When I walked out of the office last March with my laptop and mobile phone, I never thought it would be 14 months before I’d be sitting with my 3 closest colleagues again and ‘you’re on mute’ would be replaced by ‘mask!’ (we are required to wear a mask when not sitting at a desk).   

I feel exceptionally lucky to have been able to work from home all through lockdown and having the routine of a working day helped me get through those first few weeks of uncertainty and, at times, terror (the worry of having a son who works as an intensive care nurse and unpleasant flashbacks to being in ITU in 2011/2012). As the weeks went by, life settled into a new norm, Google Meet calls (with the occasional guest appearance from pets and children – Tybalt, our kitten, has gained something of a cult following!) became less daunting and it became apparent that we could work as effectively at home as we could in the office. That said, virtual coffee catch-ups with colleagues and stakeholders are no replacement for those casual, wandering-by-the-desk conversations. Similarly, the safe-distanced conversations over the garden gate with friends were a poor, albeit very welcome, substitute for relaxing with them over a meal or a glass of wine (or two). 

Due to mandatory shielding, I wasn’t able to venture back into the office as soon as some of my colleagues and at times that made me feel quite isolated.  However, I have recently started going in one day a week and will increase this over the next month or so. The post-Covid working environment feels comfortingly familiar, but also different – in a way reminiscent of being in that small cohort of pupils who went to school during the ‘three-day week’ in 1973. It’s strange to think that my working life will never be fully office based again and being able to work from home on a regular basis has made me have a re-think about retirement. A working day in the office requires a lot more organisation – have I booked my office slot, factored in extra travel time in case of full buses, allowed sufficient time for temperature check, etc. on arrival? Once at a desk (if it’s Wednesday, it must be an orange space), it’s very much business as usual.  

As more of us get our second Covid vaccination and lockdown starts to ease, it is so good to start looking forward to life beyond work and beyond East Dulwich. A holiday in Devon in June (rescheduled from last year), catching up with family (particularly my incredibly special twin sister), spontaneous meetings with friends and, above all, heartfelt hugs beckon. 
 

By Christine Camplin

Between about 1865 and 1885 the Goose Green/East Dulwich area was tranformed from semi-rural to suburbia. 

Arrival of the railways
The London, Chatham and Dover Railway had been built in 1863, Peckham Rye station was built in 1865, and in 1868 East Dulwich railway station was opened as Champion Hill Station. It was renamed East Dulwich in 1888. Railway travel meant that people could commute to work in the city yet live “in the country”. Speculative builders were drawn by the proximity to London, the availability of good transport and the hope that homes would be easy to let to residents attracted by the idea of living in an entirely new development. 

An 1868 map of the neighbourhood shows roads and plots marked out for development, though the only completed streets are Holly Road, Frogley Road, Nutfield Road plus a stretch of Crystal Palace Road. It is otherwise still largely empty except for the large houses and grounds and scattered cottages. That same year Camberwell Vestry, perhaps anticipating the changes to come, purchased Goose Green, Peckham Rye and Nunhead Green from the lord of the manor to prevent development and ensure that it remained open for public use. 

The farmland and market gardens were being rapidly sold off. In the first half of the 19th century, East Dulwich was in the hands of only four landowners; the largest two estates were Friern Manor and Bowyer-Smijth. After the death in 1877 of Thomas Farmer Baily, the grandson of City ironmonger and landowner Thomas Baily, the trustees of his estate decided to liquidate his assets and sell all his local land holdings in response to the demand from house builders.                  

"The Champion Hill station, which formerly looked forlorn and desolate enough, is now a busy centre, and East Dulwich is fast becoming one of the most populous and important suburbs of the metropolis" (South London Press 16 June 1877).

Though East Dulwich was full of building works and Lordship Lane turning from a country lane into a shopping street, Goose Green itself was still open space. To the north-east the big houses, Walnut Tree Villa, East Dulwich and Tredegar House still stood in their own grounds though a number of smaller villas had been built either side of Fenwick Road. South of Goose Green, Norland House and the row of large detached houses between Crystal Palace Road and Peckham Rye, originally built by Thomas Baily, were still there though The Homestead, opposite East Dulwich House, was soon to give way to Oakhurst Grove.  

The new houses were predominantly two-storey terraces for the growing clerical workforce in the City. Larger houses were occupied by professional people; others by lower-middle and working classes, often more than one family in a seven-roomed house. The vast majority of the houses were rented. With four or five bedrooms there was plenty of space for growing families who tended to stay in the area. There is more diversity of style than on first impression: half the builders built fewer than six houses; a very small proportion built more than 60. In the 1870s many houses remained empty waiting for demand to catch up with supply. 

New schools
As the population grew so larger school premises became necessary. The Vicar, Revd W Foster Elliott, appealed (again) to the generosity of the “opulent inhabitants of the neighbourhood,” who immediately contributed £440 for “the moral and religious education of the poor” in the locality. After further fund-raising, the new St John’s Schools, replacing those at Troy Town, were constructed at the corner of Archdale Road and Northcross Road amongst the growing suburbs of East Dulwich.  

