Dell. We tried smoking them - makes me shudder now.
• The incredibly high rope swings attached to one or two trees down the Dell. Fantastic. The older boys - Ronny Potter and co. put them up there. I always thought they were so brave. Remnants of the ropes still exist high in the boughs, after nearly 50 yrs !
• Broomhills and it’s frog ponds to the side, the field with the cows to the front, the Cow Shed and air raid shelter to the rear. Daring each other to see how far up the private drive we could go without being caught by the nurses. Collecting conkers after school which we dislodged by throwing sticks - this became an art after a while.
• The first sodium street lights along Old Bexley Lane on the way to Coldblow Crescent c1961.
• My Mums Coop Divi number (20592 ?) which I had to give to Mr Chipperfield at the Butchers in the Dip.
• Building a dam in the stream at the bottom of Broomhills field, opposite the shops at the 'Dip' and being told off my the ladies hairdresser, Mr Sweet ?c1963
• The annual Bonfire over the heath and the ceremonial lighting of it by ‘Buster’ from Denton Terrace.
• The tragic news of Steven Parker from Beaconsfield Road being killed on his motorbike (c1965?) . This hit hard at us younger kids who thought the older ones were invincible.
• The café and the ‘pinball’ machines. The jukebox and records of the time being played to death.
• Catching lizards, grasshoppers and slow worms over the heath.
• The sound of the single bell tolling on a Sunday at St Barnabas Church.
• The sound of the hooter from Bexley Hospital which wailed once a week - a fire alarm but we kids thought it was a warning that a patient had escaped.
• The 401 bus running every half hour and costing children 3d to go to Dartford. The red buses from London on Sunday which used to bring visitors to the Hospital. They would park 3 at a time on the heath waiting to return.
• Heathkeepers in their uniforms and the glory bumps and sandpits over the heath where we used to ride our bikes. The old buildings at Leyton Cross on Dartford Heath where the gun implacements used to be.
• Other mates from those times - Alan Booth, Tony Smith, Michael Morand, Karen Smith, Ronnie Gosling, Alan MacLean, Peter Walker, Peter Garman, Chris Giles, Robert Hogan, Johnny Barrett, Edward Ginn, Deborah Battleman, Steve Judd, Chris Richardson, Paul Richardson, Philip Hayward and many more.

Memories of Susan Kirby

My memories of my school days in late 1940's are of having to sit a test every Friday. Your seating position for the following week was based on this. The highest scorers sat at the back. One week I was away for the test and had to sit in the front row, instead of my normal back row seat! The shame still haunts me! Goodness knows what it must have been like for those who normally felt total failures.

Memories of Audrey Jackson

Maypole School 1939-1945 Audrey Jackson (now Hughes)

I lived in North Cray Road, Bexley and my parents obviously preferred the Maypole School to the village one (where I might have become accepted by my peers rather than "stuck up’ which took some surviving!) I should have started school after Christmas, but whooping cough kept me home until Easter, so I had just one term in school before the war started. My first day is fairly vague, except the teacher seemed rather elderly and rather distant and the boy next to me made a puddle on his chair - what kind of a place was this!

After some six weeks in North Wales at the tiny cottage of Auntie Mae in Penmorfa, we decided the invasion scare was a myth and the family returned to Bexley, where my parents became fire-watchers, we acquired a displaced person for a lodger, then mother went to work for the Ministry of Food and father eventually went away to police Avonmouth Docks. The Anderson shelter arrived and was soon full of water and frogs (we used the cupboard under the stairs instead). Air raids became commonplace, most of our window glass was replaced at least twice and my shrapnel collection grew. At school numbers had fallen because of evacuation and for some months about a dozen of us met for a few days a week at the house of Sylvia Guiselman in Baldwins Park for our lessons.

Eventually children returned and school reopened with an underground shelter in the playground and an overground one behind the hall. I see it is still there as a store. I was then in Miss Cousins’ class and seemed to be there for ever. Perhaps it was more than a year because of the disruption of evacuation.

I suspect it was here I realised I hated needlework. It must have been only one afternoon a week, but seemed endless. My dishcloth knitting improved, however, and I still remember the stitch, so impossible to rescue if you made a mistake. Here my ability to drink large quantities of very cold milk increased, as I surreptitiously consumed that which others hated.. I was really looking forward to moving up a class to where one could play on the other side of the coal hole, as "chasing" was my favourite game (my skipping was indifferent, but improved later). Poor little round, worried-looking Miss Cousins, she seemed so serious and hardworking, then she would walk both ways to and from school, much further than I went on the bus (a penny fare, I remember, on the 401). Just occasionally I would walk home for lunch with my grandmother, but blotted my copybook seriously when I stopped to play on a sandhill near the gardens of Hill Crescent with Ursula Ayscough and was extremely late.

We also used to walk down the dip to catch the bus at Baldwins Park instead of at the Hospital, when the game was to keep ones feet off the pavement all the way and this entailed walking along the sloping top of the wall on the right. I remember seeing a wheel from a tractor which had fallen off and hit a pedestrian (possibly fatally) and the retribution that fell when I lied to my mother about throwing Hugh Hawes’ hat in the road when there was a car coming and Alan Coast reported me – I guess I deserved my regular smackings!

At last I moved up to Miss Burr’s class and I was very happy and comfortable there. I’m fairly sure she lost her fiancé during the war, but I believe she only took one day off. Finally it was the top class with Miss Gaspar, our fierce headmistress, she of the heavy hand, ruler and cane for our misdemeanours. I must have been a great disappointment to her, as I was regularly "top of the class" and, just as regularly, smacked for talking too much, for shaking Norman by the hair for letting our team down in PT and a good many other sins.

I remember wearing a school uniform of brown gymslip and beret with brown lisle stockings in winter, well darned at the knee because of my occasional weak ankles. I remember being fairly cold in class in winter and sometimes sitting in our coats – sitting on the radiators would have produced some terrible unmentionable disease! I remember school concerts where I usually ended up reciting poetry wearing some unsuitable costume I had begged from a friend – I still blush at the thought of the fairy – definitely not me. Each year I seemed to catch the going "bug", measles, chicken pox, mumps and finally german measles, but none of them were particularly bad and just gave one a boring four weeks at home.

In school I remember the crowded cloakrooms, one at each end of the building and the smelly outside toilets, where you could watch the boys "perform" if you were so inclined, as there was a wide gap opposite their urinal area. The back playground was always shaded and damp and we never used it. We drank our milk on the verandah (open air then) and in the top class we took turns to make tea for the teachers. Playing chasing or release-oh, I managed to fall and cut my chin on the wire round the air-raid shelter (I still bear the scar), but there didn’t seem to be many accidents. We were very well drilled in filing out of class and down the steps when the warning sounded and often we would hear the anti-aircraft guns open up from the other end of Dartford Heath. One day from home we saw a plane crash out of a dogfight and hoped it was "one of theirs", but it wasn’t and on the way to school next day we could see the wreckage in the garden of a house near Baldwins Park junction. The pilot parachuted safely, but was caught up in a tree in Joydens Wood for a while.

Towards the end of the top year we went to the County School to "do the Scholarship". After the Maths, English and General Knowledge papers, a group of us walked back from Shepherds Lane to the Maypole, calling in at John Sharman’s house on the way for a drink of squash. I told my mother about it afterwards and she was surprised I was so unruffled by the experience, but we had so many tests, it did not seem much more than a day out. After I knew I’d passed, however, it must have gone to my head, as I was caned or spanked every day for the next fortnight!
I remember quite a lot of names from my class, Peter Lane, who was always top boy and, I heard, went to South Africa, Beverley Thompson, a clever girl, a year ahead of her age group, who came to Dartford Grammar School for Girls (the name had changed by then) a year after me. Michael Walker was the only one faster than I was, Clare Hayes and Megan Foster came to DCS with me, Ian Hellyer, John Sharman and John Charman, Hugh Hawes, Ursula Ayscough, George Clack, a Neil, a Norman , an Elsie and a Hazel (I think) also just a few older and younger ones, but it was all a long time ago……….

Mum later worked in the stores department of Bexley Hospital for a while and bought a bicycle for me from a colleague after my scholarship. I still have the letter from father agreeing it was a good idea. This started my interest in cycling, first with dad, then with the Cyclists’ Touring Club and it is still my chief hobby after 50 years.

The Maypole (and most of Bexley) seems to have shrunk since I attended school here. I’m sorry it has been demolished, but it is much too cramped for the number of children it serves now, so I wish its successor a great future.

A Path I Remember

We would walk towards St. Mary’s church from my house, Hawthorn, in North Cray Road, just up from the Coach and Horses with its big Sandemans advert, which looked just like our vicar in his wide brimmed hat, and where I learned to ride my neighbour’s bike in anti-clockwise circles. Our house was opposite the fields at the more respectable end of the road, above the labourer’s cottages, next door to a canon and his wife, who had a cook and a housemaid pre-war, but below the big detached houses. Opposite to, but near the church was the shop; nowadays we might call it a poodle parlour; where my doggy friend would bath and trim the local poodles, including two huge ones belonging to Dorothy Squires, who would let them swim in Chislehurst ponds. Here I would also collect a dog or two for walking before I was upgraded to part-time, poorly paid, weekend kennel maid.

Turning right at the church I would take the path between houses to parallel the boundary of the churchyard, where I guess granny and granpa Jackson still rest, though now sadly crowded by the later additions. Where the path then crossed open fields there was a left turn footpath to the bypass, where I once sinfully rode a horse because it ran away with me! The path continued to a fork. Left was rough and led to Wansunt Road, I think, coming out by the home of the aforementioned poodles. Right was the "Tinkly Path" – I don’t know if anyone else called it that or if it was a family name, but it describes exactly the echo made by footsteps on the tarmac suface between high walls.

From here there was a stretch of road, possibly Heath Road now, close to a private school (St. Michaels?) with which we had a continual cold war and leading to an orchard, where we often purchased fruit in season (and regularly searched vainly for holes in its fences in order to scrump). There followed another open field path across to the woods, at the edge of which was a stile. Sitting here it was possible to get a most successful echo across the slight valley and we spent a happy half hour one evening doing just that. Next morning at school we were hauled over the coals once more for disturbing the patients at the nursing home at Coldblow by our shouting and screaming and generally unladylike behaviour – life was pretty unfair in those days….

On a good day, however, we would continue up into the Dell and over Denton Road onto Dartford Heath with its endless amusements, house-building amongst the heather, riding over the Glory Bumps and very rarely glimpsing some unfortunate inhabitant of the Asylum, allowed to take the air on the Heath and actually removing most of their clothes to do so. We were a pretty hardy lot in those days and didn’t seem to come to much harm from our freedom. How different from our mollycoddled grandchildren! Anyway after this long walk it was obviously time to catch the 401 bus home. Where I now live there is probably one bus a day. Then we had a half-hourly service – so much for progress!
Audrey

More links to Audrey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/user/08/u1507408.shtml

Memories of Tony Helyar

This is an edited extract from my autobiography

On the edge of Dartford Heath, across the road from Bexley Mental Hospital, known to all in those days as the lunatic asylum, was The Maypole School. At the time a modern primary school with large, airy, well lit classrooms, an assembly hall and cloakrooms all interconnected by means of a veranda running the whole length of the building. The toilets however were across the playground and on rainy days you got wet, the boys more so since their urinals were not favoured with a roof. This establishment was run with meticulous efficiency by the head mistress Miss Gaspar and I joined the infant's class at the age of five. I think I enjoyed the school, I can't remember ever thinking I would rather not be there. We walked of course, in my case about a mile but some much further, and home for the midday meal. Plenty of opportunities to get wet but the classrooms were well heated, in the winter we thawed out our daily milk on the radiators.

One day, running into the road to retrieve a toy glider, I went under the hooves and wheels of Mr.Chalice the greengrocer’s horse and cart. I wasn't badly damaged and when I realised that the worried Mr. Chalice was carrying me into the lunatic asylum for attention I beat him so furiously round the head that he was forced to drop me and I ran all the way home. On another occasion I was not so lucky. I ran out of a classroom, completely against the rules, head down, straight into one of the iron girders supporting the veranda. My mother took me, swathed in bandages, on the bus to the Woolwich War Memorial Hospital at the top of Shooter's Hill where I was gassed into unconsciousness for the insertion of five stitches.

In 1941 having reached the age of eleven I joined the top class at the Maypole School, taught by the redoubtable Miss Gaspar herself. She was marvellous, she was the school, and it ran like oiled silk. She was a portly lady and always wore a modesty but she took us out onto Dartford Heath to play football occasionally, girls and boys. I remember once during morning assembly an irate mother stormed in to the hall and started shouting about some injustice done to her child. Before anyone had time to think Miss Gaspar set sail across the room, swept up the angry parent and ushered her out. Nothing was permitted to upset morning assembly and All Things bright and Beautiful never missed a beat. In her class at the end of each week all the marks were added up and the class positions announced and everyone moved to their place. I never got higher than seventh.

The walk home from school was over the puddles at Beaconsfield Road, which was unmade at that time, past Vines Post Office, where if your Mum had come to meet you she could sometimes be persuaded to buy you a halfpenny ice cream cornet, on past the little row of shops with Chalice’s the greengrocers, and an electrical shop where in later years I bought parts for wireless sets and where I first came across the Radiospares catalogue which then had a hole in the top left hand corner so it could be hung on a convenient nail (it is now in six thick volumes and weighs the best part of 20 lbs.), past the red railings soon to be removed to turn into tanks, down the hill and over the road into Baldwyn’s Park where I lived at No. 44.

There were a few shops at the end of Baldwyns Park, where it joined the main Dartford Road, and these could supply most of the community’s day-to-day needs. Baldwyns Stores was a grocer's where bacon was sliced, butter was patted, and sugar was weighed into blue bags. Biscuits were displayed in their glass-topped boxes along the front of the counter and there were a couple of bentwood chairs for the lady customers. On the opposite corner was Wesborn's, a franchise of the Fourbuoys confectionery firm. Mr. And Mrs. Wesborn sold chocolates, sweets, newspapers, magazines, and tobacco and ran a small lending library. They also operated an accumulator charging service.

Although almost all the properties in the neighbourhood were connected to the mains electricity supply there were still some folks using battery powered wireless sets and these required accumulators, a 2 volt battery cell in a thick glass container filled with an acid electrolyte and with two screw terminals on the top to allow connection to the relatively high current filament or heater circuits of the wireless valves. These accumulators required charging every week or so and it was common practice for a local shop to provide this service for a few pence a time. The high-tension supply for the wireless was supplied by a large 120-volt dry battery that had to be replaced occasionally. Some of these battery powered wireless sets used valves which required a third power source, a grid bias battery. This was a small dry battery with tappings at 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5, and 9 volts; the particular voltage required being specified by the wireless manufacturer. Usually, when an area was connected to the electricity supply, these battery wirelesses disappeared quite quickly since mains operated sets were cheaper to run. However for people who did not wish to purchase a new mains operated set there was an alternative, the mains eliminator. This was a mains powered unit which provided low and high tension outputs which could be connected to the wireless in place of the battery and accumulator connections thus achieving the benefits of mains operation without the necessity of buying a new set.

Next to Wesborn’s was a branch of the Dartford Industrial Co-operative Society that comprised both a butcher's and a grocer's. Mr. Chipperfield and his wife ran the butcher's. Mr. Chipperfield was a big round man and you could tell he was a butcher because he wore a blue striped apron and a straw hat and he had only three fingers on his left hand, the fourth lost in his sausage making machine so the story went. There was always plenty of clean sawdust on the floor of his shop and when you paid the bill he put the money into a pot that fitted on to an overhead wire and when he pulled the handle the pot flew through a hole in the wall to the cashier in her glass cubicle in the grocer's next door. After a while the pot came back with your change and a cheque for the 'divi'. Next to the Co-op was a small draper's and haberdasher's and last in the row was a shop which was bricked up and strengthened to be an air raid shelter during the war but afterwards was converted to a fish shop by Mr. and Mrs. Elsey.

I remember many names from the Maypole School top class in 1941: Kenneth McCauley, Geoffrey Mayer, Alan Coast, Norman Brooks , Sheila Hamer, Joy Linsdell, John Chalice, David Cruickshank, John Chipperfield, Gordon Lennox, Marie Walpole (who eventually became my wife), Sheila Cone (emigrated to Australia), Clive Kidd, Joan Rivers, Derek Wise, Colin Hayes, Irene Turner, Bob Bailey, Jennifer Bell. Post Maypole I played tennis at weekends with Colin Hayes, we used to get down to the courts in Bexley very early in the morning so getting in an hour or so before the groundsman arrived demanding money. Colin sadly died whilst still in his teens. Following on from the Maypole reunion in July 2002 I received a long letter from Gordon Lennox in New Zealand and he subsequently did a lot of genealogical research on my ancestors – it was easier for him to get to the family history centre in Christchurch NZ than it was for me to get to the UK centre in Islington! We exchanged many memories via the Internet, he sent me a photo of the Leyton Cross Football Club 1947-48 which includes many names from my list above. Very sadly Gordon died in 2004.

My wife and I occasionally passed by the school on the way to visit friends in Bexley and apart from the traffic nothing appeared to have changed very much. On our next visit we will be saddened to see that the school has gone.

Memories of Ann Martin

My memories
First day thought school was OK but hated the fact that my mother left me in the playground completely on my own and I just did not know what to do! The next day I cried as I did not want to go to school everyday. I enjoyed school until I was in Mrs Cridges class and I did not like the way she shouted at me and told me I was stupid (which I am not!) I have very fond memoreis of Miss Alley and Miss Tozer who made school more happy. There was also a nice male teacher who remembered me at the re-union.
I remember Kim (BUTTON) as being one of the boys who actually talked to you and Philip (READ) who was going to make me a necklace from sugar crystals! It was lovely to work with Kim on the re-union and to meet up with Philip again. I had my first girlish crush on Mark Bradley as did a lot of the girls as not only was he good looking but nice to the girls! Life moves on but I will never forget the good teachers and the lovely friends I made like Shelagh Russell and Nell Axon. More recently some of us have met up from time to time which has been nice.

Memories of Pat Richardson

I still am having a wonderful time browsing thru' the Maypole web-site. I found this photo that I thought you may like to use. (It's a bit the worse for wear, but the people are still recognisable. It was taken approx l947 when we had a pantomime (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) at the Institute Hut in Baldwyns Road. It was the highlight of our lives then, and all put together by Joan Houlton. I will list the "actors" left to right.

Nancy Beck, Dorothy Whitehead, Barbara Whithhead, Pat Flett, Sonia Windmill, Audrey Houlton, Joan Houlton, Marion Parker (Stephen NZ sister) Betty Cruickshank, Pat Richardson (me) Barbara Houlton, Janice Scott (dec'd)

FRONT Row Roberta Cruickshank and Sheila Houlton.

Kindest regards and best wishes

Pat (Richardson) Bromham

Memories of Sheila Houlton

The memories of my childhood always contain trees. Slippery Jack was a challenge to all. I was determined I should get up the trunk of this hawthorn tree - just as well as Barry Collins! It took me a great deal of effort but I did it. Whoever invented the pastime of climbing to the highest possible branch, easing oneself out to clear the trunk and then - dropping! - ? We spent many hours over "The Action" which was a clearing between the 'middle road' and the road to Leyton Cross. There were many trees, to cater for all abilities, there. The eighth elm, in The Dell, was hollow and on occasions there were as many as half a dozen of us kids, swarming all over it. If our parents had seen us, especially looking into the water-filled hollow, they would have had heart attacks. I also remember going with my sister Barbara over to the Penny Royal (Glory Bumps) and catching newts. We never had a bike, so couldn't go flying over the Bumps but still, it was lovely just to spend the day wandering over the Heath.

I remember the winter of 1947. I was five years old and really wanted to go out to play with the other children, although Mum said it was too cold and I wouldn't like it. I did get out there and there was a 'slide' of ice outside Carlton Ball's Dad's garage. This was about ten feet long and was really something! My brother Dennis took our bookcase out, down the Dell, for tobogganing. He took the doors off it and the boys carried it up onto the Heath. He couldn't have damaged it, surprisingly, because I remember it there, after the War.

Does anyone remember the patients from Bexley Hospital? "Sunshine" always had a cardboard attache case stuffed with comics and we kids would clamour round him and find a spot - usually the pit near The Dell, to sit and swap comics with each other. Lovely, lovely days.

In 2002, the Maypole School had its last reunion and I was absolutely delighted to meet up with 'boys' and 'girls' I had last seen in 1952. We left the Maypole to go to Dartford in October that year and I hadn't seen most of them in 50 years. They came from all over the country and even Canada and Australia. It was wonderful to reminisce that afternoon in the Black Prince lounge. Later, in the School, we met up with other long-lost school friends. The Maypole holds many memories for my older sisters and the photograph of the pantomime, produced by my big sister Joan, brings back wonderful feelings. We were a community, knowing everyone and caring for all.

Sheila Lusher (nee Houlton)

ex of Baldwins Road

More memories of Sheila Houlton (Updated 18/12/07)    

I remember all your contact in 2002 when we had the final school reunion. I met up with people (girls I remember in short skirts and white socks, and boys in short trousers!) who had all grown into lovely people and had come from all over to meet up with old school friends.    I am in touch with Evelyn Lott, Eileen and Jean Rivers, Pat Richardson, Pat  Davies, Edward Wooldridge and met Carol Slade and Donald Collins at  the reunion.                     

My sister's friend in Tankerton sent the details of your site to her, and to another friend of hers, and they passed it on to me. My Maypole years were wonderful and a more idyllic childhood I           couldn't have wished for! We were such a community in those days of wartime and into the 50s that it would be sad for it all to be forgotten. Mrs. Wibley, dear lady that she was, organized a trip to           Margate or Ramsgate every year and it was the highlight of our lives.           

There are so many memories I have. I went to school with Tony Winter; a very kind and 'gentlemanly' boy, even as a child. Will Beck said that Tony's chauffeur-driven car would take him to school each morning and called for Will (on Denton Terrace, not 100 yards away) to give him a lift to school, too! I moved away at the age of 10. The picture shows which used to be put on in "The Hut" were           always joyfully received but I can remember being told when one was due and I said, "Will there be Laurel and Hardy?" Only to be told, enthusiastically that this was so. I was terrifiedof them! They always got into such scrapes that I would sit through it all in absolute agony.                     

I believe  my niece's (almost) daughter-in-law's mother lives in one of the bungalows at the bottom of Beaconsfield Road right now. How strange, the connection as our family, just prior to my birth in      1942, lived in the same bungalow! Maypole House was a beautiful old house and we were all sad when it was pulled down. My sisters and brother used to work on the market gardens which belonged to the Winter family, and picked bushels of tomatoes, etc. Mum went to           work at Rolex as their Cook when the new factory opened. Mrs. Rivers and Mrs. Ball also worked with her in the kitchen. I believe  these ladies are now all gone.          

 I wonder if anyone out there remembers a dark-haired, shy girl who was brought into our classroom (those born in 1942) one day, and we were told her name was Elizabeth (Chapman, I think) who had come from Singapore. We'd not heard of Singapore - well, most of us hadn't - and certainly the significance of it was lost on us. Elizabeth lived at Coldblow and we were asked to be very kind to      her. I remember her as being a brief interlude in my life. I wasn't asked to look after her as I lived on the Maypole but she was with us for only a brief period and then disappeared. What happened to Elizabeth?                     

Anyway, I do hope the site is visited by many people. Long may it continue, and thank you for your efforts.  Best regards, Sheila Lusher

Another memory is of taking eggs (camouflaged inside a woolly jumper wrapped around them) to Mrs. Challice - and braving the large alsation chained in the yard - and she would give me a packet of something equally disguised, to take back to my mother. The package contained tea, which was rationed, of course, and since we had chickens and they had more tea than they wanted, it was a straight swap!  This happened quite often and I suppose I was chosen to do the errand as I was little (born 1942) and wouldn't draw too much attention. I didn't know about black market rules in those      days and when I did hear the words, I visualised everyone in black clothes, under black awnings, with scarves over their faces! Innocent help between neighbours seemed much less intriguing.      

Does anyone remember Mr. Pope with his dapple-grey horse going up the middle alleyway between Beaconsfield (where they lived) and Baldwyns Roads? Sylvia, the second daughter, used to whistle her way all up and down the alleyway and would drive my Dad mad. It was when she started to yodel that he nearly blew a gasket. Happy days!          

A memory which is in the depths of my mind is that of someone called Granddad Fielder. He used to 'charm' warts away and honest injun, he charmed one of mine into disappearing. I can remember Mum taking me to see him and he chanted over it something like, "When the moon fades, your wart will fade." I can't have been any more than 3 or 4. I remember his funeral (I think it was his) and there was a black carriage with glass sides, drawn by black horses. I can see it in my mind's eye, passing the end of the alleyway, going along Heathend Road.

