This blog (as the next one will be) is a journey through time rather than through space. It reunites five cousins, some of whom had not seen each other for more than sixty years. It is an age for recovering and recording memories - we are all in our anecdotage - and this account gathers some of the reminiscences which will form part of a life journal which I should have started earlier.
Thursday 29 May 2025.
I had left Neil and Deyvi in charge of the house. They had arrived on Tuesday and Deyvi was due to attend an open day at the University on the Saturday. On Wednesday we were joined by Kate, Pippa and Sennen to plant an apple tree in the garden over Jill's ashes, a little ceremony where we toasted her memory in her favourite red wine, pouring a glass at the roots of the tree to help it grow.
The little ceremony of my Jill's ashes, Exeter
This morning I had time to plant out some butternut squash in the garden and counted half a dozen apples forming on the tree, but I doubt we will be able to eat any of them this year. I also managed to have a coffee in the Chapter House café in the Cathedral on the way to the station. An Australian couple seated next to me had picked up a city map somewhere in their exploration of Exeter. They had noticed it in the Custom House on the Quay far from Exeter's coach and rail stations on the last day of their visit. Not many visitors arrive up the canal these days.
The journey up was smooth, the train departing and arriving at Waterloo on time. It was hard to find my way from the main station to Waterloo East for the train to Grove Park and Bromley North. I was struck by the much increased number of high rise buildings in the centre. The Peek Frean's biscuit factory in Bermondsey, long a prominent landmark on my youthful train journeys up to London had been closed by the then owner BSN in 1989. Known as the Biscuit Town, the former premises were eventually redeveloped into the Tower Bridge Business Complex but it looked very dilapidated as I passed it by. I had to change onto a branch line at Grove Park, and there was much greenery lining the tracks to Sundridge Park and Bromley North. The marshalling yard by Bromley North Station, where I used to watch a steam train shunting trucks, was now a bus station, and the Market Square and north end of the High Street was pedestrianised with markets stalls selling vegetables. Love Lane, the little footpath that used to run parallel to the High Street was now a dual carriage way, grandly named Kentish Way.
Linda was already at the Travelodge Hotel after a smooth journey, although she had left her backpack somewhere on her journey. Nigel missed his connection and so had to catch a train one hour later. Jill had to return home as there were no trains at all from Kendal because of problems with the overhead lines, so she arrived over three hours late at Bromley South Station. The three of us talked in Linda's room while waiting for Jill and then we went to a café, and on to Rumoli, an Italian restaurant. Pasta, wine, dessert and a coffee for each of us came to £100 exactly, including a tip - made it easy to split four ways! Tomorrow we will probably try Zizzi, which was recommended by the hotel reception. We arranged to go round to the Jacobites (as I have taken to calling the progeny of Uncle James) in West Wickham on Saturday. There was lots of reminiscing and open talk on family tensions of the past and how we were settling into our changed present circumstances.
Friday 30 May 2025.
We had breakfast in Prêt à Manger in the High Street and then walked up the High Street, along Widmore Road, past the site of the Co-operative Insurance office where my mother worked, which was completely replaced by modern buildings Then we passed the temporary library in Tweedy Rd where my mother later worked when the present library was being built. We continued along Park Road, past St John's parish church, but not as far as Mr Curlew's home, an elderly man my mother helped in the 1960s whose grandfather had fought at Waterloo. Instead we turned left into Freelands Road and then Freelands Grove to the parish hall where sister Jill attended Sunday school and a youth club.
Ian visits Haxted Road, Bromley
Opposite was Haxted Road where I was photographed, standing in front of the letter H. Then back into Freelands Road, past the Freelands Tavern and the little parade of shops, which included Geoff Gladywn's sweet shop where I was able to buy postage stamps to add to my collection, and on to number 76.
76 Freelands Road, Bromley, our home 1955-1969
A corner of our garden in the 1960s
Then we walked to Sundridge Park, a large private estate with a golf course and wonderful views over London, ten miles to the north. I used to sneak though the fence from Scott Park after school or at weekends and at one stage made a traverse round the park using a compass and pacing the route out - the circle closed almost exactly when I marked it out back home. Even then I was mad about maps. More than once I was kicked out by keepers, and we once were shown the exit as a family when we brazenly walked up the main drive to the house. "How would you like it if people came and walked round your front garden?" we were told. We did not reply that our front garden was not quite as large as his. Now the drive was named Willoughby Lane, but the entrance gate was just beyond the overgrown lake with its island and boathouse and led to an area watched by security guards, so we were unable to get as far as the golf course and the large house, now luxury apartments.
