O dear -- I've never been much good at smiling in photographs..........

(1) We lived at 27 Lewis Trust Buildings, Walham Green, London SW6 from about 1936 until the 1960s.

(2) I can remember that all our coal was delivered by horse-drawn carts, enormous great beasts, and can definitely remember getting an almighty great clip round the ear from a coalman one time for daring to dodge under the horses' bellies. What these horses drank I've no idea, because quite early in the war they took away the great big trough I used to play in outside the gates; it was marked 'Metropolitan Horse and Cattle Trough Association'. They also sawed off and took away all the cast-iron railings from around the buildings.

Another significant happening was when they built the air-raid shelter for our block - a paradise of sand and bricks for as lads to play in of an evening! Health and Safety? - forget it!!!

(3) Occasionally during the war I bought off-ration 2-pennorth of 'spanish wood' (twigs from a liquorish plant) and 'camel beans' (dried pods of carob - tasted sweet but smelled of dung) from Mrs Haines in Vanston Place. She was small and round and had a tiny shop with a farm half-door and bulls-eye windows. Probably one of the original cottages in that area.

Tom Holloway

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