More added 28th January 2008 -

My Maypole years are stored in a 'rosy' pocket of my memory. I'm sure no other children had as good a time as we did, isolated as we seemed to be from the surrounding big towns of Dartford and Bexleyheath. It was an adventure to go down the 'dip' to Old Bexley and stamp our feet along the alleyway from Coldblow to the cemetary of St. Mary's Church in Bexley to buy fivestones but I had to be six years old before I was allowed to go with Eileen Rivers (3 years my senior). I remember walking over the Heath to Crayford Dog Track with my Mum and Dad once or twice (and I would have been about four years old). One night a thick fog had come down before we returned home. We used to have a treat of fish and chips from the shop in Crayford and were glad of the warmth of the chips in our hands. Dad was worried about finding our way home and I, being quite certain of our safety, said, "Don't worry, Daddy; Jesus will guide us home." I didn't understand the silence and the choking which followed, until I was quite grown-up!

E mail received on the maypolehistory website April 2008          

It's so lovely to be in touch. I'm also in constant touch with Fran Gemmell (known to all of us as Frankie back then) who also came to the reunion. I was enjoying Fran's memories of Baldwyns Park and the shops 'down the dip' and remember the fish-shop people, the Co-op (Mr. Chip in the Butchery section) and the Hendersons who had the newspaper/sweet shop which grew into a large emporium in the early 50s. In the first bungalow past the off licence lived Michael Bean. His father, I believe, was in the diplomatic service and I never saw him but Michael and I used to play after school in his  back garden, in which there was a dene hole. We were very careful to avoid that. I have an absolute hatred of going below ground and avoid the underground railways in London. There was an air-raid shelter outside the school gates when I was a child. We used to enter down a few steps and it wasn't deep - in fact the ground was mounded up over it. It always smelled so horrible and although I was the first up a tree, I always hovered around the entrance of that place. Do you remember the air-raid shelter? There were some large trees there, as well. I don't know when it was all levelled.          

19.4.08 Taken from Sheila's profile

I was born in 1942 and had the most wonderful childhood, with Dartford Heath being an extension of my back garden. I married John in 1961 at the age of 19 and we had almost 46 years of marriage which was cut short last year by his death. I live in the house we moved into as newly-weds and will do so until I can no longer cope with the D.I.Y. indoors and out. Mum and Dad had a mobile cafe on the Heath for about four years. Does anyone remember the day an Army battalion arrived for refreshments at Dad's cafe, and blocked up the whole of the road from Denton Terrace to the A2? I was the youngest of 6, having four older sisters and a brother. The oldest of my sisters died in 2002. That was Joan, who produced the 1947 pantomime Snow White. Audrey (sis) was the Principal Boy, Barbara (sis) one of the dwarfs and I (only 5) was the fairy who opened the production. Happy days!

More added 26th May 2008

Having read Stuart Grieve's memories of the school, he mentions Miss Torrey. She became Mrs. Hinckley. Mrs. Poole was my first teacher, with her prematurely white hair and her blue suit, I loved her. Miss Bean was next in the chain and did, indeed, have a whiskery chin. She wore her hair in a tight little bun and wore a navy striped costume (suit) with a long skirt. Miss Butler came next. She was tiny and blonde and we we all romanticised about her marrying Mr. Davies as they used to           ride off on their bikes across the Heath, on the way home. Mr. Davies was a wonderful teacher: best ever, I thought. He brought Worzel Gummidge and Saucy Nancy to life for us, with his readings.           He was a giant of a man (to we little-uns) but so kind and fair. Mr. Davies' classroom was next to Miss Butler's. Then came Mr. Rees. He was a small Welshman and quite vicious. He would throw chalk, books, the board eraser, a shoe - anything which came to hand if he thought someone wasn't paying attention. He once kept me in at lunchtime because I had committed the sin of needing the      toilet during a lesson! My father arrived at five past twelve and told Mr. Rees what he thought of the situation! We won't go into that. Then, there was Miss Burr in the top class. She was Miss           Gaspar's friend and they were very much a team. She was very strict indeed and every week, we had a test to determine our class position. Miss Gaspar I avoided! When I left at the age of 10 to           move to Dartford, I was most surprised to find out that I had 'passed the prelim' which was the first part of the 11+ but had not known I was doing it! The weekly tests at the Maypole had prepared me well. However, no Grammar School for me; I went to Dartford West and then the Tec, where I was very happy. Some teachers make  schooldays enjoyable but we all remember those who don't!         

The Tea Stall on the Heath

When I was seven years old, Mum and Dad dragged me all the way to Upper Norwood to look at a cafe which was unoccupied and which they hoped to turn into the cafe of their dreams. It was horrible and after Dartford Heath (my own back garden!) I hated London. Fortunately we didn't go and they then had a small caravan with a hatch opening and set up business on the corner of the Heath near Bexley Hosp. They'd only been open a couple of weeks when I got chicken pox and Dad wheeled me home in a (wooden) wheelbarrow so no-one would see me, as it was discovered whilst I was at the cafe with Mum. They sold tea and cakes, pasties and pies ALL HOME-MADE and did a roaring trade, especially on Saturday and Sunday visiting times. After about a year, Dad acquired a bigger van - a refurbished and customised ex-Army lorry. They added a wooden lean-to so that lorry-drivers could sit in shelter. Tea was tuppence- hapenny a cup and Dad insisted it was good and strong, so I don't know what the profit was on that!

The whole family were dragged in to help with washing up and serving and Mrs. Beck (Will's Mum) came to help as well. Unfortunately, she contracted TB and had to go away for about a year. The lorry was by this time parked almost opposite the Dell, just in front of one of the large craters. I remember going up Heathend Road on summer mornings, just as the sun was rising over the trees, to have a fried-egg sandwich for breakfast, before going to school. What bliss! The day the Army arrived, we were so excited! (of course, poor Mum had to do baking the whole of the preceding day so it wasn't exciting for her!)

On one occasion, we were broken into and sweets, cigarettes and drinks were stolen. My brother found the culprits - an A.W.O.L. soldier and his girlfriend, who were canoodling on the bench up the Middle Road, opposite "The Action." They'd left sweet papers and other debris, so it was easy to identify them as the thieves. Don't know what happened to them. We used to have an Anderson shelter which Dad resurrected from beneath the back garden, and used it as a shed. In this shed, which was UNLOCKED, believe it or not, we had a large freezer from which we sold ice-creams. We sold Papa's icecream and the ice lollies and choc-ices were wonderful. Choc-ices were 6d. and the lollies were 3d. The freezing was done with Cardice which came in large flat blocks which we were warned not to touch. No electricity used to power that freezer.

Mrs. Challis was not a well lady and my Mum used to send me to her with eggs (from our chickens) in return for tea (for the cafe) as Dad insisted in a strong cuppa for the lorry-drivers. They were proud of their 'produce' and of their service with a smile. Everything had to end, in 1951/2 when the owner of our house at Baldwins Road wanted to have the house sold without sitting tenants, so we moved to Dartford on 1st October 1952. I thought my life had ended. Dartford hadn't got half the joy of the Maypole Estate! 

Memories of Perran Newman

Wansunt Road and Maypole School Memories

January 2008

Now that the Christmas rush with families has passed I thought I’d put ‘pen to paper’ and submit some of my own memories about the Maypole School and growing up in Cold Blow, Bexley. I was born in 1946 and so I left the Maypole in 1957.

One never forgets one’s first day at school and my abiding memories include, never seeing so many children in one room, the kindness of teachers trying to make everyone feel at home and trying to keep close to some of the children one already new.

Later on the smell of milk became a strong memory and the anguish of having to eat everything at school dinner. Various subterfuges were employed like hiding bits of gristle under the knife, dropping things on the floor and waiting until one of the kinder helpers was taking away plates. I so disliked the taste of liver that I didn’t eat it for perhaps the next twenty years. Now of course, with an adult palate it is very acceptable !

I can remember learning to write ‘joined up’ writing. The particular time that I can vividly recall, I was sitting in the canteen (was this an overflow classroom), with a metal knibbed pen and an inkwell, forming long lines of joined up f’s and g’s. This visual memory is so strong that I can feel the sun coming through the window and smell the ink.

Other classroom memories include reciting the ‘times tables’ which hung on the wall and the sheer enjoyment of ‘art’ when the powder paints were handed out.

Learning to read is something I still remember and this was in the main hall, standing beside the teacher at her desk whilst I read to her from a Beacon Reader book as her finger moved along the words. That same hall was where I sat my 11+ exams with all it’s strange questions which included matching shapes with unusual orientations. I’m worried to say that I didn’t pass the exam to the standard necessary for Grammar School entry but was directed towards the Dartford Tech. At this point my parents decided to dig deep and I went into the private system, attending prep school at Merton Court in Knoll Road, Sidcup. Suffice to say that I was somewhat of a ‘late bloomer’ eventually making it to University and an Engineering Honours Degree.

Playtime is never forgotten – we started off in the smaller playground with the seemingly immense wall that formed the end of the shops. Later we graduated to the big playground and I can still see the soft red brick wall with it’s carved names. The pain of falling on one’s knees on the playground surface, playing marbles and winning a beautiful multicoloured red which I kept for years. Dinky toys – the racing car models in particular, Talbot-Lago and Copper-Bristol are names that come to mind being ‘scooted’ across the playground surface.
On one occasion I was sent to see the headmistress, Miss Gaspar, for a silly game, which involved chasing girls with a pretend movie camera. I never repeated that particular trick after a few stern words ("not be so silly") from that formidable lady.

Although I had an elder sister and a younger brother at the school, I have absolutely no recollections of any shared school activities with either of them. I suppose at that age a couple of years difference in age is a vast chasm.
We walked to school from Wansunt Road, Cold Blow, a short distance but this is the activity where the memories survive, presumably because it was both fun and a new learning experience. Fragments include, my first puff on a cigarette, which landed on the pavement in front of me, thrown from a passing lorry window on the slope up from Baldwyns Park shops. The concrete retaining wall and how easy it was to walk along the top leaning onto the fence, only to find that very soon you were a scary distance above the pavement.

The shops near the school were very important and here I once spent the smallest amount ever, a farthing, for a single ‘chew’, probably a ‘black jack’. I also spent the princely sum of 2/6d on a water pistol in bright, almost dayglow yellow. A bubble gum machine stood on the pavement outside the Café and it was in the place that I experienced the dramatic effect of a ‘sherbet saucer’ literally exploding into life inside the mouth.

I know that Kim has an interest in transport – you can tell by browsing the site, so he might like to share a strong memory I have of gazing in awe at a particular car, parked against the kerb close to the entrance to the air-raid shelter, which was outside the school gate. The car was a Mercedes Benz 300 SL, a fabulous vehicle with gull-wing doors. What was it doing there and how did I identify it ??
Moving further afield and sticking with the transport theme, I see myself being lifted up to look over a metal fence at the top corner of the gun club land near the crossing of the Rochester Way. Down below me were parked hundreds (probably dozens) of army lorries.

The Gun Club was a fascinating place and with friends we would creep in to gather used shotgun cartridge cases. We found the big spring loaded traps for firing the clay pidgeons into the air and could hear the firing of the guns close by. I also entered these ground officially with my father on expeditions to collect caterpillars. My father was a lepidopterist and had a most unusual business in Bexley, breeding and selling butterflies.

More on that subject at another time perhaps, but these expeditions involved pushing through the beds of nettles to locate the broods of ‘small tortoiseshell" and "peacock" caterpillars. Getting stung was a real hazard and I seem to remember that short trousers were still worn. There were sheer faces of stratified rubbish and I have since learned that this area was a well known dumpsite for London rubbish, brought in by train on the Dartford Loop line. This also explained the nettle beds as these plants like a high nitrogen content in the soil and are good indicators of hidden rubbish tips. I’ve enjoyed digging on such Victorian tips in later life and can recall the first time I ever dug up any sort of treasure.

In the woods between Cold Blow and Bexley (Churchfield Woods), close to the Rochester Way, were the remains of buildings, which my research tells me were probably part of Wansunt Farm, after which our road was named. For some reason, together with my friends Jason Hails, Karl Newman and brother Brian, we started digging in the soft ground at the edge of the field. Maybe we had seen something sticking out, but soon we were extracting beautiful little brown glazed pots, which we happily carried home and gave as presents to our Mums. With hindsight, this was probably part of the domestic refuse from the old farm.

Up in the same wood were the decaying remains of a steel tower. We called it the watchtower and it probably only stood, twenty or so feet high, but one could tell from the dimensions that it was once very tall. Many years later when I revisited the area with my own three boys, I walked through the woods starting at the junction of the two footpaths that run down from Wansunt Road to Bexley. I suppose I wanted to share my memories of the fun ‘our gang’ had playing in the woods, but the bluebells had gone and everything looked diminished. I managed to locate the four concrete bases of the tower – does anyone know what it was for ? (See Memories of Ed WAINER)

On this same little excursion, a memorable family ‘incident’ occurred that none of us will ever forget. We looped through the wood intending to exit on the edge of the field through which a track ran to ‘Meditation Corner’. From there one could easily get back onto the end of Wansunt Road. As we came through the wood towards the field edge I stepped onto a leaf covered surface and immediately dropped into a pit of cow slurry about 18 inches deep. I turned back to the boys to warn them but my memory cannot tell me what happened next. Sufficient to say that I was the worst effected. I discarded my shoes and we walked, hurried, hobbled back through the wood to the car parked in Wansunt Road. Here I abandoned my sodden socks and also removed my jeans which stunk of the slurry. We were en-route to stay with my parents in Hythe and the journey and it’s accompanying smells and recriminations remain with me to this day !
I have since returned on a number of occasions to the scenes of my childhood. Something keeps drawing me back and a couple of years ago after a long search I found one of my best friends and ex-Maypole student, Karl Newman (no relation) who now lives on the far side of the Heath. We had a reunion, joined by my brother Brian and we cycled all around the area. We all agreed it was a wonderfully nostalgic experience and that the general area of our childhood had changed relatively little in 50 years.

(See 'Wheels' by perran Newman)

Note from Maypoleman - A British team has completed a gruelling trek to the North Pole to discover how quickly the Arctic sea-ice is melting. Renowned Arctic explorer Pen Hadow and two companions were dropped onto the ice by plane some 1,700km (670 miles) north of Canada. During their 1,000km journey they took measurements of the thickness of the ice. It will be the most detailed survey of its kind this season. Perran created / devised / manufactured comms equipment for the team.

WHEELS

It was pointed out to me some years ago by my children, that I have an unnatural interest in wheels. I hadn’t realised this before, but upon reflection must admit that it is true. As this particular memory is about my childhood in Cold Blow, Bexley, I have decided to try and recall the extent and possible origins of this ‘interest’ by recounting some childhood tales. I must however warn some readers that this is very much a boy’s story as I don’t believe that girls have any interest in this subject !

I can remember myself, aged about 5 years old pushing a Dinky Toy backwards and forwards, on a window sill close to my face, so that I could see the individual segments of the rubber tyres moving in a magic way around the periphery. It was as if the tyre was laying a continuous narrow carpet for itself but at the same time, rewinding itself around the wheel. A sort of optical illusion I suppose but very hypnotic at the same time.

I had a wooden (steam) engine that I could sit on and scoot along but the first real wheels were on a child’s tricycle. Just as the bicycle was a great liberating device for women in the late Victorian period, my tricycle opened up endless opportunities for me as a small boy. The ability to start moving away from the immediate vicinity of our house at 7 Wansunt Road, down safe pavements and endless manouvers testing steering and brakes, gaining in confidence all the time. However, small boys soon realise that a tricycle is just a step on the road to the real thing – the bicycle.


My mother had a traditional bike with shopping basket over the front wheel and a child’s seat on the rear and I can convince myself that I remember the odd trip down the ‘snikket’, past the churchyard to Bexley. I can feel the sensation of being moved along by an invisible and powerful force – my mother’s thigh muscles. It was on this bike that I learnt to ride a two wheeler. Being a ladies bike, it was possible to stand on the pedals and on our back lawn I made progress, proceeding in wobbly circles, rising up and down with the pedals whilst hanging on and steering at the same time. It sounds very improbable and dangerous but this memory is very real.


Having learnt to ride, my first bike was something very second hand but it was magic all the same. Together with my best friends Karl and Jason, the extent of territory suddenly extended enormously. I don’t recall any lessons in road-craft or safety but we must have been taught the rudiments a s we were soon riding round Wansunt Road and venturing down to the Dell. The streets were very quiet in those days and lots of pavement riding also occurred. Boys and bikes are just such a natural combination. Competitive riding was never far away and helped hone the necessary skills. Slow speed without putting your foot down, standing up on the seat, riding without hands on the bars – "look Mum – no hands……(later)….look Mum – no teeth !" Of course, out and out speed was also attempted but generally just short sprints. Kim talked about the clothes peg and cardboard to make a goodly noise on the spokes and we all did that of course.


We ventured as far as the ‘Glory Bumps’ at Leyton Cross where the anti-aircraft guns were located. This area was also used by model aircraft enthusiasts and it was the first time that I had seen a ‘radio controlled’ model. They were fairly large in those days as the radio equipment was valves with large batteries. I was enthralled, little realising that I would earn my living designing low power radio systems, but this must have been a seminal career moment. We observed the tragedy of a crash, when a beautiful high wing monoplane was destroyed in an earthward plunge. The distraught owner handed us some remnants as we crowded round the crash site, and tried to share in his anquish.

None of us had any gears on our bikes until Karl had a wonderful Christmas present – not just drop handlebars but a 5 speed Sturmey Archer. We all had a go and couldn’t believe the magic effect of these gears. Strangely around this time, and I think it was probably earlier than Karl’s present, we had independently discovered the Sturmey Archer hub gear. It came about as we carried back an old bicycle wheel from one of our expeditions in Churchfield Woods. Jason had two elder brothers – much elder and into Morgan 3 wheelers – but more about that later. They must have suggested that we could take apart this hub gear and examine the insides. Tools were loaned and spokes were cut out. With some help (presumably) the retaining ring was unscrewed and the still oily contents could be extracted. This seemingly complex device could be taken apart with the minimum of tools and we quickly learned how to assemble and dissemble it, eventually having timed races. As we had cleaned the gears completely, we could do this indoors on the carpet whilst watching television although no ‘grown-up’ saw this activity.

Bicycle wheels were also important to our local ‘gentleman of the road’ – Smokey Joe. He wandered the area, pushing a bike with his worldly possessions hanging from the handle bars. He drunk tea from a bottle which would be topped up by local shopkeepers in Bexley. As boys we came across him in the woods where he had a sort of camp. He had a fire going and an old bike wheel lying across the fire. It turned out that this was his way of removing the unnecessary tyre rather than struggling with non-existent tyre levers.

When I was 11 years old my Dad bought me a brand new Hercules Courier bike as I was by then cycling to Sidcup where I was starting at a new school. I soon persuaded him that gears were essential to get to school on time and a three speed derailleur gear was added at a bike shop in Sidcup. The ‘open’ nature of these gears where all the workings could be seen increased my enthusiasm for ‘mechanisms’, although these early derailleur gears were vulnerable to damage if the bike was dropped to the ground on the wrong side.

I have already mentioned Jason’s older brothers – Jasper and Jeremy. They were sometimes interested in some of our activities and their readily available toolkits and knowledge were wonderful opportunities for learning through play. Both brothers had Morgan 3 wheelers – Jasper’s had a JAP engine and Jeremy’s was a Matchless. The open valve gear on the top of these beautiful V-twin engines was fascinating to watch and although we must have often got in the way, they indulged our interests whilst telling us when we should ‘go off and play’. On one occasion I had my foot run over by the front wheel, not too painful and amply made up for by a ride up past the Maypole, and down the Rotchester Way, then back through Bexley. The sensation of speed, the noise, the constant adjustment of the steering wheel mounted throttle lever, are all abiding memories. I must have spent most of the time looking out of the side, as I was surely too small to sit in the passenger seat and look over the scuttle.

It was Jason’s older brother’s who gave us three boys, a wheeled device that was better that any other kart in the neighbourhood. I have already talked about my child’s tricycle and it was by sacrificing this that Jeremy and Jasper were able to build the ultimate ‘kart’. I’ll try and describe it…….The chassis was a piece of scaffold planking with the usual centre pivoted piece of wood at the front that carried a pram axle and wheels. It was at the back end that the ‘special engineering’ occurred. Taking my old child’s tricycle, they cut off the front wheel and attached the rest to the plank so that the pedals could be operated by hand, by a second lad standing up at the back. So we had a two-man kart, with ‘pedal’ drive and pump-up tyres at the rear. There was a basic friction brake that operated against one of the rear tyres and a seat back to protect the front man from the mechanism.

We had immense fun with this kart and immediately started embellishing it with gizmos. An early addition was a smoke generator. An old tin can with holes in the top and bottom, containing a smouldering piece of rag was clipped under the plank. Forward motion would keep the cloth glowing and a steady stream of smoke made it all seem much more realistic. Cycle lamps were attached and night time sorties along Wansunt Road made us feel very special. The most frightening aspect of these type of simple karts was maintaining accurate steering a speed. At the tender age of 10, I didn’t know about Ackerman steering and castor angles although Jason’s brothers surely did. A ‘beam axle’ has no natural self centering, and once moved off ‘straight ahead’ can start to generate forces that are difficult to control. When we proceeded down the slope of the ‘snikket’ towards Bexley, high speeds could easily be achieved and it took skill and strength to hold the beam axle steady with ones feet by applying equal force from both feet and bracing one’s legs to prevent any steering wobble. I don’t remember any high speed spills but perhaps that’s because we were aware of the possible damage that might result to the kart, rather than to ourselves !
I’d dearly love to have a photograph of that kart but in this case, memories must suffice.

My interest in wheels prompts other Cold Blow memories. The track between our gangland and the Dell passed through a beautiful orchard. The smell of apples takes me back to that time and place. The aroma was particularly strong in the storage area and packing shed that was on the left as you entered the orchard track.

In one of these sheds three inquisitive boys came across a young man building what would now be called a ‘special’. To us it was a beautiful sports car but in reality it was probably just a fibreglass body on a Ford chassis. We used to hang around watching progress although I don’t remember ever seeing it run.
The orchard was torn down and turned into a cul-de-sac of bungalows when I was about 8 years old. This must have been shocking for ‘grownups’ but to us kids it was just an opportunity to watch lots of interesting machinery in action. This was the first time that I had seen a dumper truck in action. I watched it being started by hand, a feverish amount of work on the handle to get the flywheel up to speed before the decompression lever was released. The cloud of smoke as its single cylinder engine fired up and the bellowing noise all impressed me greatly. I dreamed of making a model of this fascinating machine.

This same building site gave me my first glimpse of gear wheels in action. A ‘mechanical shovel’ was being used to dig drains. I could see a large diameter fixed cog wheel on the chassis and had a Eureka moment when I saw how the single small meshing cog on the upper section allowed this upper part which included the shovel to rotate about the lower tracked section. It was all so obvious. Rotate the small cog and it runs around the periphery of the fixed cog. These seminal moments of engineering insight have remained with me and were key stages in my eventual choice of career.

Other peoples ‘Maypole Memories, have spoken about sitting and watching the traffic on the Rotchester (Rotty) Way. We would do the same when we weren’t exploring the gun club or roaming the field boundaries and hedges looking for ‘stuff’. Sitting and watching wasn’t really enough and given the element of ‘wheels’ we soon wanted to learn more about the heavier traffic. There was a lay-by and maybe even a transport café halfway up the hill on the gun club side. We would wander amongst the parked lorries, savouring the smells, and admiring the sheer size of them and the interesting names. This was the first time that I had examined the radiator of a Guy lorry, close-up. The radiator cap was a beautiful metal red-Indian in full headdress with the motto –‘Feathers in our cap’. We had to start collecting……not radiator caps but the next best thing…..number plates. Armed with little red notebooks we started learning. Straight away we recorded not only the number plate, but also the make of the lorry. Initially we didn’t get things exactly right but close-up examination in the lorry parks soon gave us the correct spelling.

By an amazing piece of luck, I recently came across a single sheet from one of these early notebooks, hidden between the pages of a book. It shows some errors in the recording of the lorry names but is a rare remnant from my childhood that I will treasure.

