Here come more past connections Brenda! I presume that the hill that you lost your brakes on was Burnt Ash Hill - leads down to Lee Green. My first girl friend, Sylvia Jeffries lived at 53 Burnt Ash Hill. I was the tender age of 9 and we were evacuated to Old Duston near Northampton. I never saw her again after we returned to London!
I hope your privet bush continues to thrive. I cut out a large bush of unknown identity yesterday afternoon - it needed pruning every year, was slowly increasing in size and didn't look very nice. This morning we bought a slow growing New Zealand phormian to take its place. I'll plant it when it stops raining!
Both you and Splinter mentioned Biggin Hill. I belonged to my school ATC squadron and I spent just about every week end there as an ATC cadet helping with refuelling and covering/uncovering the Spitfires on 600 (City of London) Squadron. It was an ad hoc arrangement whereby three of us cadets stayed on camp on Saturday night. I can't remember how we fixed it, but it was unofficial. On Saturday mornings I collected money for paper bills for W H Smith's in Grove Park station from my rounds in Baring Road, Amblecote Road, Kynaston Road and Chatsworth Avenue right round to King's Meadow took it back to the stall manager, he was ex Navy, was called Fred and lived in Gareth Grove. Then I caught the 94 to Bromley then 410 to Biggin Hill. We slept in a barrack block and mostly ate in the NAAFI as the food in the Airmens' Mess was awful. This went on for some time and on one occasion Winston Churchill visited Biggin from nearby Chartwell, he was Honorary Air Commodore of the other squadron at Biggin 615, and during his walk about he stopped in front of me and asked what I did in the war! I said I was evacuated for a lot of it, but I had been mostly in London. His eyes glazed over and he moved on without comment. One gruesome event comes back to me: a Spitfire of 615 Sqn crashed near the pub on Leaves Green - well it hit the ground in a flat attitude at high speed, shot through a high wall and ended up against the front of the pub. The pilot, a Flt Lt Benson, was thrown out backwards and ended up hanging in the tall tree by the pub in his parachute harness, very dead with his left leg rammed up into his torso. I was due to go to the RAF Aircrew Selection Centre on the following Monday and all the experienced old ex-wartime airmen said to me that sort of thing happened often to pilots! Food for thought! The pilot was buried in Downe Cemetery.
Still on Biggin Hill. On weekday evenings our cycling club often visited the Old Jail pub in Jail Lane, just past the airfield. They sold very strong cider and I remember that the ride home was great fun. It was downhill most of the way, except for the climbs at Bromley South and at Southover, and every week we tried to beat our previous best time home. On some evenings we would venture as far as Westerham or Sevenoaks, but that involved climbing either Westerham Hill or Polhill on the way back. As Splinter says, traffic then was light enough not to make cycling a dangerous pastime.
A final note about Biggin Hill. I remember seeing from the bus a mock gravestone in a wall in the village which said 'In Loving Memory of Ten for Sixpence'. Woodbines I suppose.
I hope you have a good day for your visit to Biggin Bump Splinter.
Vic.
