My Life in Bermondsey
Hello everyone
I was born in Guy’s Hospital and we lived in Guinness Buildings in Pages Walk, Bermondsey (Just off the Old Kent Road). My Mum was born in the flats and lived in Guinness's until about 15 years ago.
The flats were large Victorian blocks built by the Guinness Trust for poor people. There were Guinness Trust buildings all over London. The flats were not luxurious by today’s standards but by Victorian working people’s standards they were a luxury and a great improvement on the slum housing that they replaced.
In Pages Walk, there were four large blocks of buildings and each block had about six entrances. These entrances let to concrete staircases and there were four flats on each landing. The size of the flats varied, but most were just two rooms. A living room/kitchen (this had a range run by coal or gas but no running water or electricity) and one bedroom. The toilets and sinks (two of each) were outside the flats on each landing and were shared by 4 families.
The baths were in two separate blocks and it was possible to bath on only two days a week. My grandfather, George Horton, was one of the caretakers (they were called porters) and one of his duties was to stoke the boilers to heat hot water for the baths. The baths were in cubicles and you had to pay the porter (I think it was 2d) and he would run the bath for you. There were no taps; the porter had the brass tap which fitted on the square spindle to operate the tap, so you couldn't take extra hot water.
There was no electricity in the flats, all the lights were gas mantles. There was electric light on the communal landings.
I lived there as a small child until about 1958 and they eventually put in electricity in about 1960/61.
My Mum remembers one of the neighbours getting a TV and plugging it in to the light socket on the landing.
All the women used to take turns scrubbing the communal stairs and landings and they were always spotless. Once a week, the bag wash man came round. He used to shout out and then all the windows would fly open and white bags of laundry would come flying out. Woe betide anyone walking past.
My granddad used to sweep the roadways and paths everyday with a great big broom. I remember standing on the brush end while he swept with it. He was my hero but he used to chase the kids off the shed roofs and bins. He lived in a house next to the flats where the alleyway went into Leroy Street. He used to lock the metal gate at the Leroy Street entrance about 5 o clock every afternoon and people had to walk all the way round to Pages Walk to get home.
The flats were demolished in about 1970 and brand new flats were built. They are still there.
We moved away to Guinness Buildings in Kennington Park Road (where we had our own bath) and they are also still there.
This description of the flats makes me sound ancient but I am only talking about 45 years ago in central London! I am only 56 myself. I am still an ardent Millwall supporter but I must be the only Bermondsey boy who doesn’t like Pie and Mash!!!!!!!! I used to love the peas pudding from Youngs butchers in Tower Bridge Road and pints of cold sarsparilla from Baldwins in Walworth Road. We used to pretend it was beer..like granddads.
My whole family lived in Bermondsey from about 1860. My other Nan was a Basham and they lived in Keyes Road (formerly Alfred Street) just of Grange Road and opposite the Town Hall. Most of my ancestors were Carmen. I do have a brilliant picture of my other granddad Charlie sitting on a wall in Cooksey’s scrap yard in Pages Walk. He is surrounded by bales of paper going for recycling (who says recycling is new).
Nearly all my family, including me, worked in F. M .Meyer Chamois Export in Weston Street off Long Lane. My Mum and dad met there in the late 1940s and they are still going strong today.
None of us live in Bermondsey now but Bermondsey still lives in us!!!!!!! I am very proud to tell people that I am a Bermondsey boy.
Vossy
Hi Paperboy
My Wife lived at 78 Lucey Road, but my Aunt and Uncle I can't remember the number but it was the first house after the Prefabs?
Bermondseyboy
Hello Vossy
I think iv'e read some of your post's on the Guiness Buildings Forum.I lived in Harold Estate our flat looked across to Guiness Buildings.We used to collect jam jars and old newspapers for scrap,We took the newspapers to this scrap yard round the corner where they weighed them on these big old scales, a flat plate on the ground.We would have to collect great piles to get any money,it would probably take us all morning and on a good day we might get a penny or a penny halfpenny to share out.We would have been pleased with that,at least it was something.
It must have been Cooksey's perhaps I saw your Grandad ther, this would have been around 1950.
One of my little job's was to collect the manure droped by the cart horses from Carter Patersons.We had flower pot's on the verander,my Mum was very proud of them she used to get prizes for them in the council's competition.
Rod.
In the mid 60s I used to deliver The Sketch to the people who lived downstairs, in the airey, at number 76 Lucey Road - never delivered to number 78.
When you say you were first house after the prefabs, that's be on the odd number side. There were two lots of prefabs. The high numbers from about 115 onwards to about 129 were at the Rouel Road end. The others were numbered from about 21 to 47 which was on the corner of Linsey Street, opposite the Lord Palmerston.
