A pound was a lot of money to a 9-year-old back then
Bermondsey boy Tom Burton has been reunited with a Dandy from 1963 that he had written to about his area for the comic’s My Home Town page.
The page name-checks all the local favourites: Brunel, Tommy Steele, Max Bygraves, Turner’s Fighting Temeraire, Surrey Docks, the leather industry, Tower Bridge and early railway lines.
The reunion came about when Southwark News Arts Correspondent Micky Holland, an avid collector of Bermondsey memorabilia, received a new purchase: ‘I bought the comic on Ebay for £10 because it was said to have a Bermondsey connection and I was buying it for a friend’s son who likes reading old comics. When I see the My Home Town page and Tom’s name as the contributor in there I knew that there was a good chance of tracking him down on the internet and giving him my copy if he didn’t have one himself.’
Micky is a member of The Original Bermondsey & Rotherhithe Group so put out a request for anyone who might know Tom and how to get in touch with him. He said, ‘It didn’t take long before Ann Palmer got back to me and said she went to school with Tom and was in contact with his brother Rob, so I asked her to put us in touch.’
A few weeks went by and Micky thought that his mission had failed. ‘I gave Ann a reminder and last week Rob Burton messaged me saying Tom don’t do Facebook but he’d spoken to him and he was pleased to accept the offer of my copy.’
Tom now lives in Mottingham and made a date for Micky to deliver the Dandy.
When our arts man arrived he saw that ‘Tom was really pleased to see his page on Bermondsey and his name in there, but didn’t actually recall writing in. He told me, “I was always writing off to comics.”.’
Reading through his contribution Tom saw the prizes he could have won: Complete Cowboy Outfit; Nurse’s Outfit, Ball-Bearing Roller Skates; £1 Postal Order.
‘This helped Tom’s memory, as he said, “I remember taking the postal order now, cos a pound was a lot of money to a 9-year-old back then – About eight weeks’ pocket money! I was only getting half-a-crown a week, which would buy me three Superman comics, so a pound was a small fortune!’
Tom, who has no family left in SE16 now, reminisced about schools and work. He went to the small, two-class St Mary’s near the tunnel, then on to Bacons, before training to be a dealer in stockbroking, telling Micky, “Me and the Stock Exchange parted company under dubious circumstances…” The clash was because, Tom says, “The people I worked with see me as someone from an alien place who didn’t fit in socially so I left to join the fire brigade,” where he still works today.
Tom Burton ended by saying he had a wonderful childhood and looks back on Bermondsey with fondness and might even frame his My Home Town page and hang it proudly on a wall in his house.
Photos: M. Holland
