Abbey Wood, London - the wonders of television

Clock Pelter's memory of 1st January 1949 - 30th April 1949

Because my mother had contracted tuberculosis and been taken to a sanatorium, in January 1949 my father took me to live with ‘Auntie’ Marie’ and ‘Uncle’ Hal. They were actually cousins of my father, and lived in The Dell, Abbey Wood, London, SE2.
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This was to be a short stay, but my memories seem to say that it was full of experiences. For one thing, I caught the mumps and was confined to bed eating only very soft food like boiled eggs and being visited by the doctor to check me over and ensure I was not suffering side effects. The mumps did not seem very serious to me giving me only a very swollen neck. It only lasted a few days before I was able to resume school.
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The London school seemed very different to me. There was a second storey to it and a very high wire fence surrounded the playground. The playground however was wonderful as it included a real American Wild West covered wagon, which was great for playing cowboy and Indian games. In the classroom, we had a corner where you got to play at shops with cardboard money.
A friendship developed with Jimmy, a boy of my age, who lived on the other side of the common and I spent many happy hours at his house playing in the garden. A favourite game was making miniature canals and lining the bottom with clay we found in the woods to stop the water running away. The woods could be scary to a seven year old with lurking youths, who on one visit waved a knife at us. However, a visit was worth it to gather more canal-making material.
One day on the way home from school, crossing the common, I came across a group of people with a very large dog, which may have been a Great Dane. I lingered for some time and eventually made my way back to The Dell. Here I met a frantic Aunt Marie who told me she had just called the police to report me missing. I learned another lesson that day.
One very interesting feature of the houses in Abbey Wood I’d not seen before, was a strange wire contraption on the chimney pots of a few of them. It was in the shape of an H, and I eventually enquired (apparently I rarely stopped asking questions), about the purpose of this strange equipment. I was told that it was television. When I asked what that was, I was properly informed that television was like the wireless, but that you could see a picture as well. Armed with this important revelation I spent a considerable amount of time watching these strange H devices to see if I could see the picture too. Alas I never did. It was only when I got to Cleethorpes I saw the wondrous Muffin the Mule, a wooden puppet, on a television set, and discovered how mistaken I had been.
Another wonder of the capital city was the trams, which ran along the main road from Woolwich. Like trains, they ran on rails, with an overhead wire, and a long pole extended from the roof of the trams to the wire. Many of the trams were very old with outside stairs and I was fascinated watching them. They were red, and the sounds they made were great, especially the bell, the sound of the motor and the squeal of the wheels against the rails at bends.

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This memory was added 5th November 2007

Keywords: London television tram Muffin the Mule mumps BBC Lincolnshire

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