Very Early Memories!

A Memory of Chelsfield.

I was born in Chelsfield in March 1945 at The Bunglaow, Crown Rd/Warren Rd. I was born on the day that the last doodle bug bomb was sent over by the Germans and it dropped not far from where I was born. I have been told that the midwife attending my birth grabbed me and dived under the bed and left my poor mother lying there! We were, however, all quite safe.

I was 3 when we moved from The Bungalow on the death of my father aged 40. But I do remember The Bungalow with the railway running at the bottom of the garden and remember The Golden Arrow going along the track.

I also remember a shop in the village called The Hot Cross Bun Shop which was located on the way to the station. I have only been back to Chelsfield a few times since 1948 so perhaps this memory was collected on a visit there.

I seem to remember that Crown Rd/Warren Rd at the time I lived there was an unmade road, not bitumen or tarmac.

My father is buried in Chelsfield Village Church and I have visited his grave. Unfortunately the churchyard is now quite untidy as I have been told that the Vicar there is a nature lover and likes all the foliage to grow profusely during the summer months to encourage the insects and birds etc.

I would imagine that I was baptized in the Church also but as my mother has died and also her closest siblings I cannot verify this.

The last time I visited Chelsfield I took my husband and we passed The Bungalow where I was born. It seems so small now even though it has had a second storey added to it.

Even though I have not lived in Chelsfield for 60 years I still think of myself as a native of that village.

---

---