Dear LPG, 

I recently came across your website and really find the daily messages and stories fascinating to read.  There are so many memories included and I have a few to share about my London SE13 days. 

It has been a while since I moved away from Lewisham but while I have left many of the positives that the region has to offer far behind, my memories will always be with me.  I think that in this day and age we have been so blessed by the invention of the telephone and, while many older people find electronic communication hard to embrace, it is worth persevering if you can. shared memories are so very important.  

During telephone calls, I often find myself reminiscing with one of my oldest friends about one of the periods of our lives that meant so much to us, and I started thinking that there have to be quite a few other LPG readers that have similar memories because they spent their Saturday nights in the same way that we did at the time. 

I am wondering how many readers will remember this particular focal point of evening entertainment for teenagers during the early and mid-1960s.  

A couple of friends and I spent nearly every Saturday night at the Savoy Rooms in Catford for a while and we weren’t alone.  It became a very popular venue.   

It offered two dance floors and it was accepted that the top floor was for the younger club goers.  We might have been up there a couple of times but as a rule, we didn’t go upstairs.  On the upper floor they would invite all the upcoming groups and focus on the pop music of the time for the younger people.   

How times and perspectives change.  I would be happy to be 40 again now but, back then as 18-year-olds, my friends and I thought the 16 and 17-year-olds who spent their time upstairs to be really young.  

We older girls thought of ourselves as so much more mature.   On a Saturday Sandra, Bernie and myself went downstairs where things appeared a bit more sophisticated.  We were members and had to sign in, and the live entertainment was for the more grown up youngsters.  There was more jazz-influenced music with Johnnie Grey and his saxophone often on the bill.  When there was a break, records were played but, regardless of whether the music was live or on the turntable, we were always dancing.  We used to sit at the far end of the dance floor by the bar and two elderly men used to serve us. (looking back, I don’t think that they were as old as all that, but the perspective of an 18-year-old made them seem old). They were lovely, looked after us and they looked as if they could have sorted out any trouble if they needed to.   At Christmas we always got them a present; normally a couple of ties each.  

I suppose that, by today’s standards the club closed very early at 11 O’clock but when the evening ended, there would normally be a choice of parties to go to or a group going on to the King Alfred pub in Southend Lane and I distinctly remember the club phone which we would use to tell our parents if we were going to a party.  As clubs go, I think that most of our mums felt that we were quite safe if we were going there. 

The people at the parties would usually be the same people that were in the club so we would travel from one venue to the other together and after, I often stayed at Sandra’s returning home on Sunday.  If there were no parties to go to, we would leave the Savoy and get a wimpy from their shop a few doors up, and then it would be a bus home.  

Both Sandra and I met our husbands at the club and we can’t help remembering it as a really friendly place, but times change.  We both got married and left clubbing on Saturday nights behind.

I remember us being young non-club-going wives but we two married ladies remained friends and we would often meet up and talk about our nights at the club after we stopped going.  It still comes up often in our regular telephone conversations.  Not long after we stopped going on Saturdays we learned that part of the club became known as Mr. Smiths and a gambling venue.  Then there was the news of the shooting that happened there in 1966.

This was the place where we felt so safe and while things changed so quickly after we stopped going, my friend and I still feel so lucky to have our untainted memories of our time there.  I hope that my memories might jog those of a few other readers.  

JW, Isle of White.    

Some information JW found on the internet….

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