I was born in January 1943 at The County Hospital, West Hill, Dartford. I have to think that location shaped my future because I have always enjoyed working and this hospital started life 83 years earlier as The Dartford Union Workhouse. Another coincidence was that my father was an engineer at the local Vickers factory. The connection being that during the First World War munitions workers from Vickers were housed here. During my trading years I did a lot of business with the Vickers factories in Dartford, Crayford, Sheffield, Leeds, Swindon, Newcastle
My father worked on firing (trigger) control in the armaments division. He is somewhere in the photo below taken at the huge Crayford factory in 1945 – I can’t find him!. 14,500 people, mostly apprence trained engineers, celebrating the end of the war. What the UK produced during those war years was incredible. Unbelievable to think that barely 30 years later our governments and unions contrived the start of the major de-industrialisation of the country that had constructed the Industrial Revolution that enabled our forefathers to live longer, to not rely on horses for transport, to not walk in mud, to travel the world! Of course we can find faults, wrong doings – we are human beings! But today, just as then, we have too many greedy people looking after their own self interest. History is mostly fact – what a mess we will be in if we allow the idiots trying to re-write history to have their way
The second photo is my father, a fine athlete, sing with his trophies including a silver cup I still have – his winning trophy from the Vickers Crayford and Dartford (VCD) Athletics Club. I really do believe my genes set me up for work and sport. He was also a certified AAA International Athletics Coach
Looking again at the Vickers photo, if you magnify it on your screen you may be able to see what I believe I can see – so many young people. They were trained in indentured apprenticeships with 5 years commitment. Training was high level. Toolmakers worked with ingenuity and amazing levels of precision. CNC has taken away much of that but todays young apprentices, not so many in quality engineering unfortunately, would benefit hugely from such a high level of training.
In the UK machine tool industry they were the cream of the crop but these apprenticeships no longer exist as the machine tool builders disappeared
The house I went home to from the hospital was a council house on the borders of Erith and Dartford. I do not remember it but do remember our first move to Pelham Road, Bexleyheath. The house was right opposite the school playing fields. Pelham Road Junior Primary. I enjoyed my me there especially two standout achievements.
Excellent teachers prepared us for the 11plus exam which, at that me, defined which secondary school route you followed – Secondary school, Technical College or Grammar/Public school. My father’s technical background suggested I should aim for Tech College, but my favourite teacher, Mr Diamond, persuaded my parents to let me accept the interviews I had been offered at Dulwich College and Eltham College. My father, also a very practical man, said “it has to be Eltham. You will ride to school. Eltham is 8 miles, Dulwich is 15”. I was not happy because Eltham played only rugby and Dulwich played rugby and football
Once again Mr Diamond stepped in. “Eltham is best for you and you will love rugby, you can use your speed even more”. He said this even though he was responsible for my second standout achievement at Pelham Road School
I will never forget Mr Diamond – he is the grey haired man with the big smile on the far left of the photo as I receive the cup for his team. He encouraged me to Eltham even though he had been encouraging me to Charlton football juniors after making me his team captain. He was totally overjoyed when we beat everyone to win the Kent County Junior Schools Cup – nobody had given us a thought when the competion started, how wrong they were!. A small school, we came together as a really great team
I went for my interview at Eltham College and met another male diamond – Mr Turberville, the headmaster.
Just like Mr Diamond he had a quiet manner but was very intense beneath it and, most importantly to me, I sensed immediately he was a man to trust and believe in. So to Eltham College it was!
At the end of my first term at Eltham I got my first PRESS!! Wow – did I feel important. I have included it in this section because it came as a result of all the hard fitness work my father and Mr Diamond had put me through at Pelham Rd – this was already paying dividends at Eltham.
I feel very lucky that I went to two such good schools with an abundance of good teachers
Out of curiosity I went onto google maps to see what had changed in Pelham Road – some big surprises!
When he bought the house my father immediately went about making improvements but today the house is showing huge changes that appear to be very well done. The drive through to Russell Park is still on the left side. My cousin and I would go down there to the park early morning and my mother would come looking for us at dusk, without ever worrying about us
The website for the school still gives the strong impression of caring for its pupils. The buildings appear as I remember them
The major disappointment is that the playing fields have been substantially taken over with new housing and the playground that used to witness serious games of tennis ball football is now mostly a car park. When you see the busy car parking in the road I guess there was no option
The joy of being young when I was – I could cycle to Eltham, catch a train in bad weather, and in both cases my parents had no concerns. At home it was a massive amount of physical activity either in Russell Park or in the school playing fields
PELHAM ROAD
These are the memory jolts Google Maps hit me with.
The school playing fields are only about 1/3rd of what they were
The photo of the outside of the school is amazing, I am sure this is just as it was when I was there
The biggest shock – our house. It is on the corner of Pelham Road and Garrards Close. I could not recognize it. It is now double the size, effectively a double fronted semi-detached. It appears to have been very nicely extended and a lot of attention given to the front garden.
When we lived there it was more like the house on the right and I am sure it was a chalet style semi, i.e with the full sloping roof. Later, we had moved by then, it became very popular, and very sensible, to add those extra rooms by extending above the original roof
