Document six

Memories of a Dartford childhood in the 1930s

I attended Heath Street school, which was considered a good school, giving a good grounding in basic subjects. The windows were high so we could never look out of them, and the toilets were across the playground, so whatever the weather we had to go outside - very cold in winter! We shared double seats for lessons with tip up seats, lift up lids and inkwells which had to be filled every day. Our books were kept in wooden boxes. We were taught to knit by Miss. Thomson.

While I was there I caught Diphtheria and was removed to the isolation hospital in Bow Arrow Lane where we were not allowed visitors. Our parents had to leave parcels at the doorway. The food was not very appetizing so my mother used to bring eggs, homebaked cake and fruit which a nurse cooked in the ward kitchen. Heating was by a big black encased fire in the middle of the ward.

We lived in Maple Road, my parents being the first tenants. It was mid-terrace with three bedrooms; the kitchen had a white sink with a wooden draining board, a gas boiler for washing and a gas cooker which we only used for heating - my mum used to light the oven and open the door.

The bathroom had a toilet with overhead cistern and a bath which only had a cold water tap. Hot water for baths was heated in the gas boiler and bucketed upstairs. The living room had a 'kitchener' which was used for heating, cooking, and baking; the fire which had a nursery guard round it was always alight. We were considered lucky, as New Town (at the top of East Hill) still had houses with earth floors, no gas or electricity, no bathrooms, only an outside toilet, and sometimes gas lights downstairs and candles upstairs. Tin baths were hung on an outside wall and brought in to bath in front of the fire.

Our back garden in Maple Road was for vegetables, we played in the alleyway. A hawthorn hedge backed on to a golf course where we had our den. As we got older we played in the streets - skipping, roller skates, hop scotch, hide-and-seek. We never saw a car, it was mostly horses and carts.

At the end of the alleyway was a hut which sold all the day-to-day needs, sugar, tea etc. We only went to town once a week, which was so different from today with lots of small shops. My treat in the market was a penny slice of pineapple when it was in season.

In the 1930s the River Darent would flood. My mother had friends living in the row of cottages behind Dartford church facing the Darent - who used to get flooded out.

Local industries were the Paper Mills, Halls (lifts etc.), flour mills, 'Gelstons' (motor engineering), Burroughs and Wellcome etc., but even so there was a lot of unemployment, some only working three days a week. To help with money, my mother worked in the fields in the summer, picking peas, fruit and hops. I remember the cold tea - it was hot when it was put into the bottle but always cold by the time we drank it.

On Saturdays there was a lantern show at Westgate Road School for the children and there were film shows at the cinema if you could afford it. Sunday mornings it was Sunday School. The local children were sent to Mrs. Bates, a Salvation Army lady, who held classes in her house in Hazel Road. They called us 'Sunbeams'. We used to sing 'Jesus wants me for a sunbeam to sing and dance each day'. We had days out by train, going to Southend, and going to concerts at the Citadel. We got books as prizes for attendance.

Sunday afternoon was the time to go for a walk as a family, mostly to the Heath where there would be cricket in summer, football in winter. The grown ups would watch the games while we played, then a short walk to the Horse and Groom public house where they had tables outside so we could sit and have a lemonade before walking home.

ANONYMOUS REMINISCENCE OF LIFE IN DARTFORD IN THE 1930s
REPRODUCED IN 'A DECADE OF CHANGE: DARTFORD IN THE 1930s
KENT WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION, DARTFORD, 1995.