Bill Russell looks back on life growing up in Charlton Village in the 1950/60s. Don't fancy that soap much....

Follow me down Memory Lane or should it be Charlton Lane. I'm not sure which it is? I think maybe both. Let me try to paint you a picture of everyday Charlton Life in the 1950s/60s, a different world from that in which we live in today. 

Charlton Village has not changed that much, a few buildings down here and a few slight changes there, but its basic fabric and character remains the same. The Bugle and Swan are still there thankfully, but they are not the throbbing heart of the village community they once were. It's the people that have radically changed. Social habits, values and attitudes are so different now.

Charlton and the surrounding areas were devastated by the Luftwaffe during the war. My mother told me on one particular day after they had bombed along the river all day they came back again at night to wreak more destruction simply being guided by and bombing the flames. She said it was possible to read a newspaper at the top of Plum Lane in Plumstead at midnight with the light given off by the fires from all along both sides of the Thames. It looked like the whole river was ablaze. The London Docks and The Woolwich Arsenal were always popular targets. They used to lay the dead out for identification in Beresford Square.  I don't think The Valley or Charlton House ever got hit, which is most surprising given the devastation that I witnessed as a small boy with bomb sites everywhere.

Thank heavens the war finished before I was born. I was part of the baby boom following the hostilities as the heroes arrived home. The conflict left a legacy of social upheaval and affected everyday life with shortages and hardship, but everyone knuckled down and accepted their lot and got on with living. Very few people had cars, while television and telephones were an extravagance affordable by only a few. There were no supermarkets, with food bought fresh on a daily basis as nobody had fridges or freezers at home. Butter would be as hard as iron in winter and runny in summer, whilst everyone had fresh milk delivered to the door. Most of us had to put up with no running hot water; boil the kettle on the stove or coal fire for this luxury.

Toilets were mostly outside and I promise you that nobody would linger there very long on a cold winter morning. Toilet paper consisted of yesterday's newspaper, which hurt your bum, and a tin bath in front of a coal fire provided the weekly ablutions. Soap was a carbolic evil-smelling stuff, which all little boys hated. Shampoo stung your eyes and towels were as rough as sandpaper. On winter mornings the frost would have formed on the inside as well as the outside of the windows in your bedroom.

Smog was by far the biggest curse and a danger to life in those days. Houses and factories spewed out thick black smoke from thousands of coal fires. No wonder they called London "The Big Smoke". In winter, a thick fog would descend very quickly and hang over the river and its surrounds. Foghorns would bellow on the Thames as large vessels tried to avoid each other. How dense it was can best be illustrated by the famous incident of Sam Bartram not knowing a game had been called off at HT, and he was standing there in goal peering through the fog while everyone else had retired to the dressing room some time before enjoying their second cup of tea.

Housing was at a premium. There were prefabs in Charlton Park along the Ha Ha Road side, and Cherry Orchard and Springfields Estates of multi-storey flats were being built to accommodate those unfortunates who had been bombed out.  

The local economy boomed in the post-war era due it proximity with the docks across the river, the Dockyard and the Arsenal. There was no such thing as unemployment, with plenty of jobs to go round in this No Work, No Eat society. Most people worked locally in the large factories along the Woolwich Road such as Siemens, Johnson & Phillips Cables, Harvey's, British Ropes etc. 

The Woolwich Arsenal, and numerous other enterprises that revolved around it, employed thousands of people. The Royal Docks across the river were busy with ships from all over the world bringing raw materials to build a broken country. Big barges and tugs would be continuously file up and down the river. It was a hive of activity.

Transport was by Bus, Trolleybus or Tram, but for longer journeys (which were not very often) we took the steam train. I can still remember standing with mates on the footbridge next to the level crossing at the bottom of Charlton Lane waiting to get a gush of steam and smoke as the train whistled by underneath. The Woolwich Ferry with its paddle steamers was constantly going back and forth across the river taking people to and from work.

People worked hard and long hours to put a meal on the table. What little money that could be spared for entertainment was spent either in the pub (beer was cheap in those days), going to the pictures or watching football and other sports. Free entertainment being the best value of all. Charlton Park used to host matches on a Sunday morning. Local league pub side stuff, but I can remember the crowds being four or five deep around the touchline to watch a particularly good game.