Your correct my Wife said they did not have there papers delivered, proberley because they could not afford it. (Times were hard).
My Aunt and Uncle I think it was just after the prefabs at the Rouel Road end.
My Memory is fading, I do know that we had some great Party's there.
Hello Rod,
Yes, thats me on the other forum. Here is a picture of grandad Charlie at Cookseys. It was just down Pages Walk towards Grange Road. The houses in the background are near the Earl of Derby ( flats now). My Dad says that the barrels in the photo are empty vinegar barrels for Sarsons in Tower Bridge Road ( also flats).
My Grandad said that he horse manure was good for Rhubarb. I prefer custard on mine!
The old rag and bone man used to come round on his horse and cart and would buy anything that he could recycle..including old bones! Cooksets Yard is on the site of houses which were bombed in 1941/2 and my great Aunt Rose Stapleton and her sons were killed in the raid.
Good to hear from you
Vossy
What a great photo, Thanks Vossy brings back more memories.
Me and my mates would collect paper and take it down there for a penny or two, it was hard work, a lot of paper was needed to make so much money? still it was good fun and at night we would climb over the vinegar barrels just for laughs.
Hi Steve, may I first take this opportunity to thank you for inviting me to join this site through friends reunited, I've found it to be very nostalgic and have enjoyed viewing the pics and posts!
I was born in Gordon House, Haddenhall Street in 1948, I only lived there til I was 3 years old but do have vivid memories of playing on the roof. I distinctly remember the old Hartleys Jam factory off the Tower Bridge Road.
I moved from there to the Old Kent Road end of East Street, one lasting memory I have at that time was, at the age of 5, I, along with a girl friend, decided to go for a bus ride without any fare, we ended up getting turfed off at the Bricklayers Arms by the Conductor....we may as well have been in China for all we knew...I remember we didn't have a clue where we were and ended up being taken home in a Black Maria, my dad was none too pleased, I got a real whack across the back of my legs.
I moved from there, at the age of 6,to Chatteris Road, which was behind the old Ebenezers Mission off Gurney Street down the New Kent Road.I lived here for all of 9 years and made some good friends, among them were Matty McDonald, Brian Newnham and David Burton, I haven't a clue where they are now.I went to Paragon Secondary School, Mr Walters class as I remember. We didn't have a lot in those days but it was fun, what with playing cricket in the streets using milk bottle crates as wickets, playing tin can tommy, knock down ginger....all good innocent fun! That area was all demolished years ago, to make way for the Heygate Estate.
I moved from the area for a good few years and ended up in East Dulwich only to return to my roots when I married in '74 and ended up living at Weller House down the Jamaica Road....I now live in Banbury, Oxfordshire......the 2 things I missed most when I moved from London was Pie Mash and Capital Radio.
Well I hope I haven't bored you too much....just a nice trip down memory lane...cheers guys!
Regards, Ted German
That is a wonderful photo of your Grandad Vossy, the pictures showing a wider vistar rather than the close ups always have a special atmosphere. I remember the vinigar barrels I think they were two very large sites where they were stored one of them backed onto Harold Estate the block behind Mr Stacey's.That is onother one of the smell's of Bermondsey the vinegar barrels.I allways thought they were for Cross and Blackwells but just as likely Sarsons Vinigar. We used to climbe over the barrel's to.
Hi Tallyman,
Let me first say it's I who should be thanking you for Joining this site, as without you and all our Members would be a lonely place.
Your stories and Memories make this site.
As I also went to Paragon about 1960, I remember the Teachers name Mr Walters but cant quite place him at the moment (memory Lapse) There was also a Mr Miller, I think he was the Metalwork Teacher, and Mr Cameron who's picture is on this site.
As for the buses, being that they were the jump on jump off type (no doors) we learnt very quickly to escape the conductor, but not always, only when it slowed down or stopped at crossings and lights. Health and Safety nowadays would cringe at the thought.
Mind you at 5 years old you were a little young to chase after and jump on buses.
(Bring back the Clippies)
Bermondseyboy
Seeing the picture of your Grandads in the barrel yard brings back memories of when after the war Crosse and Blackwell used the bomb sites to store the barrels with pickles and gurkins to mature and as kids we would climb over the fence pull the bungs out and eat the pickles untill we got chased of by the yardmen we would also collect jam jars take the to the Crosse and Blackwell factory in Grimscott Street and get money on them I think it was a penny a jar also collect old lemonade bottles and retrieve the deposit
Joe Foster
I think the superintendant at the time was a Mr Vennals and the there was Georgie Horton the head porter who was always giving us kids a hard time for climbing over the bike sheds or playing in the bomb sites, the other porter was Tom Fitzgerald who had a son Tony. another good adventure was the Bricklays Arms Goods Depot, climbing the pickle barrels on the trains.
