Perseverance

From an email received 11 October 2019.

I was born in 1932 some 40 yards from the "Perseverance" at 13 Fenwick St.

I was a typical London urchin stealing from local shops with my gang.

My memory records the pub clearly. To the right hand side were two large tall yard doors which opened to a storage yard where empty beer bottles awaited a weekly brewery collection. Now it so happened the licensee paid 1 penny for every bottle returned. We kids raided the yard at night and sold then back to the publican claiming our parents had bought them. Nice little earner for us.

Outside on Sunday lunchtime there was large wheelbarrow selling cockles shrimps and winkles for Sunday evening tea.

The area has demolished and the streets have all vanished If you have access to photographs of the old Woolwich Common or plans of the street plans I would be obliged to hear from you.

W. H. REEVES.

I lived very close to the pub (in Ritter Street) in the 1950s and 1960s. The pub was not in Fenwick Street - it was on the corner of Ordnance Road and Keemor Street. The yard gates mentioned were in Keemor Street. In Ordnance Road next to the pub was a bomb site facing Woolwich Common.

Michael Canham.