A Childhood In Selsdon.

A Memory of Selsdon.

My parents had a chicken farm in Selsdon Vale, where I was born in 1948. I lived there until I left home to go travelling and then to university, at the age of 18, in about 1966. This was about the same time that Selsdon Vale was sold for building land, and my parents and younger brother moved to Croydon.

Memories....roaming in the bird sanctuary, which was really near, and tobogganing there in the winter. Long walks with friends down the length of Old Farleigh Road to get home from school, usually eating penny loaves and sweets which we'd bought. Hunting for new kittens which the farm cats produced regularly, usually in our straw sheds; no-one ever neutered their cats back then. A real rural childhood.

As a child I loved it there; as a teenager less so - it was a long walk back from Croydon if you missed the last bus in the evening. After my parents left I rarely went back to Selsdon at all. But one day I drove down to see what had been done to Selsdon Vale. I remember standing on part of what had been our farm, looking at the endless estate houses, and howling my eyes out. I didn't realise until then how much I'd loved it there, and it was all gone.

I haven't lived in the South-East for many years now, but I'd love to hear from anyone who remembers me. I never changed my name, so that may help jog some memories.