From the Town to the Countryside ... ish
NEW ARTICLE: FEBRUARY 2022
Cray 150 author Richard Bowdery has penned a fascinating social history of his sixty years of living in the Crays. He explains that on first arrival it felt like a move from town to countryside. He describes the changes that he has seen and he contrasts the modern-day Crays with the place that he knew when growing up as a child.
Peckham, home to the Trotters, Del, Rodney, Grandad and Uncle Albert, was also where I took my bow into the world.
Life was two first floor rooms in a terraced house. A kitchenette and a living room which morphed into a bedroom when day turned to night. A double bed for mum and dad with a cot for me. All very bijou without the elegance.
Unfortunately there was a lack of an indoor convenience The lav (toilet for those unfamiliar with the vernacular) was down the stairs, through the kitchen and out into a small backyard. Its location was bad enough in the summer months traipsing all that way through the house to answer nature’s call. But in the cold, dark winter nights with only sheets of a daily newspaper to amuse oneself with, prior to use, well it was positively arcane.
Bad as it was the lav’s location wasn’t the main reason for upping sticks and moving on. My mum and dad wanted to give me a playmate. So my dad contacted Orpington Urban District Council (who were responsible for housing in the Crays in the 1950s) and presented his case for rented accommodation.
Why the Crays? My paternal grandparents lived in the area and my maternal grandparents lived a few mile up the road in Sidcup. And so in January 1959 we pitched up at 3 Lockesley Drive, in the Poverest area of St Mary Cray.
I was too young to gauge my parents’ reaction but I can imagine they were ecstatic. Okay it was a council house but it was a three bedroom semi-detached council house with living room, dining room, kitchen and front and back garden. But the piece de resistance was the indoor toilet! No more having my bum frozen to a potty in sub-zero temperatures.
There was however one ever so small snag — the house’s lack of heat. There was an electric fire in the dining room but only an open hearth in the living room with no coal to fill it. Coal was hard to come by. Don’t forget this was only eleven years after the end of World War Two. Rationing was still part and parcel of everyday life. In fact during a particularly cold snap ice formed on the windows, on the inside. But we were made of sterner stuff in those days.
Heating issues aside we felt like lords of the manor having moved from two rooms into a palace. Not quite Buck House. Nonetheless we couldn’t believe our luck. Strictly speaking my parents couldn’t believe their luck. I was too young to think about much more than when my next meal was due.
Thus began my life in the Crays.
NEW ARTICLE: FEBRUARY 2022
Cray 150 author Richard Bowdery has penned a fascinating social history of his sixty years of living in the Crays. He explains that on first arrival it felt like a move from town to countryside. He describes the changes that he has seen and he contrasts the modern-day Crays with the place that he knew when growing up as a child.
Peckham, home to the Trotters, Del, Rodney, Grandad and Uncle Albert, was also where I took my bow into the world.
Life was two first floor rooms in a terraced house. A kitchenette and a living room which morphed into a bedroom when day turned to night. A double bed for mum and dad with a cot for me. All very bijou without the elegance.
Unfortunately there was a lack of an indoor convenience The lav (toilet for those unfamiliar with the vernacular) was down the stairs, through the kitchen and out into a small backyard. Its location was bad enough in the summer months traipsing all that way through the house to answer nature’s call. But in the cold, dark winter nights with only sheets of a daily newspaper to amuse oneself with, prior to use, well it was positively arcane.
Bad as it was the lav’s location wasn’t the main reason for upping sticks and moving on. My mum and dad wanted to give me a playmate. So my dad contacted Orpington Urban District Council (who were responsible for housing in the Crays in the 1950s) and presented his case for rented accommodation.
Why the Crays? My paternal grandparents lived in the area and my maternal grandparents lived a few mile up the road in Sidcup. And so in January 1959 we pitched up at 3 Lockesley Drive, in the Poverest area of St Mary Cray.
