20 Years; 20 Places: No.10 Catford
I am halfway along my journey to list 20 Players and 20 Places to celebrate me writing this Blog for 20 years.
Next up on my list of 20 Places that are cemented in my psyche is where it all began. Catford.
Yep, it all began in Catford. In the terraced house where I was born and lived for 20 plus years of my life until I moved out and bought my own flat around the corner! Had to be close for Sunday lunch.
You can’t pick where you are born and grow up, and although Catford changed immensely during the 1980’s and 90’s, and has forever appeared to have missed any gentrification, and not necessarily luckily, it was where I spent the first almost 30 years of my life.
From Sandhurst primary school (still there) to Catford secondary school (no longer there), to the first pubs I used to drink in (The Ram and Copperfield, both I think still there but renamed).
The ABC Cinema, Catford Dogs, Peter Pans Pool, The Broadway Theatre (always makes me laugh that Catford had a theatre called Broadway), the Catford Cricket Club, Mountsfield Park, Forster Park, the 36 bus, Diamond Records, Robertson’s jam factory, where my Nan used to work. I wish I still had all those little badges.
Swaddlings, Catford Bridge, Torbay fish & chips, Torridon Road Library, Ladywell Baths, the newsagents on Muirkirk Road where I did my paper round, Horniman Museum, Lewisham Hospital, The Corbett Estate, The Himalaya curry house and John Copus Sports where I used to spend hours working out which Subbuteo teams I would spend my pocket money on.
Then there is the controversial black cat that appeared overnight in the early 80’s, 1982 I think but its origination causes much debate.
I have not been back to Catford for a long time, and never felt the need to, but after writing this and smiling through all the memories, perhaps I should. Then again, maybe these memories are best left alone.
Catford. Born, schooled and lived through my 20’s.
Wow!! That bought back some memories. I was born in Greenwich in 1961 and lived there for 28 years I had part ownership in a greyhound that we ran at Catford and regularly drank in the Ram and had Currys in the Himalaya. My journey has taken me from Greenwich to Welling to a village 15 mins from Durham, not as exotic as your journey but at 63 years old I doubt I will be moving far again 😂. Love the blog and still dreaming that the glory years will return to SE7 I saw my first game in 1969. Please tell me that Steve Brown will make your top 20 list 🙏
Great to hear from you Steve. Used to love the Himalaya.
Steve Brown? Well, you will have to wait and see 😀
Why Charlton then CA……you were more or less equidistant from The Valley and Selhurst Park.
And Millwall, Greg.
My Dad’s fault. He was a Charlton fan, albeit lapsed, but when I wanted to go to a game there was only one place he was going to take me!
Ah, so it was in the family…..I was born in Greenwich and we moved to Charlton (Coxmount Rd, opposite Harvey Gardens) in 1964. I later married a girl from Forest Hill, so spent a lot of time in the Catford area, very often in ‘DISCOLAND’ opposite Lewisham Hospital, as in the late 70’s and 80’s I ran a mobile disco………those were the days !!!!!
CA You don’t want to visit it’s still much the same as it was! I grew up in Brockley and couldn’t wait to get my own place and move away from the area, but since then it has become really expensive! When I lived at home in Brockley, which wasn’t any better then, we only use to go to Catford when we occassioned the night club, can’t remember what it was called but the police were always raiding it, the Chinese again can’t remember the name and Caford Dogs a few times oh and as a kid Peter Pans Pool, loved going on those little pop pop motorboats going round the centre island 🙂 Now you can’t include Ladywell Baths as that was in Ladywell, where our school took us swimming! Lol
Anyway Catford has hardly changed it still seems pretty grotty, the only place left worth going to was Eric Lindsey’s Music shop, but he closed down quite a few years ago now. So suggest you take it off your bucket list and just remember the good times you had there and not experince the disappointment! 🙂
Wasn’t it The Savoy, later renamed Knights ?
Was definitely called The Savoy.
I kind of presumed so, Mike.
I actually used to hate going to Ladywell Baths with the school. Still gives me shivers now 🥶
Blimey. You bought back some interesting memories there CA.
Although you followed me – I was at Sandhurst in the early 50’s followed by Catford Boys it’s interesting that most of your memories are mine too.
I might have added Lyon’s Corner House and the 75 bus because that took me from the bus stop outside Mountsfield Park to Charlton Village. Haircut and the pet shop on the corner in Rushy Green and my local despite Corbett insistence that his Catford should be booze free was Dartmouth Tavern.
Jack in the Torbay fish and chips in Muirkirk, Lays where I got my sweets and my mum worked and Broadbridges where I got my first 78’s. Pecry’s where the money went flying up to the gods in a tube, The Plaza and Saturday morning pictures and finally Peter Pans at Southend.
Sorry once you started me off they neames came flooding back.
Keith – There cannot have been many large swathes of London streets that didn’t have a single pub on the corner.
Archibald Cameron Corbett, a Scottish Liberal party and Liberal Unionist MP. A staunch Presbyterian and devotee of the temperance movement and as such insisted in the estate’s paperwork that there was a covenant banning the sale of alcohol on the estate, while deeds for the properties within the estate contain clauses stating that their occupants must not sell alcohol on the premises.
