Wandsworth Common

Jean was playing handball — catching the ball and coming at the reporter from all angles — which was specially clever of her because she has been totally blind for twelve of her thirteen years. Jean is one of 107 boy and girl pupils at Linden Lodge, near London's Wandsworth Common.

"The Lodge is the miracle of S.W.11 — a school that has survived all educational streamlining to become the foremost training centre for the blind in all the world, a Mecca for teachers everywhere."

Headmaster E. Peppitt: "We make few allowances for disability here. Our whole idea is to develop independence." Not only blind handball players, but blind roller-skaters and blind billiards players. Two green-baize experts, Oliver and Henry, had about one-tenth of one good eye between them — yet Oliver had made a billiards break of 36, and Henry, who cannot see the sun at all, had reached 80.

Mr. Peppitt had introduced "modified cricket" — played with a double-sized wicket and a wicker ball with a bell in it. The children do not catch a ball; they catch the sound of it.

"It is one of the most heart-warming educational projects in the world — and what I like particularly about it is that you and I are paying for it. There are no fees. Needs are studied, but not cash."

As the reporter left, a boy 95 per cent blind peered at him and said, "I've lost my school tie." The school tie is black and gold — though its wearers will never see it.

A woman believed to be aged about 40 was found dead behind a clump of bushes on Wandsworth Common, about 15 yards from Lyford Road, near a much-used path and an inn nearby. Detectives went to the Common after a 999 call from a woman who did not give her name. Within 200 yards of the body was found a red handbag containing correspondence in the name of Mrs F.K. Carwardine of a room in Westbourne Park Road, Paddington, where she had lived for only about a week. Preliminary investigations suggested she might have been employed as a kitchen hand or waitress.

Lightning struck and brought crashing the upper half of a 60-foot tree in front of the gardens of a row of prefabs in Bellevue Road, Wandsworth Common, on Monday evening. It also struck the metal name-plate on a dog's collar and killed the animal.

Mr. T. Netherway was walking from the Common when he saw what looked like a "ball of fire" strike the tree in front of his bungalow, No. 62. The top of the tree split in two — one part crashing on to the road, the other on to the pavement. "When I got indoors," he told the S.W. Star, "my wife was under the table. She was so shocked she could hardly speak. Later she went to hospital for treatment."

The only casualty was "Tubby," the retriever belonging to Mrs. Mary Prince of No. 39, who was standing at the open doorway of the shed in the back garden when the lightning struck. When Mrs. Prince went to pick him up, he slipped through her arms. A neighbour confirmed that "Tubby" was dead. The metal name tag on the collar was melted right through.

Several telephones on the prefab estate were put out of order, and in one bungalow where a man was ironing, the iron flew out of his hand as the lightning struck.

Chatterbox, one of the most popular children's periodicals in the English-speaking world, published its final edition in 1955 after a continuous run of 89 years. It was first published on 1 December 1866 — created by the Rev. John Erskine Clarke (1827–1920), who at that time was based in Derby. Clarke edited the magazine until 1902.

The local connection: Clarke later "pursued his religious calling" and became Vicar of Battersea and a Canon of Southwark — placing him squarely in the neighbourhood of Wandsworth Common for much of his later life.

Chatterbox was designed to appeal to both boys and girls (unlike the Boy's Own Paper and Girl's Own Paper). Clarke conceived it as a weekly paper; many families saved and bound the weekly issues, and annual editions were a standard children's Christmas gift. The basic weekly cost a halfpenny; the annual edition 3 shillings in fancy boards, or 5 shillings in cloth with gilt edges. The American market was also served, with authorised reprints published by Estes & Lauriat and subsequently other houses.

[A small but pleasing piece of local history: one of Victorian England's best-loved children's magazines was the creation of a man who spent his later years as the parish priest of Battersea, within easy walking distance of Wandsworth Common.]