Memories Of Petts Wood In The 40s And 50s

A Memory of Petts Wood.

I was born in Farnborough Hospital during February of 1940. My home for the next 7 years was at 9 Kennelworth Road, and then we moved to 263 Crescent Drive, where I spent the next thirteen years. My recollections of the war are very sketchy, but I will try to give some insight on how people, and more specifically kids, were affected both during and after the war.

During the war we had both a Morrison and an Anderson shelter in Kennelworth Road. The latter was a rectangular hole dug into the ground about 2 feet deep, lined with concrete. This was then enclosed with a semi-circular corrugated steel roof, which in turn was covered with the excavated soil. The entrance facing the house was covered with a sheet of plywood. The shelter would protect about 4 people from shrapnel, but not from a direct hit. To this day residents may find the remains of these shelters that have been converted into fish ponds. The Morrison shelter was in our 2nd bedroom. It looked like a very ugly steel caged table that gave some protection from falling masonry. Fortunately, our two shelters were not put to the test. The indoor shelter soon disappeared after the war ended, presumably because the government urgently needed the steel for other uses. The reader might think that the outdoor shelter would be a playground for us youngsters, but no, the shelter soon filled with water, it was dark, and attracted all manner of creepy crawlies.

I started my education at the age of four, at the Crofton Lane school. My mother was working at food preparation for the school dinners, so I was allowed to start my education earlier than usual. Long since gone, the elementary and junior schools were located between the railway and Crofton Lane, adjacent to the current school.
The elementary school was, on reflection, well designed. Its footprint was in the shape of the letter H. One leg was the four classrooms, the middle was the school assembly area, and the second leg comprised the cloakrooms and washrooms. This was not the situation for the adjacent junior school, which was a collection of wooden and concrete structures, which could have been dropped higgledy-piggeldy from a great height. My strongest memories were of being herded into one of the above-ground air raid shelters and being sorely disappointed that there were no explosions. The only teacher I can remember was a Mr. Crowhurst, who introduced me to my acting career and its demise in one performance as a sheep in a nativity play.

Communal above ground air shelters were, I presume, built in a hurry. They were concrete block or brick walls with a concrete slab on top. Water proofing and electric light did not appear to be a consideration. Consequently, they were dark and damp. No wonder some people decided to take their chances outside the shelters.

Petts Wood Junction was considered to be an important railway target during the air raids. Hence, an anti-aircraft gun was sited in what is now parkland, immediately behind the properties on Crestview Drive just left of the car park. At my age, I have no recollections as to how active this gun was. What I do remember is returning home by train with my mother and brother and getting no further than Chislehurst Station. I can only presume that there was an air raid and it was policy not to run a train across the exposed junction. We got off the train and walked the several hundred yards to the caves, where we spent the night with many hundreds of others on bunk-beds deep under-ground in this disused chalk mine.

I have read that the two railway lines, which more or less crossed at right angles to each other, when originally built by two different private companies, did not interconnect. Apparently the owners of the two companies were not on speaking terms, and it took the death of one of them to allow the two lines to interconnect. It was at this time that the two lines from the junction to Orpington became four. Just after the war, the much-publicised Golden Arrow steam train was introduced, that ran from Victoria through to Paris. The speeding arrow had to slow down to a walking pace as it turned the tight curve onto the Petts Wood line. In the late fifties this curve was lengthened out for a faster turn, that can be experienced to this day.

Queensway, our local shopping centre, as experienced by a small boy, had a small library at the bottom end, with a toy shop a few shops up. Across the side road was Blacks, the newsagents which amongst other items sold licorice root, which wasn’t all that nice to chew, but it came down to peer pressure. Next was a men’s clothing shop, and further along a fish shop that displayed its produce on a marble slab, out in the open for the customers and the flies. However, for tuppence you could purchase a small bag of chips with vinegar and salt on the side. Next was Queensway Radio where my parents bought their first television. It was a Bush that had two knobs on the front, one for on and off and volume, and the other for brightness. BBC was the only channel at that time. My first memory of the TV was watching a film with George Formby. About 1953 I had an exchange student from Paris, who asked if the person on the screen could see him.

Further along was the Co-op that had dairy and meat products on the left counter, and dry goods to the right. Facing, were tobacco products with a cashier high up hidden in the corner. What was important to a small boy was that when payment was made, the assistant put the money into a small wooden cup that was screwed into a disk above his head, a cord was pulled and the cup was zoomed above our heads on a wire to the cashier. War time rationing did not phase out till the early fifties. At the Co-op the ration book allowed say 2oz of butter for the week. In the Co-op this purchase was duly marked in the ration book with a soft pencil, that was carefully erased at home for the next time. When sweets came off rationing on a Sunday, I remember the line-ups at our two news agents, who soon ran out. Rationing had to be reintroduced for several weeks to build up supplies. I think it was Churchill who remarked that it was a pity that rationing was ending, as the British public was at its healthiest.

Across the high street was Woolworth, which I understand has only recently disappeared. On entering by the right-hand door there was ice cream on sale. Tuppence for a cone, threepence for a wafer and fourpence for a choc ice. Inside between the two doors, a weighing machine. We kids spent our penny not to know our weight, but for the dispensed weight card with a collectable picture on the back.

Further down the high street was the barber. For reasons that I did not understand he had individual cubicles that we sat in. Looking back, the barber really did not like children. If there was a clip round the ear, it was done in the privacy of the cubicle.

Further down and round the corner and next to the railway line, was the post office, which as regular as clockwork was broken into and robbed.

Opposite was the very imposing structure of the Embassy cinema, where every Saturday morning the manager would stand on the stage in front of us kids and announce the programme for the morning. The last film was a nail biter. It ended where in the last few frames the hero must surely die. To be resumed next week.
My parents frequently visited the Daylight Inn for the Saturday dance in the small ballroom which had a stage. During the week whist drives were very popular during the early post war years. I can remember that the side wall of the ballroom had ornamental mirrors that were covered with curtains that were pulled across during the progressive whist drives. There were several community halls in the district which all hosted at least one whist drive a week.

Petts Wood station was built in 1928. It took a quarter of a century for the 94 bus to reach the station. The powers that be deemed it satisfactory that the bus terminate a mile away at the Crooked Billet Pub, though this drinking hole was for many years a heap of rubble, due to a fire or perhaps a bomb. It took the bureaucracy till the fifties to accept that some passengers might want to commute to London by rail, or perhaps use the bus to shop in Petts Wood.

In retrospect, we as kids in some ways had a better environment in which to grow. In the forties there were virtually no cars being used, so the roads were our playgrounds. Our parents’ attitude was “Go out to play and don’t come back till it’s dinner time!” When we eventually had two wheeled bikes, we would travel miles without concerns.

As a small child during the war, what was happening about me was the norm. I had no memories to compare. Unless it directly affected me, a bombed house was a new playground. If the enemy was good enough to drop a few bombs in the large wood behind our house, that was great, as the large holes they created soon filled with water and we were soon there with our butterfly nets to catch newts and tadpoles.

Before signing off, I should mention the radio. In the forties, BBC radio was king. We grew up with Listen with Mother. We then progressed to Childrens’ Hour with Uncle Mac, Larry the lamb, Werzel Gummage and Toad of Toad Hall. We then progressed onto Dick Barton Special Agent, during the 6.45 to 7.00 pm time slot, five days a week, before being sent to bed. The BBC then announced that this series would finish, and indicated to my friends and I that the new series would be about Robin Hood, bows and arrows, and Sherwood Forest. Imagine our dismay and disgust when we heard the first episode of the Archers, a story of country folk. Ugh!