Your Photographs Page 3
Photographs and text kindly supplied by Joy Kay
 The Street, sometimes called Coulsdon Street, Old Coulsdon
Now known as the Coulsdon Road between Bradmore Green Pond, and Coulsdon Court Hotel
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 St John's Church 1900
When I was a child I often went with my grandfather on Saturday mornings to climb the uneven stone steps of the spiral staircase of the church tower to wind up the clock
We had to time this between the hour and the quarter so that we weren't deafened by the bells
There was once a chicken farm next to the church, just beyond the little row of cottages, and it took a direct hit in last war, blowing dozens of chickens up into the trees
Little boys were sent up by hungry villagers to retrieve them for the pot, and my family thought it was hilarious to refer to them as 'blasted chickens' because that was the closest anyone got to swearing in those days and it was thought to be rather naughty.
 The old School House
The Cooke family lived at 3 The Street until Charles Henry Harvey Cooke retired and was given tenancy of the School House in appreciation of his many years working as sexton at St. John's Church in his spare time
He kept the churchyard tidy, mowed the grass, trimmed the trees, looked after the flowers, and did any repairs to the church itself
When he died at 89 years old, the School House was demolished so that the school could be enlarged, and we had to leave Old Coulsdon
 Bradmore Green School about 1900
 The wedding of Charlotte Cooke around 1910
The gentleman sitting beside the groom is Reverend Dickson, who was the rector of St. John's Church
All eleven of the Cooke family's children attended St. John's school, Bradmore Green
The twins Sidney and Arthur are in this picture, dressed in identical woolen suits with knickerbockers
Sidney was killed when his ship was torpedoed by the Japanese navy, but to the family's great sorrow his sacrifice was not commemorated on the war memorial with those of many of his friends because he was listed as 'missing in action' and no body was found.
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