A second pub opened at the other end of Goose Green. In March 1878 James Swain Gurney applied for a licence for the  

East Dulwich Hotel at the corner of Lordship Lane. It was contested: "Mr D Straight supported the application, and Mr Lilley opposed, on behalf of the freeholder. Mr Straight, in support of the application, stated that his client was entitled to a licence to meet the requirements of the neighbourhood. It was contended that the granting of a licence would injure the locality, but Mr Straight maintained that the erection of a house of the kind the applicant proposed to build, at a cost of £2500, would improve the neighbourhood and enhance the value of the property”. The following year Dulwich Musical Association held their first musical meeting there: it was very well attended. 

Revd William Foster Elliot left St John's in 1872 to become Rector of Little Chart in Kent. His successor was Revd Thomas Daniel Cox Morse (1825-1895), who arrived with wife Alethea Mary and six children aged from 4 to 23. Morse had a strong interest in education: he had been inspector of schools in the Diocese of Salisbury and his most recent job was lecturer at Queen's College Harley Street (1868-72). He was later to serve two three-year terms on the London School Board representing Greenwich.  

Since about 1867 the Vicar had resided at St John’s Lodge, a house overlooking Peckham Rye near the entrance to The Gardens. In 1875 some members of the congregation attempted “to raise the sum of £2,300 for the purpose of building a Parsonage House on Selwyn land adjoining the church”. Alas, insufficient funds were raised so the plan was abandoned. In the same year there was an attempt to create the first Church Council: “to advise and assist the Incumbent in making arrangements for the Church and District.” It was disbanded in March 1877 following accusations that attempts had “been made to extend its influence beyond its legitimate sphere, and even to prove an embarrassment to, instead of an assistance to, the Vicar”. 

Churches multiply
The population increase also had an impact on the parish churches, and over 25 years they multiplied in number. The parish of St Peter, Dulwich Common, was taken out of the southernmost part of St John in 1867 and the church built in 1874. To the north-east, All Saints Blenheim Grove parish was taken out of St Giles and a church built in 1872; and to the east St Antholin, Nunhead, was created from Peckham St Mary Magdalene and the church built in 1878. 

Revd Morse preached his final sermon at St. John's on 23 April 1876. Until 1878 he was Rector of Fenny Drayton in Leicestershire, but then returned to south London in 1879 as Vicar of Christ Church, Forest Hill. 

The next incumbent, Revd Thomas Acton Warburton (1813-1894) was born in Ireland (as were two of his predecessors). 

His Dictionary of National Biography entry describes him as: “writer of legal and historical books; a barrister; vicar of Iffley (1853-76, and of St John’s, East Dulwich, 1876-88”, an interesting sequence of priorities. He had practised as a barrister for 10 years or so before being ordained deacon in 1851 and priest in 1852. His two sons, Acton and George, were both to follow in their father’s ecclesiastical profession. 

Soon after Warburton’s arrival the first Vicarage of St John’s was erected at 13 East Dulwich Road on the east side of the junction of Goose Green and Crystal Palace Road and the site of the former Rectory Farmhouse. It was later renumbered 35. At last the Vicar of St John’s could actually see the church from his house.  

In 1876 there were about 5,000 residents in the parish. By 1888 this had increased to 23,323 putting a strain on both space in the church and the ability of the clergy to serve the congregation. Two more “daughter” churches were carved out of St John’s parish. St Clement, Friern Road, started in 1878 as a mission church in Hindmans Road with members of St John's, East Dulwich. The new parish was created in 1883 and the church consecrated in 1885. St Saviour, Champion Hill (now the Copleston Centre) opened in 1886. Dulwich Village finally acquired a parish church when St Barnabas was built in 1894. 

In 1879 East Dulwich House was demolished. Journalists regretted its demise: “The destruction of the old place will remove an interesting link between the quaint and scattered district of Goose Green and the now populous community known as East Dulwich” (South London Press 16 June 1877). 


The parish boundary today

The Silence – Susan Allott 

From the first few pages of The Silence I found myself intrigued – by the relationships, the characters, and why the police are wanting to speak to one of them about a missing woman. One of the things I liked most about The Silence from the start is how the text paints a vivid picture of the events, settings and characters. It is convincing and believable, so you can really immerse yourself in the novel. The descriptions of day-to-day life in Australia, of the heat and the beach, conjure a wonderful image which is tempered by the realities of lives under stress. The sense of distance between Australia and the UK feels acute.  

The personalities seem very real, like someone we might know, with all their faults and problems. Their lives may have been stunted in different ways, but they remain human. Their fullness is very satisfying to read of, as are the tensions within families and between neighbours. Seeing these lives lived at close proximity, where the inner thoughts and experiences are explored in all their rawness, is fascinating in itself, but the mystery of the missing woman, Mandy, added pace to my curiosity.

The Silence also takes in the horrendous forced removal of aboriginal children from their families. In 1960s Australia, where part of The Silence is set, an unknown number of aboriginal children were being removed from their families, ostensibly because of neglect, but poverty was more often the main factor, with welfare rules being enforced much more toughly on indigenous Australians. This is shocking to read of, especially because one of the main characters is carrying out the removal of these poor infants. Perhaps wrongdoers’ stories are too often brushed under the carpet; hearing about the removals from the perpetrator’s perspective somehow throws the awfulness into relief more fully.  

And there are yet more tensions in this novel, with alcoholism, acute homesickness and crackling family frictions. Dealing with flawed characters and some very negative themes, it may sound like a dark book, but to me there is something about the battles these characters face which brings light. There is bad behaviour and criminality, but amongst the struggles there is a fight for what is right by some. It is this which makes The Silence a book to remember, as well as a very rewarding read.