Saturday 29 June 1946
The Sphere
Jet propulsion goes afloat
Prelude to a trial on the tideway
Mr R. M. Parkinson, a former Rolls-Royce engineer, tried an outboard motor fitted with a jet engine on the Thames at Kew. The paper says the motor runs for three and a half hours on about one gallon of petrol, will drive a boat or punt at up to 8 m.p.h. in tideless water, and is to be priced at £42.
A closely-guarded secret of the war at sea
The U.S. Navy’s device for magnetically finding and tracking enemy submarines
Bell Telephone Laboratories and the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory developed a missile, towed under an aircraft, which goes into action of its own accord against surface and underwater craft inside its magnetic range. The same gear has a peacetime use in prospecting, and more than 40,000 square miles in the United States and Alaska have already been surveyed.
Labour-saving in the Senior Service
A sailor is shown trying an electrical deck-scrubber in H.M.S. Theseus, the light fleet carrier. The machine scrubs and cleans at the same time and can do the work of ten men.
An important addition to London’s collier fleet
The S.S. Chessington, of the Wandsworth and District Gas Company, is described as the largest vessel to pass the Thames bridges. The flat-iron collier carries 2,700 tons of coal from the Durham coalfields, is nearly 260 ft long, lowers her funnel and telescopes her masts under the bridges, and has sloping wing ballast tanks so the cargo slides in towards the grabs. She had just finished her maiden voyage up to Westminster. The drawing is by S. E. Beck.
Saturday 2 November 1946
The Sphere
Keeping the Severn Tunnel in working order
Keeping the Severn at bay
Roof-tapping gangs are shown mounting diesel wagons for one of the ten or twelve inspection days held each year in the Severn Tunnel, built in 1886 and still the longest railway tunnel in the country. About 20,000,000 gallons a day are pumped, most of it from the Great Spring, which is diverted into a sump and lifted 140 ft to the surface.
The last word in “flat irons”
The 1,780-ton coasting collier Mitcham, the Wandsworth Gas Company’s new ship, is pictured on the Thames at Wandsworth after the fifteen bridges up from the estuary. She has a squat funnel, so it need not be lowered, and collapsible masts stepped down into the holds, and she is a close relation of the Chessington shown on 29 June.
Polishing up the Lord Mayor’s coach
The gilded coach, the centre of many pre-war Lord Mayor’s Shows, is being got ready for the inauguration of Sir Bracewell Smith on 9 November. The procession is to return to its pre-war glory, with contingents from the Services and an industrial tableau.
Obedience tests at Imber Court
London policemen are training dogs which are to have everyday duties with the Force. Each man keeps his own dog. The dogs, mostly about eighteen months old and bought from Yorkshire farms, take a two-month course in ignoring game and following human scent, and are to start in south-western London.
Thursday 28 November 1946
Lavender days recalled
Death of Mrs G. E. Armfield
Love and lavender
Gift to parish church
The funeral of Mrs Gertrude Elizabeth Armfield, 82, formerly of Mitcham, who died at Dartford, took place at Mitcham Parish Churchyard on Tuesday. She was a daughter of James Bridger, the lavender grower and lord of the manor, whose farm ran from behind the Swan in London Road to Tooting Junction. In 1937 she gave the parish church a silver communion cup and paten in memory of the Bridger and Armfield families. The Rev. G. Lubbock, vicar of Mitcham, took the service.
Friday 6 December 1946
The News
Uncertain of its future
British Home for Incurables
At the 65th annual meeting, Col. W. Churchill Hale, president of the British Home and Hospital for Incurables, Crown Lane, Streatham, said the Minister had not yet decided what he would do with homes like theirs under the new Bill. There was a waiting list of 36. Rear-Admiral F. R. Goodwin and Mr F. N. Hoare both hoped the home would be allowed to go on running itself, and Mr Hoare said the voluntary work in Streatham would carry on whatever happened.
The first duty of mankind
Message of South London Liberal Jews
Gift to Miss Montagu
The Rev. Leslie I. Edgar, at a service for the twentieth anniversary of the South London Liberal Jewish Congregation at the Liberal Synagogue, Streatham, said the world’s need was that man should learn to serve God. On the Saturday, Mr S. M. Rich presented a cheque for £115 to Dr the Hon. Lily H. Montagu for the rebuilding of the West Central Liberal Synagogue, which had been destroyed by enemy action.
