ALDER'S GROCER SHOP, HIGH ST SYDENHAM (WARTIME)

[ali]

Does anybody please have any information on my grandfathers shop, which he owned from 1934-1941 at 93 High St Sydenham. The road changed to Dartmouth Road circa 1935??
My grandfather was bombed out in April on a Wednesday night at about 11.20pm.
Cant find any maps, photos or written references to these premises.
His name was William Alder, wife named Annie and their four children, one of whom was my mother who attended the old Kelvin Grove school.

[Steve Grindlay]

I don't think I can add much to what you already know, ali.

Here is the site of your grandfather's shop today:

It is a small block of flats called Forest Hill Court, on the corner of Cheseman Street. When Dartmouth Road was renamed it was also renumbered and your grandfather's shop became 136 Dartmouth Road. However, by 1939 he had also occupied the shop next door, no.134. Before he took it over, 134 Dartmouth Road was occupied by British Boy Laundry, and there is a picture of that (in Forest Hill & Sydenham by Coulter & Seaman):

William Alder's shop was to the left of this picture.

As you say, the shops were destroyed by a landmine, when the police station opposite was severely damaged. Twenty-one people died and 25 were injured. Did your family survive?

[ali]

Thanks for your reply, how did you find out what you did though?

[ali]

Steve thanks my family all survived in the shelter in the garden although the shop and everything in it destroyed. My mum remembers quite a lot about that night in quite graphic detail some of the awful sights she saw in the aftermath.