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Don’t write off church
• I MUST write and correct the error that has been repeated yet again in the letter from Ken Benney, concerning St Paul’s church choir (Calling on all St Paul’s choir members of the 1930s, June 19).
My family moved to Camden Square just opposite St Paul’s church in 1940. I myself returned to this address from being evacuated in late 1940 and was there all through the war and did not move until 1982, so as you can see I would have known if the church had been bombed or received any wartime damage. I assume he is quoting from The Camden Town Book by John Richardson or from Images of London, Camden Town and Kentish Town by Marianne Colloms and Dick Weindling.
Wartime damage is also mentioned in the Camden History Society, Streets of Camden Town.
I am afraid to my knowledge all three publications are incorrect. St Paul’s was as intact at the end of the war as it was at the beginning – minus of course, like all the houses in the square, its railings – and was in my opinion demolished because the church authorities had neglected it both during and after the war. They would not spend the money to repair what was mainly a leaky roof and so found it easier in the climate of the time, to pull it down and erect in the place of a beautiful building, and the centre of the then local community, a faceless 1950s house/ vicarage and a hall-come-chapel.
As far as his quest for ex-choir members, unfortunately I do not recognise any of the family names.
The only information I can give him is that the vicar during and after the war was Father Wells, who lived in the vicarage which was then at 3 Camden Terrace, and that the Guide leader was Mrs Lee, who lived in St Paul’s Crescent and ran the local tobacconist and newsagents in nearby Agar Grove.
BILLY OSBORNE
Clarence Way, NW1
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