I did attend Webb St School for a while, but then moved to English Martyrs School near East st.
names of pals that I shared those days and memories with are:
Tony Treadwell
Tony Hawkins
Patrick Fahey
Danny Fahey
Georgie Raymond
Johnny Comber
Michael East
Johnny Hewitt
David Godsell
Tommy Forder
Evelyn & Marcela O'Conner
John & Margaret O'Leary
Paul Wilson (USA)
Lenny Padbury
Thomas & Eileen Lounghnane(cousins)
if you remember me? or have any old photo's of the Bricklayers Arms/Old Kent Rd/Pages Walk or Tower Bridge RD,drop me a line
Regards
Kevin
As a young lad from Guinness Buildings in Pages Walk, some of the memories I can recollecte are Joyces and Manzies pie & mash shops, Joyces used to have the live eels outside the front of the shop, which was next door to an army surplus shop, one of my first jobs before I left school was doing the paper rounds from the news paper stand just outside The Globe cinema, next to a big electrical shop in the Old Kent Rd, I had two paper rounds, Harold Estate & Guinness Buildings, my next job was in Tobies store opposite The Pagoda in Tower Bridge Rd, and just before I left school (English Martyrs in Flint St, off Rodney Rd Walworth) I uses to help with pulling out the barrows for East St Market, after leaving school I worked in the Co-op in the Old Kent Rd, opposite St Olives School.
Many a night was spent looking for my father in some of the many local pubs: The Magnet, The Bicklayers Arms, The Kings Arms,The Swan, The World Turned Upside Down all in the Old Kent Rd, or The George, The Pagoda in Tower Bridge Rd, The Victoria in Pages Walk, the Samsons Castle, Earl of Derby (opposite the medical mission) or the Grange in Grange Rd.
I actually met my wife in The Coleen Bawn in The Blue and we have now been married 42 years, we even named our son 'Colin' after the pub we met in.
Some of the shops I remember are Sidney Ross toy shop next to the Swan ph, the DER television rental shop in the Old Kent Rd where I watched through the window the 1959 Cup Final between Nottingham Forest and Luton Town, the chip shop next to the Magnet ph.
The various bombed sites, even the bombed block in The Guinness Buildings, the Bricklayers Arms Goods Depot all made great adventure playgrounds for the kids of that time, along with Bermondsey baths for swimming,1st & 2nd class, a bomb off the top board woiuld normally soak all the cloths left in the changing cubicle, in you managed to get close enough to the side, (I shudder at the thought of what could haver happened today) the boxing and wrestling was also a good night out. I could go on for pages about life in Bermondsey in the 50's & 60's.
If anyone out there has similar fond memories that they would like to share, I would love to hear from them.
kindest regards
Kevin McSweeney
This is a long posting but may be of interest to some of our members.
It tells of what our Bermondsey Boys and Girls went through.
Living in the Blitz
Sandbags outside Bermondsey Central Baths, Grange Road, September 1939 (above); and the remains of the railway arch on Southwark Park Road in October 1944 (below right)
By Julia Shipperley
IN SEPTEMBER 1939, the first grim sign of war for the people of Bermondsey was the fitting and distribution of 78,000 gas masks, including masks for babies.
This, together with the ominous sounds of the air raid sirens, had a profoundly psychological effect on local residents. The real threat to the people of Bermondsey however, was discovered in 1940, when the bombs started to fall and the lack of adequate shelter was fully realised.
Bermondsey people had more reason to be concerned about sheltering from the bombs than other Londoners. The nature of the ground in Bermondsey meant a lot of waterlogged soil prevented the construction of the deep shelters required to give protection against the bombs. As it was the home of some of London’s busiest docks, it was a prime target for German bombers. 
The government delivered Anderson shelters, to house people in their own back gardens, but these did not alleviate local government of the need to provide larger shelters for the community. Railway arches were converted into shelters that were, unfortunately, exactly where bombs could be expected to fall and were of dubious strength.
On September 6-7 1940 the first high explosive bombs were dropped on Bermondsey. A railway arch on Linsey Street, in use as a shelter at the time, was hit and 23 people died. Over 1940, Bermondsey experienced 395 air raids, during which 99 bombs were dropped. The raids occupied a total of 1,108 hours meaning that Bermondsey residents had to carry on their day-to-day lives, working and socialising, during air raid conditions that totaled a quarter of their year.