I was too young to gauge my parents’ reaction but I can imagine they were ecstatic. Okay it was a council house but it was a three bedroom semi-detached council house with living room, dining room, kitchen and front and back garden. But the piece de resistance was the indoor toilet! No more having my bum frozen to a potty in sub-zero temperatures.
There was however one ever so small snag — the house’s lack of heat. There was an electric fire in the dining room but only an open hearth in the living room with no coal to fill it. Coal was hard to come by. Don’t forget this was only eleven years after the end of World War Two. Rationing was still part and parcel of everyday life. In fact during a particularly cold snap ice formed on the windows, on the inside. But we were made of sterner stuff in those days.
Heating issues aside we felt like lords of the manor having moved from two rooms into a palace. Not quite Buck House. Nonetheless we couldn’t believe our luck. Strictly speaking my parents couldn’t believe their luck. I was too young to think about much more than when my next meal was due.
Thus began my life in the Crays.
Photos: (1) A network of roads with names linked to Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest. (2) The roundabout here is the site of filming the John Lewis / Waitrose television advertisement for Christmas in December 2020.
Not only did we live in a palace, we were surrounded by countryside. I had my own bedroom which I subsequently shared with my brother when he arrived. This was on account of my dad laying claim to the smallest bedroom which he transformed into a darkroom for his photography.
From my bedroom window I could see foxes gambolling on the wasteland beyond our back garden. I’d never seen a fox before. To a young boy from town it was the Serengeti. I could watch those wild animals for hours.
The other thing to note was that compared with the hustle and bustle of London this was tranquillity and peace. So much so a family who moved into the area from Camberwell, around the same time as us, moved back after eighteen months. It seemed Crays were too quiet for them. They should have hung around for sixty years. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
As I moved from a toddler to a rebellious teenager I began to notice changes to my environment.
Our nearest shops were in Marion Crescent. They boasted a butcher, greengrocer, a post office and a hairdressers: gents to the left, ladies to the right. Aren’t they always? That reminds me I still owe them three old pence for a haircut when I was but a wee lad. Still in short trousers but allowed out on my bike, I got home and told my mum. I got my first lesson in finance. In a nutshell she said that was daylight robbery and they could sing for the extra money. I can hear their warbling even now.
The shops stayed pretty much like that throughout my childhood. Oh the joys of riding to those shops on a Saturday to pick up my favourite magazines: Beano and Dandy. If only I had kept all those issues. No doubt a collector would have offered me a tidy sum. The follies of youth.
Another fond memory is the number 51 bus ride to Sidcup with my mum and brother to visit my nan. Sometimes my aunt, a clippie (bus conductress to the uninitiated) would be working the route. I had great fun when we got off at our stop bellowing as loud as I could ‘bye aunty Pansy’. She hated being called Pansy and was known in the family and among her colleagues as Pam. I can still hear her retort from the top deck ‘I’ll give you Pansy. You wait ‘till I get hold a ya.’ Now 94 (at the time of writing) she is living in Australia and has lived there for over fifty years. But if I close my eyes she is on the top deck shouting down at me and no doubt causing the other passengers to chuckle. The distance of years is shortened in an instant. Precious memories.
Staying with public transport for a moment I have two other fond recollections I’d like to share. The first was feeding horses at the riding stables while waiting for the 51 bus. The stables were situated on the corner of Cray Avenue and Poverest Road opposite the boat pond. My brother and I took great delight in grabbing handfuls of grass and pushing it through the fencing for the horses to munch on. Stables alongside a main road through Orpington. Really? Yes really.
Then there was our annual camping holiday in the Isle of Wight. The tent, Dickensian cooking gear and anything else that could be squeezed in was put into an oversized tea chest my dad had got hold of. He would put it a trolley contraption and together we’d wheel it from home to St Mary Cray railway station to a small single storey building adjacent to the railway line which is still there. A porter would take the tea chest and the next time we’d see it was in the Isle of Wight. How many people would do that today - send their camping equipment in advance in a tea chest?