Two golden rules
Expert’s view of Astram Players
Mr C. B. Purdom, adjudicating for the British Drama League, told the Astram Players at St Margaret’s Hall that he had rarely seen a better set, and that properties, costume, stage management and lighting were first-class. He warned them against movement that did not build the play, and picked out Paula Munday and others in the cast.
O.W. Citizens unlucky
Bog in front of goal
Old Westminster Citizens lost 2–1 at home to Old Stationers, the Sutton Amateur League leaders, on a soggy pitch. Stationers scored from a free kick and again twelve minutes from time, and Citizens’ equaliser was not enough once the goalmouth had turned into a bog.
West Norwood decrees
Mrs Eleanor Mary Allison, of Chestnut Road, West Norwood, was granted a decree nisi against her husband, Mr Norman Galloway Allison, of Crawley, on the ground of his adultery with Winifred Louise Pounce. Mr Eric Leonard Fermor, of Avenue Road, West Norwood, was granted a decree nisi; his wife did not defend the suit.
For bus driver
Mr Cecil Field Thompson, a bus driver of Woodcote Villas, Norwood, was granted a decree nisi, with custody of his child. The court was told that adultery took place after his wife had been evacuated from Lancaster Avenue, West Norwood, to Edenbridge.
Husband granted decree nisi
Mr Jack Wilson Coles, of Kingscourt Road, Streatham, formerly of Malden Avenue, South Norwood, was granted a decree nisi. He said his wife, Mrs Elizabeth Ellen Coles, deserted him in 1939 when he was invalided out of a timber clerk’s post with the Port of London Authority.
226 decrees nisi made absolute
Mr Justice Hodson made absolute 226 decrees, among them those of Mr Edward Alfred Batchelor (Eardley Road, Streatham), Mr George McCarthy (Birchanger Road, South Norwood), Mr Norman Charles Troath (Stanhope Road, Streatham), Mr Arthur John Toop (Weir Road, Balham), Mr John Cyril Elton Wickes (Gleneldon Road, Streatham) and Mr Henry Albert Smart (Brixton Hill). A decree of nullity granted to Mr Victor John Maurice Proctor, of Tooting, was also made absolute.
Disarmament not enough
Norwood M.P. on need for spiritual force
The Norwood M.P., Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Town and Country Planning, told civic leaders at the Westminster Theatre that a moral and spiritual force was needed against materialism. International disarmament by itself was not enough, he said. What was needed was re-armament in the moral sense.
“Britain, Remember”
Harold Ramsay, the Granada, Tooting, organist, who was born in Streatham and logged more than a thousand hours as an R.A.F. pilot, has written a song based on Mr Churchill’s words about “the few”. Copies at 1s. are being sold for the R.A.F. Benevolent Fund, and next week the Granada foyer will show photographs of R.A.F. work, with members of the Streatham, Norbury and Mitcham branches there to enrol.
Herne Hill Harriers
The fast and medium packs covered eight miles on Saturday, and the slow and junior packs five, before tea at the Sandrock Hotel, Shirley. The note also follows Robert Devon Ford, a Devon mile champion now living at West Norwood, and records that Sid Bryett, the club’s Oxford printer, is out of the inter-varsity relays with a torn stomach muscle.
Friday 20 December 1946
The News
Cinemagoers organise
Streatham gives a lead
Interest all over country
The Cinemagoers’ Association of Great Britain has been launched in Streatham, with a temporary head office at Pullman Court, Streatham Hill, and Miss Flora Robson as president. Membership is nearing a thousand, enquiries have come from all over the country, and the Granada circuit has taken the idea up. Mr Cremin said the aim was a representative body of cinema-goers, speaking for quality, entertainment and artistic merit in British films.
R.A.S.C. Old Comrades
Local branch’s first meeting
The first general meeting of the new Streatham and District branch of the R.A.S.C. Old Comrades’ Association was held at the White Lion Hotel, Streatham. Major K. G. Morgan was elected chairman. Major Morgan said all ranks should be represented, and that the branch needed a club house of its own if the old wartime comradeship was to last. Members who cannot attend are asked to write to the secretary at Bedford Road, Clapham Park.
Bygone Streatham
Wireless was used in fire alarms
A photograph shows the Greyhound, Streatham Common, about 1860, pulled down in 1871, and another shows Streatham School, dating from 1785, which stood between Barrow Road and Greyhound Lane. Mr R. A. R. Bradman, of Hollybourne Road, Mitcham, recalls the street fire station at Streatham High Road and Mitcham Lane, where alarms were sent on by wireless until the permanent station opened in 1904. Contributions to an Old Streatham competition are still coming in. Lady Newton, whose recollections were published recently, is the mother of Dennis Wheatley. The Streatham Antiquarian and Natural History Society will judge the entries.
