Hi!
My son has emailed your biography to me and opened the floodgates of memory. I am of a previous generation, born 1923 in Hindmans Road, one of the Phillips family. I, too, could fill pages about life in East Dulwich before WW 2. I knew Stan James who lived in Rodwell Road and Dennis Brightman who lived with his Mum in an upstairs flat in Goodrich Road. We were classmates at Dulwich Central School. Dennis won a scholarship and transferred to St. Paul’s & St. Saviours in Tooley Street in 1934. My playgrounds were Peckham Rye Park, a then undeveloped wilderness we called FuzzHill off Canonbie Road and behind Hornimans Park/Museum, One tree Hill & Dulwich Park where we hired boats on the lake for a shilling an hour. We walked everywhere. I had various Saturday jobs: Titus Ward groceries in North Cross Road, Turner’s oil shop on the corner opposite Cuttings the butchers. I befriended Ken Collins whose parents ran the fish & chippery in Hindmans Road next door to Lacey’s sweet shop on the corner
opposite Lewis’s the grocer’s where we bought a “pennorth” of broken biscuits with our Saturday pennies. I could go on. Thank you for reminding me of those far off, carefree days.
Ern Phillips (Phil)