3. Outside (Back)

Shooters Hill photographed from Eltham Green in 2014

The view from the seventh floor reveals a 360 degree panorama of south London, an urban landscape that includes hills (Eltham Hill, Shooters Hill), woods (Oxleas Woods, Castle Wood, Jack Wood), open spaces, parks and sports grounds (Sutcliffe Park, Queenscroft Recreation Ground, Middle Park Field, Eltham Green). Also visible are Eltham Palace and Eltham Church. Vast acres of private and council housing stretch south east towards New Eltham, Sidcup and Bexley; and north west towards Lewisham, New Cross and Camberwell. 

Eltham Palace photographed from Eltham Green in 2014

We lived in Woolacombe Road, close to the Rochester Way, about half an hour's walk from Eltham Green. For an eleven year old, this was a significant distance and my brother and I never settled on a best route. 


The main options were to catch the 108A bus from the stop opposite the Dover Patrol, ride to Well Hall, then trudge towards

Dover Patrol (off Rochester Way)

Eltham Hill via Sherard Road and Prince John Road. The alternative was to cross the Rochester Way (not the new A2) and walk down Birdbrook Road and Eltham Green Road. Sometimes we tried the route past Kidbrooke Station and the wooden RAF buildings, since demolished to make way for the Ferrier Estate, itself now bulldozed. This meant traipsing round two sides of the Sutcliffe Park railings, with the school's blue lift towers seemingly no nearer.

Ten Shilling Note (withdrawn)

There was an incentive to walk. Mother gave us ten shillings per week (50 pence in today's money), allowing 1/- (shilling) per day for lunch, 6d (half a shilling) for the daily bus fares and 2/6 (two shillings and 6d) for pocket money. Today you would need at least £20 a week to meet these costs.  

The quirks of the journey, especially the relatively long walk, separated the school from our home territory. We used to play on Blackheath and from 1957 were regulars at the Valley, supporters of Charlton Athletic in the era of Billy Bonds, Peter Reeves (also Eltham Green pupils) and Eddie Firmani (ex-Sampdoria). We bought toys at Raggedy Ann's in Blackheath Village. But Eltham seemed a remote place and we visited only when Mother insisted on a trip to Hinds' department store, usually to kit us out with school uniform.

Eltham Green photographed in 1988 - the craft workshops are on
the right of the entrance road where the railings end

The grounds were extensive and were divided by buildings and paths into well-marked areas that created different impressions and atmospheres. The school seemed smaller, more functional and more ordinary from the Middle Park Avenue entrance (above). 

On the way home after my first day, a rough-seeming youth knocked the cap from my head on this very spot. There was an outside toilet somewhere nearby. I remember an apparently crazed individual bursting in on me there shouting: 'Stand up, turn round and let's see your old jam roll!' After that shock, I squeezed my buttock cheeks tight rather than visit the school toilets. 

Lower Ground Floor Piazza photographed c. 1970 (LMA)

The main playgrounds faced towards Middle Park Avenue. There were sheltered piazzas and trees with circular wooden seats around them on either side of the Assembly Hall. Nearby, in the lower ground floor lobby, a tuck shop sold ice cream and sweets. Tennis courts were placed between the school's five gymnasia (see below) and doubled as football pitches at break and lunchtime. 

Tennis Courts at Eltham Green, photographed in 1988

I did not like being outside and started to join clubs and societies that met indoors at lunch time. I played little football with the other boys but remember that there was no organiser and no picking of teams. You just joined in by sticking out a foot and propelling a tennis ball towards the goal, usually marked with a jacket or two. 

There were other, less wholesome games. Hidden from patrolling teachers in shady corners, groups would gather to flip penny coins against a gym wall. The owner of the penny closest to the lowest bricks would scoop the pool. For a while I was addicted, and would hazard my bus fare in a vain effort to recoup my losses. We also played odd man out, tossing coins and hoping that our head would collect the tails, or vice versa.

Pre-Decimal Pennies

Despite my schoolboy impersonation of the ten stone weakling in the Charles Atlas advertisements, I could be bold, especially with quick retorts that a wiser person would have stifled. Once, when I was walking through the tennis courts, a rocker-like apparition shouted at me from the other side of the high wire fence. 'Who are you looking at, son?' he hollered. I considered myself well-protected by the wire and calculated that if he came after me there would be plenty of time to run for safety. 'You mate!' I chirped, returning his gaze.

I was wrong. His hands grasped the wire and his feet found purchase in the mesh. He shinned up the fence in a few seconds and dropped upon me while I stood amazed by his agility. He shoved me hard down on the tarmac and gave me a forceful warning against cheeking my elders. 

Netball in the Sixties

This photograph (left) is the nearest I can come to the sports pavilion, site of incidents that linger in my memory long after the destruction of the building itself. Approximately 15 metres to the right of the gymnasium (bottom right of the photo) there was a long hedge that marked the boundary with the school's playing fields (see Outside: Front). There was a path from the gymnasium entrance (out of view, front of building) to a wooden sports pavilion beyond the hedge, on the perimeter of the field.  

I remember still the smell of dry pavilion timber, lingering in the air. I remember bright September sun and drops of moisture glistening on spiders' webs. I remember boys capturing daddy long legs and thrusting them towards girls who ran away, but not very far. Eventually we summoned the juvenile cruelty to pull off their wings. 

I remember, in particular, watching a group of boys two years senior to me play a game of break time cricket near the pavilion. Holding an absurdly small, if not miniature bat, was Conal Condren, a polio victim whose deft footwork and careful defensive

Conal Condren, painted by Jean Pretorius

shot were not impeded by the caliper supporting his weakened leg. 
Conal was initially placed in the C stream at EGS, perhaps because polio had disrupted his schooling. He had to work his way up through the forms, but no one who knew him doubted his quizzical, sceptical intelligence. After Eltham Green he completed a PhD at the London School of Economics and became a professor at the University of New South Wales. He is a leading authority on Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan.