I too ruined my teeth on Palm toffee bars at 3d or the chocolate ones with a white stripe running through it for 4d.In those days you could buy 2.ozs of pear drops and make them last for ages.I loved Spangles as well,especially the Olde English ones
In Taylors Lane by Wells Park there was a small off licence/grocers shop and it was the only shop open on a Sunday in the 1950s ,so if your Mum ran out of something it was quite a hike up Westwood Hill then down to the bottom of Taylors Lane to the shop.I lived in Lawrie Park Gardens in those days. My eldest brother when he married (1958) lived at the top of Westwood Hiil in a road called Hillcrest I think its an estate now but then it was big old rambling victorian houses that had been split up into flats.
I can remember when we had the really bad winter in the early 1960s and all of the roads off Westwood Hill were snowed in .Lawrie Park Gardens and Avenue and the surrounding roads were in those days unmade up roads and there was little difference between the road and the path at the side.
Just before the entrance to Hall Drive on Westwood Hill there was a house that had a peach tree in the front garden.All the kids locally knew about it, and when there were any peaches avaiable it was a case of the smallest being boosted up and a small hand crept over the fence and the tree was relieved of a couple of fruits.Now that was posh scrumping. There was a few apple trees in the garden of a large house in Lawrie Park Avenue that was popular with the local kids until one of them got captured, and the bloke told him that he had sprayed pesticides on the trees.The trees were left well alone after that.
There was very little crime that I can remember and the worst thing was to go scrumping as children always think of it as rather daring.
I remember though once when I was about 12 getting into the back garden of a house in Lawrie Park Road that was due for demolition and there were about four of us and we decided to explore the house .
Up in the attic I found a box full of old 78's records .It was the complete Artie Shaw swing sessions from 1943.I naturally 'acquired' it as it had been left behind, and no one else wanted them .I took them home and they were in perfect condition.I had those records for years until one of my many house moves about 20 years later my late husband dropped the box by accident, and the whole lot smashed to smithereens .Needless to say my husband was in the doghouse for awhile.
I can remember the bus strike of the late 1950s as well.I was at Crofton Park Secondary school in Cranston Road and had to walk there from Sydenham as it was under 3 miles, and if it was over three miles then you could get off from school. No such luck it was 'Shanks Pony' for me.
Mind you, rarely did we get a bus anywhere, we seemed to walk all the time and not think about it.
I saw on one of the parts of the site about Rolf Harris ,he was a lovely chap and quite popular with almost everyone .One of our neighbours Luchere Brown had him paint a mural on her sitting room wall.Lucy was an italian lady who was married to an english man and very nice.I tasted my first spaghetti in her house around 1958.As far as I know she opened a tiny dress/fashion shop at the bottom of station approach in Sydenham right next door to the antique/junk shop in the station approach.That too was a great place to mooch about in.It had a figure by the door that was an african dressed as a butler where you had to put your cigarettes out on before you could go inside in case you burnt anything. It was full of intersting old bits and oieces and old comics which were sold for a few coppers.
Looking back it was a relatively simple life groing up in Sydenham, most people knew each other and there was rarely any trouble at all.You could walk down Sydenham Road at night on your own and no one bothered you, I live in Rainham in Kent now and although it's quite a quiet place I still wouldn't go out walking at night on my own .I dare say Sydenham has changed out of all recognition now.Still I suppose its progress of a sorts.