Watching the traffic for hours we soon began to see trends and patterns. The massive rolls of newsprint being carried up to Fleet Street on red Bowater flatbed lorries – Mammoth Majors. The green Fodens belonging to the Reed paper group based at Aylesford. The London Brick Company in red and black livery with their logo – a bricklayer holding a hod. Occasionally a prewar lorry would trundle by – usually a Leyland with the characteristic prewar number plate format comprising two\letters and four numbers. I think that I can claim full membership of the ‘nerds’ club if I now recall from memory the lorry makes in alphabetical order: AEC, Albion, Atkinson, Austin, Bedford, Commer, Dennis, Dodge, ERF, Foden, Guy, Jensen, Karrier, Leyland, Maudsley, Morris Commercial, Scammell, Seddon, Sentinel, Thorneycroft, Trojen, Vulcan

To finish this rather lengthy piece on the theme of wheels, I want to describe a sad event and the spinoff that became a defining moment in my own future career direction. Bexley probably had several taxi firms, but one was located close to the station. Some sort of ‘incident’ occurred which involved a fire in the Station Road office and the subsequent dumping of at least one taxi on a piece of land by the cricket club at the bottom of Salisbury Road. Our gang soon noticed the taxi, which was a large pre-war black Packard. I know this because amongst the many parts that I removed from the taxi was the beautiful enamel badge that was the ‘horn’ button in the centre of the steering wheel. Having carefully preserved this remnant for about 50 years, I found it a good home back in the USA via Ebay a couple of years ago.

Packard Emblem

I mentioned a defining moment in my choice of career and it was the elaborate ‘flashing indicator’ mechanism that I retrieved from the Packard that caused this change. Up until then I was an embryonic ‘mechanical’ engineer but when I carefully unscrewed the device from the roof right above the drivers left hand, and took it home to examine, I was soon to become a budding ‘electrical’ engineer. The device in question was a clockwork mechanism that was wound up via a knob, turned either clockwise or counter-clockwise, depending on which was the required direction of turn to be indicated. The spring mechanism then ran back down, and whilst doing so, repeatedly opened and closed a pair of contacts that would control the flashing indicator lamps on the car. The clever part was the additional pair of contacts that ‘steered’ the signal to feed either left or right hand side indicators.

I discovered this intricacy by careful examination. You might think that I should have become a clock maker, but when I had wired up a battery, and bulbs on a wooden panel and had the original ‘flashing indicator’ scheme from the Packard working again, I was hooked on a career path that eventually led to the Sinclair C5 – but that’s another story !

We moved from Bexley in 1958 to Westerham and our house was located on the famous hill, where a long unmade road called ‘the avenue’ loops right round from the top to the bottom. This was a perfect place to ride motorcycles without tax and insurance – no helmets in those days. My father, seeing my interest in Engineering arranged for me to work at the garage in the middle of Bexley, by the fishmongers, and under their supervision, repair a BSA Bantam as my first motorbike. My dad was still travelling back to Bexley each day whilst he continued at his butterfly business in Salisbury Road, so I came with him. After many weeks, the bike was declared fit to ride and with "L" plates displayed I made my way via Orpington, Pratts Bottom and Knockholt to Westerham Hill. I avoided the hill itself on this first occasion by going around the previously mentioned ‘avenue’ and arrived in one piece, elated at the experience and obvious freedom that two wheels supplemented by an engine can give.

The Bantam was soon chopped and hacked to it’s bare bones with alloy mudguards, a racing seat and ‘Ace’ bars. Having past my test I was able to move up to bigger machines and a 350cc BSA on sale in Biggin Hill immediately caught my eye. To me at that time, it was the most handsome machine in the world and when I owned it and could polish and cherish it, the feelings it engendered can be invoked again at any time I want by thinking back to those days. I soon learned that in the world of BSA’s and indeed ‘café racers’ of all ages, the BSA Gold Star was the ultimate machine but beyond the reach of most. The closest most could get was to customise the ‘cooking’ version, the B31 with the usual bits and pieces, but in particular with that beautiful swept back exhaust pipe and silencer, the latter capable of emitting a unique ‘twitter’ on the over-run.

EARTH

by

Perran Newman

I firmly believe that man needs to have a real and literal connection to his roots and when I say roots, I mean the sort that grow in the soil. There is something very basic about our connection to the land and I feel sorry for those who cannot experience this primeval link with our past.
I am lucky to have had a mother who was a trained horticulturist and a large garden in which to safely explore the world as I grew up. We were encouraged to cultivate a small patch for ourselves and were given seeds to plant. I recall certain impatience, typical of a child, at the time it took for them to germinate. Carefully tending and weeding the seedlings was something I enjoyed and to this day, I find the chore of weeding anything but a chore – more an opportunity to get really close to the earth.

Our garden was a wonderful mixture of spaces, some dedicated to the growing of vegetables and fruit and others partially wild where we children could indulge our whims. The farthest corner was known as ‘China’ and my mother used to let the road sweeper empty his electric ‘dustcart’ here, to add variety to the leaf mould based compost that was religiously cultivated in this far corner.

A wooden fence ran the length of the garden, separating us from a public footpath or ‘snicket’. On the other side of the path was the garden of the singer Dorothy Squires (Say it with Flowers) and her husband, (Ivanhoe), the young Roger Moore. This was just a typical middle class suburban road between Old Bexley and Dartford Heath and we didn’t consider that having ‘stars’ in our midst was anything very special.

Of my two best friends, Karl lived in the converted stable block of this house, his mother being Dorothy’s childhood friend.

I’m not entirely sure where the inspiration for digging an underground camp came from. Maybe it was watching the earthmoving equipment that was ripping the lovely old orchard apart to build the road now called Cold Blow Crescent. As we were not allowed to enter the orchard, its loss to progress didn’t effect us. Instead we could watch a ‘mechanical excavator’ and ‘dump truck’ re-landscaping the environment. I was particularly taken with these two machines, the first I had seen close up. I was able to work out that the excavator rotated about its stationary caterpillar tracks by driving a small pinion cog that meshed with an enormous fixed cog. The clever simplicity of this appealed to the embryonic engineer with me.

Likewise, I watched as the single cylinder engine of the dumper was started. A muscle bulging, initially slow rotation of the starting handle, getting faster and faster as the speed of the flywheel was increased and then a handle was released (the decompression lever ?) and the pepper pot cap on the exhaust bellowed into life. The individual explosions within the single cylinder, fighting their way to freedom as sooty mushroom clouds. Oh, the power and the glory – to misquote a description of the German Grand Prix cars at Donnington before the war.

It was Jason who provided the vital tool that enabled us to start work on making an underground camp. The tool was a beautiful pickaxe. It was the full size implement with a green and cream coloured wooden shaft. It was double headed with a wide spade-like end on one side and a blunt spike on the other. I suppose we were 9 or 10 years old and mother must have indicated the general area where we could have our camp. It was close to both China and the snicket fence.

There is no doubt that digging the camp kept us occupied for at least a couple of years. It also required the use of spades and a wheelbarrow as the extracted soil had to be moved some way from the hole that we were making. It must also have helped us develop physically – the digging, lifting, and barrowing requiring much exertion. I don’t recall much discussion about the form that the camp would take but as the hole in the ground became tangible we all agreed that it should be covered over so that it became invisible from above. The covering was made from pieces of timber and boarding and from somewhere a hatch was found that was in reality, a cupboard door on a small frame.

One big problem with holes in the ground is that they tend to fill with water when it rains. The covering described above made a vast difference and so did the stove. In Karl’s garden was an old air-raid shelter and from here the stove and its pipe were taken and installed in our ‘camp’. It was made of cast iron, had a grate and two small doors. It must have been fairly small as we managed to move it without too much trouble. The warmth it provided and the curl of smoke from the chimney poking out of the ground were exciting benefits.

Inside the ‘camp’ for this is what we called our den, we had a pair of earth benches made by digging a deep foot-well. There was a genuine effort to make the ‘camp’ and its surroundings neat and tidy. We awarded badges to each other for sterling work in this respect. Just what we got up to in the ‘camp’ remain as fairly hazy memories. We certainly smoked our first cigarettes – Matinee, bought at Baldwyns Park for ‘uncle’, a bare-faced lie told with some trepidation as if this was a major crime ! We tried cooking food on the stove with very little success. It was much easier on an open fire. I guess we liked the idea of having made our own little home in the earth, but it was a tight squeeze when myself, Jason, Karl and younger brother Brian were all inside.

During one of our many brainstorming sessions about challenges to undertake, things to do, things to make, places to go to, people to annoy and so on, a bold idea was put forward and rapidly accepted by everyone. We should build a tunnel to allow us to enter our underground camp from some distance away. The only practical way to make a tunnel was by ‘cut and cover’ and work was soon underway. More boarding was needed to cover the trench, soil being heaped on top to make it secure and ‘secret’. Crawling through the completed tunnel, I experienced true claustrophobia for the first time. You know you cannot go backwards, it is almost pitch black, it is damp, cold and a very tight fit. My memory tells me that the tunnel was seldom used although a triumphant addition to our glorious camp.

As Karl’s garden was just the other side of the footpath from the camp, and fired up by the success of our last construction project, it was decided to dig a true tunnel under the footpath to reach Karl’s. Work progressed rapidly as we were digging horizontally this time. We were soon under the fence and about a foot under the path when our naivety was exposed. Working at a depth of about 6 inches, the path above began to sag and even our enthusiasm was halted by the reality of the situation.

We moved away from Wansunt Road when I was 12. Three more houses were subsequently built in the garden. We never filled in the camp but threw the old metal milk crates that we used as seats into the hole along with other assorted items of rubbish. I do regret that I don’t have any photographs of the ‘camp’, particularly as father had taken pictures of a fishing trip with my friends a few years before and this was published in ‘The Farmers Weekly’.

These early episodes, scrabbling in the soil returned in my middle years when I started digging ‘bottle dumps’. One always aspired to digging an old site with no clear glass, or one where the glass had not been made ‘sick’ by the presence of the ash from coal fires. Most popular sites looked like first world war battlefields with heaps and mounds and debris everywhere. What had once been neatly buried and covered was now scattered everywhere and they became real eyesores.

The claustrophic feeling returned a few years after leaving Bexley. We moved to Westerham and in getting to know the area and its hidden attractions, a few friends and I, ‘discovered’ the abandoned Kentish Ragstone mines on Hosey Heath. We didn’t have the Internet to tell us about the site and we entered through a hole in the ground to discover a labyrinth of tunnels, some big enough to drive a lorry through. We used a ball of string to guide us back and I can still recall that awful feeling as I squeezed through a narrow slot, following our leader, and felt the weight of tons of material in the centre of my back, waiting for perhaps just that moment to crush me to pulp.

Recent pictures taken inside the caves by members of KURG

I was married in Leicester, a Roman town with a small section of Roman wall still standing. At that time, an area near the centre of Leicester was being completely redeveloped, with new roads being driven through. I volunteered to work with archeologists in rescue work ahead of the roads. The Roman levels were in some places 20 feet below present day levels, attributed to the steady piling of rubbish and ash over the centuries.

I dug in a rubbish pit and was rewarded with that special thrill of uncovering artefacts, seeing the light of day again after more than a thousand years. Finding a (broken) Roman oil lamp was a most memorable moment and gave me a lifelong interest in archaeology.

I sometimes wonder if Tony Robinson and Time Team went back to Wansunt Road, what they would make of the site of our camp. I suppose the buried milk crates would be a dead giveaway ! 

FIRE by Perran Newman

The satisfaction that I still feel when I am tending a good bonfire is something that has been with me for most of my life. I am intrigued by it’s origins and have no doubt that our distant ancestors must have felt the same way. For them fire was probably also associated with the act of cleansing. Living on the edge of Dartmoor with a host of Bronze Age settlements, stone rows and circles I have read that large fires were made within the stone circles. I like to imagine that this was their way of cleansing the corruption of a dead tribal member.

I grew up in 7 Wansunt Road, in an area of Bexley known as ‘Cold Blow’ and we were lucky to have about an acre of garden. My mother was a trained horticulturist and the garden not only supplied much of our fruit and vegetables but provided plenty of corners for our ‘gang’ of small boys to make their dens. A garden of this size produces plenty of material that is easier to burn than compost and as a child, I watched as these bonfires were assembled, lit, fed, controlled and finally allowed to die.

I’m sure we must have poked the embers the following day and discovered that under a seemingly dead layer of ash, the heart of the fire lived on and could be revitalised by feeding with suitable small dry twigs and lots of blowing. Getting this close and personal with fire was neither encouraged nor discouraged. The smell or some say ‘reek’ of bonfire smoke must have permeated our clothes and hair so mother was well aware of our activities but did not chastise us.

The concept that a flame lives on, even though one is not attending to it is brought back vividly by a memory. I am sitting on the windowsill in our upstairs bedroom looking out over a dark garden but focussed on a single flickering flame under one of the gooseberry bushes. I know exactly what it is, but am excited all the same. Earlier with parental help I had placed a candle in a jam jar under the bush. It is signalling to me that all is well and after an eternity and getting cold I climb into bed knowing that something I did carries on ‘living’ whilst I sleep.

Not really a ‘den’ more a sort of Red Indian Tipi was a structure built from long bean sticks and dried grass in which my younger brother played, blissfully unaware of events about to unfold. I must have been old enough to have a box of matches or was it a ‘camp fire’ in the corner by the ‘snicket’ that provided the deadly flame. However it was started, it was definitely me that did it and the dried grass caught extremely rapidly. Brian was able to get out without harm and the tears that flowed had no effect on the flames that consumed the structure in less than a minute. I do not recall a punishment but would be amazed if I wasn’t sanctioned in some way for such an early act of vandalism. I have to say, almost 60 years later that it might have been jealousy but my memory tells me that I wanted to see how well it would burn.

As children we soon learned that a fire could be encouraged by more than just blowing till one felt faint. I poured some of the contents of a tin of ‘Bluebell’ polish on one small twig fire – it roared in approval, but where on earth did the idea come from ?

In the 1950s and later many homes had paraffin based heaters. A specialised delivery lorry would regularly do the rounds. It had a large tank of the fuel on the back and the driver would dispense into spouted containers brought out by householders. Our gang got to know ‘Dan, Dan the Paraffin Man’ as we called him. Without much persuading he would give us small quantities of the ‘magic liquid’ in containers that we supplied. Modern attitudes would perhaps say that we were being ‘groomed’ for something more sinister but I remember him as a happy, open kind man who enjoyed hearing our tales. This paraffin was used carefully to help along fires that were struggling because the wood was wet. I remember that it gave off an unpleasant smell as it burned and was no substitute for a properly prepared fire.

Fire building is something of an art form and we honed our skills with competitions, learning in the process to build a structure in which the air could easily enter. The wigwam shape with a small bundle of paper in the centre, a cone of thin, very dry twigs followed by further layers of sticks getting increasingly thicker as one built outwards. The heat from the inner layers was capable of drying damp sticks so that they too were ready to burn after a while.

The idea of trying to make a miniature fire alighted in our midst seemingly from nowhere but was probably triggered by an article in the ‘Scout’ magazine to which my father contributed the occasional Natural History article. A miniature fire needs to be contained in some way and we used a tin – Lyles Golden Syrup being ideal. A fire door was cut in the bottom front using a hacksaw (under supervisions from Jason’s elder brother) and a chimney made from an offcut of copper water pipe was jammed into a hole formed in the lid. It was then possible to light and keep burning a truly miniature stove with smoke pouring realistically from the chimney, fuel of small dry twigs being fed down the same. Some forty years later when I had rediscovered my childhood friend Jason, now living on a smallholding in the Peak District National Park, I was amused and delighted to see a full size version of our stove being used to prepare pig swill !

Now that I am nudging my 65th year, I still enjoy a bonfire and the challenge of burning dampish material through the heat generated by having a good solid fire going underneath. I no longer feel faint from blowing but have discovered that it pays to wait for a strong south-westerly wind to do the work. Staring into those flames and leaning on a pitchfork invokes a mental state that is relaxing, pensive and nostalgic all at the same time. I am back in the Bronze Age and dreaming of inventing the chimney. Anyone who plays with fire can see the principle in action if they watch and ponder the dancing, spiralling, twisting movement of the flames. So why did it take man 2000 years before he found the solution ?

WATER by Perran Newman

They say that man has a natural affinity for water, his ancestors having crawled out of the primeval soup, millions of years ago. I must admit to a lack of confidence when it comes to intimate contact with water, having been life saved whilst going under for the classic third time in the school swimming pool aged 13 years old.
However, water has featured in many of my favourite childhood activities and now as a near ‘senior citizen’ I find myself offering to plan and install a micro-hydro plant for a friend on the edge of the moor, so water has now become my business.

I grew up in the village of ‘Old Bexley’, mentioned in the Doomsday Book. Once an attractive village but now almost absorbed into the sprawling tentacles of Greater London. The River Cray, which runs through Bexley drove many mills and paper making was one of the activities of this corner of Kent. As a small boy, with an equally small net on the end of a bamboo stick, I fished for Sticklebacks in the Bexley Mill pond. A few years later, for I moved away from Bexley when I was 12, our gang comprising Karl, Jason, myself and sometimes my younger brother Brian, discovered a true island in the Cray, only a short distance downstream from the mill.

It was hidden from view and I remember to reach it, we had to creep into the grounds of the Vicarage, half crawl behind the shrubbery along the boundary wall and then over a partly collapsed section of wall to reach this magic spot. We believed that only we knew of its existence and I‘m at a loss to remember how we found it. The only clue might be my attendance, on my own, at the Church Fete held in the Vicarage gardens. This was my first time for many activities including putting my hand in a Bran Tub, trying to hit the rat with a stick as it slid out of a tube and buying a metal cigarette case on the White Elephant Stall. Maybe it was whilst I puzzled over a silver sixpence I had been given in my change, that I espied the island in the river.
We visited our island many times – it was only a yard wide and perhaps six long, and a stunted tree grew on it – but the Cray flowed both sides and we could stand on it and claim it as our own. We tried to dam the river on the side where it was narrowest. Moving stones already in the water to better positions introduced me to Archimedes principle – that stones were definitely lighter whilst under the surface of the water.

All boys like to fish and I was no exception. I had sampled the simplicity of catching perch in my mother’s native Finland. One only had to lower a worm on a large hook using a cork float and a bite would be obtained within seconds. The River Cray was less fecund, pollution no doubt playing a role. My father, never one to miss a photo based opportunity for a story captured one of our fishing trips for posterity in an article published in the ‘Farmers Weekly’, treasured images of childhood that I still have.

Mention of Finland brings back the sights, sounds and smells of island holidays, which we took every couple of years to allow my mother to be with her family again. The house stood a hundred yards back from and above the brackish waters of the Baltic. Beds of tall reeds fringed the shore and a traditional wooden rowing boat smelling of ‘Stockholm Tar’ in the sunshine was where I spent many hours. Peering down into the water the shoals of perch could be clearly seen even though their cunning zigzag camouflage was effective. The water was usually calm and we noticed the long time interval between a passing boat, maybe a quarter of a mile away and the moment when small waves would break and break again upon our piece of shore.
Back in Bexley, although we had a large garden in which we built an impressive ‘underground’ camp, Jason’s garden had features with excellent ‘play value’. An old sand pit was located at the end of a shrubbery and close enough to the house to enable a hosepipe to be used to generate a continuous stream, wending it’s way through the falling shrubbery to end up in the sandpit. The game we enjoyed most was building a dam to try and hold back the stream. Jason used to sing ‘June is busting out all over’ for some unaccountable reason and he generously called this play area – the boglands of Sir Perran Newman !

One toy, which would probably be considered too dangerous today was the water powered rocket. Made of a soft plastic, you half filled it with water then pressurised it using a special pump which doubled up as the launch pad. Crouching beside the distended rocket – for we always pumped it more than it said we should in the instructions, you pressed the toggle and the rocket shot skywards on a column of water, spraying you in the process and then falling to ground, usually in the neighbours garden. It was Keith Glover who had this toy, not a gang member but invited to birthday parties. In my forties, having read that he was a Professor at Cambridge University I arranged to meet him on the steps of Engineering Department. Two figures paced back and forth for a while before realising they were once childhood friends. Recognition was almost non existent, but I did learn that Keith’s dad had built their ‘television’ with its magnifying lens himself, using some parts from a wartime aircraft radar set. That was an impressive but not totally uncommon feat.

I digress somewhat so I’ll wander even further though there is a water connection. As children we became interested in maps. We decided to record our large garden, with every feature carefully annotated, the artwork being undertaken by my elder sister. I still have this coloured memento of childhood and its continued existence owes much to my ongoing fascination with maps. I only wish that I had discovered the older OS maps sooner as these would have naturally led me to explore the history of our environs.

As it was, I had a fairly ordinary fold-out map in the ‘Guide to Bexley’ that I had bought. With the freedom that a bicycle gives I set off to explore the River Shuttle, a rather grand name for a stream that joins the Cray. Tracing it backwards, peeping through gaps in fences, climbing on the saddle of my bike to peer over walls, I got immense satisfaction from tracking this stream towards its source although I never actually got very far back. Years later, the fascination still with me, I made a specific detour to see the official source of the Thames, which dribbled from a carved stone amongst undergrowth in Gloucestershire.

Coming to live in Devon some 15 years ago, I discovered the wonders of Dartmoor with its extensive industrial remains. The lure of old water courses was hard to resist and I have and will continue to spend happy hours tracing the course of long abandoned and mostly dried up leat beds that criss-cross the moor. One in particular, The Southill leat was the main subject of a talk that I gave to the History Society. It can be dated precisely to 1480 and runs for about 5 miles from Teignhead to a tin blowing mill at Southill near Chagford. Abandoned after a relatively short life, when tin processing declined at the time of the Civil War, I was privileged to be able to excavate and record a cross section of this leat. Working under supervision from archeologists who were examining the reaves which cross the moor, this experience perfectly encapsulated the multiple threads of water, maps and history that have been part of my makeup since childhood in Bexley.

Memories of Barbara Houlton

Herewith a few of my memories of 'Life on the Maypole'

The thing I remember about the winter of 47 was a group of us having to take our 11+. There was so much snow on the roads the buses weren't running so we had to walk across Dartford Heath to get to the Girl's Grammar School. Needless to say, we played snowballs on the way, got there late and I don't think any of the group passed. We didn't want to go to the Grammar anyway, so none of us were really bothered.

It was always so cold in our house - we used to sit around the fire (which was built up the back of the flue) until dad came in and took shovels-full off. He was always worried about fires. We used to go to bed in thick socks with overcoats on the bed and hot water bottles. Ugh.

My most vivid memories are of the war. We used to share our shelter with some neighbours - Mr. Mason, Mr and Mrs Windmill and their two children. Mrs. Windmill always put her woolly hat on as soon as the bombs started falling, and took it off again when it got quiet. All the kids used to laugh like mad and when I met Mrs. W. many years later and reminded her of this, she also had a good laugh. I remember the first doodlebug coming over - I was playing with Joyce Stockford, next door, in her garden and heard this awful noise. I looked up and saw this weird craft and called out to Mr. Stockford - he took one look and pushed us both into their shelter. I don't suppose he knew exactly what it was but obviously was very worried.

Regarding the school - I remember Miss Burr taking us for nature walks across the heath. We went up the road towards Crayford one day and she showed us a spindleberry tree - the first I had ever seen. It was really beautiful with bright red berries surrounded by an orange skin. We also used to go to the penny royal, the glory bombs and down the 'Dell' . Many autumn days were spent blackberrying on the heath and sometimes we were lucky enough to find a few mushrooms.

Does anyone remember how we queued up on the verandah to get our spoonful of malt?

From the age of about 9 I was in the choir at St. Barnabas Church. That meant choir practice on Sunday morning, followed by morning service at about 10.00am. Sunday school was at 3.0p,m and this was followed by evensong at 6.30 so our Sundays were quite busy. If I was really good I was allowed to ring the bells before evensong and if I was really really good I was allowed to snuff out the candles at the end of the service. On one occasion I remember I got the giggles and had to leave the choir stalls through the organ area and was sent home in disgrace.

Memories of Frankie Gemmell

My name is Fran Marsh, nee Frankie Gemmell, I lived in Baldwyns Park from early 1943 to 1965 when I got married, but my Parents lived there until losing my Father in 1990. I attended Maypole Primary/Junior school from 1947 to 1952. I remember the Pavilion in Baldwyns Park where a crowd of us used to spend Saturday evenings with a few drinks and dancing. I remember walking across Dartford Heath in front of the school one day when a balloon and basket landed on the heath, who was in the basket and why it landed I do not know. When it snowed there was a hill along from Denton Terrace, on the left - the name of "road" escapes me, which made a good slide. I had piano lessons in a house along this un-made road. The hospital fence ran at the bottom of the houses opposite to where I lived and sometimes the siren would go off warning that a dangerous patient had escaped. Weekends were used walking in Joyens Woods before the Estate was built, deneholes in the area, in fact one Sunday morning a friend of mine woke up to find a denehole outside her back door. I remember St.Barnabas church being built which I attended on a regular basis.

At the end of Baldwyns Park was a parade of shops which stayed under the same ownership for sometime, the fish mongers, hairdressers which also sold materials and wool, Cooperative store & butchers, the papershop, where myself and a couple of friends used to do paper rounds, help in the shop and then across the road was an off licence. Outside the off licence used to be a stall selling fresh vegetables.

