A Green Childhood in 1940s London

Waterwheel on the River Wandle, Merton Abbey, Surrey UK

No, this is not Hobbiton!
but Merton in SouthWest London,
close to where I was born.

If you're in a hurry, skip the text & just use the links & your back button for a pictorial tour

People who do not know London, but have read their Dickens, may be surprised to learn just how much open space there has always been in this huge city. In spite of heavy pollution from both human and industrial waste and by-products, grass, trees and shrubs somehow survived. Common Land had been protected from Enclosure by it's urban location, and the various Royal parks covered a huge acreage. The ancient Inns of Court also had their historic green preserves. In Georgian times many of the well-known Squares were developed as part of extensive building programmes. As industrialisation increased, the necessity for recreational space was recognised by many Victorian reformers, and as housing estates ate up the surrounding countryside, more parks and recreation grounds were established, and street trees planted. Garden Suburbs were planned, and one of the first, at Merton Park near Wimbledon, being built by John Innes, a property developer now principally remembered for compost, and his contributions to horticulture.

My childhood was far from idyllic, since I was born just long enough before the start of WW2 to be able to read and understand what was happening, but not long enough before to recall what it was like to live in peacetime. My entire education and upbringing was war-related, and I could only understand life, and the human race, in those terms.
(For more about the nuts and bolts of my wartime childhood, see my WW2 Links page)
But in the world of nature I found solace, as long as I could be alone with it. Human beings, even my Grandfather and Mother, both of whom were very much in tune with nature, and who were responsible for my early exposure to it's healing powers, seemed interlopers, and whenever I was taken to a green place, I would run as far away from people as I could possibly get.

Some of my earliest memories are of watching the leaves, from my horizontal position, both on the one tree in our small garden in Tooting, and as my pram was wheeled through tree-lined streets. I could just walk on the summer day when Mum and Dad took me on their tandem bicycle to BELMONT, or Banstead Downs. I travelled on a cushion strapped to the crossbar, in front of Dad! But what I remember most, with constant delight, is staggering through flowering grasses and wildflowers as high as my head. I was so small I didn't need to shrink!

Another place which made a very deep impression on me was Hilly Fields, and I was delighted to find a webpage which described this historic reserve in the very year my Mother took me there - 1941.
Click this picture for further information about Hilly Fields and it's current status.
I only recall going there once, and have no idea why we went so far for a picnic. But I do remember Mum showing me - and impressing upon me not to pick - the various wildflowers. There were Lady's Slippers, Purple Vetch, Red Clover, Buttercups, and Daisies. And clouds of butterflies, especially the tiny blue ones, and Red Admirals.

My mother's parents had lived in the Merton Park Conservation area for several year's when I was born - my parents were married in St.MARY's CHURCH, where Admiral Nelson is buried - and Grandpa was an inspirational gardener and committed conservationist. He had a key to THE WATERMEADS Reserve, and on our frequent family visits he would take me there, if he wasn't busy working in and showing me the secrets of his own lovely garden. To a small child a more magical environment than The Watermeads is hard to imagine! A larger picture is found below the River Graveney picture linked further down this page.
Another place which captured my imagination was nearby RAVENSBURY PARK.

I was often taken to the small pond on Tooting Bec Common, to sail my red toy yacht, and I remember having my photograph taken with a box camera, while we picnicked in the shade of the hawthorns near the running track.
A favourite shorter walk was up to the Tennis Courts and green at the top of our street, where there was an anti-aircraft gun emplacement in the early 1940s, and then onto "The Rec"
A journey through Tooting's Greenery

Not too long after the start of the war, Grandpa retired, and my grandparents moved to Carshalton to be close to their son, who was also a keen and intelligent gardener. My uncle was working on essential services, so was required to stay and work in London throughout the war. They each bought a house in the same attractive cul-de-sac which had it's own minature village green. The location was extremely green, with huge gardens at both front and rear of each house, and the vacant land at the rear was divided into allotments.
(See GRANDPA'S VICTORY GARDEN for more about what they did there)