I had about a half hour walk to the nearest pub.
Lyons I remember as a child. Lays. Was that in the parade of shops on Sandhurst Road?
Yeh! Lays was in the parade of shops in Sandhurst Road. There was a hairdresser, a bakery (Southerns?)and Parkhursts the newspaper shop who employed me for many years as a paper boy and enabled me to afford to go to watch Charlton.(58-61 I watched every match h& a)Also a fish shop with live eels out front, haberdashery and ironmongers.
On the corner of Sandhurst and St Fillians was our doctor Dr Watt. (husband and wife). He was a broad Scotsman and often wore a kilt and could be very fierce. They employed a little grey haired lady who made up the medicines in a tiny room next to the surgery.
No way!!!!! I was a paper boy at Parkhurst’s too. Was it Glen who was the owner? When he retired I continued to work for the Indian chap that bought both Parkhurst’s and the newsagent’s around the corner..
I remember there was an ironmonger, haberdashery, a hairdressers, launderette, sweet shop, butcher, betting shop, bakery (Southerns), electrical shop (Barritts), That was a busy old road. In the day you could do a week’s shopping on that corner.
yes I think it was Glen. He had a big bushy ginger? moustache. I don’t remember Indian owners so I must have retired from paper round before it was sold. I did bakery round for a while after that and helped my Mum out in Lays. When I say helped. I ate a lot of sweets. You are right. Apart from clothes everything could be bought in that little parade and if not just round the corner there were even more shops in Muikirk. Changing subject slightly do you remember a sweet shop just round the corner from the library on the way to Sandhurst school? I remember very vividly the day that opened. It was an ordinary house one day and next a shop selling sweets. Sorry this has become all my yesterdays. 😁
Torridon library. I vaguely do. Was it on Sandhurst Road opposite the petrol station?
Jack from Torbay was a family friend. Lovely man.
He was
Ah such memories. I lived in Ladywell for much of my early life and even later frequented the Ram regularly. Just to add to the Catford story my Mum and Dad used to work occasionally at the Dog Track. He would always go into the garden at nights when there was a meeting and if the wind was favourable you could hear the result!!! Way before your time I suspect they also worked in the Mr Smiths club where the gangland shooting took place. Dad was a chef and Mum a croupier. They were there that night.
That was the Richardson’s shooting wasn’t it. Allegedly Frankie Fraser pulled the trigger.
Yes indeed. Mum often was the Croupier playing blackjack or roulette with the Richardsons
OMG I went to Sandhurst and Catford Boys as well, born 1965 played in goal for both schools . At Catford Boys Won the Blackheath Cup twice for the 6th form whilst only in 4th form and 5th form,lost in the semi-Final of the Greater London Cup at Millwall 4-3 against William Penn after extra time. John Radcliffe was the coach. Another teacher was Mr Gorman who was excellent coach very much like Alex Ferguson. Did not take any crap and scare the shit out of you if you were not playing well.
You were the year above me, or maybe two. I remember the football team’s successes well. Catford Boys had a great team for many years.
I still have the program from Millwall against William Penn, What a lot of people don’t know is we beat William Penn in another Cup earlier in the season 2-0 and it was pretty comfortable but the rematch was a bit different apparently the school lodge a complaint after game we lost in the semifinal because One of the Willian Penn players was from the year above. A player called Michael Thomas who score the winner for Arsenal against Liverpool in the dying seconds to win the league tittle at Anfield.He marked our best player out of the game .
Born in Brownhill Road, went to Sandhurst and then Catford Boys. Used to take the 75 bus to Charlton one week , then the 36 to Millwall the next. But the Lawie, Leary, Summers forward line, together with the red shirts and the vastness of the Valley finally did it for me
Although I wasn’t born in Catford, I grew up there in the fifties and sixties. I lived on the Corbett estate and went to same schools and other than the pubs (mine was the Sun) I can relate to all the places you mentioned.Great times and memories.
The Garden Gate has just come back to me. A pub on the Bromley Road. Used to run around the garden with my brother whilst my Mum & Dad would have a few drinks on a Saturday (perhaps celebrating a Charlton win). Then a little fish and chips in the basket.
Good times. Think it is a McDonalds now..
You should share this with the Catford and Lewisham group on facebook
I grew up in leafy Bromley and slightly less leafy Croydon (I now live in North Yorkshire). I remember Catford as a place best avoided. It never had the edgy charm of places like Brixton, Balham or even Tooting. This probably why it never experience gentrification. It was just perceived by suburbanites like me as rough and not at all aesthetically pleasing.
No offence intended!
Ah, another addick in North Yorkshire. We migrated here from Sidcup seven years ago, and I regularly go back to visit friends and family some of whom still live in Bromley/Beckenham. In fact am booked in for a curry in Chatterton Road on the 26th July with a group of people who worked with me at The Wellcome Foundation. Small world.
Not offended at all.
I used to escape to Bromley a lot. Mostly for the pubs and restaurants. You had to lock your car doors driving through Downham though, which was worse than Catford.
Crazy really to think just a couple of miles separates the Catford one way system from the leafiness of Bromley, Beckenham and Chislehurst.