Raid on a railway
Unenviable notoriety
A cutting from the South Wales Daily News of 24 December 1907, sent in by Mrs C. Veaney, of Edgington Road, Streatham, describes thieves who cut open stuffed cushions in made-up trains standing at Streatham station, where the lines of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway converged. The old paper said Streatham was gaining an unenviable name for thefts and burglaries.
Too much light
Cecil Grainge Ltd were fined £1 16s., with £4 4s. costs, at South-Western Magistrates’ Court for using more than one and a half watts of light for each square foot at their radio shop at Streatham Hill. An inspector found 2,165 watts, 977 over the allowance. Mr Cecil Grainge, the managing director, said he had not known of the standard and would reduce the lights at once.
Toc H chain of light
Streatham members at Abbey ceremony
Streatham Toc H marked the birthday of Toc H at a service in Westminster Abbey, where Tubby Clayton read the first lesson and the Dean of Westminster gave the address. Afterwards members met at the home of their chairman, Mr W. T. Scott, for the World Chain of Light, begun that night in Berlin. Scott said there would be too many of them to meet at his house next year.
Howland lecture at Streatham
Use of costume of the Elizabethan stage
Streatham High Road Methodist Church Hall was filled for Miss St. Clare Byrne’s Howland Lecture on costume on the Elizabethan stage. From costume books printed between 1569 and 1618 she argued that masque and stage dress was probably copied from those plates. Dr F. S. Boas took the chair, and Sir Gordon Hearn, of the Streatham Antiquarian and Natural History Society, moved the thanks.
Sixty years on the railway
Is Mr Martin’s service a record?
His box bombed
Mr Alfred John Martin, of Eastwood Street, Streatham, retired last month after more than 60 years with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and its successor. He joined on 17 January 1886, became a signalman at the old Mitcham station in 1893, and later spent 22 years in the Tulse Hill box, which a flying bomb destroyed in 1944. The paper says his retirement has been marred by the death of his wife.
Kiddies’ party at the Drill Hall
The 30 S.L. Old Comrades’ Association gave a tea at the Mitcham Lane Drill Hall on Saturday for children of five to eight whose fathers were prisoners of war or members of the association, and who live in Streatham. About 100 children watched a marionette show by Mr Gordon Hamilton, of Banstead, and were handed presents by Father Christmas, Mr Sidney Treadaway.
Overcoats in the season
Being issued to Army Cadets
Streatham Battalion Army Cadets break up for Christmas after their party at the Drill Hall, and parade again on Monday 30 December. Army overcoats have at last arrived for cadets who attend regularly. Lieut. J. M. Carrick is in Westminster Hospital after an abdominal operation, and Lieut. H. C. Marsh is putting the battalion’s history since 1942 into a loose-leaf record.
Gold medal for Mr Skinner
Continuous work for Conservatism
The Stepping Out Company gave their “In Civvies” show to Streatham Conservative Club, Blegborough Road, on Friday. In the interval Councillor J. P. Lousley presented the club treasurer, Mr A. Skinner, with the gold medal of the Association of Conservative Clubs for five years’ continuous service, and appealed for more members to join the association.
Communists and council
Candidates’ choice postponed
Nomination of Communist candidates for the Streatham seats at the next borough council elections has been postponed until the New Year. At a Friday meeting Mr Bardell, once secretary of the Cairo Forces Parliament, spoke of an “iron curtain” between the public and the Press, and a bazaar for the Daily Worker was held in the same hall next day. The party is trying to double the paper’s 100,000 circulation by the end of January.
Fell against an electric fire
Burns accelerated widow’s death
Mrs Charlotte Reay, a 68-year-old widow of Glenister Park Road, Streatham, was found dead with her face against an electric fire that was switched on. Mrs Jessie Brans, of the same address, said Mrs Reay had had several heart attacks. Dr Robert Teare, pathologist, said the burns happened before death and accelerated it. The verdict was accidental death.
H.G. Old Comrades have a dance
More than four hundred people were at the dance of the 31st County of London Battalion, Home Guard, Old Comrades’ Association at the Mitcham Lane Drill Hall on Saturday. Colin Tichborne and Mr Cronk were the M.C.s. The proceeds are to swell the Old Comrades’ fund, and the next annual dance is already being arranged.