An elderberry tree in full bloom shades a path leading to the River Wandle
When we were bombed out we had to live with my grandparents in Carshalton until our house was eventually rebuilt after the war. MANY URBAN WILD SPACES then became accessible.
Until his death in April 1945, Grandpa often took me to them. He shared my love of the hidden wild places, of which there were many, as well as large formal parks & gardens.
Grandpa understood just how essential it was for a child to be able to explore these places alone, and would keep a discreet distance while I imagined myself living in the wildwood. Another distinct advantage of being bombed out and living with Gran and Grandpa, (from my point of view) was that I was now considered old enough, and the area 'nice' enough, for me to be allowed to play in the street and on nearby vacant land. And the fact that my Grandfather was already terminally ill, and my mother in very poor health, meant that supervision was sketchy at best. It was easy to disappear to the nearby banks of the RIVER WANDLE and then to find my way to Wilderness Island. Sometimes, if Dad was at work, and everyone was busy, or in a good mood, I would even get permission to 'go fishing'. They thought I was with the neighbours' children, but I always went by myself. As long as I wasn't too late for meals, nobody worried about me - they had much greater concerns. Occasionally I would bring home tadpoles, or a disgruntled stickleback, in my jam-jar, but more often I would simply watch the many fascinating creatures to be found in the clear shallow water, laying on my stomach on the bank. This stretch of the Wandle was comparatively unpolluted even then. Further downstream, once the river reached the industrial areas, the pollution was shocking. It's wonderful to see that all this has now been cleaned up, and the natural environment of the river restored.
Even school was green here - the playgrounds at my first school were typical of the L.C.C. with high walls and bitumen surfaces, more like a prison! Here there were real playing fields, with acres of grass, fences you could see through, and TREES!

When we returned to Tooting I was a couple of years older, and had a baby sister, so I had a great deal more freedom than before we had been bombed out. Provided that I told people where I was going, and I was back by an appointed time, no-one bothered about me much. And once out the door, I wasn't too particular about sticking to my official destination!
The place had changed considerably because of the bombs. Our house was now the last one in the terrace, the others having been damaged beyond repair by 'our' bomb. The same bomb had destroyed all the houses between our street and the next, and all those across the main road opposite. One of my first discoveries was that you could get to the RIVER GRAVENEY, a tributary of the Wandle, because of the gap. As you can see from the photo, it was, and is now, completely enclosed and built up, with no easy public access. But for a number of years it was possible to climb down the iron ladder and explore.
I had to return to my old primary school for about a year and a half, a walk of almost a mile if you took the most direct route, past the tennis courts, and then the College, with it's wonderful flowering cherries in early summmer, and the weeping willow hanging over the fence almost down to the ground. But if you went the long way round, you could go through "The Rec.", and then stop at several small bomb sites on the way. These sites were smothered in unrestrained greenery all through the summer - not just weeds, but plants and trees from the original gardens, which had somehow recovered, and were thriving. They became my very own "secret gardens" and I spent much longer than I should have in them, when I should have been going to school.
Then, of course, there was the wonderland of Tooting Bec Common which has always been a haven for the naturalist. I had no camera, and never could draw anything recognisable, but I was happy just to climb a tree, or sit under a bush, and watch quietly, sometimes for hours. One of my favourite spots was the beech grove by the Park Cafe. I often collected beechmast in the autumn, and made it into jewellery, and I still recall my wonder and delight when I discovered a huge beefsteak fungus growing on one of the trees.
Thirty years later, during a brief return from Australia, I had the privilege of taking my youngest daughter to this spot, where she sat as quietly as I had, and we saw several red squirrels.
There's a lot to see in wild Tooting! - and that's just the places closest to me. I didn't get as far as the other side of Tooting, as it was much further from home, and nearby possibilities and discoveries seemed inexhaustible.

Even the street trees had their fascination in those days, before the advent of DDT. The colourful caterpillars of the Sycamore Moth could be found in season on the tree outside outside our house, after it had recovered from the bomb blast which had had stripped the leaves, but once insecticides came into regular household use, they disappeared.

When I was able to venture further from home on my own, I tended to go South rather than West, and so I discovered and spent time wandering the huge expanse of MITCHAM COMMON.
After I started High School, in Streatham, I discovered STREATHAM COMMON - web address http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/lambeth/streatham/streatham-common.htm and THE ROOKERY. But the best and wildest places were Tooting Common, and, when we visited Grandma in Carshalton, Wilderness Island, to which I escaped as soon, if not before, as was polite.

I feel I had a privileged early childhood, and a wonderful informal education which has greatly enriched much of what I learnt at school, and proved of lasting value.
To all the visionaries, social, and environmental pioneers, both past and present, acknowledged or unknown, whose work contributed to this, I am deeply grateful.

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A Green Childhood in 1940s London

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