I thoroughly enjoyed living in the Baldwyns/Maypole area and remember the names of people who lived in the Maypole, Baldwyns Park, Dartford Road, Tile Kiln Lane and Summerhouse Drive areas as people didn't move around as much then as we do now or as far afield.

I went to the Maypole Reunion held in or around 2000 and what a special day that was meeting up with people I had not seen since either leaving the school or leaving the area and several I am still in contact with since that day.

People I remember from Baldwyn's Park area are, Mary & Richard Wight, Patricia & Terence Palmer, Carole & David Fox, 2 Williams girls who moved to Brazil, Gatehouse family, McManus family, Sheila Miles, cannot remember names of several others. Other people from the Tile Kiln Lane and Summerhouse Drive and then new Joydens Wood Estate, I remember are, Pat Vass, Doreen Hurren, Sue Nye, Sheila Peckham, Russel Pettifer, John Griggs who had a twin brother, Cliff Young (deceased) and family, David Bainbridge, John Parker, Ken Webb, Trevor Moseley, Tony Turner, Terry Seagust, Terry Deegan (had a Monkey Puzzle tree in front garden - lovely), Anthony Gillies, Carole Slade, John Houghton, Roger Fisher, also Carole from Baldwyns Road & Sheila (now Lusher) I am in contact with, both lived on the Maypole but I cannot remember surnames, there were others but I cannot remember the names - if and when they come to me I will e-mail them to you. There was also a round house with a thatched roof, top of Baldwyn's Park just over on the left in Tile Kiln Lane, cannot remember names of people who lived there or the house next door, dont know if round house still there?? After starting work met up with two or three people from the Footscray/Sidcup area who also used to come to the Pavilion in Baldwyns Park on a Saturday evening, Roger Smith, Roger Hogg and "Taffy" but not really connected with the Maypole and area.

A couple more names for you Rob Merriman, Keebles, Nigel Wilson, Tony Barton, Rob Jevons (friend of Owen's). I understand Peter Walker moved into Terry Deegans's house which had the Monkey Puzzle tree in the garden.  Note from Maypoleman - Peter Walker is now deceased.

Information from the late Janet Lee

Information re Maypole School . . . . .
Janet was a teacher at the school.
Thought you might like some info on the staff who were with Mrs. Chambers.

1 Mr Roy Beresford (deputy) became head of a school in Footscray. Died many years ago.

2Mr. John Rawlins was at Goldsmiths'College with me, he came to the reunion, lives in Oxford shire. (Christmas card.)

3 Mr Brian Tagell, very musical. Became head at Barming School. Lives in Deal. (c.c.) i.e. as above!Retired.

4 Mrs. Hunt elderly teacher who had no formal training.

5Miss Alley moved to Hertfordshire. (c.c.) Retired.

6Mrs. Cridge married a Polish prisoner of war and he took her maiden name .They are heading towards their 90s.(c.c.)

7Miss West became Mrs. Relf had a son and a daughter.Lives in Hempstead. Retired from full time but does testing.(c.c.)

8 Miss Starbuck became Mrs. Hawken, had 2 daughters. Lived in Footscray. Died 10 years ago.

9Miss Tozer became Mrs Stafford, had 2 sons and a daughter lives in Crockham Hill.(c.c.)

10Miss Tilyard became Mrs Beak , had 2 daughters. Lives in Cheshire.(c.c.) Retired.

11Mrs. Hinkley had 2 daughters and 1 son. Moved to Sussex. Died 15 years ago.

12 Mrs Hartley taught music. Had a son and a daughter, lives in Lancashire. (c.c.)

13Miss Lee, stayed at Maypole with Miss Clarke for a year and then moved to aTonbridge School. Spent last 16 years of teaching at Joydens wood.

14 Mr Hembury , He moved to a Headship at Hoathly Common. (c.c.)

With Miss Clarke.

Miss ? became Mrs Ward had 2 children. Retired.

Miss Hamilton from New Zealand became Mrs. Mason has 2 daughters and a son. Lives in Timaru.

When I joined there was a Mrs. Phillips who livedin Crayford and taught Juniors.

Mrs. Smith taught Infants. Moved to Yorkshire.

Mrs .Hares " ". Her children Janice and Graham were also at school.
Mr Deer went with Mrs Chambers to start Joydens Wood. Eventually got a Headship in Chelsfield. Lives in Goudhurst.

Brian, John ,June and I came to the reunion..I drove Mary, Meryl and John to Epworth for a celebration meal with Mrs. Chambers, she was 90 and living with her daughter .She died 2years later.When I walked in she said "You haven't changed a bit!"

Memories of Bernard Lodge

Dartford High Street Market 1900.

Extract taken from Dartford Archives  Bernard Lodge was the Godfather to 'Maypoleman'.

About 1900, the Market consisted of several stalls of all shapes and sizes, belonging to the stall holders, mostly local people, who brought and erected them each Saturday at about 6 am., in readiness for the business of the day. They were all covered by canvas awnings and adapted for the special trade carried on, and stood on the south side of the High Street. The Market lasted all day until nearly midnight, although Teddy Upton, the Market Keeper rang the old 'Market Bell' at 10 pm...At dusk the stalls were illuminated by flaring paraffin gravity and pressure lamps that not only gave light and heat but smoke and smell.The stalls varied in their trade or business. The first one was run by Johnny Bacon, a greengrocer of Hythe Street. Next was a sweet stall...Then there were Levi Turrell, a fishmonger, another fishmonger by the name of Clarke, who sold shell fish such as cockles and mussels at 1d a plate, shrimps, winkles and sometimes stewed eels. Then there was another Dartford fishmonger, Alf Slater, and another, Billy Manning.

Next was old David Bacon, a greengrocer...when it came to closing time he used to hold a kind of auction, selling off bunches of grapes and hands of bananas to the highest bidder...Next was a butcher from London named Wood and, from him at the end of the day, one could get quite a good joint cheaply...Then there was a stall occupied by a Jewish lady selling clothes and haberdashery...Next was old Preddy selling plants and flowers from his smallholding off Instone Road. A choice stall was the baked potato man with his 'tater engine' with a lovely coke fire, selling baked potatoes at 1d each and, in season, choice baked chestnuts at 1d a bag. Sometimes a stall was taken by a man selling birds such as canaries, linnets and bullfinches etc. in cages.

On Market Days the street was crowded and good business was done. What with the cries of the stallholders extolling their wares, the banter and general good humour, the Market was an entertaining place.

In the afternoon and evening, the High Street was devoid of traffic except for the occasional horse-drawn cart...the streets were the promenade ground for all the local 'bloods' and their girls, from the Church to the top of Hythe Street and back again. We called it 'The Monkey Parade'.

Close to midnight the stallholders removed their remaining stock and the stalls, and carted all away on the old-fashioned costers' barrows...The Market site was washed down and the Market was over for another week.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF BERNARD LODGE (DARTFORD)
DARTFORD HISTORICAL AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY NEWSLETTER NO.11, 1974.

Memories of Stuart Grieve

I attended Maypole CPS between 1945 & 1951. Like many children I recall the first day as being rather traumatic. Then, as others have recalled, Miss Gaspar was the head with her deputy Miss Burr. There was a Miss Bean, a late middle aged person who always wore what we took to be a tea cosy on her head. There was also a Miss Torrie whose marriage to another teacher, Mr Davis, I attended as a choir boy at Christ Church Dartford. There was also Mr Rees, a small amiable Welshman, who often seemed hard -pressed.What surprises me in retrospect is that, apart from occasional nature study, we were rarely taken on to the heath for sport.

Something which sticks out in my mind is the PE in the playground which was supervised by female students from Madame Osterberg's Physical Education College in Oakfield Lane,Dartford. Madame Osterberg was in the forefront of educational innovation in the late 19th century & had initially come to England at the invitation of the London School Board. The college she set up was where netball was first introduced into the country. The girls who taught us were turned out in airtex shirts & maroon, heavy duty skirts & put us through a routine with bean bags & hoops. We once attended a party at the college which architecturally must have been a model of its kind & had spacious well-kept grounds.

There was one particularly painful memory, which was the visits to the school dentist, I believe at West Hill Hospital.Three successive Fridays I had to undergo drilling without anaesthetic from this large bald man with steel spectacles & I was deterred from visiting the dentist for some years afterwards.

As I lived at the top of Station Road, Crayford approaching the school across the heath I could always clearly see the chimney of Bexley Hospital & the sad fact is that the topicality of Nazi atrocities caused we children to discuss whether they were burning patients' corpses if we saw the chimney smoking. As pupils we did once make a social visit to the hospital,when a Christmas party was held for us.All I recall was that the blue -iced cakes were the best I've tasted.

Every Christmas there was the Nativity play & as a choir boy I often had a singing role & for that & 'general progress' I once received a school prize, a book entitled 'African Adventure'. Miss Gaspar did on another occasion give me an award in the cloakroom with a cane. Generally corporal punishment consisted of a smack on the back of the leg, which was painful.

I've been back to the area a few times since leaving nearly forty years ago. The motorway has wrecked Dartford Heath & presumably no children travel to the new school from Crayford & indeed the links which used to exist between Crayford , the Maypole & Bexley must have ceased , not least the gang fights which ranged across the heath.

Further addition added by Stuart 26/10/2008
I just noticed a reference to the gun club in the intro to the web site & it reminded me that I & a friend trespassed there in the mid fifties occasionally. On one occasion we took possession of an elevated position for firing the clay pigeons & were quite happily firing them off when I lent forward at the wrong time & the return action of the sling mechanism caught me full in the face & knocked me flat. At this point an inquisitive & slightly aggressive alsation dog appeared & forced us to roll down the hill thro' tall ferns. I reached the bottom by a stony track on hands & knees & peered out to see my friend being seized by a large man.I'm ashamed to say that my first reaction was to lie doggo but my intentions were foiled by the dog confronting me face to face & thus we were both marched to the exit with severe warnings. I returned home with face streaming with blood & a broken nose & had to pretend to my parents that I'd fallen off my bike.

Further added 5/12/09 - re the Army Camp at Leyton Cross, Dartford Heath
After the war the army camp was used to house POWs, both Germans & Italians, who were distinguished by insignias on their sleeves. I seem to recall one such was a red diamond shape. Living at the top of Station Rd. Crayford I used to see them passing the house as they were eventually allowed out. I particularly remember playing cowboys & indians one day when a German POW pointed at my silver revolver & asked what it was. As though he didn't know! At a later stage still,I suppose, British troops who were still stationed at the camp on a couple of occasions gave me & friends a lift home in bren gun carriers in which they were roaming about tearing up the tarmac on Denton Road.

Further added 23/7/10
Your comments (made by Maypoleman on a thread by Stuart) triggered memories of the sandpit adjacent to the gun club & opposite my parents' house in Station Rd., Crayford. One day during the war I was climbing through barbed wire surrounding the sandpit in order to see a barrage balloon which had come down in the night . I ripped my leg & had my first encounter with iodine, which most children of my generation dreaded. I didn't see the balloon. But the sandpit was a great playground where you could see sandpipers nesting in the sides of the pit & occasionally adders. In the early '50s there were tipping trucks on the railway line which ran through the pit although it was no longer a functioning business. Boys would construct obstacles on the track & while some clung to a truck others would push it until it gathered momentum. The last one to jump off before it hit the obstacle could brag until the next time. Sometimes we'd be chased by a watchman & the best escape route was through a tunnel which went under where Swan Lane & Denton Rd. (I think that's what they're called) join Station Rd. The other side was another sandpit which abutted Chastilian Rd. & the A2. The watchman, Mr Deemer, sometimes occupied a corrugated iron shack at the bottom of the pit. His unpopularity was such that on one occasion he was trapped in his hut by boys firing catapults & airguns from the heights. "Just like the pictures," said one of my pals.

Memories of the late Steven Parker (Member name 'Masey')

Bexley Hospital outing to Margate 1964 - courtesy of Steven Parker

This has shrunk as it has come from New Zealand ! Actually it is only 42kbites so enlargement won't help.

Most of the people in this photo have lived on the Maypole at some time or other.Back row L to R---- Mrs. Barrett Snr. with one of her grandchildren, Jessie Barrett (now in U.S.A.) Ray Wheeler, Louis Cruickshank, ( owned a pub in Eynsford but not now ) Steve Parker,Bill Barrett in shadow, Morris Bridges, lived where Houltons used to live, moved to Leyton Cross. John Borrell, ran the butcher shop down the dip for a while, now in Erith. Bill Proudfoot, Vic Mcdonald, lady on the end ?

Front row L to R--- Lou Proudfoot, two girls with children not sure, Ailene Parker, Joan Mcdonald (nee Barrett ) her daughter Mary standing behind her, Netta Wheeler (nee Cruickshank). behind her my son Neville, girl next to him not sure,Mavis Barrett (nee Proudfoot ) the boy not sure, my wife Valerie, & then ? ?. not bad after 44 yrs. Regards Steve

I was born in 1935 in Bexley, my parents moved with my sister & I in tow to Heathend Rd. 6 months after I was born, my grandparents having lived in Beaconsfield Rd. since before WW1. My great Aunt (my G/Ms sister) lived in Baldwyns Rd. in the house I bought after my marriage & lived until we emigrated to N.Z. in 1967. So had quite a long history of the Maypole & its people. We still live in N.Z. where we celebrated our 50th anniversary in April 2008.

I also was a member of the St. Barnabas choir as was my sister Marian(nee Parker) the thing we liked most about it was the threepence (3d.old money) that we got each time we attended but was saved for us & given out at Chritmas, if you attended all services & practices you could get the grand total of 13/6d. Do you remember? or was I the only mercenary. A few names I remember, you may know more! David, Betty & Roberta ( Cruickshank) Joan, Audrey & Barbara (Houlton) Marian & Stephen (Parker) Wendy & David (Saunders) Gordon Lennox, Micky Masters, Kenny Purkiss, Jean Peacock, Pat Flett, Pat & Hazel (Richardson) Angela Pope, Joyce Stockford, memory fails me for the rest. The girls in red & white the boys in black & white, how angelic we looked.

The church was @ the rear of Broomhills, churchgoers would enter the Cameron estate through a gate in the alley @ the back of Baldwyns Rd. & walk straight ahead for about 50 yds. The church hall was to the right running @ right angles from the church where we used to attend Sunday school. I don't remember much about Mr. Cameron except he was a little round man who wore wire framed specs, he had a short walk from the back of the house to the church where he played the organ. He must have been Dorothys grandfather? That can be confirmed by Dorothy, who by the way was in the choir & her mother was always @ church. My wife Valerie remembers a ladies church group being held in the hall once a month & Mrs. Cameron being a prime facilitator. After the church & hall were moved my daughter Ailene used to attend ballet classes at the hall, can't remember the teachers name but she lived in Baldwyns Park. Apart from organising a wedding reception for some friends of ours thats about all I remember.

Before we left for N.Z. 40yrs. ago Mrs. Cameron invited my wife & I & 3 children for afternoon tea, quite a delight, One room was a treasure trove of chiming clocks -- table , grandfather, cuckoo, the whole range. The kids were thrilled to bits when she set off the chimes of many, this was followed by the playing of a pianola? 

David Bainbridge

Greeting to all Maypolians!!!

Hi all

Well, modern technology, whoever thought all these years on contact could be made with people so far back in time! I have been remiss in not following up on some contacts sent through to me, but unlike others who are gracefully retired, I’m still kicking on in my working life trying to earn a buck or two. I left the school in 1952 (I think), went on to Dartford West, then North Kent College of Technology, then to New York to complete my education and after graduation stayed in the States for 7 years living in Los Angeles working in the entertainment industry. 

Returned to the UK late 60’s and continued in the TV/Film/Music industries ‘til now. Anyone who remembers me please get in touch, it would be amazing to catch up in more detail! A blast from the past… 

dbainbridge@btconnect.com

Davidx CBM Music/DBTV-UK Limited Studio 20 Halimote Road Aldershot Hampshire GU11 1NJ T: +44(0)1252 332562 F: +44(0)1252 320475 M: +44(0)7785 900443

The late Peter Walker

In the summer of 1962 I moved to 51 Baldwins Park from a horrible little house in Sidcup , I was 10 yrs old, and my first impression of the area was of how lovely and spacious it was, I started at the Maypole school after the summer holiday and my first friend was a young chap known as Paul Richardson, I soon settled in to school life mainly because I didnt go very often, it got so bad the teachers would write the sick notes for me,Im afraid at an early stage I decided I didnt like school .

The highlights in my time at the Maypole were the visits Mr Deere would take us on,one trip I remember was to the Thames embankment somewhere in London,I cant remember what we went there for, but if it was to fill Mr Deeres volkswagen with mud we were successful. After school we would go on our bikes over to the heath, the glory bumps was a favourite place of mine,is it still there today?

In 1963 we had our first family holiday we went to a place called Allhallows,we stayed at a guesthouse run by a Mrs Edina Bucket she suffered greatly with wind, so much so you always new which part of the house she was in,also she must have given a good discount for large bookings because there were hundreds of mice staying there with us,my poor mother went in there a healthy 41 yr old and left a physical wreck with no voice (screaming),needless to say dear reader we never went there again oh no ,the next year we went to Butlins Bognor regis no mice, but lots of Rats .

The Dell was a place we could have fun, cycling down the slopes swinging from the trees getting up to general mischief,I went back there a couple of years ago and I was sorry to see how neglected it looked,but I suppose time goes on and memories dont keep up with it.

Moving on a bit I remember the Richardson bros acquiring a scooter which we would ride round the fields in the hospital grounds "great fun" and then I think it was an old Norton that we would ride around the trials track until someone trashed it for us .
Amongst other strong memories of the time I remember are the times we slept in the old air raid shelter behind Broomhills all the evenings we spent in Deborahs house @ Broomhills listening to music etc, and the scramble to get a pillion seat on the sunday outings on motorbikes, I didnt have one at the time .

Memories of Tony Helyar - Baldwyns Park Pavillion

Memories of Barbara Thomas (Now Joss)

My memories date from the years between 1957 - 1961. Our teacher in the final year was a Mr Brough. He was strict but fair. We were quite afraid of him, but respected and obeyed his direction without question. I will always remember him with fondness and admiration. We used to play British Bulldog and Kisschase in the playground.

The Eleven Plus was the big event of our last year, then most of us lost touch. I went to boarding school in Folkestone but most of my friends ended up at Dartford Grammar or West Hill. Eventually I met up with Jacky Rumble (who is mentioned on the website) at the Technical High over at Wilmington. I lived up at Joydens Wood. Somewhere in the attic I have several photos from those years at Maypole.It played an important part in my childhood.

Memories of Margaret Cadman

was born in Baldwyns Road and remember Kim's parents. I have just been reading the superb history of the Maypole it bought back many memories. I feel quite sad that the school is no more my mother, auntie and uncle, myself, brother, and my sons all went to that little school. Mr Stockford used to live next door to me at 48 I lived at 46. My grandparents lived at 14 Beaconsfield Road and I remember the Popes a few houses down. What about bonfire night on the heath? and in my very young days there was always a maypole party day normally held in Baldwyns Road as all the other roads then were not made up. Everyone contributed and tressle tables were put up and lots of food laid out and I have a photo of me as Little Bo Peep for the fancy dress. I remember all the shops along Bexley Lane and the owners the Challis family, the Miles family, Ron Barrett (had a crush on him). (Maypoleman left that bit in - just in case he reads it and makes him smile !)

I remember the tea hut on the heath the Houghton family lived 2 doors away from me on the corner of Baldwyns and Heathend Road. My mother worked in the cafe years ago and Roger Moore used to go in there for his cigarettes (before he was well known when he was married to Dorothy Squires they lived in Wansunt Road not far from us on the way to Bexley). She then worked in the hospital shop for years until she retired and I think Joan Button used to work over there at some point. I have wonderful memories of Maypole Estate where I was born and grew up and your site has made me quite emotional looking at the photos. Thank you for a wonderful insight to my childhhood years.

Oh yes Ronnie Potter and his sister Elaine, the Hunts especially David who used to where strong glasses. I remember Freddie Balcombe and brother Phillip lived in Beaconsfield and Tony Smith he lived in the first bungalow 3/4 way down Beaconsfield on your side. I remember Jean and John Parker on the other side of the road (twins) they were about 18mths older than me and John was killed on his motorbike. I can remember the "library" that Ron Barratt and I had in the shed in his garden at the end of corner shop next to the school (mentioned in your website) and I remember I used to call for Ron at his back door and his mum Vera. The Conboys at No 1 Baldwyns and Kevin had lots of girls after him. I remember the Rolex watch factory being built in Heathend Road. Also I remember my best friend then Vicki Knightsbridge she had red hair. We used to ride our bikes all around the estate. What about the cows in Broomfields field (part of the hospital) we used to see who would dare run into the field near the cows without being scared. Oh what wonderful fun filled days. No electronic games, computers i-pods etc etc. just good old fashioned fun. We were happy with a bag of sweets (jamboree bags with different things in it) and our bikes or roller skates and spending fun time on the heath building camps or climbing trees. I remember Kim's Dad used to ride a bike and his (Kim's) mum was a very cheery lady and always stopped for a chat to us kids.

I actually lived on Maypole after I was married in 1969 we rented a house believe it or not in Baldwyns Road then after a few years moved to Dartford. I am now living in Maidstone and have 3 sons, 31,35, 38 and 2 grandchildren. I did go back a couple of years ago to look around the estate but would rather remember it from the past. I remember down the "dip" as we know it where the row of shops were (again photos on the website) There was the fishmongers then Sweets the hairdressers then the Co-op groceries then the Co-op butchers and Mr Chipperfield was the butcher (he had no thumb on one hand as he chopped it off )his little wife used to help him wrap up the meat in sheets of white paper on the counter and the floor was covered in sawdust. Then there was the paper shop/sweet shop selling anything type shop called Hendersons. I used to go to Girls Brigade at the Baptist Church just a bit further on from the dip and Sunday School when I was very small in fact I still have a bible that my nan gave me in 1956 and later went to the youth club held in the church hall.

I remember the rope swing down the dell - it was tied to a tree on the slope with quite a drop underneath and all the boys used to swing out on it and see who could hold on the longest. Oh crikey I could go on and on.

I am going back into your site to read more I am really interested.  Dont be surprised if you hear from me again when I remember something else to run past you.

Memories of Michael Jennings

I now live in Hampshire but returned to Maypole a couple of years before it was demolished. (I was a pupil in the late 1960's) I've written a short book about the trip, and here is an excerpt:

The redevelopment of Bexley Mental home loomed. We could see new housing being erected at speed, low cost, and with every available corner being cut to impress the latest generation of first-time homeowners. It was here that one Hiram Maxim financed and participated in what is claimed to be the first ever aeroplane flight. The year was 1894; a full nine years before the Wright brothers. Why that fact is not generally known outside of Bexley baffles me.

At the school all children had gone home and we considered it safe for a grown man to be loitering with intent to reminisce. The big gates that exposed the playground and the 1900’s building to the main road were still open as teachers gathered themselves and their classrooms into shape before departing for home.I pointed the camera and clicked hurriedly from the pavement at a mural painted wall on the far side of the playground; an oft repainted map of Kent that I’d first lent a hand to as a ten year old.

I passed along the perimeter wall upon the other side of which the sometimes banned pushing game of Squash Tomato was enacted. A simple breaktime pleasure, the origins of which could only be male, involved five or more pupils. Once a session had started numbers could easily swell into tens, all pushing each other bawling the chant: “Squash tomato, one, two, three” against one of the uprights in the wall. Inevitably, the boy sandwiched in the upright would be squeezed out to rejoin the shovers at the back, until one of the dinner ladies arbitrarily decided it was getting out of hand. Crushed rib cages, broken limbs and suffocation were, on reflection all possible, but I, as a small, somewhat frail boy, participated enthusiastically in this contact sport where movement was imperceptible, and along with others failed to see any danger, suffering none of these life-threatening problems.

As a mixed class we played kiss chase in the playground occasionally, and the feeling of shy naughtiness derived from the prospect of being kissed always outweighed the desire to offer. I stole a plastic ring from my sisters jewel box and presented it to Carole Waugh as a gift during a pause in the game. I have no recollection of what I, or she said, but I felt then what I would feel now at such a sentimental act: embarrassed. Terrible that I stole though.

Inevitably, other boisterous events of my five years at the primary school remain with me, such as the time I and a few other children were detailed P.E. monitors at the end of a gym period. This I can recall perceiving as a proud and sort-after responsibility within the class, and yet I think everyone had a turn at staying behind after the lesson to roll up green landing mats, gather coloured plastic playing balls, dismantle the jumping horse, and tidy it all away in the shed adjoining the hall. Usually this would be under the direction of the Gym teacher, but for some reason on this particular day, she was not present. Fuelled no doubt by the adrenalin of the previous workout we, upon realising the significance of being alone, ran amuck, climbing up the wall bars, swinging on the ropes, using all the vocal effects a-la-Tarzan normally stifled in the lesson. We treated the medicine balls* with disdain and subjected the plastic net balls to the sort of primeval behaviour they were never intended for, all over the room. This conduct being directly opposite to the instruction we’d hitherto been taught.

