Me – My Earliest Recollections

So my earliest recollections are of living with Mum and Dad in a very small “flat” at 4 Stopford Road in SE17, London Borough of Southwark. We lived here until I was seven years old – when my sister decided to join us. The house no longer exists, it was demolished some time ago and is now a lovely grassy park (Pasley Park). Where our old house was situated was once a zoological gardens in the 1800’s. When the Tower of London Menagerie began to close in 1831 its exotic creatures were moved to Regent’s Park (now the London Zoo), south of the River Thames the Royal Surrey Gardens (now Pasley Park) housed a wide range of imported creatures, acquired by Edward Cross. A glass conservatory held lions and tigers, while rhinos, bears, elephants, giraffes and baboons roamed nearby. The Zoo could not compete with its rival in Regent’s Park and closed in 1856 (upon the death of Cross).

The park was purchased and the animals sold off to make way for the Surrey Music Hall. It was a large building for the day – a three storey rectangular hall constructed mostly of cast iron. It could comfortably hold 12,000 seated spectators (the biggest venue in London at the time). It held a celebration of the end of the Crimea War in 1856 for returning soldiers and was a venue for many musical events. From 1856 to 1859 it was regularly used by Baptist Preacher Charles Spurgeon who regularly attracted over 10,000 worshipers inside the venue, with another 10,000 outside who couldn’t get in. Unfortunately on October 19th 1856 tragedy struck when someone yelled out “FIRE” which resulted in a mass panic to escape the venue – this resulted in the death of seven worshipers and serious injury to many others. The services continued until there was a disagreement between Spurgeon and the owners of the building, in 1859. The owners had decided to allow Sunday evening music concerts which went against Spurgeon’s beliefs on the Sabbath being sacred and the venue was not used as a place of worship again.

The Surrey Music Hall burnt down in 1861 and although the gardens continued to hold public events, they closed in 1862. St Thomas’ Hospital moved to the site temporarily, while its new building were being constructed. The site was sold for development of residential buildings in 1877. The new gardens were reopened in 1980, with reference to its former use in the form of ostrich sculptures and ornamental flag pole decorated as if it is a giraffe’s neck.

The flat we lived in was part of a two story house that we shared with another family and the wonderful Mrs King (who will get a mention as a significant influence on my early life). We occupied the top floor – which consisted of a kitchen, toilet, bedroom and sitting room. I distinctly remember this picture Dad painted on the toilet wall of a white flower on a dark blue background – typical 1960’s hippy artwork, but something Dad was particularly proud of. I remember it vividly.

The other family occupied the bottom floor with a similar layout and Mrs King lived in the basement. There were no doors between the three “flats”, so technically it was one big open house that was shared by three families (again – such a 1960’s hippy “way of being”). Only sets of stairs defining the three areas of the house. The notion of trusting your neighbours was clearly significantly different to today.

So when I came along I ended up in the bedroom, with Mum and Dad sleeping on a fold out sofa in the sitting room. Note to readers we had no bathroom in the flat.

As our “flat” had no bathroom – when I was young I would get washed in the kitchen sink. I have photos (nope not sharing them) of me scrunched up in this tiny sink. I remember Mum would always wash my hair with vinegar and lemon juice (no Panteen job for me). I have since looked into this and to my amazement it is some research backing this approach to keeping your hair in tip top condition. It acts as a degreaser, prevents dry flaky scalp and can be used to lighten the colour of your hair. Plus I guess the lemon smell would be particularly nice and fresh. I never repeated this with my own kids (you’re welcome E&J) – they were both blonde and certainly didn’t need their hair lightening, plus modern shampoos and conditioners have come a long was since those of the 1960/70’s.

The thrill of the week was my weekly trip to Manor Place Baths for my weekly bath with Dad. Manor Place Baths was opened in 1898 and is a former public baths, laundry and swimming pool (and sometimes even a concert and boxing venue). A guest at its opening was the then Mayor of New York city who commented that: “There is no public bathing establishment even approximating this in the United States.”

The routine for bath day was to walk the short journey from home to the baths. You would be served by one of the bath attendants – usually an ex boxer with a face so battered that only his mother could love it. They would give you a nice fresh towel, a small bar of soap and a sachet of shampoo and conditioner – they would then tell you which bathroom you had been allocated and along you would go to this room with an enormous bath, already filled with piping hot water (probably wasn’t enormous, just felt like it as a small kid). We would spend literally an hour in the bath, soaking away the week’s grime. As you can imagine, the water would slowly get cold over time and to top it up you would yell out for the attendant to “put more hot in number 3” (if that was your designated bathroom). Making sure you were well away from the spout of the bath was something you had to do before requesting the additional water. After a couple of seconds gallons of scolding hot water would come out of the spout – replenishing the warmth of the bath. One of my Dad’s favourite things to do was to yell out for more hot water – but not for the bathroom we had. The occupant of said room, not having had the forewarning to move away from the spout would receive a rather nasty surprise of fresh scolding water – always eliciting a terrible scream and an unrepeatable torrent of abusive language from the occupant. This was something that used to really tickle Dad’s fancy and I reckon he repeated this foul deed nearly every time we had a bath.

Manor Place Baths was also used as a concert and boxing venue. The first-class pool was boarded over to make it an ideal indoor venue and hosted concerts by acts such as The Troggs (more of a connection to them later) and the Spencer Davis Group. It hosted over 230 boxing shows which included about 1500 bouts. Some fairly tasty boxers appeared here including The Kray Twins (more noted for their gangland deeds) as well as Ken Buchanan, Johnny Clark, Henry Cooper, Cornelius Boza-Edwards, Albert Finch, Dick Richardson and Terry Spinks.

It’s a beautiful old building which thankfully is Grade 2 Listed and is on the Buildings at Risk register by British Heritage. Over the years I spent hours and hours in this building – firstly in the bath house, but then transitioning to the swimming pools (watch this space for more on that later).

Another interesting recollection I have is of my Mum hanging washing out of the second floor kitchen window, using this interesting “washing line contraption”. She would basically hang halfway out of the window, peg the cloths and then fish the washing out into thin air – talk about potential for having odd socks. It’s amazing how resilient and resourceful people are in the face of the challenges of life. Most “western families” wouldn’t dream of not having a washing machine (and probably cloths drier) nowadays, yet for seven years of my early life this was our reality. Obviously Mum would go down to the local launderette to clean sheets, towels and heavier items – but for everyday washing she used the fishing line contraption.

By far and away my favourite day of the week was Friday. Dad was often out with his mates on Friday nights and Mum and I would make the trip to Marks & Spencer’s on Woolworth Road to “collect” some snacks to watch in front of the TV. We always got Prawn Cocktail Shells (which thankfully they still do and are still as yummy as I remember), plus a variety of other junk food. I remember watching shows like Callen, Survivors, Z Cars, The Saint, The Persuaders – all of course in black and white and on a tiny TV screen.

Anyway ……..

Stay tuned for more ………….