Cornbury Road was a street of mice-ridden houses scarred by Luftwaffe bombing when Freddie Alliston was born there in 1950, but those bomb sites (dumps) that surrounded his house were Fred’s playground – and all part of an enjoyable childhood.
Fred was born into a typical Bermondsey household; his dad was a dockworker all his life and his mum worked in local factories. Like many people of that era, their jobs were within walking distance of the family home.
“Mum was a nurse in the war,” Fred emphasised, “and Dad started off as a docker then trained to be a stevedore… he wouldn’t let any of us boys go in the dock, though,” he adds.
Fred remembers with joy the times spent playing on the dumps but when he was six, Bermondsey Borough Council decided the houses had to go and
a new estate be built – Silwood.
The redevelopment of the local streets of terraced houses opened up new avenues of fun for Freddie and his mates: “We’d get the nightwatchman to chase us and then run upstairs in the new buildings and jump off the first floor into the pile of builders’ sand to escape.” He laughs at the memory.
The Allistons were the very first family to move on to the new Silwood Estate and that upgrade meant a flushing inside toilet, a garden and no mice. Their new home was 1 Sketchley Gardens, and living amid a huge building site gave ample opportunity for some light-fingered skulduggery.
Freddie and his friends took all the doors out of the hundreds of old houses awaiting demolition and built a three-storey camp on the dump where his neighbours once lived.
Dad, however, had more lucrative plans. Mr Alliston purloined new paving stones from the numerous stacks of them in the redevelopment and paved over his garden, which was basically a rectangle of earth awaiting new, green-fingered tenants to turn into their own little paradise.
Alas, the councilman, noticing the reduction in his stock, looked over the garden wall and saw half the new builds with paved-over backyards. They had to be returned.
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Between raiding council stocks, the family looked forward to a trip to Kent every year to pick the hops. They last went in 1968 when Paddock Wood was flooded, and they had to be rescued from the farm by a big tractor.
Pretty much everyone on the new estate went to Rotherhithe New Road School, just a few minutes walk away, but Freddie didn’t care for it much, nor his second school, Credon Road Boys’ School – “I didn’t like being told what to do so bunked off a lot and went around Southwark Park”.
Fred cared more for playing out with mates: “We used to like Knock Down Ginger, Tin Tan Tommy, or kicking a ball up the wall until my dad told us to eff off, but most of the time we built camps.”
One of young Freddie’s favourite pastimes was Saturday Morning Pictures at the Regal on the Old Kent Road: “We used to come out of there making out we were Hopalong Cassidy riding his horse.”
Fred finished school at 15 and first worked at Garners in Grange Road: “I worked on a machine spraying all the leather,” he recalls, “but after a couple of years it shut down and I got a job at Rocola.”
Rocola was a shirt-making factory on Bolina Road that employed many locals, but this was not a happy place for young Freddie. He says: “I got the sack after a week for knocking someone out!”
Being a band-knife cutter meant a lot of concentration as the sharp blade whizzed around cutting out collars, so when someone tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, Fred ignored it. A more forceful tap became too much for this teenager, who forgot the health and safety advice from the boss and one-punched the offender behind him. The foreman.
A job in the woodyard in Raymouth Road was short-lived (“too cold”) and like most young men from that area of SE16, he spent some of his working life in the boneyard in Jarrow Road, a workplace whose aroma of dead animals wafted right through Silwood Estate in the summer months. He also worked as a dustman on the council.
Another job ended abruptly when someone took umbrage to Fred’s broom sweeping around their feet, so he hit them with it… However, he was happy and trouble-free working as security at BT because it was good money for easy work. Eventually, Fred settled down into lorry driving.
Having settled employment was crucial because by now Freddie had met Linda, the girl of his dreams, at a party. After initial problems, he managed to convince her father that he was an honourable man and in 1968 the lovely couple were wed, with their reception in the estate tenants’ hall.
The new Mr and Mrs Alliston would drink in the local pubs, but not too much as they started their family early. Holiday camps and camping holidays were a big favourite and ideal for what eventually became a family of six (two boys and two girls).
These days they live in Blackfen, and I did not have to ask if they were happy because I could see that they still laugh a lot after 55 years together.
I asked Freddie for any final thoughts: “I had a great childhood growing up on the Silwood, but the greatest thing about Bermondsey is the people; everyone stood together.”
