As a child growing up in and around London we used to visit my Grans house in Albury Street Deptford every weekend without fail I might add. We would spend the days playing on the cobbled street outside and also go exploring inside No 29. We would look for our Great Grans 'stash' which was said to be hidden somewhere on the property. We would go around tapping the wooden paneling and looking in the upright piano our Great Gran used to play but alas came up empty handed much to the amusement of the grown ups. One part we avoided was the, 'back cellar'. It had , shall we say, a certain 'feel' about it. My Mother avoided the area like the plague! , even in day light! The most unnerving thing was while everybody was upstairs in the front room/parlor watching Frankie Vaughan on the telly drinking R Whites cream soda one would have to go after holding it some time, trot down stairs to the outside dunny to have a pee. Well you could not switch a gas lamp on so the journey had to be done in pitch blackness after comming from the bright lights of the parlor. Passing the cellar area one almost never made it to the Lav!!. We use to hear talk about a tunnel in that area that my Father and his brother found and once explored, but if we were in earshot of the grown ups talking about this tunnel the conversation abruptly ended. It wasn't until much later in life that my Aunt told us about the escapade of theirs. On entering the said tunnel ,which was situated on the east wall I believe, it headed in the direction of Deptford Creek. So far into the tunnel they came across an old flintlock musket and various items of long ago. Heading further in along the ground started to get wet and eventually they hit a water line and could not go any further. I have always wondered what happened to the musket! The tunnel must still be there to this very day.
PS. Great Gran's Stash, was eventually found by my uncle taking a dump in the outside Lav. Whilst finishing up in pitch blackness he found, much to his dismay , no newspaper! On scanning the area for something to, err.. clean up with, he noticed tucked into the rafters a bundle of something . Casting personal hygiene to the wind he retrieved it and found it to be a bundle of old white fiver's!! Gran's Stash!! This probably went the same way as the musket, Hic!
