Talk:Petts Wood

I added some information yesterday about places of worship in Petts Wood and I notice that it has been removed without explanation. It seems a perfectly normal thing to write about, so I've put most of it back. If it shouldn't be included, please explain why and I'll take it out again. regards Andy

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—Preceding unsigned comment added by Andy1971 (talk • contribs) 11:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

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During the 1990s the area declared its independance and gained UN recognition as the Peoples Republic Of Petts Wood, with the parliament meeting in Morrsions, before the ill fated invasion of Orpingtion (1999) resulted in the defeat on Croften Lane (near the Cost-Cutter) and the disasterous retreat back into Sparrow Woods, despite heroic resistance the UK forces overran the Republic and political and military collapes resulted in the end of the new nation. Petts Wood has attmepted to gain gradual, consitional reform and a parliament was established in 2004. Since then Petts Wood has began a space program and established several North American colonies.

I don't know who added the above, but I thought it was quite funny. So I've put it here instead.

De Gaulle in Petts Wood

I have elaborated on De Gaulle's period of residence during Second World War exile, dating it to 1940, cited to a Shropshire newspaper. I omitted to log in so it initially did not bear my user name - I have since rephrased the sentence, having remembered to log in. The account of his places of exile was in a Shropshire newspaper whose sub headline to the story on his reported death was headed 'The year of exile in Salop', which I hasten to point out for French users/readers was a (non-obscene) colloquial name for Shropshire.Cloptonson (talk) 19:43, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Cited the Keith Waterhouse Reference

I got hold of his book and found the quote. There's a lot more in there, he talks about newspapermen (and they were all men) having "Petts Wood marriages" where the wife very rarely saw her husband both awake and sober. Farcical anecdotes of a rather seaside-postcard nature are retold. He never lived there himself.

Question

Why did Petts Wood have an all-night train service?

Sources and personal testimony

I was born and raised in Petts Wood between 1955 and 1983.

A History of Petts Wood was published in several editions by the Residents Association. The author was Peter Waymark, a Times Journalist. The town is remarkable as an instance of 1930s urban development. It started as a railway station and two estate agents, still there, in cabins on the top end of the Station Square. The first road, Fairway, ran parallel with the railway on the far side of the square, continuing in a huge loop within the lines of the railway to connect with the original Crofton Lane. On the southern corner of the square lay the Dunstonian Garage, on the north, a hardware merchants, in the middle a pub, The Daylight Inn, on the east side, a line of shops. An Express Dairy dairy delivery depot was next to the garage. The bombs dropped demolished a few houses on the railway side of Fairway, now occupied by some small shops, including a Chinese restaurant, on the southern edge of the shops. As described, the next was on the site now used as the library, and the third in the scrubland behind. The Waymark text omits them from the map, but lists a good many more.

The reason Petts Wood was successful was the choice of railway services, particularly into the small hours of the morning, attracting the attention of journalists and the performing arts, both of whom needed trains later than the usual 1030 departures from the centee of town. An additional bonus was that both Victoria and Charring Cross were served, the latter picking up Waterloo and London Bridge. It was arguably the first 24-hour service, as the first milk train was at 0430! Yet the only bus service was the 161 to Chiselhurst and Woolwich: to get to Orpington, you walked, a muddy experience alongside farmland, or to Bromley, to the A21, equally far. Or caught the train, an expensive exercise, and awkward with a pram: the luggage crossings at rail level were much in use.

Although Waymark describes coal deliveries coming from further afield, he's wrong: the railway had coal staithes behind Fairway, which they would replenish in the wee small hours after services finished. Between the hooting of a steam engine and clatter of coal, we wouldn't get much sleep those nights, I'm still a five hor a day man. I used the time reading, at first from the original library, with bookshelves on every flat wall surface, and then in the new library: I'd an advanced readers card aged seven, and took my full quota of textbooks every Saturday. 9 books a week! And not kids texts either. Rationing continued until 1955, but it's systems continued: you dropped off an order and took what was delivered, with no choice of suppliers. It made for a discontented client base, which left as soon as a Spar supermarket opened a few doors away. Then the Embassy became a modern medium-sized store, and a delicatessen on the top end of Petts Wood Road. Why's there no road bridge? Because it would shift traffic away from the shops, something the developers hated. Mind you, it gave us some interesting moments at the far end of Fairway, as cars would turn the corner and misjudge the angle - it's about 75° - and demolish our front fence. As we grew, Dad took proutective measures, with a strategically-placed rockery in the front corner to launch the more rapid offenders intto the air to nail themselves on a line of cut-off fence posts just beyond. It invoked a guardian angel, as nobody ever came that way again!

That doesn't mean Petts Wood was devoid of personalities. From Sir Geraint Evans to the hearily loathed Charles de Gaule, i had on one side of me the Duke of Norfolk's nanny and on the other, a Bermondsey docker, with his cockney Rom wife. You don't get a much broader gamut of kids to play with than England's premier peer and it's first Licensed Conveyancer! My rugrat mates went on to create the ubiquitous Centronics computer printer plug, and the first digital knitting machine (Brother met Meccano!), and I was their worthy peer.

The Dunstonian was also the owner of two veteran cars dating from the 1890s, regulars in the London-Brighton car rally. We'd also occasionally get steam traction engines pass, and one memorable Sunday, the entire stock of steam railway engines from across the south of England passed, on their way to the breakers at Ashford.

That's Petts Wood for you - a country village surrounded by towns now, but protected by railway main lines. It produces excellence as a result: it's music shop, tucked away in the oddest shack imaginable, might see Bavid Bowie, Kate Bush, Emma Johnson, all looking for something! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.9.39.250 (talk) 18:34, 3 October 2021 (UTC)