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Memories of Stan Hannaford from childhood to becoming a naval officer.
I was born in Brookhill Road in Woolwich in 1923 but I have no real memories of this place. We then moved to 21 Marmadon Road, a terraced house in Plumstead. It had a front door on the pavement with no front garden. It backed onto railway embankment and I remember waving to neighbours going on holiday as the train passed by.
My Grandfather, Tom Chamberlain, lived with us, our neighbours where the Martins. The Woolwich Arsenal was over the back of our house and I remember shells and guns being fired sporadically.
We then moved to 46 Conway Road in Plumstead. This was an end of terrace house with the only entry doors in Ingledew Road. I attended Conway Road School from which I gained a scholarship with entry to a 'secondary school' equal to a grammar school today, I chose Woolwich County School.
I have sketchy memories from this period, which include, in the very early days, wearing Sunday clothes and walking to Plumstead Cemetery as a family and going over the strawberry fields to Welling. I remember walks along the Southern Outfall (known to us as the sewer bank) from near Plumstead Station all the way to Crossness via Abbey Wood with the Ford works at Dagenham dominating the scene.
I remember Shrewsbury Park where you could see almost all of London laid out before you and visits to the cinemas in Plumstead and Woolwich.
There was the AJS and Matchless Motor Cycle factory, which took up a block between Maxey Road and Burrage Road. Every motorcycle that came out of that factory seemed to be road tested and the testers with caps, goggles and clipboards were the envy of many of us.
Beasley's Brewery took up the whole of Brewery Road, Lakedale Road and Conway Road junction. Mulberry trees in the brewery grounds overhung onto Conway Road and would stain the pavement a beautiful shade of purple.
There were various schools - Woolwich County School, Red Lion Lane, Woolwich and Shooters Hill School - now Eaglesfield School. There were sports grounds at Avery Hill, Footscray Road and Eltham.
At the age of fourteen I decided that Latin, French etc. was not fitting me to earn a living (what did I know) so I arranged to leave school. This was one of several choices which determined my future and I sometimes wonder where staying on would have led, but I have no regrets.
I did not just leave school and hope but had already been offered a place in the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society, which had numerous branches in South East London. Not exactly a high profile position, my first task was polishing the brass weights used throughout the Lakedale Road Branch.
If I thought I was through with learning I was wrong as each of us new entries had to attend 'day continuation school' for double entry book keeping, shop practice and commodities etc. and we all signed up for night school to further this.
At that time you had to know something about what you were selling, hence the commodities - the difference between Darjeeling Tips and Orange Pekoe and so on.
The shop was located from Lakedale Road to The Links on Plumstead Common - quite a department store for those days. I have memories of selling eggs out front with snow on them - eggs were loose and put into simple paper bags. Paper tickets were exchanged for tin checks, which in turn were exchanged for higher denominations for which eventually the customer claimed dividend.
Grocery orders could be delivered. Lists of provisions were written on a special list, and we would go out on the trade bicycle on a selected round to collect these orders. There were harsh words when the Divi was down.
These orders were assembled and packed into neat brown paper parcels eventually to be delivered by a horse drawn wagon driven by Jack Warner.
There was a basement under the grocery shop with a rope-driven lift. Down in the basement sides of bacon were boned and us lowly ones got the sugar detail. There was hardly any pre-packing then and sugar was weighed out in the basement from a wooden trough and our job was to open up blue bags and scoop in as near as you could, two pounds of sugar.
These bags were then picked up by an irascible gentleman opposite with hand-held scales with a little scoop like a shoehorn to make an exact two pounds, and woe betide you if he had to add or take out more than the tiniest amount. It was half-day closing on a Thursday and it was open until late Saturday and all for 12s 6d a week.
This branch of the Co-operative had a turret clock driven by weights, which had to be wound up to the top regularly. The clock was looked after by a man known only as Ticky and one unfortunate youngster would be detailed to go up and wind these weights. There was terribly low gearing so you seemed to have to wind forever and there were weights for the bells as well as for the actual clock.
I remember names from the store - George Bush, Jack Creed, Percival, Tommy Trayler and the branch manager Mr Prigmore.
A favourite haunt was a cafe in Plumstead Common Road where I went with my contemporaries and it was there I got the name Danny. The name Hannaford is often misspelled as Hanniford, although I have never come across one spelled this way, and just as often mis-pronounced so Hanniford became Danniford, which became Danny.
Other favourite haunts were Rileys Billiard Hall under Woolwich covered market with Eddie Bone, a mate from Majendie Road - he was later on HMS Penelope and I heard he later emigrated to Australia.
The Common was not short of pubs and there used to be a rhyme about them that went something like - 'The Ship' that never sailed the seas, 'The Star' that never shone, 'The Woodman' that never felled a tree and so on, ending with and 'Who'd a thought it'.
September 1939 came along and after a deal of thought I decided to follow in my father's footsteps and went to join the Navy - I did not want to be in the Army!
The recruiting station was at the Yorkshire Grey on Westhorne Avenue where I was told 'Push off sonny and comeback when you are old enough' and then 'On second thoughts we could take you if you join the regular navy as a boy and sign up for twelve years as from the age of eighteen' - and that is what I did.
Stan Hannaford, 2001
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