Another fond memory is the number 51 bus ride to Sidcup with my mum and brother to visit my nan. Sometimes my aunt, a clippie (bus conductress to the uninitiated) would be working the route. I had great fun when we got off at our stop bellowing as loud as I could ‘bye aunty Pansy’. She hated being called Pansy and was known in the family and among her colleagues as Pam. I can still hear her retort from the top deck ‘I’ll give you Pansy. You wait ‘till I get hold a ya.’ Now 94 (at the time of writing) she is living in Australia and has lived there for over fifty years. But if I close my eyes she is on the top deck shouting down at me and no doubt causing the other passengers to chuckle. The distance of years is shortened in an instant. Precious memories.
Staying with public transport for a moment I have two other fond recollections I’d like to share. The first was feeding horses at the riding stables while waiting for the 51 bus. The stables were situated on the corner of Cray Avenue and Poverest Road opposite the boat pond. My brother and I took great delight in grabbing handfuls of grass and pushing it through the fencing for the horses to munch on. Stables alongside a main road through Orpington. Really? Yes really.
Then there was our annual camping holiday in the Isle of Wight. The tent, Dickensian cooking gear and anything else that could be squeezed in was put into an oversized tea chest my dad had got hold of. He would put it a trolley contraption and together we’d wheel it from home to St Mary Cray railway station to a small single storey building adjacent to the railway line which is still there. A porter would take the tea chest and the next time we’d see it was in the Isle of Wight. How many people would do that today - send their camping equipment in advance in a tea chest?
They say school should be the best days of your life. I certainly enjoyed my time at Poverest primary school. To avoid the hike up Poverest Road to the main entrance — gradient about 1 in 2 (well it is when you’re six years old) — my mum used to walk my brother and me to the school’s back gate. This flatter route took us past a small wooded area. As we got older my brother and I used to play there on the way home from school. However the need for housing in the area meant that little patches of woodland such as this fell victim to the developers axe. Today much of the greenery I was familiar with as a child has long gone.
Although the school is still there it has been redeveloped over the years. The stalag-style classrooms are gone: replaced by brick-built modernity. Even the football pitch where I consistently scored the winning goal in that year’s F.A. Cup final has a brick edifice on it.
Photo: My schools were Poverest Infants and Poverest Juniors. Older pupils there, born in 1947 and 1948 were Leslie Grantham a.k.a. ‘Dirty Den’ from Eastenders and Jeremy Beadle of Game for a Laugh and You’ve Been Framed. Photo dated March 2021 looking downhill with the football pitch to the right and the school main building block in centre background.
Of course game consoles, computers and the like were for a future brave new world. Back in the 1960s and 1970s Poverest recreation ground met all my entertainment needs while I was growing up. Football pitches were utilized long into the evening. No fear of dirty old men in even dirtier raincoats. In fact if one had dared approach us he’d probably have got a good pasting. And I don’t mean with a wallpaper brush. If it wasn’t football then it was Cowboys and Indians. Or we would sling a rope over a tree bough and do Tarzan impressions.
In those days the Rec as it was fondly known had park keepers responsible for recreation ground’s upkeep. I can still see them sitting around a brazier to keep warm in the cold winter months with snow on the ground. It always snowed back then. I wonder why it doesn’t snow as much these days? Sadly they fell victim, not to to the developers axe this time but to the red pen of the council’s accountant.
If you entered the Rec from midway along Lockesley Drive and then walked through the wooded part you would end up by the two corrugated huts. They housed two Boy Scout troops. The lower hut housed (I think) 2nd Orpington Scouts, while 1st Poverest (my scout troop) occupied the top hut.
We met on Friday evenings. And it taught me things I wasn’t taught at school such as woodcraft and leadership. It also gave me many happy memories. One was the occasion when I led a team of three to open our annual scout fete. We had rigged a rope runway — similar to a zip wire you get today — from high up one tree to the lower trunk of another tree 50 feet away.
The idea was that I’d go down first with a bottle. Another scout would follow with a rocket to put in the bottle. Finally the third scout would follow with the matches to set the rocket off. As it exploded in the sky the fete would be declared open.