So we walked on to Sundridge Park station where we had lunch in the Crown pub, with fish finger sandwiches all round in a period late Victorian pub which I had passed many times on my way to and from school. There was a lot of talk about death and our recent experiences, and the feeling that the body often seems to prepare for death by gently switching down. It seemed to help, so no need for us to visit one of those death cafés now.
Italianate house in Rodway Road, Bromley
We walked back along Rodway Road with its many beautiful late Victorian houses to Bromley North. I noticed that the railway bridge was still there that I used to stand on as an unsuccessful train spotter. In the Market Square the former site of Medhurst's store still bore the blue plaque to H. G. Wells, who was born half-way up the wall. We continued past the parish church into Church House Gardens and the adjoining Library Gardens which still had the exciting paths through rockeries and the lake with bandstand, although the pond where I sailed my little boat named "Jill" was now a sand pit. We separated for a while and I visited Bromley Library and Historic Collections. On the second floor of the main library, the local studies library, the archives and a history display was located. Being on the High Street, it was well used. It is due to move across the High Street into an existing store building next year as the library built in the 1960s is nearing the end of its life. The organisation running the library: Better, originally Greenwich Leisure Ltd, insists that it must be in the centre of the community with all services located there. Devon/Exeter please note.
We had our evening meal, not in Zizzi's but in Etna, an excellent Italian restaurant in the High Street.
Saturday 31 May 2025.
I was up early and walked to scatter a surreptitious teaspoonful of Jill's ashes by the lilac tree at no. 76 and then went on to discover the footpath which led through Scott Park. The allotments were still there on one side, but on the other was now a primary school and the path now leads out into a housing development - the park was no more, so no chance of trespassing into Sundridge Park.
We had breakfast at Gail's Bakery (another chain outlet next door to Prêt à Manger but less pre-packed), and then bought some chocolates at Hotel Chocolat in the Glades, Bromley's big shopping mall. Nigel had brought some wine with him as a gift. We caught the number 119 bus out to Woodland Rd and walked in the woods opposite their house until noon, the time we were due to arrive. We were warmly greeted by cousin Bob who is living in the house where Jackie was born and grew up. Jackie was particularly keen to meet up as she is an enthusiastic genealogical researcher, anxious to fill some gaps in the family story.
After a buffet lunch in the Conservatory, we shared photos and notes and began to investigate links that had remained a mystery in the family tree. My researches, such as they were, had been on the Maxted side and, knowing we had originated in Maxted Street, which I gathered means the street where the dung hill was (from Old English mix or meox ‘filth dung’ + stede ‘place’), I was not exactly keen to pursue our line through generations of clodhoppers. Also Linda had gathered memories from our mothers and other family members and attempted to weave the names together. We were given a lift back to the hotel by Bob where we discussed the findings of the day and Linda amended her notes followed by supper, once more in Etna, as we had so enjoyed ourselves there the previous evening.
Sunday 1 June 2025.
We had breakfast at Gail's Bakery and returned to collect our notes before taking the 119 bus out again. This time we were treated to a Sunday lunch with leek and ham pie and a dessert and the afternoon was spent copying and comparing notes, going online to check where necessary on the Ancestry and Find My Past websites. I discovered that Bob took the same delight as I did in photoshopping, and we had each improved the noses of family members by inverting the left nostril and pasting it over the right nostril. Bob had better software than me though and he was kept busy scanning documents. It was a most agreeable, if sometimes rather intensive, afternoon. We went into their garden, which is even longer than mine, for photographs to add to the family archives and capture this historic weekend. I gave Jackie and Bob a copy of each of my recent working papers, The writing of local history: an experiment in Exeter and Nobody knew what they were: the rise and fall of Exeter's public heritage libraries which particularly delighted Jackie, who is a really keen researcher and family historian. We were given once more a lift back to the hotel and we had supper once more in Etna, after which we returned to the hotel to amend and copy Linda's notes.
Cousins reunited: Ian, Jill, Bob, Jackie, Linda and Nigel
Monday 2 June 2025.
