Dear LPG,

I read the news-post that you featured on March 15^th and it got me thinking about the building they knocked down to make way for Lewisham Police station.  You said that you were looking for personal stories and I would like to share this one with LPG readers. 

It doesn’t seem that long ago, but things have really changed at Lewisham shopping centre and I am not just talking about what they did to the roads around the clock tower over the past five years.  I remember when one of the biggest focusses of the area was the Chiesman’s department store.  When I was a child if anyone wanted to buy anything apart from food they would have most probably started their search at Chiesman’s, and when you put that in context with life’s bigger picture it does not seem so long ago.  Even when it became the House of Fraser we always referred to it as Chiesmans and for a while it remained the really big shop at the end of the high street that we went to before buying any really big item. 

I remember making a visit after getting my first pay packet, finding myself at the makeup counter.  I was not sure which shade to buy, so the assistant sat me in a chair and tried four of five powders on my face before convincing me that I should buy one.  When she said the price I was shocked but not wanting to appear poor, I just handed over the money!  Years later, n the mid-1990s, I would regularly take my pre-teenaged children shopping in Lewisham and the highlight of their trip would be the walk over the high street on the bridge that linked Chiesman’s to the Riverdale Centre at that time. Back in its day it was an Aladdin’s cave of new innovative things, but there was limited Internet access at the time.

I am not able to get out as often as I once used to because of mobility problems that have caught up with me over the years, but the other day I was driven through that end of Lewisham High Street.  I know I am old fashioned, not to mention old, but while I think the Police station is very nice Lewisham does not seem the same without that shop.

I have no doubt that in 30 or 40 years’ time, when it is eventually pulled down, someone will be saying exactly the same about the Police Station.

DW, Lewisham

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