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I've just heard about this website from our IT support chap, Steve Shaw. I grew up at No 3 Lowther Hill, just off Brockley Rise. My father was the GP. He had taken over his father's practice when he returned from war, having been a POW of the Japanese on the Burma Railway. My grandfather died in 1946. My grandparents lived at No 1 Lowther Hill and the Surgery was at the back with its own entrance. My father practised out of the same surgery. My mother helped run the practice, taking calls etc. She was a trained nurse and midwife so she had some medical knowledge. I was telling Steve today about the tram that ran along Brockley Rise. I don't know when it stopped. I remember the great smogs that sometimes occurred in the winter months. The smog was yellowy and smelt of sulphur. There was a doll's hospital on the road up to Forest Hill where I took my dolls to mended. We often visited the Horniman Museum, and watched the clock strike. My brother went to a primary school in Honor Oak Road, I'll find out the name of the woman who ran it. We left Lowther Hill when I was 12. My father gave up General Practice and we moved to Sussex. My grandmother remained in Forest Hill, living in a flat near the Horniman Museum until she was 90 something. We used to go to the movies at the Capitol cinema as children.
I wish we still had trams - they are so efficient compared to buses. A surgery on Lowther Hill would be good too to save trekking along to the Jenner Surgery on the corner of Brockley Road/Stansted Road. Lowther Hill probably hasn't changed much since you lived here except for the increase in the number of cars around. Did you play on Blythe Hill Fields?
I love reading about what this area was like in days gone by.
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