I was visiting relatives in Petts Wood last week. Actually carrying my mother's suitcases, being a good son, and that she can't lift heavy objects due to muscle tissue being removed through cancer operations ( a genetically hereditary form of cancer, more on that another time) and because my beloved sister Bernadette Bazzoni cannot do it as she was murdered (LOTS more on that at a later date). And was reminded of
I had a slightly unusual childhood in that much of it was divided into multiple concurrent locations:
Sidcup (home) which was above Kennards hairdressers on Main Road opposite Leslies freezer shop.
St Pauls Wood where my maternal grandfather lived, & where I would spend many a weekend
Wapping- where my sister and her mother lived & many of dad's fellow Cockney relatives. Here I would spend every other weekend
Peckham - maternal relatives lived & my mother & I would be in Peckham at least once a week outside of school terms
Norwich- maternal grandmother and her Spiritualist Church organ playing. Chunks of school holidays
Alfriston- One of the places my father was evacuated to & he maintained a close link, which was fantastic as it remains a fantastic rural idyll.
Algeria, Tunisia- repeatedly reminded my parents that I was too young to remember being there, which was very annoying in missing out on such a valuable cultural experience, more so as later the peace & beauty of Algeria was ripped asunder by a brutal and bloody civil war.
The point to all this reminiscing is that I have often wished I grew up in a more vibrant, artistic & spiritual environs. But of the ones I did experience, Sidcup does a special significance.
The town still had a throw back to an earlier time, probably still Edwardian, especially noticeable in the autumn and once the leaves had died, gathered into auburn piles starting to rot in the foggy autumnal air, Sidcup came into its own, it seemed suited to that season. Whereas summer time had a vitality which Sidcup couldn't match.