Shattering the noise with an arriving silence she was back in the hall glaring, and as every child halted as if to say nothing untoward was happening, still swinging ropes and bouncing coloured balls not subject to guilt gave us away. I, who during the melee thought it hilarious to have stuffed two plastic balls down my jumper and parade around in what I considered to be a passable female manner, stood unusually pert, unable to fold my arms around exaggerated breasts.

The punishment metered out for such a crime was clearly commensurate as I remember no more about the incident, whereas punishment I do recall for not eating all one’s school dinner was proportionately draconian. I am a little surprised that I managed to miss out on an eating disorder subsequent to that time as, for reasons that can only be guessed at, I failed to eat in a way others had ordained was “enough”. So I’d still be sat there long after my friends had vacated for the playground at a table for six, crying into the half-eaten cold meat and two veg with an exasperated teacher standing over me decrying that I could not leave; “until you have finished”. Occasionally, before events had reached this unfortunate stage, friends Trevor Walker or Peter Graves would consume parts of my dinner while I dreamed of ways to beat the system. Like John Mills in “The Great Escape” I explored the possibility of squirreling portions into small plastic bags and then placing them in my pockets for distribution through holes in the trouser linings onto the playground later, whilst whistling the whistle of the innocent. Though even at that age I could see flaws in the sketchy plan. Sometimes, relief came from a kindly dinner lady who, having been given the force-feeding responsibility after the teacher had left for their own lunch, could appreciate that an impasse had been reached, and offering a few words of comfort would let me go, dazed into the consequences.

Goodness knows why, upon leaving the school in 1968 Miss Clark, the short, old and outwardly hard headmistress presented to me my “St David” house badge with the words, written on an attached piece of card in her best calligraphic handwriting, “Courage In Spite Of Difficulty”. To this day I’m perplexed at these words in the context of my years at the school, but hey-ho one must accept any awards within the spirit they are given, and I believe the spirit was generous.


*I’m still unaware to this day why a “Medicine Ball” is called that or what its sporting purpose was. I don’t ever recall doing anything with such a heavy object except putting it away and getting it out!

Michael Jennings website

Memories of the late Alfred Peters

Alfred Peters

If you have the time please read Alfreds story - it is both amusing and touching

Mr Alfred Peters was interviewed in 1998. He agreed to write down his memoirs and, at last, it can now be published on the website. He was a kind and generous man who was very enthusiastic about telling his story from his years on the estate - for the benefit of other younger residents. We are grateful for his contribution. Sadly, Alfred has died, but we hope his abbreviated story will bring smiles to those who never knew him or were not around in his day, whilst at the same time, enhancing his memory to those who did / were. Maypoleman's 11 year old daughter spent many hours transcribing this for the site and she now knows nearly as much as her father does about the estate ! However, she earned some extra pocket money for her efforts !

My name is Alfred John Peters. Born 3-12-1914 so I am in my eighty fourth year.

My birthplace – Southall Middx, my father was a regular army man fighting the Great War, to be demobbed in 1919-20. He joined the L.F.B. Stationed in Kensington and in 1926 took up an appointment as fire officer at Bexley LCC Mental Hospital where the family occuppied West Lodge. 

West Lodge is the lodge to the right in the below picture.

The family consisting of Father Charles, Mother Ethel, Brother Ronald, aged 3, and sister Joan, aged 18 months, and me. The hospital was an important teaching hospital until its demise so shamefully, hundreds of doctors and nurses and thousands of patients. Almost self supporting with its hundreds of pigs, herd of cattle, a resident farm bailiff and cowman, many acres of fruit and vegetables grown, and poultry, by the hundred with outside supervision.

The patients supplied the labour, and were very jealous of their occupation. I was eleven years as a boy, with my friend Len Sandford the head cowmans son, we used the farm, cricket pitch and all aspects of the hospital as a wonderful and private play area. In those days 1926 into the 30’s the hospital produced many operas and plays by their own Amateur Drama Soc run jointly by the doctors and nurses. The annual ball in the lovely hall was an event of the year and tickets were in great demand.

Patients of course had their weekly film shows and dances also their sports days. It would take a very large book to tell all of Bexley hospital in its Hey Day.

In spring of 1926 I was enrolled at the Maypole Council School and so started a period that I can look back on and say “It was smashing”.

A quick educational check placed me in standard six under Mr Wellington. There was five classes, starting with the infants, then two junior classes, taken by lady teachers, Miss Pinkney was one, I forget the other names.
Standard six was taken by Mister Wellington and Standard 7 and 7x by the headmaster Mr Snell, five really 1st class teachers. School hours were nine until 12.0 o’clock 2.0 PM until 4.0 PM with a break of 15 minutes playtime morning and afternoon.

The school day started at nine o’clock sharp when a teacher blew a whistle and everyone in the playground stood still, on the second blast we smartly moved into the hall (made by sliding a divider across two classrooms).
Mr Snell officiated, he was a deep breathing fanatic and with windows open we would on the count breathe in till about to burst, hold it and expel rapidly. Then with a pupil (Vera Saunders) on the piano he would sing the scales in two or three keys, we were now ready for the hymn and prayers by Mr Snell. Afterwards he would make any announcements affecting us. We were then marched quietly to our classrooms.
My class standard 6 under Mr Wellington comprised about 45 pupils, he was a very strict disciplinarian dealing out a vicious six of the best and impositions, “I must talk only when necessary”, to be written 100 or 200 times in your own time and to present it to him next day. I had more than my share and deserved it. He was a fine teacher of many subjects. The Bible, maths and English, drawing, drama, literature, singing, he was a good pianist, he also took gardening, geography etc.

On Monday afternoons with all the gardening tools held at the correct and safe angles we would march to the school allotments. All the boys from standard 6, 7 and 7x took part and the girls did needle work and cookery. The lots were divided into small individual lots under a pupil who would grow and experiment fruit and veg and to compare results and treatment plot by plot. A very useful and enjoyable lesson, to finish with a thorough cleaning of equipment. How those spades and forks shone!

Talking in class was forbidden and punished, Mr Snell would visit the class and say “Good morning class” the class would stand without of any noise of desks and seats say “Good morning Sir” and very quietly sit with straight backs and folded arms. At a certain age you moved to standard 7 with Mr Snell who took woodwork on Monday mornings and maths moved up to algebra etc. Mr Snell took great interest in all school activities which in those days included Empire Day (May 24th I believe), chairs would be borrowed from the hospital placed all around the play ground, the maypole was erected and ‘tilt the bucket’ frame put up. Children were dressed in National costume so there were Welsh, Scots, Irish, English (John Bull), Canadian, Zulu’s, African’s, Australians etc. We would march, sing the National songs, various tableau would be performed, the Maypole danced , Jack O the Green and a clown (me) performed, hymns suitable and the National anthems sung to end the proceedings.

Armistice day was observed by the whole school with all the sad hymns to be sung, Christmas time was so special, a play was put on or a series of sketches, chairs again borrowed and the hall filled with parents, evenings and afternoon performance.

Mr Snell was a good artist and would paint all the very large backcloths. The last I remember was a Dutch canal or sailing barge, windmills in the background, for a cantata “Jan of windmill land”.

It was a very friendly school. I never saw any bullying, play times were filled with the current seasonal games; Tops, Cigarette cards, marbles, conkers, five stones – all in their special time of year.

Football and cricket played with a tennis ball took up a lot of time and many players could join in “Seven + seven x against the rest” was the war cry. Girls of course did all the things that girls do, skipping etc and mostly seemed to be in little groups one of the most unusual customs was the use of nicknames all of which had a reason for their existence:

Bogey ELLIMAN ****** BLACKMAN Massa PETERS (me) Manny ELLIMAN Gump HENN Diddy HENN Taffy WELLSPRINGS Bessy WOOD Fatty MEACHAM Bunter MEACHAM Tiptoe FORD Glarni HOGAN Skinner BEDWELL Dinah DYSON Tongy THOMPSON (captain) Smut SMITH Eno SMITH Spadger BARRETT Sanny SANDFORD Many more which I have forgotten. Christian names were never used. In fact my best friends mother asked my mother how her “MASSA” was thinking it was my name as I had been poorly at that time.

AFTER THOUGHTS

Mr Wellington was Dooky (DUKE) Mr Snell .P.C. or Peecy He promised to track down wrongdoers like a policeman hence P.C.

I must not forget Charlie Lawrence. A Negro boy who lived with his white mother next to Vines. His father was killed in the Great War at Sea. (HMS Hogue) Charlie was the happiest lad I ever knew, a great friend of my brother and often in our house. He was conscripted in 1939. 

Below - photograph of Charlie LAWRENCE taken in rear garden of Baldwyns Road (Backing on to Beaconsfield)

He died in a salt mine in Germany after capture I believe at Dunkirk.

He made the mistake of being black. We heard he died of pneumonia.

Footnote from Maypoleman . . . . . . . .
During WWII it was believed that Charlie joined the RAF. Records now show he was a soldier in the Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment. He later became a German POW. George Stockford (Jnr) proudly remembered collecting food for red cross parcels for him. After all, his dear mate was safe. Not for long.
In November 1941 Charlie died. There were two stories floating around as to his death 1) he was shot - we are told whilst trying to escape - that was the usual reason, wasn't it - mmmmmm ? and 2) died of pneumonia after being worked down salt mines. Either way, we suppose this was nothing to do with his colour ?
He is buried in Poland. Two generations lost to enemy fire.

Most of these names plus those on the previous page were from one class. Class have 45 pupils

Winter with a good snowfall meant sledging. If you walk by road towards Crayford, on your left is the valley, the Dell, where we sledged. Seventy five years ago the valley was just grass, heather and some bracken. You could sledge down the end slope along the bottom to the style that is on the footpath to Bexley. Perhaps 1/3 of a mile, and people came from all over to enjoy this till quite late in the evening, some times.

The valley is now thick woodland with just a trodden path that runs through to the stile. In the summer sledging on the dry grass gave lots of fun. We were never bored, school holidays meant scrumping, stealing fruit from gardens and orchards to bake on a fire whilst we smoked “monkey chaff” a dried herb found in the Heath, rolled in newspaper, it was awful. Bows and arrows were popular also tracking games where one or two people would run off into the blue, the remainder on a given time to try to catch them. Various trees, mostly Hawthorn had names, the “Home Tree”, where games started and finished, was a very large tree the branches and foliage touched the ground to make it a big green tent. The “Action Tree” another Hawthorn whose spreading branches allowed us to jump and swing about in all sorts of action. “Slippery Jack” also a very hard tree to climb, it had a long slippery trunk with no grips. A scout group 4th Dartford was founded, a hall supplied (by the church) by Mr Cameron, a great benefactor of the Maypole Estate, he also gave us all the instruments for a drum and fife band and thus supplied a good many lads with useful pursuits.

I seem to remember girl guides being started too. Christmas time meant carol singing.

I had a very special friend John Palmer (we remained close friends all our lives) and he and I would go carolling and at the end would adjourn to the Maypole Café for hot pineapple drinks and share our takings, several shillings a lot of money in those days, it bought our Christmas presents etc.

Mr Bert Vine owned the Paper, Sweet and Tobacco shop and employed three paper boys, this job was much wanted and always had a taker ready as one boy left, my turn came, I suppose I was about 12 years old. I had to be at the shop by seven am. to mark up and sort my papers, magazines etc. When the bag was loaded it was extremely heavy and chaffed your bare knees (boys wore shorts until school leaving at fourteen). Then you had “Longuns”.

John Palmer lived in Summerhouse Drive, his house was called “In a Wood” and was the only house on the left hand side of Summerhouse Drive. I remember three large houses (one – Eltham Lodge) on the right, all the rest was virgin woodland in 1926.

My Round – Baldwyns Park, Summerhouse Drive, Tile Kiln Lane and Cold Blow. To return to shop and then do Baldwyns Rd. Seven days a week. Nobody had bicycles. Dinner Time (two hours off school 1-2pm) report to shop to do errands (1 hour)

Evening Walk to Bexley Station to collect evening papers, mark them and deliver them around Maypole Estate.

Saturday After morning round to collect paper money from that round, and if on checking the cash Bert Vine found you short it would be stopped from your wages. In the afternoon you would sit in the shop to errands until time to go to Bexley to collect and deliver evening papers (also to measure our paraffin).

Sunday Easy day just the morning delivery. s p My wages 3/6 a week and a dozen toffees. 

After Thought.  Vines also sold paraffin and petrol, two hand pumps in Beaconsfield Road (petrol 11 ½ d per gal) the petrol was drawn from the main tank by hand operated pump into a marked glass container, then gravity fed to your tank.

I was well pleased when in the summer holidays I was able to give my notice and take a job in Bexley at Mr Scotts High Class Grocer Delivery boy with a trade bike 15/- a week just for the holidays. I perhaps should mention that of my paper boys salary I gave my mother 2/6. and 10/- of my holiday job each week. Cricket and football has not been mentioned but played a large part in our free time activities played on the Daisy Green (where the watch factory now stands) and the Asylum Green a long wide grassy area between hospital fence and Wilmington Rd, now all trees and shrub. Girls – of course there were childish sweetheart relationships that bloomed and died all the time, nothing more. They were a pest.

After thoughts.   I must mention “Mum” I forget her name, a mature lady who kept the classrooms clean and looked after the large coal fired boiler that heated the school.  A much loved and friendly lady.

Other names remembered

F. James R. Tucker K. Lucas F T. Gordon D. Lucas F M. Gordon F E. Lucas F E. Smith F T. Gosling (Imbecile) E. Smith R. Gosling (cripple) R. Munday E. Gosling Q. Cole F A. Murray R. Wallis F F. Johnson R. Wallis M. Seal W. Meacham A. Elliman L. Bedwell S. Elliman L. Sandford M. Brooks F E. Thompson Captain D. King F M. Young F J. King F Ted Smith R. Cosselton F 

Most of these names plus those on the previous page were from one class. Class have 45 pupils

I seem to remember girl guides being started too. Christmas time meant carol singing.

The Heath in those days was a safe place for kids to play and wander only once did a scare run through the neighbourhood, a murder was committed by the golf links 1928 I believe, the man was caught and I seem to remember he was found to have a mental history. There was a full time heath keeper who lived in a cottage with his family. The donkey pond in those days was never empty and in summer two feet deep, full of newts, frogs, tadpoles and it was there we sailed our boats. Most of the Heath was heath land. Open grass areas were plentiful, and Hills Dairy herd were taken to graze all day every day, in charge of a chap named Wickens who lived on the Maypole (Hills Dairy was in Wilmington on the Swanley Rd by Wallis’s Nursery).

The only other pond was the Penny Royal a small swampy area where the flower of that name grew.
At the end of Baldwyns Road stands the hut “The Maypole Hut” wedding receptions, whist drives, concerts and dancing all took place here. One of the major attractions was the Princesses Theatre where for 4 pence or 6 pence on a Saturday evening you could watch films which would provide a talking point for long afterwards.

At thirteen I had my first bike, in Bexley Village Bert Hall had a bicycle repair business and when he died all his bicycle bits and pieces (a lorry load) was dumped down a denehole in Joydens Wood, it was a treasure trove and I managed to get all I wanted to build a bike including a 3 speed Hub and a bundle of spokes. I assembled the lot and had a bike. I left the Maypole School in 1928 Dec, to start work, aged 14. 

Ted Smith and I would go with Bill Hooks to cut the bracken for bedding for the donkeys that his father kept. The donkeys roamed the Heath, would be used for rides on fete days, so much ago.

The nature of the Heath has changed enormously, in 1926 one could stand opposite Maypole House and see nothing but bracken 4ft high right to Crayford corner. A solitary birch here and there and a clump or two of gorse, now it’s mostly covered with shrub and trees. This is evidenced in photographs on the page showing photographs 'Britain from the Air'.

Joydens Wood also was still 80% virgin woodland full of wild flowers. Bluebells, primroses, violets, lily of the valley, thick forest areas with many deneholes, and a flint lined roman well (on Brinkhurst’s land). Chestnut hazel and cobs were plentiful. Also crab apple it was

a wonderful place for boys to roam and play bracken 5’ high.

Bessie wood (I’ve mentioned him earlier) would pick bunches of these woodland flowers and sell at the hospital gate to visitors on Sunday. Also bunches of home-grown pinks, he never missed a chance and was a tough handful and works as a farm labourer. In Bexley.

The old shoemaker taught a young man (name forgotten) to repair boots and shoes and on the cobblers death made a good living doing repairs in a shed in his Badwyns Rd Garden.

Random Thoughts
Mr Edgeworth was the village bobby and had a quiet, peaceful existence. Crime on the Maypole never came to light to my knowlegde. Mrs Whibley was a person who lived in Denton Terrace, worked hard in all sorts of good causes, Sunday school, scouts and guides, it was she who arranged with a clothier shop in Bexleyheath to supply scout uniforms at a few coppers a week per person over a period. Mr Blackman also lived in Denton Terrace and was the Mayor of Dartford.
The Maypole Café has always been there, the shop next door was a boot and shoe repairers and the owner and elderly man did a good job and was well patronized on Maypole and in the hospital (1927). He was knocked down and killed by a motorcycle outside Westlodge in the hospital. The driver W.Boyce of Bexley was not to blame and the shop was taken over by the Cooperative Stores, Mr Bedwell manager.

After thoughts

Mr CURDLING (General Store) He would allow nurses to run up monthly bills for stockings, etc and very often was the loser by his kindness as the nurses would leave unpaid bills many times. Their work was hard and they were poorly paid. Mr Curdlings Shop was a special feature of the Estate. It was the biggest building on the estate embodied shop and two flats above.

The shop was long, dark, supporting pillars along it’s length – and sold everything tobacco and cigs, clothes, lengths of cloth, cold meats and grocery etc, etc. He, Mr Curdling, also run a car hire service.

He was the reincarnation of Mr Pickwick, stout, red-faced, jovial, a very special Maypole character. He held his 50th wedding anniversary in the Maypole hut. I remember him singing “My Old Dutch”.

He lived in a big old house that lays back from the Denton Rd, right opposite Crayford Corner football area, his daughter Joan still lives there, she must be in her advanced eighties and still very active.

These jottings take me from 1926 to 1929 when I left school donned ‘longens’ and went to work.
My intimate connections with the Maypole started to decline as new horizons beckoned but the Maypole Estate and its environs will always be very special to me. I got married from West Lodge in 1938, to a wonderful girl from Yorkshire, Anne.

Fin. Not quite! He said carry on.

Jan 1929 - July 1938

In Jan 1929 aged 14 I started work in engineering and tool room dept. of the Siluminate Insulating Company. My uncle was works manager so I started at an enhanced salary of 17/6 per week of 47 hours(7/6 for me 10/-. Mum).
I had my first new bicycle an Armstrong paid for weekly by my parents(cost around £3.10) so I rode to the factory at Erith alongside the Thames five miles. I was of course the shop boy, sweeping, cleaning, and making tea, several tin tea cans on a long pole, each with its screw of tea sugar and condensed milk, to be filled with hot water at the canteen.
Invitation to the industry consisting of an assault by several and the application of black grease to the private parts this was common place in those days. 

A favourite past time in the 1920’s to 30’s was on a Sunday afternoon in the summer to walk the crossroad made by Princes Rd and Denton Rd and to sit on the grass and watch an almost endless stream of activities on the road. A column of hikers 50 strong 

striding along packs upon their backs and often singing away. Cycling clubs 50-100 strong, 2 deep wheeling away to coast or where ever. Motorcyclists on so many different British made bikes – Norton, BSA, Ariel, Vellocette, Matchless, New Hudson, Francis Barnet, Scot, Ascot Pullin, to name just a few, Rudge Whitworth.

Coaches packed with outings and cars of many makes all British used to give us pleasure to just sit and watch. I eventually graduated to the operation of simple jobs on radial drill, milling machines, etc.

Finally bandsaw doctor, responsible for the sharpening setting and the brazing of broken saw bands. At 14 this was quite a responsibilty as saws were soon broken cutting 1” thick asbestos sheet, and a badly brazed join would play havoc.

In March 1930 this firm closed and moved to Manchester, I was unemployed. I applied to Hall’s and I obtain a job on inspection and burring benches, where I believe my talents were noted and I was transferred to the fitting shop, there to serve an indentured apprenticeship.

J and E Halls was a world famous engineering firm specialising in refridgeration, lifts, escalators, and much more.

After thoughts. Bicyles were the transport in my young days and one chap S. Ogilvy, cycled everyday to J and E Halls (where he was apprenticed) from Catford. Others from Farningham, Sidcup, Woolwich, were common place.
I should mention that at this period I bought for £3.10s my friends fathers motor cycle 250cc BSA Circa 1926 rode it for six months and bought a racing bike from the proceeds of its sale.

My starting wage at 16 was 11 shillings a week, I got half a crown pocket money or 1/6 I forget. My best friend John Palmer also started in apprenticeship as a plumber with OM Keevil of Dartford.
So we were both tied with little cash for five long years. With night school, three nights 7-9pm and one full day at Dartford Tech College. Never the less we saved up and bought a small tent, cycled with all our gear for a fortnight at Leysdown Isle of Sheppy. We did this in 1930 or 31 our annual holidays.

We decided at 17 to join the territorial army 5 Batt Queens own royal West Kents. C. Coy stationed at Dartford drill hall now council offices by park entrance in Lowfield St. The termination of this would coincide with our apprenticeship finishing.

This solved our cash shortage and catered for our annual holiday. In camp or Barracks we were paid 14/- a week (full army pay for a private 2/- per day) and our firm also gave us full pay for army camp. We were millionaires. You signed for four years.

We were both crack shots with the 303 short Lee Enfield, a marvellous rifle, a possible at a 1000 yrds quite often. We were battalion champions in turn and this fetched a few more bob in weekend shoots. We were both keen fisherman and cycled to Yalding many times on a Saturday cycling home to have an evening st the Princesses. We also belonged to Dartford Harriers Cross Country and track, more to keep fit than break records. Cycling was second nature Hastings and back one Sunday.

The Terriers had a boxing club and so began an additional interest I was Battalion and Division Champion for my four yrs service boxing at 9.9 and 10.7 lightweight and welter. Halls also started a boxing club and became well known as one of the best around. As a leading light I was then boxing six rounds, not done now.

As you can see our time was full and we were happy with our lot. Dressed to kill in our Sunday best made to measure 37/6, 47/4 with waistcoat, we were content until. –

We had three months to go to the completion of apprenticeship and army service and John Palmer said when I was arranging our Saturday, “Oh, by the way I’m taking a girl to the pictures Sat evening” this was a bombshell as we were always too busy to bother with girls.

So started his courtship and eventual marriage to Lilian Brown, John died in 1991 after a career with the Local Council ending as chief building inspector and quality control. A smashing chap and took infinate pains in anything he did if it was perfect it was near enough.

A few weeks later I met the girl I was to marry, Anne Arundel a sweet Yorkshire girl, a nurse at the hospital. At this time my pocket money was 5/- per week and would be spent thus on many occasions between Anne and me. 6d bus fare to Bexley Heath from the Maypole, two seats at the Regal cinema 3/-, 1/- for ½d of milk 

tray chocolates and 6d bus home total 5/- all gone until next Friday. About this time 1935-6 I had left my employment on the outside staff of J+E Hall Installing refrigerator plants in ships, hotels, shops and fruit farms (I had a motorcycle).
I joined Fraser v Chalmers a well known heavy engineering concern steam engines for pit heads, turbines, coal crusher, conveyer and hoists for air craft carriers, really heavy stuff.
I loved it.

