V1 & V2 Bombs dropped on Lordship Lane.

[Santerme]

Most Secret War by Dr RV Jones

Shabbily treated by this country, Churchill said he was the man who saved Britain and in 1982 he was called out of retirement to work on a project during the Falklands War.

[telegramsam]

Spoke to my mum on the weekend-she lived with my nan and extended family in Lytcott Grove; my mum who was only a baby then had been taken for a walk to Streatham and they came home to find half the house and street flattened by a flying bomb. A modern block was built there after the war. Note sure of the date.

Sam

[macroban]

Ronnie Reed, a family man, who was Zig-Zag's case officer lived in Court Lane Gardens.

That was a job with a real conflict of interest.

[computedshorty]

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[macroban]

Thanks for identifying the sites of some of the World War II water-tanks.

I believe these water-tanks were lined with bitumen to keep the water in.

I wonder if any home-owners of post-war houses built on the water-tank sites have rising damp problems.

[Friskeypeter]

Computedshorty, Were the post war council flats on covering the area around Lytcott Grove,Playfield Crescent and Melbourne Grove built as a direct result of the V1 bomb damage 22/8/1944?

[computedshorty]

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[huncamunca]

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[opiumia]

A number of folks might be interested in the the book of LCC bomb damage maps:

http://www.locallocalhistory.co.uk/studies/bombingmap/index.htm

I had a quick scan through the pages here I couldn't see it mentioned but apologies for any duplication.

[macroban]

Unfortunately this book is out of print.

Perhaps a rich person could fund a reprint of just the SE22 bomb damage map.

[macroban]

I have been re-reading Collier's "Valuation for War Damage" (1945) and I had forgotten how complicated and slow it was to get any money out of the War Damage Commission.

Because of raw material and manpower shortages repairs were often made with insufficient poor quality materials by inexperienced workers.

I would be interested to hear if anyone has had to repair war damage repairs (not only that caused by V1s and V2s).

[opiumia]

Though the book is out of print it might be worth checking the local library. Failing that perhaps Westminster Ref. (behind the NPG) has it.

[macroban]

Brief ex-pat witness statement - illustrating the dangers of oral history.

[computedshorty]

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[kford]

More Lordship Lane station info: http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/l/lordship_lane/index.shtml

[computedshorty]

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[macroban]

The Crystal Palace High Level Branch was electrified (third rail) on 12 July 1925 and from then passenger services were by Southern Railway electric multiple units.

Crystal Palace Low Level Station got its electrification in 1929.

[Peter53]

Percy Seymour died on November 17th, 1984. aged around 50. Buried in Camberwell New Cemetary.(right near my parents who knew him well also)

I was a good friend of his for some years.

He had lung cancer which spread to his brain, a fit of coughing caused him to fall off a roof.They took him to Kings College Hospital where tests showed the cancer had spread. They gave him 2 months to live. ..was a longtime heavy smoker of "Boars Head" tobacco.

He was a great guy, very warm hearted & generous.. unlike most of his family though.

[Steviedulwich]

To bring the topic back to the V1 & V2 bombs if I may. I am really delighted to see that the web site which I

created www.flyingbombsandrockets.com is being used as a source of reference and has been quoted in posts on this site.

As you may imagine putting together all the data and then setting it up on the web site was as massive job and my objective was always to provide a source of reference for Dulwich and other areas of south London covered.

I had to remove my mail adress from the site last year due to the volume of requests for information I was receiving but if anyone has any questions regarding V1 & V2 bombs in Dulwich I would be happy to help , via this forum.

I am also particulary interested in the V1 that fell on St Thomas More Church In Lordship lane 13th July 1944 as this missile damaged my house in Court lane and I would be very interested to know if anyone knows of any images or has any recollections of this particular incident

[computedshorty]

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[computedshorty]

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[Y'man]

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[rgutsell]

Hi all

Great thread.

Id like to add a bit, although not directly to do with E Dulwich.

I was born shortly after the war and grew up in its myths and stories.

It was a long time before the UK began any significant rebuilding and bomb sites littered the streets. They were often fenced off with lines of doors, since they were best suited to survive blasts in houses, and they lay around in their thousands. (Think of that the next time you spend out on a genuine, older, stripped pine wood door!!) They made quite a surreal sight. None of the doors actually opened. The sites were also great "Adventure playgrounds", and my mother often asked us to go the bomb site (In streatham, on the site of the Dunraven school) and pick mint for the sunday meal.

The more eco aware people of today would love those sites; they provided protected environments for plants and wild life.

We were much less supervised than todays kids. No one bothered us. The sites were places where kids could get away from adults. We built "camps" and played with shrapnel, and sometimes, shell casings etc. In central London, there were huge bomb sites. In the mid fifties, my best mate and I would buy Red Rover bus tickets, travel together into London by bus, and spend the day clambering about in deserted sites, in dark archways, cellars etc etc. Then came the first property boom, and it all began to dissapear.

I'm not regretting its dissapearance. However, many people who know only the present day reality of long term peace and high land values etc, cannot conceive of living in a community where homes were something that you lived in all of your life, and land could lay unused without any pressure to develop it, or speculate with it.

[Y'man]

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[computedshorty]

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