We had breakfast once more in Gail's Bakery and I took leave of Jill, Linda and Nigel who were returning home. I went on to Bromley North Station where I caught a 261 bus towards Lewisham, getting off at Saint Mildred's Road. I had a long wait for the 160 to Sandhurst Road on a busy throughfare. I walked up the road to Sandhurst School, but it was hard to get a photo as schools nowadays are so fenced in. I did glimpse kids with the teacher in the playing field where 70 years before I used to play rounders but thought I might be arrested for photographing children through a gap in the foliage. I did manage a couple of photographs of the buildings with no people present and then went round the corner to what is now the Corbett Community Library which is indeed an active community hub, now independently run with displays on the Corbett Estate about which I hope to write more in a supplementary blog. Opposite the Library stands Saint Andrew's church where we used to go to church parades with the wolf cubs.
Corbett Community Library, Catford
I continued along Wellmeadow Road to the house at the corner with Dowanhill Road where my bestest friend Neil Allen used to live, and then onto Hafton Road where we lived at no. 29 from 1948 to 1955. The houses on either side were having work done on them and the house itself was largely hidden behind fir trees.
29 Hafton Road, Catford, our home 1948-1955
Further up the road, there were still the allotments where the family had a plot, and then I continued to Torridon Road where I managed to get a photograph of the school that my sister Jill used to attend. I returned to the library for coffee and a snack and then caught the bus to Lewisham and looked for the site of Colfe's Grammar School and found where the little Quaggy River still runs. Much else has changed though.
At Lewisham Station I caught the 181 back to Grove Park where I was due to visit John, an old school friend. I thought I had left a lot of time but the route meandered its way across south-east London, taking in Catford Town Hall and endless dreary estates such as Bell Green, Bellingham and Downham. I arrived just in time. Jenny had prepared a cake, we had tea, and I handed over a copy of the little German booklet that I had prepared to take with me on my forthcoming visit to Weimar - more about that in a forthcoming blog. John studied German with me in the sixth from and has always been fascinated by languages. He is currently studying Breton as Jenny is a Welsh speaker. But I had forgotten that they were vaccine deniers, thinking that covid had escaped from a Chinese laboratory as an accident when preparing a vaccine and that therefore any vaccines prepared were a waste of time, so I had to be careful what I said. Poor John is very debilitated now with Parkinson's disease so I only stayed for an hour and caught the 126 bus at Grove Park Station to Bromley, getting off at Plaistow Lane to complete my walk home from school, passing the barber's shop where the proprietor, a former boxer, demonstrated to me how to knock someone out, a skill that I have never had the need or desire to practise in the seventy years since. There was no food available in the Freelands Tavern so I returned to Etna for an evening meal, telling the waiter that the others weren't with me because they had gone down with food poisoning. Fortunately he realised I was joking.
Tuesday 3 June 2025.
Today I breakfasted alone at Gail's Bakery and checked out at the hotel, taking the train from Bromley North, changing at Grove Park to Waterloo East, arriving at Waterloo Station by 10:00. I noticed there was a train to Exeter at 10:20, three hours the before the one I had booked a ticket for. I was told it would be too expensive to change and remembered that I had booked for 13:20 because it was the cheapest fare on offer.
View downstream from Hungerford Bridge. The Festival Hall is on the right
So I had three hours to spend in London. I started off wandering around the South Bank Centre, which I knew as the Festival Hall, crossed over Hungerford Bridge, taking a photograph of the distant buildings in the mist, St Paul's dwarfed by the tower blocks of Canary wharf. Would Wordsworth still have found it "A sight so touching in its majesty"? I passed through Charing Cross Station to Trafalgar Square. I found more pedestrian spaces and less traffic than the last time I was in central London, rather like Paris in March. Perhaps it is because both cities have hosted the Olympic Games.
I wandered into the National Gallery and offered my bags for inspection but they waved me through and I spent a pleasant hour just wandering and wondering, staggered at all of the well known pictures that we see on television documentaries and in art books. Feeling peckish, I strolled towards Leicester Square and saw an all-day breakfast at a reasonable price. On my way back to Waterloo I passed St Martin-in-the-Fields and thought that perhaps I should have had something to eat in the crypt there instead, then up the Strand as far as Somerset House and over Waterloo Bridge, back in time to catch the 13:20 train that I was supposed to be on.
Back home I directed my attention to emptying the fridge before my longer trip to Germany in a few days time and also to looking after Jill's sister Julia who required observation for 24 hours after being collected from hospital by Kate. She helped me empty the fridge of two portions of fish and chips and I took her home the following day. I learned that my fellow travellers had all returned safely and that Linda had recovered her backpack in the lost property office. So this round of travels has ended. Stand by for the next round in a week or so.