I now had a 500cc motor cycle so no more pedalling, and I was saving very hard to get married. I left Frasers and joined Vickers Crayford, engaged on highly skilled admiralty fire control gear, predicting gear for high angle guns, pompom predictors, torpedo calculators, where .0001” was a large lump. The Spanish was had ended Hitler helped by chamberlain and co was heading for war. Engineers were in demand and I took home £7-8 pounds per week av. Wage at that time £2-10s - £3, so I saved, got married 31st July 1938, and left West Lodge for 106 Chastilian Rd.
“That’s me lot”

Notes 
Maypole Café Already there in 1926 and a kids meeting point to discuss the merits of all the many varieties of toffee bars etc etc. A cosy place for warmth and hot drinks in the winter. Ran by a Miss or Mrs Brooks if my memory serves me rightly.
Penny Royal A small swampy pond so named because it was home to a small blue flower ‘The Penny Royal’
Donkey Pond A pond always full in my young days. The donkeys drank there. (They were kept on the Heath by Mr Smith of the Maypole Estate).
Anti-aircraft guns at Leyton Cross A very large encampment with concrete roads, shelters and 3.7 inch guns were established on the Heath. Gravel pit cottages Two small cottages on the Denton Rd opposite Crayford Corner and were occupied by Gravel pit empolyees. One cottage now demolished and a much larger house instead built after the war.
Heath Keeper He had a cottage on the Heath. A family of wife and two daughters who attended the Maypole School.
The Maypole Itself (1926) Was errected in the school playground and Mr Snell (headmaster in my time). Would supervise all the dances.
Mr Blackman First Mayor of Dartford. Winnie daughter I believe, son still resides on the Maypole Estate.
Bowmans Lodge Now sadly demolished and should have been a listed building. Bowmen would meet there to hold their competitions on what is now Crayford Corner. It was Tudor origin and was lived in until the 1930-39 period. It served as a tea and refreshment place.
Broomhills Lodge At the entrance to Broomhills (the Cameron Estate) Mr Elliman and his family lived in the lodge. He was groundsman, keeper, he had two sons Arthur and Sydney also a daughter. The lodge is now demolished and replaced. 

Memories of Barbara Ireland

My memories date from the years between 1957 - 1961. Our teacher in the final year was a Mr Brough. He was strict but fair. We were quite afraid of him, but respected and obeyed his direction without question. I will always remember him with fondness and admiration. We used to play British Bulldog and Kisschase in the playground.

The Eleven Plus was the big event of our last year, then most of us lost touch. I went to boarding school in Folkestone but most of my friends ended up at Dartford Grammar or West Hill. Eventually I met up with Jacky Rumble (who is mentioned on the website) at the Technical High over at Wilmington. I lived up at Joydens Wood. Somewhere in the attic I have several photos from those years at Maypole.It played an important part in my childhood.

Memories of Derek LOTT

My First Memories of the Maypole

Would be around 1942 about a year after moving there from Station Road Crayford. My sister Evelyn was born that year in the nursing home in Wansant Road. My dad along with Misters Pope, May, Perkins and a few others who for one reason or another were not called up to fight were part of the Home guard and did fire watch duties at night around the area. They used to meet in the public air raid shelter by the bus stop up by the school. This was also the place we all had to go to to collect our gas mask, young children were given Mickey mouse shaped ones in a cardboard box with a piece of string attached to hang it around our necks. Bexley Hospital was bombed several times by incendiary and other bombs, I remember standing watching as the planes tried to avoid the search lights and the shells from the mobile pom pom gun that the anti aircraft gunners from the army camp at Leyton Cross drove around chasing the enemy. 

My dad was exempt from call up as he was to valuable to Vickers making guns, where he invented a couple of ways to speed up production of same. In July 1942 my mother gave birth to my sister Evelyn the same name as herself. As previously mentioned Evelyn was born at a nursing home in Wansant Road Bexley, while mum was there a German plane crashed just over the road in a field and the young pilot was brought into the nursing home. The nurses and young mothers felt sorry for the young pilot when the police came and took him away, as yet they did not know of his doings only a short time before the 

rash. He had been shooting at school children in and around Dartford West as they came out of school. One young lad had his bottom shot off by machine gun fire while cleaning his mother’s windows.

Later at the age of four I was to attend St. Michael College also in Wansant Road as a day pupil. Soon after this the school was renamed “The London Choir School”. While there I lost a friend who on the way home from school crossed the road and was knocked down by a laundry lorry and killed instantly. I was off sick that day or I would have most probably have been with him, as we often crossed there together to buy a penny bun from the off-license come grocer shop down the dip (Baldwyns Park) as it was known.

Soon after this Hitler started sending over the V1 rockets commonly known as the doodlebugs, these eerie sounding rockets had short wings and a tail with an engine fixed to the top of it from which exhaust flames could be seen . When the fuel ran out and the engine stopped. Every one would huddle in a corner and wait for the inevitable bang; if you heard it you knew it wasn’t your turn this time. I remember laying in bed one night with mum (dad was on air raid warden duty or nights at Vickers, when a doodle bug came over so low that we could see the flames from the engine as it passed over our roof. It was that low that it took the chimney pot off the roof of a neighbour across the road, before running out of fuel and landing in the allotments just 300 yards away, being so low it hit the earth softly and we were able to see the engine intact the next day. Shortly after that Hitler started sending the V2 rockets that were even more frightening, you would hear nothing until they hit their target.

I can remember watching a dog fight over toward the Joydons wood area and seeing the loser bail out and watching as his parachute opened. One also fell in the nursery of the Maypole House. The Winters who owned the Maypole house used to sell products to us from their nursery; where now stands the Rolex watch factory. Mr Winter was a director of the Co. Tony Winter would have been the youngest boy: A tragic family, three off whom committed suicide.

Mr Pope was later to to keep his horses in the Winters field. Mr Pope used to sell logs from his horse and cart, many a day I would have helped Alan, Ian and George Pope saw up logs for their father; sometimes by the light of an oil lantern.

During the war everyone had to carry an identity card with them where ever they went. I can remember that a police man would get on the bus and check them, he usually got on just where the bus came off the heath and entered Shepherds Lane. On one occasion Mum was questioned at length (much to her embarrassment) on the bus and this was later followed up by a home visit from the police. We later learned that a German P.O.W. Had escaped and had taken on the identity of a Dutch Pilot using the name Van Lott. A book was later written about him and called “The One Who Got Away” as he was the only German P.O.W. To escape from this country.  

After leaving St Michaels Collage I went Yorkshire to live with my old great aunt for around nine months on my return I went to school at the Maypole Primary. Miss Gaspar was the head teacher who had taught my Mother at St Albans Road school Dartford, and did not like my mum for reasons that I will not go into here. She immediately took a dislike to me and bullied me all through school, I was caned often and can honestly say that I had never committed the offence for which I was punished. I was stood in front of all the teachers during my first week there and she told them to keep an eye on me as I was trouble; *****. She also would not allow me to sit the eleven plus.
In my class there were Allen Pope, Lindsey Fisher, Anthony Hancock, John Morgan, Peter Howard, Howard Rogers, George Govier? Janice Scott, David Bainbridge, ??? white, Maureen Green, Christine Harper, Brian Coleman, Anita Web, Judith ???, Barry Miskin, Averal Hunt and about ten more. I think I have done well seeing as I can not remember last w???.

Having not been allowed to take the eleven plus I ended up at Dartford West Secondary (no regrets), I did reasonably well there and held the record for bowling at cricket until the school closed some fifty or so years later.

Do you remember Curdling's Shop at the end of my Road (Beaconsfield), that nice smell of a small grocers shop where they cut, slice and weighed every thing by hand. Sugar weighed into a brown bag, sweets and lemon powder poured into a cone made of news paper, butter and cheese sliced and wrapped in grease proof paper; very little came pre-packed and the smell of the cheeses, fresh bacon, bread and other items all mingling to give that unique smell that I can smell even now. Mrs Turner worked there before Mrs Roberts Mrs Vera Barrett and Iris was it who married a G.I.?. Talking of smell I used to like the smell of leather and polish in Mr. Miles the cobblers shop.

Dad and Mum used to keep chickens and Rabbits to subsidise the meat and egg rations as many others did. Not like David Saunders and family who some time after the war ate all the pigeons I had sold to him. I think his Parents conned him into eating them as they did not like him keeping them in the garden.

Evelyn and I sang in the choir at St Barnabas, I until my voice broke. We received 3d a week if we attended choir practice and the Sunday service, this we would receive around Christmas time.

The post office was owned by Mr. Vine who used to sing and could often be heard on workers playtime; 247 medium wave, light program lunchtime radio. I can still see the face of the lady who worked behind the counter (ginger hair and glasses head always tilted to one side) selling sweets and cigarettes but can not recall her name. The other lady behind the post office was Mrs Vine. In those days every one was given the title of Mr. Master. Mrs. or Miss. Sir or Madam, no Ms. in those days.

Does anyone remember the winkle man coming round on a Sunday afternoon ringing a bell, Grooms baker and hills milk being delivered by horse and cart and the rag and bone man totting with his horse and cart? The only time a car came up the road was when the Doctor was making a visit or some wealthy visitor came by taxi even the local constabulary came on a bicycle. Mr Waterman the postman in Beaconsfield was the first to buy a car on the maypole I believe, and Mr. Pope and my Father were later to buy motorcycles and side-car.
As others have mentioned we had the maypole institute which was used for all 

manner of things, youth club, ladies institute, dances, plays and other forms of entertainment. Members would have an annual outing to the seaside usually Margate or Ramsgate and occasionally to Herne Bay in a Grundens charabanc (coach). Of course there was the annual fancy dress show followed by sports, where we that won races were disqualified from ever running in amateur races as we would receive financial reward 2s 6d for first prize if I remember correctly. Of course non of us new at that time of things like that, it was all so innocent.

I joined the merchant navy on my sixteenth birthday and sailed to Australia via the Canary Islands and South Africa, returning via Aden, Suez and Bruge. We were one of the last ships to pass through the Suez canal before President Nasser closed it. I was a terrible sailor and within a year of returning to these shores I joined the RAF as a regular, In 1963 I married an Irish girl named Mary and in 65 moved into No. 30 Baldwyns Road which had been the house of the Hogan's. One of the Hogans remained in the house as we were later to find out. When any of our four children that slept in the top rooms fell ill she would visit them and stroke them. We told the late Mrs. Perkins about this and when Mary described the old lady who visited, Mrs Perkins said that it was indeed Granny Hogan. She dressed all in black and wore long black lace gloves and this was exactly how the two children that had seen her described her. We never told the children what the other had seen, yet both described the same woman. My Mother was first to say on visiting the attic bedrooms that it felt haunted and my dogs would not go to the attic floor.

Children I remember from my childhood on the Maypole would be:
Denton Terrace; Barbara May, Busters daughter who died so young, Willie and Nancy Beck, Dorothy and Barbara Taylor, Pat Flett, Robin Hunt? Barry and John Collins, Carol Slade, Averal Hunt, Pam Wright and Derek and Basil Bedwell.
Beaconsfield; Kim and ?? Button, Fred, Jean Perkins, Angie, Sylvia, Alan, Ian George Pope, Raymond, Beryl, Brenda Wibley, Valerie Eynon, Iris and Pat Connelly,Tony Smith, Janice Scott, Pat, Gill? Richardson Carlton Ball, Colin and Robin Wickens, Stan, Margaret, Jim, Pearl, Elsie Snowdens, Dickie Balcomb, Tony, Yvonne Clark, Brain John and Jean Parker, Maureen Green.
Dartford Road; Jackie Smith, Veronica Taylor, Jack, Norman, Moses Chalice. Christine Miles.
Heath End; 2 , Sonia & Nigel Windmill, Eileen, Barbara Jean Rivers,Steven, Marion Parker.
Baldwyns; Sheila, Audrey, Barbara, Joan Haulton, Joyce Stockford, Peter, Margaret Cadman, ?? Tucker, Christine, Ann, Joan Potter, Billy Fowler, Lee Smith, Mick & June Hogan, Tom Gosling, Gordon Lennox, David & Eddie Wooldridge, Willie, Stan, Molly Barrett, Angela Wibley, David Ann Mosses Mavis Proudfoot, David, Wendy Saunders, Mavis & ? Warwick, Roberta & David Cruickshanks, Michael Masters, Ken & Thelma Perkis. Dorothy Piper.

The Whitehead Girls I believe lived over in the cottage at Capt. James. Earl Read, Bob & Marion Shaw. Lived At The Hospital Gate.
Apologies for those I can not remember and for those who's names I have misspelt.

Memories of John BURTON

I used to visit and stay at Heath wood lodge as my schoolboy friend Edmond (Eddie ) Wainer lived There with his parents and elder sister he was in my class at the Maypole so must have been same age, or like. I can remember Mr. James a rather stern old man which we used to hide from as he used to tell us off, no doubt for doing things we shouldn't like going up the tower as it was falling down. The Scouts used the grounds as there camp site, during the summer and we used to stay with them as well. I remember a big lawn at the front of the house. Eddie and family moved to Wansant road First house on left by the bend, where i also used to stay, that was in the days of Dorothy squires being there his garden had an orchard along the back and we used to creep down and look through the hedge at the going's on at the swimming pool, I lost touch with Eddie when i was about 12 i.e. about 1950 as he went on to a private school I am sure he must have some photos of the house that you are keen to get hold of . Those were the days Regards John Burton 

Memories of Edmund Wainer and Heathwood

Ed's recollections of his time at Heathwood . . . . . . and also the tower in the woods . . . . .

It started with a bang - quite literally. My father fought and was disabled in the First World War. He was not actually discharged from military hospital until 1920 and consequently took little part in the second. He was, however, because of his disability, allowed the use of a car and it was in this car, a very battered Hillman, that he collected us from rural Cheshire in the winter of 1944 to bring us down to live with him again at Heathwood. We had spent most of the war years apart as he had been transferred by his company to the factory in Erith and felt it too dangerous for us to accompany him whilst the bombing was still on. We had spent those years oblivious of the sights and sounds of the fighting. When we were approaching the heath, we encountered a very thick fog which got worse and worse the closer we got.; Eventually it became too dangerous to drive any further and we pulled into a pub for some refreshment and to decide what to do next. I remember it vividly as it was my first experience of bottled lemonade! When the bottle was opened I marveled at the stream of bubbles coming to the surface and the taste to me was exquisite. My mother was all for staying overnight at the pub but my father's will prevailed and we started out on foot with a suitcase of overnight things.

I wonder that he found his way at all as the fog was so thick but eventually we moved on a path over some heath, passed though some big white gates and along a gravel drive until we were suddenly overshadowed by what appeared, to a small boy, to be the most enormous building. Though the porch and the front door and into the cold dark house.

We were getting undressed to go to bed when it happened. The most enormous explosion that rattled the windows fit to bursting. We children were really scared as it came totally without warning and was something previously unknown to us. My father explained that it must have been one of the new V2's which arrived totally unannounced. There was nothing more, so we went to bed.

My father returned to the pub the next morning only to discovered where the thing had landed. The car was only superficially damaged but the pub much more so. Perhaps it was a happy omen for the contented years at Heathwood which followed.

We didn't own the property. It was actually owned by Captain James and his wife who retained part of the house for their own use. The Jameses were very private people and to tell the truth we hardly knew they were there. I was discouraged from playing on what must have been the west side of the house (where the conservatory was) but this was no problem at all as there 

were fourteen acres of woodland altogether. There used to be more I had been told, but the old Dartford by-pass trimmed some of it off. I can recall visiting the James's side of the house on only two occasions - the first to the conservatory, which had a black and white squared marble floor at the time, and the second time to their kitchen which was warm and cosy as there was an Aga installed.

There was a lodge and a garage in addition to the house. The lodge was occupied by another couple. I don't remember their names for certain but Whitehead seems to ring a bell. I was never without an air gun at that time. First a Diana, which was quite tiny and suited my size at the time. after, I graduated to a BSA Major; a real air rifle and my pride an joy. As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time outside. I remember all the squirrels drays, the smell of the gorse on the heath during the summer and the annual fires where kindly firemen allowed us to "help" and hang around the fire engines. One of my most exciting memories were the Bren gun carriers which appeared from time to time and the one occasions we were given a ride by the soldiers!

There was also a sort of grassy bank on which the scouts used to camp every year. We used to visit whilst we were there. Whether that encouraged my later joining the local cub pack, I can't recall. I do remember on one occasion they were stirring what appeared to be custard in a big pot over the fire. It tuned out to be scrambled egg!

We were at Heathwood for VE Day. Great excitement with a bonfire and my cousin, who was staying with us, managed to get hold of some fireworks; the first I'd ever seen. We were also there for the winter of 1947. What a brilliant winter that was. Snow feet deep on the ground for months. A man at my father's factory made us a toboggan. Very professional looking with gave us hours of fun. Less fun for my parents, I'm afraid. When the thaw did come all the pipes had burst. They were mainly lead and offered little resistance to freezing. The bathroom was up in the tower and we had no water there for days.

It was in 1974 that I took my wife and kids to see the fantastic house I used to live in. I warned them that it was likely to be derelict as it hadn't been lived in for years. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't there at all. All that was there was a very large cutting carrying the new road - a great disappointment.

The below is an extract of E Mails sent by Ed regards a strange tower in Churchfield Woods . . . .

The tower as I remember it was isolated in the woods; no other structures around and nowhere near the road. It was built entirely of steel in concrete footings - no brickwork that I can recall. The framework was a lattice work of girders similar to electricity pylons and the platform at the top was an open box of flat galvanized iron sheet in a metal frame. Access was by ladder through a hole in the floor. If I were to guess where it would be on the map, I would put it slightly lower than the 'Chu' of Churchfield. We used to walk to it from the Southernmost tip of the wood, just past the junction of the two footpaths coming down from Wansunt Road. 

The map is fascinating as it shows both Heathwood and our house at Wansunt Road. All of the houses are represented as if they were terraced blocks whereas, as far as I can remember, all were detached properties. There were only four between the two footpaths; we were at No 1, next door were the Osborn's, who had a furniture retail shop in Bexleyheath, next was Mrs. Chapman, a widow I presumed, who used to send me to buy cigarettes for her - Du Maurier Cork Tipped as I recall. The last house before the next footpath belonged to L. Hugh Newman who was an expert in butterflies. The fruit trees in his garden had branches frequently covered in fine netting; not to keep the caterpillars out but to keep them IN! You will note that there is a gap beyond his house before the entrance to the second footpath. The former owner of all the property enclose between Wansunt Road and the two footpaths to the West, was resident in the small manor house on the southern junction of Wansunt and Heath roads. When he sold the property for the building of the four houses, he imposed a covenant preventing the building of anything on that stretch of land to the North of Newman's house or on the triangle of orchard garden belonging to us. This was to preserve his uninterrupted view of St Mary's Church in Bexley village from the windows of his house! The covenant must have been subsequently overturned leading to the proliferation of new houses as seen today.

Interestingly, the house on the other side of that footpath had a swimming pool and was the home of Dorothy Squires and her husband Roger Moore - yes, the Roger Moore of 'The Saint' and 'James Bond' fame. I remember being in the butcher's shop in the village when my mother gave me a friendly nudge and whispered, "That's Dorothy Squires husband". I looked up to see a tall, extremely good looking, tanned young man - not yet famous in his own right but only as being the husband of a well-known singer!

Memories of Ronnie Potter

My first memory is of Mrs Rivers pushing me down Baldwyns Road in a pram. There are flags and bunting strung across the road so it must be some kind of street party. The only party we had at about that time was for the Coronation. My mum says I was too young to remember anything at two or three years old, but I do. Thereafter I don't remember anything until my first day at school. I recall sitting mid-way down the left hand side of the classroom and being told that dinner wouldn't be too long. It ruddy well was! I remember that, and I lost a little respect for the teaching profession that day. If you can't trust them to bring your dinner along when they say they will, what chance have they got of convincing you that there was a battle in Hastings in 1066? I reckon it could have been anytime between 1060 and 1070, and that's giving them the benefit of the doubt. I began to question things from about that time. "Today we're going to learn about the Hundred Years War." "I say it was seventy five. Any advance on seventy five?" "Ronald Potter, go and stand in the corner." That's my third memory. And fourth. And fifth.

The corners of various classrooms in the Maypole County Primary School. Later, and I mean much later, I found out why I don't remember much of my early years. One of my teachers, concerned about this apparently serene youngster in the class who had no interest in the blackboard or what the teacher was doing out there in front of him, asked my mother if I had problems with my sight. My mother said "Of course not! Not my little boy," but anyway, she took me to an opticians where it was discovered that I had abysmal vision in my left eye, and not too bright in the right either. From that day I've worn glasses. I was dragged from my reverie, that delightful dream world of dismembered voices and hazy shapes into the stark world of sharp images and 20/20ish vision and the sad realisation that voices came from people and not out of the ether. Wearing glasses was never the traumatic experience that people think it should be. I don't think any of the children noticed to be quite honest. We all accepted things without prejudice. It was not until I was in my teens that I realised that you had to learn prejudice, it's not a thing you're born with. For example, Richard Wight had contracted Polio at some stage and wore leg-irons. The only difference that that made to us was that we learned very quickly to get out of his way during the games of football we played with a tennis ball in the school playground. He would come charging stiff-legged through the middle of us all and God help anyone who got in his way. His legs were supported either side by metal rods and this made tackling him extremely dangerous. He was always picked first when it came to team-picking time.

The biggest problem with wearing glasses was that they got broken every week. There were several stages in the life of a pair of schoolboy glasses. The first things to go were the arms. This was an easy job to fix. Sellotape! Don't ask me why it had to be Sellotape for the arms, but Sellotape it was. It normally lasted for two or three days until the sticky started to wear off, and then it needed some more. This continued until the glasses were sticking out an inch from your head and the Sellotape started sticking in your hair. In those days we all had short back and sides, with a quiff hanging down the front. Or in my case, having wavy hair, kiss curls. When the hair got stuck in your glasses you swept it out of the way and inevitably knocked the glasses off your head and smashed the left lens on the floor. Always the left, thank goodness. The right and I would have been blind. The only way to fix broken lenses is, of course, pink Elastoplast! And that is how you walked around for about three weeks of every month, for that is how long it took to get replacement glasses. You had a great ball of hair-covered Sellotape sticking out of the side of your head and a junior version of Blackbeard's patch in pink over one eye. It was so commonplace as to arouse no comment. Any more than your front teeth falling out and making you talk with a lisp. Can you imagine what you'd feel like as an adult if all these things happened to you at the same time? You'd be afraid to go out of the house and face your peers.

Life at Maypole County Primary School was never very stressful as I remember. Lots of playtimes and swimming lessons at Hextable. School sports days where none of the children cared who won or lost. We'd all had numerous races in the playground and knew who were the best runners, jumpers or throwers. Richard Wight was in great demand for the Three-Legged race, for obvious reasons, and always won, whosoever was strapped to his port side leg-iron. The able-legged person was the one who had the greatest problem, trying to keep up with the expert. Opposite the school was Bexley Mental Hospital, another great influence on my life. Life on our estate revolved around the Hospital. A lot of the mothers did cleaning jobs during school hours to help make ends meet. The patients themselves were all relatively harmless, the violent ones being locked in closed wards. We soon got to know the regulars. There was the Black Widow. Always dressed in black, she had taken a shine to blond, angelic Simon. Every time she saw him she would give him sixpence. He was a little scared at the fact that he had been picked out from the rest of us and tried to hide down the alley when he saw her. We, on the other hand, would keep an eye out for her and drag Simon up to her so's he could get his tanner Then it was toffee chews all round. Poor Simon had to spend the money as he would got a clip around the ear if his Mum and Dad found out he was taking money, "Off a Patient." That is what they were called. Patients. There was never a case that I can remember from the children or the parents of cruelty concerning the Patients. They were a part of life and accepted as such. Even when one shat on the doormat I can remember my sister Anne saying, "I'll clear it up Mum. It was only one of the Patients." Mind you, Anne always was a little saintly and later went to Africa as a missionary.

There were times when the Patients did things which did reflect a bit on the community. The worst case didn't affect the Maypole Estate kids, but the kids being brought to school by bus. There was a Patient without a name but known to all the kids because she often wore a wedding dress. Rumour had it that she had been jilted at the altar and that that had turned her. This particular morning at about ten to eight, resplendent in her wedding dress, she dived under the school bus and the wheels ran over her head. There was a lot of screaming and puking, mainly by the adults, and none of the teachers would talk about it at school. We all knew, of course, because the kids on the bus had been sent home for the day and there were empty places in the classroom. We all rushed out at the end of school to see the blood, but the Fire Brigade had hosed it all away. That made it even more spooky. We began to wonder if it had really happened, and became a little jealous when the kids who had seen it came to school the following day and told us all about it. One of them said he had been thrown in the air and had landed in the aisle when the wheels ran over her head, but I'm not sure I believed him. In retrospect, I suppose the most dangerous of the lot were the Patients with sexual problems.

The Hospital and indeed the school bordered onto Dartford Heath, and these Patients used to wander the Heath exposing themselves to the children. The first time it happened to me was scary because I'd never seen a mature erect penis. I thought the poor bloke was deformed or had had an accident. I remember crawling into bed with my Mum later that night and her consoling me and explaining that they were Patients and that they didn't know what they were doing. She told me that I should run away if it happened again. I became a very good runner after that. There was one Patient who used to expose himself to the school bus bringing the older kids home from the Secondary Schools in Dartford. He used to leap out from behind the same bush every afternoon. The police used to nick him every so often, but he was a Patient so they couldn't do much about it. I did hear one of the parents say that he should, "Be bound over to keep the piece in his trousers," but I didn't get the joke at the time. Dartford Heath was good fun. We had a gang, me and David McKeough, Richard Wight, Paul Elliman and his brother John, the Conboy brothers, Richard and Kevin, (Kevin smoked!) And John Warwick came along later. We would play Commandos and build swings down the Dell. These swings were built on the side of a hill and you could swing out to about thirty feet above the ground. The Heathkeepers used to come around every so often and catch us if they were quick enough and tell us off and cut down the swing. Once in a while one of us would fall off the swing and break something. This gave you a great deal of status, of course, and you could boast about how much it hurt and what it was like to have an X-ray and how brave everyone had said you had been. Never mind the fact that you'd screamed like a stuck pig when it happened, so much so that all your friends had run away at first, in case you died and they got a belting for playing on the swing.