One of the worst nights was on February 17 1941, when there were heavy raids across London, with 34 incidents occurring in Southwark. That night, 300 people were taking shelter at the Stainer Street arch near London Bridge station. The roadway under the arches had been converted into a shelter containing a medical aid post. A pair of ten tonne steel doors closed each end of the shelter. 
At 10.25pm a high explosive bomb burst into the shelter and exploded in the medical aid post. The steel doors were hurled into the shelter and the water and hydraulic mains burst. In the horror that followed, 68 bodies were recovered and 175 people were injured. Many of the dead were squashed by the steel doors and were beyond recognition. The bodies of Dr Lesley Probyn and her Red Cross nurses Ethel Little and Rosina Hartley at the Medical Aid Post were never found.
Not all Bermondsey residents relied on the larger shelters to protect them during the war and some of the survivor stories show that the Blitz was not all doom and gloom. The raid that struck London on May 10-11 1941 was one of the heaviest of the Blitz and in less than seven hours 121 high explosive bombs, twelve unexploded bombs, two parachute mines, three oil bombs and a large number of incendiaries hit Bermondsey.
In Spa Mansions, one old man was found uninjured after all the surrounding rooms had been destroyed and the floor underneath him was left unsupported. After he was painstakingly moved to safety he bitterly complained for his bed until it was eventually rescued.
A bomb fell on Hawkstone Road that left a huge sixty-foot crater. Right on the edge of the crater a lone Anderson shelter appeared from the haze and rubble. Out of it emerged an elderly lady who, after calmly taking in the destruction of her surroundings, shouted to her friend below: "There you are Emily - I told you it was a bomb!"
Bermondseyboy
Seeing the picture of wartime Bermondsey brings back more memories, the picture of John Bulls Arch was when a V1 rocket struck it and a train on route to London Bridge managed to stop just in time thanks to the driver having his wits about him. My cousin and I were in Southwark Park Road at the time on our bikes and when the exsplosion took place jumped of the bikes and lay in a front garden
The picture of the street party was taken in Southwak Park Road between Balaclava Road and Dunton Road I think ouside number 32. Thats me in the front row with the pointed hat looking totaly bored out of my head the party was funded by a street collection collected by the children over a period of time from donations from people going to and from work ---Names that I can remember from left to right
Standing In sailors Hat Eddie Hayward
Bored Joe Foster
A Another in sailors hat?
Brian Lawson
Benny Cox
Joe Foster
Hi All.
My name is Harry Chapman and I was born in 1954. We lived in Willow House which was a small 2 bedroom single storey house in Curtis Street, between Willlow Walk and Setchell Road. I went to Bacon Secondary School between 1965 - 1970. I have to say, what a website. The photo's are fantastic and some great memories. I have 2 brothers, Michael and Brian and one sister Susan. My dad use to work at Crosse and Blackwells factory in Crimscoot St. Some of you have already mentioned Joyce's pie and mash shop. the big bloke who worked there was also called Harry . Edward's for the penny do'nuts ( superb ). In 1971 we moved to New Place Square in Drummond Road, What a palace after 17 years in Willow House. My sister still lives there today. I still live in Bermondsey just off St James Road, Sherwood Gardens. Would love to hear from anyone who remembers me.
Harry.
hi everyone
i lived lynton rd when it was the terrace houses facing patterson park i can remember the prefabs facing the football pitch in the park there was a sweetshop on the corner of lynton rd and st james rd facing the sultan pub my parents use to drink in the sultan and the finish also can anyone remember the houses in st james rd where you had to go down the steps i remember the haywards the manns and macenerys lived in those house i went to galleywall school then monnow rd then alwyn one of my brothers still lives in bermondsey i oftern go to stay with him but how bermondsey has changed and have to say not for the better the good old days was the best
Hi Shaddon
My Wife remembers the sweet shop vaguely, and I can remember the Houses.
Sultan pub St James Road and at the other end of Lynton Road/Dunton Road was the Greyhound.
Although I cannot remember it as a Pub just a office Building I think.
The Finish Arms I can remember, they had a decent Darts Team, did your Dad Play?
The Sultan Lynton Rd/SPR The Greyhound Lynton Rd/Dunton Rd
The Finish Arms Lynton Road
yes my mum and dad played darts for the sultan i know when they had the away games they played the finish coleen bawn havelock all over they also won afew trophys i can remember the diary on the corner of st james rd and fort rd and where the bingo hall is st james rd that use to be a cinema i also remember the to cinemas in the old kent rd astoria and the abc
