Excitement is growing now. I’m really looking forward to meeting up with old friends and fans at Tooting library at 6pm on Friday the 13th of October and making new friends as I’m sure I shall. There’s so much to say about our Tooting. It has a long and fascinating history, I’ve looked out several photographs that might interest you, here’s a taste of some of them.
This one shows the back of the Holy Family convent in the High Street, where I was educated from 1938 to 1940. I sheltered from the daylight raids at the start of the Blitz, in the chapel there.
This one is Tooting Broadway looking north, trams and all.
And this one’s another shot of the Broadway, showing the old king standing on his pink plinth in front of the public lavatories.
And here is a third shot of the Broadway, showing the public baths.
But this one is the best of them all. This lovely lady was the template for my heroine in Everybody’s Somebody, sent out to work in a big house miles from home when she was twelve and from then on, working every day of her life until the day before she died. I loved her to bits.
And her husband Jesse was one of the three World War One soldiers I knew as a child and fed me all manner of tales about life in the trenches.
Oh we are going to have fun on Friday! See you there.
EDIT – Entry is free!
Beryl Kingston Blog 