Mr. Winter owned Maypole House, a big castellated house to one side of the estate. He had large grounds to the house and the whole was protected by hedges or high fences or walls. Mr. Stotford was his groundsman and he lived a few doors down from us. He had lived all his life on the estate and knew all of us and all of our parents. The problem with the Winter grounds were that they were between the Maypole Estate and the best playing areas of the Dell and the Dip. So we used to climb over the wall at the back of Dave McKeough's house and run the hundred yards or so to the chain link fence at the other side of a shallow valley, clamber over this and make our way into the woods and down into the Dell. At first Old Stottie couldn't catch us. And then he got a Power Mower. The first time that he came roaring out from his shed and down the valley, we all froze. It must have been hilarious to watch. We all ran in different directions howling at the top of our voices. Richard got caught because he couldn't get over the wall with his calipers on, and none of us stayed around to help him. Later that day Mr Stotford came round to all our houses told our parents that we had been trespassing and that next time it would be the Police. Richard had been taken to his house by Mr Stotford and Mrs Wight kept him in for the weekend. We all thought that Mr Stotford had tortured Richard to get our names and then buried him in the grounds. Stottie had been in the Army during the war and wore a thick leather belt with Regimental cap-badges studded all round it, so he knew how to kill people. You can imagine our relief when Richard turned up for school on Monday. I was always a bit wary of old Mr Stotford after that, though. He looked like he would have liked to kill or torture us when he was charging down the valley astride his motor-mower, like a motorised member of The Light Brigade. We weren't really naughty, just adventurous and full of life. Sometimes we would overstep the mark and the Police got involved. The first involved a scrumping expedition into the orchards of the Hospital. We kicked in a couple of fence palings, climbed through and filled our jumpers with cherry-plums. Then we moved along to the apple orchards. I had no more room up my jumper and was a bit scared so I told the others I would wait outside and keep watch. It couldn't have been two minutes later that the Police drove past and saw me lurking guiltily next to the hole in the fence. They stopped and came across and I came close to peeing in my pants.

My Dad had been a copper and I knew what would happen to me when I got home. They indicated that I should get in the car without saying a word and settled down to wait for the others. As each of them came out of the hole in the fence they were lifted by the collar and stood to one side of the hole out of sight of those still inside. When we were all out they bundled us into the car and took us to the porters gate at the entrance to the Hospital, where the porters took our names and addresses which they used to send our parents bills for the repair of the fence and for the stolen fruit. Of course none of us told our parents what had happened, and about three or four days later and two minutes after the postman had been, what sounded like air-raid sirens could be heard from half a dozen houses on the estate. It was, of course, each of us wailing after being slapped or belted by our parents. Three shillings and ninepence was the bill. When my sisters heard about it I got another telling-off and poking me they said, "You're supposed to be a boy. We never got caught when we went scrumping." My mother wanted to know where the fruit was. I told her that I had been too scared to bring it home in case she found out. She then did something I'll never forget. She sent me out to "Get three shillings and ninepence worth of fruit and don't get caught this time!" I don't think any of the other kids got these instructions because this time I carried out a lone mission. I was terrified in case I got caught by the Police again or even worse, by a Patient. No-one has ever hopped over a fence and filled his jumper full of cherry-plums so quickly in their life. And all the time sobbing, with my eyes filling up with tears. It did the job though, and I never scrumped in the Hospital after that. We targeted the orchard next to St Mary’s Graveyard instead, where it was quieter and the Police didn't drive past. We discovered it when we were covering for the choir in the St Mary's, who were away camping. We all belonged to the local choir at St Barnabas Church. Every Wednesday evening we would turn up for choir practice, except for the Conboy brothers who were Catholics, whatever that meant. As soon as practice was finished we would go down to the fish and chip shop at the bottom of the Dip and get fourpen'th of chips and some crackling. Then we would walk back up the hill to the Estate climbing the lampposts and swinging on the cross-trees at the top. Dave McKeough did the best impression of a monkey, especially with a bag of chips in his hand. The road was badly lit and ran past the Hospital which had a high wall and a fence atop it. On the other side of the road was an annexe to the Hospital, which was in fact a convalescent home for minor mental cases like nervous breakdowns or alcoholics with DT's. The Annexe had a cowfield around it into which St Barnabas protruded. Every time the organ played in the church the cows would come and lean over the barbed wire fence at the back and gently chew the cud and low. That was until we came charging out of the vestry after choir practice or a service and shooed them all away. Luckily they were only heifers or goodness knows what damage we would have caused. The cowfield was a useful short-cut to the allotments if Stottie was about in the Winter's garden. It was a longer way round and you had to run the gauntlet of the cows and the staff of the convalescent home. There was a bit of dead ground you could use though, and this was fun to crawl along. The allotments had a stream running through them. It wasn't really a stream, it was a ditch for the run-off water from the roadside gutters in the Dip. We used to dam it and get our socks wet and get covered in mud and have a great time there. Only if our Dads weren't working on the allotments though.

On a Sunday one of us in our family would have to take Dad his Sunday dinner to the allotments. Mum would serve it out onto his plate and it would be covered with another plate and wrapped in tea-towels. A pint of tea would be put into a milk bottle and that would be wrapped in tea towels too. Then whoever had been chosen to take it down, usually Anne, would have to get to the allotments as quickly as possible. Dad had two plots, one with fruit bushes and one with vegetables. He used to spend all day Sunday there, whether to get away from us or not I don't know. We lived well from the allotments, always plenty of veg in season and loads of different types of jam. Mum was good at jam. But not at chips. Dad worked for Barclays Bank; District, Colonial and Overseas, in London. He was a messenger and went off to work at six thirty every morning in a navy blue suit with silver buttons and a bowler hat and umbrella. He was always immaculate for work with his starched detachable collar and black tie. It was lucky that he did work for the Bank, for we were one of the first ones in the street to have our own house, bought and paid for. It cost £1100. When Mum blew the roof out of the scullery whilst cooking chips, Dad was able to borrow money from the bank and we had the scullery knocked down and an extension put on the back of the house with a kitchen downstairs and a bathroom and toilet above. It cost £800 to build. Before we had this luxury, we had had an outside loo, which Dad had brought into the dry by building a lean-to conservatory onto the back of the house. Baths had been taken in a tin bath for the grown-ups, or in the scullery sink for the kids. We heated the water in a copper boiler, and this was also used for boiling the sheets once a week, or for making spotted dick. We also had a number of sheds. Dad liked building sheds, so we had one for the bikes and Dad's tools, a coal shed and a back shed which was always full of things for the garden, like spades and forks, and for the clothes props. You had to climb over everything to get at whatever you wanted, because whatever it was, it was always at the back. I used to use the clothes props for pole-vaulting off of the shed roof and into the garden. My Mum used to go frantic and said I'd break my leg, but I never did.

Memories of Lee Smith

t's time to add my recollections to the Maypole website, as I have enjoyed reliving some of my life there through other contibutions. 

First, some background to my family connections on the Maypole Estate.

I was born in June 1945 at West Hill Hospital, to Alfred and Joyce Smith, and called Lee. We lived at first with my Grandparents, Henry [Uncle Sun], and Annie[Aunt Nan], Bearcroft at number 28 Baldwyns Road. My Great Aunt, Lottie[Aunt Lott] Hoath, Annie's sister and her husband Frank, lived at number 22. The nicknames in brackets seem to be the names they were known by to residents of the Estate. Another Great aunt, Winifred Flett , another of Annie's sisters , and her husband, Walt, lived at 5 Denton Terrace, with their 4 children, Pat, Janet, Denise and Eddie. Eddie is a year older than me, and we were playmates while at school.

When I was about 5, we moved down the road to number 40, I remember being involved in the move, in particular having to carry the chamberpot down the street, with instructions not to drop it. It was empty, I hasten to add. My Grandfather had retired early due to poor health, from work in Bexley Hospital, where he was a stoker, a job he knew from service in the Royal Navy. I think at the time, my Uncle Dennis, Mums brother, worked there too, in a similar capacity. Dad also worked there as a plumbers mate, until the early 1950's.

My sister, Penny, was born in July 1953, and it was a regular job of mine to push her pram from the front garden to the back, or vice versa. The house always seemed to be so big, with its 3 stories, and when Penny came along, I was moved from the back bedroom to the attic. This was a big room right up in the roof, with sloping ceilings almost down to the floor. It also had a little cupboard under the eaves at the rear that my sister believed housed ghosts and monsters. I well remember laying in bed and hearing fluttering noises that kept me awake in fear of the unknown. Birds or bats, no doubt.

In 1950 Keith and Betty Williams, and their daughter Lesley, moved in to number 44 Baldwyns Road. Lesley and I used to shout insults at each other over the back gardens. Little did I know that we would marry in 1968, and move in to number 36 for a couple of years, until I joined the RAF. Keith and Betty later moved out in 1968 to Birchwood Road, near Puddledock Lane.

When we moved in to number 40, there was a brick and concrete air raid shelter in the back garden . Dad dismantled it and buried it, laying grass over it. I helped him[well, at least I was there] to cut down a tall tree, and that probably got used for fire wood. It was a good house to live in. and I have a great deal to thank my parents for in the way that they brought me up, and the happy childhood that it had.

My friends included George Pope, Louis Cruikshank, Roger Dyson, Tony Clark, Philip Balcombe, Billy Lynn, Johnny Parker and more. Poor Johnny died in a motorcycle accident on the A2 on the far side of the heath, at the age of 18 or 19, coming home from evening classes in Dartford. We were the Maypole Gang. Their were rival gangs, in particular, the Crayford Gang, who we had a caterpult fight with on one occasion, across the valley in the Dell. I don't remember anyone being hit by a missile, no doubt because the caterpults didn't have the range. The Dell was one of the most visited areas, mainly because of the rope swing. We also took our bikes and carts there, and rode them down the sides of the Dell, to see how far up the other side we could get. We used to go up the footpath, over the field, to the apple orchard on Cold Blow, and go scrumping. We were chased by a man with a shovel on one occasion, but we got away. If you turned right along the edge of the field before going in to Cold Blow, there was a wood about 1/4 mile away, on the top of a rise. In this wood, adjacent to the A2, there was a hollow with a shed in it. We thought a man lived in it, and we would go and spy on him. I don't remember ever seeing him, though. I would have been 11 or 12 at the time. There were far less constraints on the activities of children then. We just had to be home for tea.

As previously mentioned, my Grandfather was a stoker at Bexley Hospital, and was employed there during WW11. There was an often repeated tale in the family, of when Grandad was keeping the fires going overnight during an air-raid, but he carried on stoking until morning, when he looked up and saw a hole in the roof. Soon after, he was tending the boiler, when he saw a dud bomb lying in the embers. Now, my Grandad was a great story teller and exaggerator, so it may have been another of his tales, of which he had many. 

My Mum wanted to be a Land Girl, but as she was working off Tile Kiln Lane somewhere looking after two elderly sisters, she was told that she couldn't. She told us that she was riding her bike to work one morning, along Tile Kiln Lane, when a German bomber flew over very low. The rear gunner fired his machine gun at her, but thankfully missed completely. She said that she was so petrified that she couldn't even get off the bike to hide in a ditch. Seems I'm lucky to be here. She also told us that she had to do a turn fire watching[ARP?] with Mr George Stockford several times a week. She said she used to be more frightened of Mr Stockford than the air-raids. She would have only been about 18 at the time.

Some time ago, my wife and I took a short holiday in West Sussex, to research a church and graveyard at Ditchling that has links to a branch of her family. While we were there we visited a Museum that has old buildings from around the country that were dismantled and then rebuilt there. We were surprised and pleased to find a 15th century building that used to be in North Cray. It was dismantled and kept when North Cray Road was widened in the late 1960's, with the intention of rebuilding it in the area, but this never happened. Subsequently it was given to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum for reconstruction. There is a website which has details of this building that some may find interesting.

Much has already been said about trees on the heath that we gave names to. I only ever managed to climb the Slippery Jack a couple of times. A favourite tree when I was about 10 was the Action Tree, which I also knew as the Helicopter Tree. I don't know why, perhaps because of a particular game that we played. This tree was between Leyton Cross Road and the Middle Road, about 300 or 400 yards from the Hospital gates. I always thought in inches, feet and yards then, so it seems appropriate to use them now. George Pope could swing upside down, by his legs, like an acrobat, from a branch on this tree. When I tried it I couldn't get back up onto the branch again, and had to drop to the ground. It seemed such a long way up then, and of course, none of my mates would help me. They just laughed. The broken neck soon healed[only joking].

About the same distance from the Hospital gates, on the other side of Leyton Cross Road, were the cherry plum trees, which always tasted so good that we ended up with bad tummies. We got in through a loose fence panel usually, but were not averse to getting a leg up over the fence. We would post lookouts and stuff pockets and shirts with as many as we could, then share them out later. We were chased, half heartedly, sometimes, but never got caught. I took some home once, and Mum knew where they had come from, but said nothing. No doubt she had been involved in the same escapades in her childhood. In the 1960's, and probably before, the Hospital farm was run by a Mr Read. I was an apprentice motor mechanic at John C. Beadle, in Dartford, with his son Roger, who later emigrated to New Zealand. There was another son, Earl, who was a year or two older. I don't remember it being a very productive farm at that time, but I heard a lot about it in previous times, when it provided much of the food for the hospital.

Having played on the heath for all of my childhood, I came to know it very well, like the back of my hand as they say. But when I first started to venture out, at about the age of 7 or 8, often we didn't know which way was home. After getting home late one day, we realised we needed some method of finding out where we were. It must have been an older playmate who told us to climb a tree, and look for the hospital chimney. At that time it was visible from most of the heath. We all must remember the heath's landmarks, like the trees, the Penny Royal, the Donkey Pond, the Glory Bumps, the Army Camp, etc. etc. I would still like to know what the Glory Bumps were for. We didn't have the luxury of mountain bikes. We used whatever we had, sometimes cobbling something together from parts, mostly without mudguards and brakes, and rode these contraptions everywhere. The Glory Bumps were especially exciting when negotiated on a bike with dropped handlebars.

There was an occasion when Johnny Parker and I were in the Dell, when we found some older boys, who we didn't know, constructing a take-off ramp in a gully that led downhill, past the swing tree. When they had completed it, it was about 18 inches high. They had a racing bike with them, and were goading each other to ride over it. After a while, and several aborted attempts, I said I would do it. The bike was too big for me, but I did it without falling off. I gained much kudos for that, at least for the day.

As a last item for now, does anyone remember that Mr Pope was a bus driver. He often drove on the 401 route, and I remember waving to him in his cab when I boarded his bus. In acknowledgement he would lift only one finger from the steering wheel. On a visit back to the Maypole in the 1980's, I saw him in his front garden, and just said 'Hello, Mr Pope'. He said 'Do I know you?' Mrs Pope came out and recognised me immediately. They were nice people.

Here's me as a teenager, in our back garden, no. 40 Baldwyns Road, holding our dog, Chippy, with the backs of no. 44,  46 and 48 shown. The other photo shows me in a nappy, about 1946, 47, probably in the back garden of the Hogan's, no 30 Baldwyns Road, with June Hogan, my Godmother. In the background you can see the Pope's house on the right, and I think, the Wibberleys next door, on Beaconsfield Road.

Below photos are of my Dad, Alfred William Smith. He joined the Army in 1938, was sent to France 1939, and was wounded in May 1940. He is the chap with his left arm in a sling, in the last photo. He was medically discharged from the Army, and spent the latter part of the war as a mikman in London somewhere. We lived at 28 Baldwyns Road with mum's parents, the Bearcrofts, until I was five, when we moved to no. 40.

More later. 

Lee

From the Maypolehistory team - can't wait !

Memories of Robin Healey - nephew of the late Dennis Healey MP

Kim, you must have been an exact contemporary of mine at Maypole School. I was there from 1957 - 63.   Of the teachers you list, I recall most of those , but do you remember Mr Tadgell, who taught music and who played Schubert on the piano at improvised lunchtime concerts ? Also, Mr Beresford. Mrs Chambers seemed very old and wrinkled to us. Did she retire before 1960 ? Do you recall she or another teacher warning us not to accpt sweets from the mental patients who would wander into the playground sometimes ?

Also, I recall the huge cans containing school dinners that were piled up near the canteen. My favourite dishes were gypsy tart and corned beef with beetroot and mashed potatoes. Worst dish---stew with lumps of fat and gristle ----uuuuurgh.

What about throwing sticks at the conker trees at Broomfield in the autumn. On the heath at playtime I used to pretend I was a tube train and stopped at bushes, which acted as stations.  One day the freezer in the sweet shop at Baldwyn's Parade broke down and the shopkeeper gave away all the ice creams in it--must have been around 1961

Did you propel Dinky and Corgi racing cars on the playground at break ?  My school mates included Philip Devey, John Fergusson, Martin McKim, and Richard Shears.

I moved to Wiltshire in 1963. I now live in S Cambs, but have returned to Maypole a few times in the last 30 years and was at the Reunion in 2002(?) , where I met Mr Tadgell again.

Robin Healey (b 1952)

Memories of Richard Wight

Memories of the Maypole County Primary School mid 50`s

Richard Wight enrolled September 1955 

Headmistress - Mrs Chambers 

Teachers - Miss Cridge, Miss West/Ralph, Mr Tagell, Mr Rawlings, Mr Beresford, Miss Phillips. 

Playground Supervisors - Mrs Conboy & Mrs Rattie 

Caretaker - Mr Stockford 

Miss Cridge was good fun and obviously attractive as the male Teachers would blush at her low cut tops . Miss West was a blonde, 20 something who married whilst at the Maypole.

Mr Rawlings taught the top class in the portable building that housed the staff room, two teaching rooms, a cloakroom that separated them and doubled as an impromptu library! We sculpted from blocks of salt at Christmas and there was raffia at the back of the classroom for the less able. People don`t believe it when I tell them that when I started school I used a slate and sort of Brillo pad to rub out with !!If you were trouble you got the job of washing all the slates after class in a bucket of filthy water. PE and country dancing for a good measure of extra curricular activity was hilarious. Bean bag tossing, jumping canes at various heights, running on the spot was a favourite with identifiable coloured sashes not to mention hula hoops which pre- dated plastic and were made of cane. Music for country dancing was played on the school record player set up inside next to an open window overlooking the playground where we had to dance. Boys fell about at the sight of their friends making fools of themselves high stepping and light footed prancing.

We had tests for everything in those days, almost everything. From sight to singing, from spelling to tables, from running and jumping to reading and table etiquette. Let`s not forget the nit – nurse with her comb submerged in an enamel bowl of Detol. School swimming lessons took the form of a coach trip to Hextable school whose pool was a treat once or twice a term !!! The only cultural trip that I went on was to the Festival Hall to hear Handel`s Messiah when the Shot Tower was still standing on the now sited Queen Elizabeth Hall. The football match between Maypole and Oakfield Lane that we played on their strange hill-side pitch and Simon Ferrari`s winning goal. (Editorial - Simon was the brother of Nick Ferrari - broadcaster) Doug Cotterill was still smarting from that defeat when I met him some years later at Dartford West.

Mrs Chambers tried in vain to have me expelled from the Maypole when wearing leg irons, I copied the other children by inching around the railings that surrounded the entrance to the coal cellar steps. I had to be taken by my mother to the Education Office at Crook Log for a dressing down of my behaviour at the Maypole. Apparently the report from Chambers stated that I had climbed onto the veranda roof and that the school couldn`t hold responsibility any more. Well, that was a red rag to a bull for my mum and I was allowed to stay but on one condition. I would not attend playtimes anymore.......This led to chaos, with the other children constantly banging on the windows during the freezing cold as I made myself comfortable next to a radiator with a bottle of milk and latest copy of the Beano !!

Mr Tagell.......My Hero who smoked endless roll-ups and sported a brown cord jacket. He played the piano beautifully, wore round specs and camel desert boots.He was so inspirational to my interest in music and singing that continues to this day.Both Ronnie Potter and myself sang solos at the leaving concert that year.c1961 the song that I was chosen to sing was “Who is Sylvia?” and I can still hear Mr Tagell`s superbly played introduction. Ronnie and I both sang in the local St Barnabus church choir where we both had sisters in attendance which meant we had to behave. The Choir members I remember from the Maypole area were - David McQue (Head Chorister )Paul & John Ellingham,Ronnie Potter, Richard Conboy, Paul Hayward, David Hunt, Anthony Wilkinson and Malcom McDonald. Anne,Elaine & Christine Potter, Mary Wight. Choir practise on Wednesday evenings when we would be scolded for the previous Sundays sodding about followed by six of chips from Elsies shop in the Dip.

I had a paper round at Henderson`s and my responsibility was Tile Kiln Lane. John Parker had Baldwyns Park, Terry Young SummerHouse Drive, Owen Gemmell Coldblow and beyond, Ronnie Potter had the Maypole and Buster would set up the tables outside the shop in all weathers and lay out the papers ready for us to “mark-up” when we arrived at six, they were still warm !!!

Stan rode a moped and I seem to remember he lived in either Summer House or Red Lodge. He used to screen old cini films in the Hut/institute at the bottom of Baldwyns Road. The projector would always break down at the good bits leaving us to walk home dejected but hey........thanks Stan, this was all before Television !!! Tom`s cafe on the corner opposite the Conboy`s home where Kevin was a dab-hand at tilting the pinball machine to his advantage whilst knocking the ash off his cigarette with his little finger !!He had loads of horse brasses which adorned his leather jacket....

No school pool, cinema or even television, what did we get up to ? Lunchtime concerts were introduced by Mr Tagell and he would collar other staff to perform for us. Girls became an interest and many young couples would parade round the playground. Peter Hooten was assigned to carry me around when I had the irons on and we would often collapse in a heap admist tears of laughter. Funny thing was that when I moved into 56 Court Road Eltham whose smiling face met me at the door one day ? yes, rootin`, tootin` Hootin` He had only moved in next door !!! As my leg improved and came the day for me to walk iron-less, my mum had me enrolled in the disabled swimming class at Madam Osterburg`s across the heath. I became the envy of the school when on a hot summer`s day I would leave classes to cycle over the heath to the college and their lovely pool !!! And girls, one of which turned out to be Mary Rand !!!

and some more . . . . .

I have spoken to Owen Gemmell recently who remembers a couple of friendly patients who would give us money for sweets or fags. One I remember was called Harry the Fish and would do a dance for us throwing his cap in the air. He used to keep two, one pint beer bottles in each jacket pocket and two oranges which he would set up on each side of the road, wherever he wished to cross.
A bottle on each side with an orange stuck on top.......and hey presto, an instant do it yourself " Bolisha Beacon ". We used to laugh and point and I think it encouraged him.

Another torment was to follow poor old Eiddi as she would be shuffling across the footpath towards St Mary`s. My mother said she wasn`t all there and we were to be kind to her !!!

Derek Harris used to shout French ? to her which would confuse matters even more. " Vou lez Pas ", he would say which had us alll in stiches and no real harm was done. Don`t ask me what it meant.

On the subject of that footpath I can remember some funny times like creeping round the garden of Ridgelands Bible College with Ronnie Potter and pinching soft drinks from the garage where we had stored them after a Bible College Fete !!! Owen and myself had to attend the Sunday afternoon classes that were run by missionaries so we knew the place inside out and would dare each other to creep around hoping not to be seen.
I think they knew all the time what we were up to and left us to God`s rath.

We would go carol singing at Christmas with various choirs and so have an idea to the respectable organisations that people would feel obliged to donate......this prompted sprees to the areas of the community that didn`t benefit from the legitimate carol singers !!! I always remember that Hill Crescent as a great one for this which would have us choristers belting out the favourites and spending the proceeds on whatever. On some occasions we would get the giggles and have to scarpa before people could reward us.......shame.

The St Barnabus Church choir were invited to join forces with St Mary`s for their Summer Camps !!! These were really great fun and we would all meet up at St Mary`s with our kit bags and set off in a removal lorry to places as far flung as Dorking, Abinger Hammer and New Milton in Hampshire. They would last ten days or so and we would have great times and it was real camping, no ***** footing for us. We had to make an oven, a shower, chop fire wood, dig toilets, sing at the local churches, help with food preperation as well as sleep under canvas for the duration, not to mention the Mid-night Hikes !!! All of us have great memories of the days with people such as Ronnie Potter, Nigel Wilson, Steven Wilson who was one of the leaders, David Benge the choir master who married Anne Potter and various other great names I fail to recall. Thank you all so much.
When I used to get home my mum would dump me straight in the bath !!!

and yet nore . . . .