By the way, in case you were wondering, there were no health and safety considerations. No one with a clip board saying ‘You can’t do that. You’ve got no safety helmets; no fireproof containers for the rocket or matches; no mattresses on the ground in case you fall; no insurance policy in case you bounce on a member of the unsuspecting public; and you haven’t carried out a detailed risk assessment. Sorry but you can’t do that.’
We three climbed the tree with the aid of a tall ladder. (‘You can’t do that’.) I went first with the bottle; next came the rocket and finally Dozy appeared. Why Dozy? He’d left the matches up the tree! Instead of opening with a bang and a shower of bright exploding gunpowder, we had ignited a damp squib.
Photo: 'Sevenoaks Way and Cray Avenue can often resemble a tin snake wearing a coat of many colours, discarding its metal skin at various junctions along the way.'
My formative years living in the Crays remained much the same year on year. All that was about to change. And it was changed by one woman. People ask me how I met my wife. My answer is simple. Sheer bad luck. But meet we did and we’ve been happily shackled together ever since.
We bought our first property in St Paul’s Cray. Eight pubs existed in this part of the Crays at the time. All were within walking distance so drink-driving wasn’t an issue. Today only one pub is still trading: The Bull in Main Road. How sad to see so many pubs converted into accommodation or other uses when once they were the life and soul of their community.
Drink-driving laws, cheap booze in the supermarkets, multiple entertainment opportunities with hundreds of TV channels to choose from: these are some of the contributing factors in the licensing trade’s demise. The truth is that once they’re gone they’re history. We’ll never get them back.
That for me is one of the biggest changes I’ve noticed in the Crays. There are others.
For instance when I first knew Cray Avenue and Sevenoaks Way they comprised mainly light industrial units. There was Pinnacle Records, makers of vinyl for the music industry; Morphy-Richards who made household appliances such as irons; Burn Brothers who made drainage and plumbing products; Coates the ink manufacturers for the printing industry; the William Nash paper mill and of course Tip Top Bakeries. Who could forget the wonderful aroma that pervaded the area when they were baking?
Today in those same roads it’s mainly business units or retail which is why Sevenoaks Road and Cray Avenue is known in some quarters as ‘shopper’s alley’.
But for me the biggest change is the significantly increased population. According to Bromley Joint Strategic Needs Assessment paper published by Bromley Council in 2017, just under 34,000 people lived in the Cray Valley East and West wards in that year. When we moved into the Crays there was roughly 100,000 people living in Orpington and its satellite villages including the Crays.
Nowhere is this growth more visible than on our congested roads. For instance Sevenoaks Way and Cray Avenue can often resemble a tin snake wearing a coat of many colours, discarding its metal skin at various junctions along the way.
However it isn’t just the roads where this is noticeable. My daily commute was by train to London from St. Mary Cray railway station. Over the years I’ve noticed the growth of commuters boarding and leaving the train at my stop.
But I shouldn’t be surprised. In the time I’ve lived in the Crays the world’s population has grown from three billion to nearly eight billion — that’s a lot of noughts and a lot of mouths to feed. To bring that growth closer to home, in 1960 just over 52 million people lived in the UK. By 2020 that figure had grown to nearly 68 million.
I am sure going forward there will be changes Man hasn’t even dreamed of yet. Change is inevitable. But that doesn’t mean all change is necessarily good. The secret is to spot the difference and take appropriate action before the bad takes hold.
Although the area has got more claustrophobic down the years, looking back I have for the most part enjoyed living and raising a family in the area. I hope others can feel the same way. With the easy access to London, the countryside and the coast beyond, the Crays still have much to offer that is positive and good. Long may that continue.
Richard DJJ Bowdery
Published Poet and Prose Writer
February 2022.
My website: richardbowderywriter@wordpress.com
Published Poet and Prose Writer
February 2022.
My website: richardbowderywriter@wordpress.com