I have met with Anthony Wilkinson recently who lived at Coldblow and he also jogged my memory to a few occasions when as lads we would sleep out on the heath in a tent and take alarm clocks with us as we all had paper rounds to do !!!

How many of you remember the drinking fountain, situated on the corner of the playground on the cloakroom wall ? Many a hot afternoon we would get refreshment there until a certain bloody Peter Barber rammed my head down onto the spout chipping one of my teeth !!! He was the boy with a hearing aid that had one of those pink curly leads going from the aid in his ear down inside his jumper into his sky pocket that would house the battery. So what did I do....just diconnect him .....and what a noise it used to make, like a patient had escaped !!!

Whatever, I have many memories of all of us either on the Heath or at the Pavilion in Baldwyns Park which were, lets face, our domain.

Some terrific football and cricket matches would ensue and passing teachers like Mr Marchant from Dartford West, would stop and eyes a gogle would shout encouragement.

He once knocked on our door when my dad was ill and offered to take me to Mote Park to watch Kent Play. What a nice gesture you might think but what was I going to tell them at school?

However much I protested, I was to go, so keeping my head down I was driven to Maidstone by Mr Marchant and a great day at the cricket it was, but I kept my mouth shut afterwards !!

Where did you learn to flight a ball Wight? he would say. And not knowing what he was talking about I would reply, My Father Sir !!!

Those days proved quite valuble and after all the trauma of the irons I went on to play for the 1st eleven at Central St Martins where our training pitch was at Islington and used by the Arsenal.

Owen Gemmell, Derek Harris, Alan Parnell, Tony Wilkinson & Ronnie Potter have remained friends through out and only recently told me that they were told not to play with me as you never know , you may catch something ???

What a laugh, we never spoke about it and I was always made more than welcome in their homes, I was even best man for Owen In Edinbough in 1974 !!

So to all of you who made me laugh and feel equal look at Ronnies memories re. we are taught prejudice !! Thanks again,

Richard

Memories of Barbara Rivers

In answer to the enquiry regarding the shops on the Maypole. The cafe used to be a general shop selling many items including sweeties on ration for us kids, can you remember getting blackjacks with farthings & sherbert dabs.Next to the cafe was Mr & Mrs Miles with their daughter Christine,  I think Mr Miles used to mend shoes & general repairs while Mrs Miles sold habadashery wools & cottons. Next to them was Filmers electrical store & glass. they later moved to Dartford Road near West Hill.Next to them was Chalices a greengrocers they had a few lorries im!e not sure what they used them for but they occasionally stored one on the spare ground in Heathend Road (the bungalow is their now) we used to love climbing over them. Across the road from the post office was another general store owned by the Roberts family we remember Vera Roberts who took over when her parents died.Hope this is useful .information. When my sister Eileen comes up in August we will try to write down our memories of the maypole & the happy times we had. Barbara Ashby (nee Rivers)

Memories of Ron Evans

Hi , my name is Ron Evans,

How I found this site was I was messing around on the google site and typed in maypole . Why I did that was because I spent all of my young days there. I'm so thrilled to find this great site. What everyone talks about here and the photo's I've seen and know it all. Let me explain, My grand parents, Bert Hampshire and Flo Hampshire lived at 14 Beaconsfield Rd.

My mother Gladys Hampshire was born there and went to school there, I notice her name is on the school list on this site so is her sister Ivy and brother Ray. My mother married Percy Evans from Crayford,when their house got bombed in Princes Rd, Dartford in the war, they moved to a bungarlow house in Beaconsfield Rd, down near the end.

Mum's sister lived in Baldwyns Rd .I forget which number but it was next door to the Stockfords. I was born in Wansunt Road, Bexley in a nursing home there. My mother died only about nine months ago she was 92. My father worked in Vickers , he was in the home guard in the war, he was always on the night shift firing the guns on Dartford Heath at the planes coming over to bomb Vickers.

I have a brother, Ray, who was always around the Maypole as well. I've been living in Australia since 1973 ,married with two boys and two girls. Mum And dad and brother and his family all came out here to live in 1984. Aunt Ivy's two children Pete Cadman and Marg live in Maidstone now. I still have contact with them.

They were good times at the Maypole, I remember jumping out on the swing at the Dell, the birches, and the bikes on the glory bumps, Always every year the bonfire on the corner of the heath, they were always massive fires, they had put a swing near there one year, there used to be a tree about 50 yards from it and one year in the dark all the boys put bon fire over the tree, hoping the heath keeper did,nt notice it, he did'nt, it was very well done, hundreds of people came. Got to go . . . .

Memories of Jerry Wilkins

I lived with my Mum and Dad at 29 Dartford Road, opposite Coldblow Cresent from about 1962 to 1971. I went to Maypole School from 1966 until we moved to the West Country in the Summer of 1971, so I left the school a year early. My Dad worked at the National Provincial Bank, in Bexley, long since become the NatWest! The building is now a trendy bar!.

I recall Maypole School with very fond memories. Looking at your list of pupils I remember a good friend Geoffrey Raine, I used to round his house. Also remember Sharon Matthews, Deborah Potter and Stephanie Shanley. What happened to these people? Miss Clarke was the headteacher, she used to walk about the school in her tweed skirt with golden retreiver 'Tosca' following. I remember Mr Popplewell, who would give you a thick ear for talking in class! Can't do that now...

I now live with my family and work in rural Wiltshire..  At some point I'll write a few random memories for you to include as well...Hendersons Shop..wow thats a blast from the past, I used to go there with my Mum when she needed bits and pieces, if I'd been good I might of got a sherbet fountain! There was a fish and chip shop at the end of the row too, every so often Dad would go and get the fish and chips for supper. Across the junction was an Off Licence, now a private house I think. I remember a boy a bit older than me - lived opposite the shops, can't remember his name but he went to Maypole. He banged his head in a swimming pool? and sadly died.

If you want to add my name to the class of '66 please do..Sad that the school was demolished but I suppose that's progress!

Memories of Janet Cushion (nee Winter)

Harold and Constance Winter owned Maypole House from c. 1937. I understand he was a jeweller in Birmingham, where my father Harold Oscar (Bunny) was born. I am not sure at what point he started up the UK arm of Rolex with a chap called Wilsdorf. They brought up four children: Margaret, Robert, Richard and Harold Oscar. Richard was also a Director of Rolex. All four children pre-deceased their parents. Margaret had a daughter Janice who lives in the Midlands. Robert had epilepsy and lived much of his life in a Leonard Cheshire Home. Richard and Dorothy had three children: Richard Anthony, Michael and Christine. Bunny had four children: Janet, Colin, Peter and Derek.

Christine now lives in Norfolk, and Richard Anthony (Tony) lives in East Sussex. Michael suffered a tragic accident at a party when he was 17. I do not know the circumstances. Margaret died in Belgium; Robert had epilepsy and finally died of cancer in his 50's; Richard died in the grounds of Maypole House, and my father died of leukaemia aged 51. Dorothy died in 1997. She was living in Bexley having left Maypole House prior to its demolition.

My knowledge of Maypole House is sketchy, because my father took us to America twice - 1949 to 1951 and 1955 to 1962 and our visits in between those times were confined to Christmases and other family occasions. I did however find my name on the Maypole School register c. 1951 - just after we returned from America the first time. Tony went to school in Kent but also went to Maypole School in 1947. When we returned from America in 1951 we very briefly lived in the flat above what were originally the stables at Maypole House. Most of my memories are of greenhouses smelling of tomatoes, the cricket pavilion and the orchards. My father married Valerie Kennard, and her brother Derek was for many years the Sales Director at Rolex. My father's work at the Foreign Office took us to America in 1949 and then to the Cotswolds and GCHQ in c. 1953. Then we emigrated to California in 1955, returning to England in 1962. I still have a framed photograph of Maypole House on my wall and in its heyday it was a magical place. Maypole House is a very mixed bag of emotions and memories.

Memories of Nicholas Milsum

Hi Kim. I found you web site most interesting. I lived in the Maypole area some 20 years before you but our lives have followed a similar path. I attended the Maypole all of my primary school years except for a period of evacuation during the war. Mrs Gaspar was the headmistress during my time there, My older brother Michael attended the school before me. I lived at 6 Baldwyns Park Road and of course walked to school. I remember the shop in your website. We used to buy lemondade powder there during sweet rationing. I then went to Bexleyheath Secondary Modern for two years and then I went briefly to Dartford Tech. Then my family moved to Canterbury. When I left School I joined the Metropolitan Police as a cadet before serviong my National Service. I then went farming for a couple of years and then emigrated to New Zealand on my own. After two years working on farms I joined the Police. I served 30 years and have been retired for nearly 19 years. I returned to England two years ago when my bother had a fatal illness. I met up with Vincent LEEK who was my boyhood friend. He was 1 year younger than me but also lived in B.P. Rd and attended the Maypole and Bexleyheath S.S. He used to do a paper round in the B.P.A. area and when I met up with him I found he had a much better memory of the old area than I did. We used to play in the Joydens woods - up and down the dene holes - no ropes for us. It was a smashing area to be brought up. I loved Dartford Heath. Also the old mill pond in Bexley Village (catching newts and tadpoles). Vincent and I went over all our old haunts. We visited the new Maypole School. We tried to get access to the school roles during our time but they claimed they could not find them I got the feeling they did not want to go to the trouble of looking. We did however find something that may interest you. I remember high on a wall of the Maypole School there was a crest of the Kent Incta (a horse standing on it's hind legs). Anyway we had a look through a container outside the school office and we found this very same crest You may want to follow this up. We had a look a Joydens Woods and it was all fenced in. I was unable to view the deneholes which still mean a lot to me. Had a look at the pavilion in the park at B.P.R. After our trip I appreciated that I was brouught up at the best time. I did not find one person I knew from the old days.

Memories of Susan SMITH (Now DRAPER)

Hi Kim. I found you web site most interesting. I lived in the Maypole area some 20 years before you but our lives have followed a similar path. I attended the Maypole all of my primary school years except for a period of evacuation during the war. Mrs Gaspar was the headmistress during my time there, My older brother Michael attended the school before me. I lived at 6 Baldwyns Park Road and of course walked to school. I remember the shop in your website. We used to buy lemondade powder there during sweet rationing. I then went to Bexleyheath Secondary Modern for two years and then I went briefly to Dartford Tech. Then my family moved to Canterbury. When I left School I joined the Metropolitan Police as a cadet before serviong my National Service. I then went farming for a couple of years and then emigrated to New Zealand on my own. After two years working on farms I joined the Police. I served 30 years and have been retired for nearly 19 years. I returned to England two years ago when my bother had a fatal illness. I met up with Vincent LEEK who was my boyhood friend. He was 1 year younger than me but also lived in B.P. Rd and attended the Maypole and Bexleyheath S.S. He used to do a paper round in the B.P.A. area and when I met up with him I found he had a much better memory of the old area than I did. We used to play in the Joydens woods - up and down the dene holes - no ropes for us. It was a smashing area to be brought up. I loved Dartford Heath. Also the old mill pond in Bexley Village (catching newts and tadpoles). Vincent and I went over all our old haunts. We visited the new Maypole School. We tried to get access to the school roles during our time but they claimed they could not find them I got the feeling they did not want to go to the trouble of looking. We did however find something that may interest you. I remember high on a wall of the Maypole School there was a crest of the Kent Incta (a horse standing on it's hind legs). Anyway we had a look through a container outside the school office and we found this very same crest You may want to follow this up. We had a look a Joydens Woods and it was all fenced in. I was unable to view the deneholes which still mean a lot to me. Had a look at the pavilion in the park at B.P.R. After our trip I appreciated that I was brouught up at the best time. I did not find one person I knew from the old days.

Memories of 'Smudger Smith'

When I was a lad, way back in the 30's I lived in Heathview Crescent on the East side of the Heath.

My great grandfather was Thomas Smith the owner of the brickfields where we all rode over the Glory Bumps!   Our 'gang' included Derek Taylor, Roy Osborne, Roland Shakespeare, Alan Ryder, my neighbour Peter Holland, my best mate Philip (Piri) Rootes and no doubt one or two others I've forgotten to name.  One of our activities was smoothing the inside of the bomb craters until we could cycle round them as virtual 'Walls of Death'.

Memories about Antony Wilkinson R.I.P

Antony Wilkinson

by

Richard Wight

Antony Wilkinson was a high profile member of the Baldwyns band of friends that stretched from the Maypole down to Alan Parnell's house at the bottom of Vicarage Hill and St Mary's church.

The photograph I have enclosed reads from left to right, back row, Robert Merriman -Tile kiln Lane. Maypole/Dartford Grammar. Owen Gemmell-BaldwynsPark - Maypole/Dartford Grammar. Richard Wight - Baldwyns Park. Maypole/Dartford West.
Front Row - Ronnie Potter -Baldwyns Road. Maypole/Dartford Grammar. Antony Wilkinson - Coldblow Cresent. Maypole/Dartford West.
Nigel Wilson - Tile Kiln Lane. Maypole/Bexley Erith Tech.

Antony lived at the far end of Cold Blow that backs onto the fields that lead to the Dell. He had very amiable parents and a large black dog, named Bruce. His father drove a Hillman Huskey and took Tony and myself one day to Stanford Bridge to watch Chelsea play. In the days of Peter Bonettii ( the cat ) and Peter Osgood etc.

Tony's sister Anne took us to see West Side Story in London when the film first came out. Probably Leicester Square Odeon or The Pavilion.

We grew up amidst the Shadows and then Beatles and then.......The Rolling Stones. We wore our hair as long as possible without getting letters home from Dartford West. Tab collar shirts and collar less jackets ( Beatle jackets ).

I remember Tony at Dartford West very well as we would very often sit next to each other on the bus and in class. He was not very artistic and I was less academically. So we had this mutual agreement, I would help him in the art lessons and he would me during those boring Maths sessions.
Cross Country Runs at Dartford West were fun but a hard seven miles. All over Dartford Heath and through the Sandpits in Shepherds Lane.
A quick ciggy benind the Boys Brigade Hut in Heath Lane and down to the Salutation and home.

The masters would check that you wore no underpants before you left and no shirt so that you wouldn't stop in the SNOW !!!
Well, that's what they said but we had our suspicions !!!

After school it was back to evening local paper rounds on a Thursday or a game of football or cricket depending on that dread - homework.

When I left Dartford West, Tony was made up to a prefect he told me and played football for the Kent senior team.
He was a good mate of ours and we had such good fun staying out as late as possible, camping on the heath or at the Pavilion in Baldwyns park.
He was very fast as a winger and a tough tackle could be used to great effect.

As far as the drumming went, I don't seem to remember it going much further than a snare drum, and that belonged to the Covenanters !!!

Richard Wight

Memories of Charlotte Eliza Grimshaw and Reginald Grimshaw

Charlotte Eliza Grimshaw, nee Hutton

by Celia Webber (Grandaughter of Charlotte)

22/5/12

Charlotte or Lottie was a grandmother to me who, sadly, I never knew. She died when my mother was only 17, leaving an invalid husband and second daughter aged 10. I would be proud to say that I have inherited just a few of her exceptional talents passed down from her ancestors, the Huttons who were at the very heart of their Moravian community in Fulneck.

Lottie was born in 1881, the youngest of eleven children. Her father Daniel was a key member of the Moravian community in Fulneck and her mother was, reputedly, a force to contend with.

Lottie followed a number of her sisters into school teaching, training at Ripon College. She married Reginald Carleton Grimshaw in 1909 and the following year my mother was born. Reg was a fitter at the local iron works and would have lived close to Fulneck. I don’t know how they met but, apparently, a union between them was against the wishes of Lottie’s mother. They married in Fulneck but moved to Oldham shortly afterwards. Reg had suffered from asthma all his life and the polluted factory air of Oldham didn’t suit him. Within a few years of moving there, and after my mother was born, they moved south to Bexley in Kent.

Initially they lived above the shops in the Maypole estate before moving to a rented house in Baldwyns Road. Their second daughter, Kathleen Mary, was born in 1917. Reg’s work involved climbing long ladders and, sadly, he had a fall that weakened his system even more and made it impossible for him to continue to work. Lottie took over the role of breadwinner and, contrary to the accepted role of women at the time, worked full-time as a school teacher.
With her involvement in the local community, she realised its short-comings. On this fairly new estate there was no church or meeting place. Lottie arranged for Sunday meetings to be held in one of the flats above the local shops but, in time, they became so popular that people were standing on the stairs to try and join in. She approached the local land owner, Mr Cameron of Broomhills, to see if he would allow meetings to be held on his land. Once she had persuaded him, he funded a temporary hut and, in time, and in memory of his son killed in WW1, rallied enough support to get the Church of St Barnabas built on his land. Charlotte always gave to her community. She organised plays, entertainment, after school clubs, clinics and everything else that would serve the community. Even today, 90 years after her premature death, she is remembered on Maypole Estate website as someone who gave her all to the community.

Charlotte, then Headmistress of the infants school infants school in Bourne Road, Bexley, died in 1928, aged 47, from a stroke.
Her gravestone is shared with her husband Reg’s, who lived until 1943. The community made a collection to commemorate them and the family were able to purchase a processional cross for them both which is still in use today.

Memories of Dorothy Grimshaw and Sidney Riches

Dorothy Grimshaw and Sidney James Riches

My wonderful parents ..... by Celia Webber

22/5/12

Growing up, we were told of their romantic meeting. As it is now a long time since they both died, I would like to record what I remember being told.
My father, born in 1903, had lived a rather solitary life. He was the only child of strict parents with his mother being particularly ambitious for him. In his early teens, he had showed a talent for music and had been trained as a concert pianist which meant many hours of practice and little association with the lads out in the street. This had left him sadly lacking in the confidence and skills to communicate easily.

After a few attempts at some rather varied lines of work, he made a career for himself by playing on the Atlantic liners going to and from England to New York. He would work hard during the voyage, dismiss himself when he reached the States and then go on tour until the money ran out. This became his life for many years.

In the meantime my mother (born 1910) had trained as a teacher. She had excelled in music and was a good pianist in her own right. To earn extra cash to support her widowed father (who was an invalid) and young sister, she took on a part-time evening job in the Devonia Cafe, entertaining the customers with her piano playing (£1 a week for 3½ hours a night). My father must have been staying in the area and had been told of this young, glamorous pianist and stopped by at the cafe to find out more. He must have overcome his shyness and his brusque manner because they began to get to know one another. My mother was very popular with the local lads and was stringing along a few of them and so she added Dad to the list.

A while after their relationship had started my mother became seriously ill. The house she lived in was 3-storeys high and she had one of the attic rooms. It was unheated and, in wintertime, bitterly cold. When he heard that she was ill, my father bought her a state-of-the-art electric fire. This kindness was the key to her decision to accept his proposal of marriage over and above the others she had received.

My mother brought out the best in Dad. They married in 1934 and, until mother’s death in 1971, lived a happy life together with music playing an important part, albeit rather confusing for us youngsters. Mum would play the soppy, romantic stuff (getting completely carried away) and Dad would play the heavy classical dirges and death marches to accompany himself singing (which was not quite so sympathetically received by my sister and I being, to our young ears, too loud and rather monotonous). With all this piano playing, we were overwhelmed. So much so, that we both refused to learn this skill .... which I now deeply regret.
Happy times!

Memories of Vince Cross

Memories of Mrs Mary Relf - nee West - teacher at Maypole School 1960-1962

I taught at the Maypole School from January 1960 to December 1962 for two very happy years, both in my personal life and in my career. We were a happy staff, nearly all under 30 years of age, led by Mrs Hilda Chambers, an able and modern head for that time.


The school was bursting at the seems and so I spent one year in “The hut”, a structure at the end of Heath End Road. The building is still there but in a much altered state. Then it consisted of one long room with a tiny kitchen at the rear, accessed by teo or three steps. This area also housed an ancient toilet used by staff and children. The entire building was in a poor state of repair and I arrived back after Easter break to find a gaping hole in the roof and debris all around my desk and the only cupboard covered in plaster and dust. All the exercise books inside were in a dreadful state so for a few days we were forced to use cloakrooms in the main school as classrooms, moving into any vacant rooms when those children were doing P.E. in the playground. We were just relieved that the event happened when the children were on holiday.
There was no playground so break times were spent alongside the hut on a strip of rough ground, the only toilet being round the back. I made a pot of tea each afternoon playtime (before the days of tea bags) and the children took it in turns to empty the tea pot on the ground outside. At home time one day a particularly precise little girl went to put on her hat and ended up with the tea leaves in her hair. The monitor had emptied the pot in her hat !

Memories of Sandra Webb re the Hogans of Baldwyns Road

ome of you may just may remember the Hogans..

Bill Hogan was born in Crayford in1906 (my granddad), a few years later he moved in to no 30 , his dad died in approx. 1920, granddad had an older brother Thomas born 1904 he died in 1919 of TB.

Kathleen was born in 1908 she attended the Maypole school and in 1919 also recorded as died of TB.

Horace ( Jim) was born in 1911, he married a Scottish lady and they had 2 boys, he died in Scotland in 1946. (throat infection)

Ernest was born in 1913, he was in the army when he died in 1940 (also with a throat infection) not married.

Christine was the last child to be born in1917 but alas died in 1920 of TB.

Grandads mum died about 1928 of TB also. Grandad had married my nan Grace, they had Cyril 1927 , Daphne (mum)1928 June 1929 and Michael, all are still with us.

Mum has lots of memorys as does aunt June . The dell sledging, Edgwothy the police man. Mr Curdling .aunt nan next door, the Colegates, the Hut, Barretts and of course Charlie Lawrence, he was a good friend of granddads, they both loved motor bikes!!!!

Grandad was at first with the home guards, he was put on the big gun Betha he called it) on the heath and shot down a plane ( well that's what he told us ) ? he was as Charlie conscripted and went to the desert where he became a staff sargent and was mechanic on the lorrys, there. mum went into the land army and june the wrafs.Cyril went into the army all at the end of the war. I also have some very happy memorys too of the maypole, going down the hut, playing around the air raid shelter in the back garden the outside toilet(no bathroom then) the shop up the top of the road, and the starlings used to make so much noise in the evenings, and so much more ........

From the Maypolehostory team . . . . .

Records on the School Register show the following:-
Katherine HOGAN entered Maypole School on 2/6/1913. Father shown as Thomas. A record dated 6/4/1914 shows deceased.
Horace Arthur HOGAN entered Maypole School on 4/5/1914. Father shown as Thomas. Left the school on 9/4/1925 through age.
Willie HOGAN entered Maypole School on 7/9/1914. Father shown as Thomas. Left the school on 29/7/1920 through age.
Ernest HOGAN entered Maypole School on 7/5/1917. Father shown as Thomas. Left the school on 20/12/1917 withdrawn for time.
Cyril HOGAN entered Maypole School on 7/9/1931. Father shown as William Edward. Left the school 29/7/1938 to go to West Central.
Daphne HOGAN entered Maypole School on 13/6/1932. Father shown as William Edward. Left the school on 4/8/1939 to go to West Central.

June HOGAN entered Maypole School on 18/9/1933. Father shown as William. Left the school on 2/8/1940 to go to Dartford West central for girls.

Michael HOGAN entered Maypole School on 15/9/1941. Father shown as William Edward. Left the school on 1/8/1947 to Dartford Modren for Boys.

Grace Ethel HOGAN and William Edward HOGAN are shown in the voters register of 1937 and 1958 as living at 30 Baldwyns Road

A Messr J HOGAN (presumably Horace ?) and an F HOGAN are shown in a newspaper cutting of 1914 "MAYPOLE DAY FUN AND FROLIC LET LOOSE" as taking part. This can be found on the page entitled - "The annual procession and sports day."

The below copied from that cutting

25 yards boys, 1, P Ivy; 2, S. Burt; 3, L. Colegate; 4, J. Hogan.

25 yards girls, 1, C. Elliman; 2, N. Thompson; 3, Jessie Taylor; 4, D. Barber.

Three legged race, 1. Cliff. Rose and Clem. Burt;2, F. Hogan and P. Skevington; 3, C. Jibb and Rex Baxter.

The HOGANS were well remembered and mentioned by the late Gordon LENNOX.
A photograph of the Maypole Institute Football team of 1922 shows a Mr HOGAN in the line up. This photo can be found on the page entitled "Maypole Institute (Hut!)"

Memories of the King family who once lived for 80 years in Beaconsfield Road -  currently the file is missing and attempts are being made to recover it.

Further memories - currently under construction (19/4/2020) so of no use at the present.