Growing up in Lewisham Park in the early 1950s was a tapestry of wonder, curiosity, small adventures, and the rhythms of post-war London. Among my clearest memories are two enduring images that remain vivid decades later: Royston House School, where I spent those formative years, and the magnificent Italian tall ship, the Amerigo Vespucci, which somehow touched both my imagination and my real life. Royston House School stood near Lewisham Park, nearly opposite Lewisham Hospital, the very place where I had been born. It was a private school housed in two large Victorian semi-detached houses, with classrooms in the main buildings and additional huts containing dining room and hall behind them. Beyond those, there was a playground, a garden, and open spaces where we ran, played, and explored, and where every small discovery felt monumental in the lives of children.
I remember the classes, particularly the “I have discovered” one led by a teacher who encouraged us to investigate the world around us. We observed insects like dragonflies and butterflies, drew them, and learned by our own research. Friendships were formed, including one with my first heart throb. Leslie Hayes, a beautiful girl with blue eyes and dark curly hair, and there was Adrian, a boy with learning difficulties, whose mother once met mine for a quiet discussion over tea in Blackheath. After lunch we spent an hour sleeping on camp beds, a routine that felt both restful and indulgent. The meals themselves were modest but memorable; I especially delighted in corned beef, which was a highlight whenever it appeared. We participated in Christmas plays, like The Magic Pudding, and my mother helped create costumes, layering warm sweaters underneath to keep me comfortable in the cold British winter. The school community also engaged in appeals for post-war refugees, mostly Polish and other European families displaced by the Second World War.
One aspect of school life stands out sharply because I was deliberately kept apart from it: religious education. My mother, who had been brought up as a Catholic, was adamant that I not attend these classes. I never did, and for a long time I did not understand why. I had no exposure to Anglican teachings or the dogmas presented in the school’s religious classes, and I was guided instead toward Catholic practices like first communion and confirmation. At the time, I was too young to comprehend the reasons, but looking back, it was the first time I realized how religion, particularly at that time, could divide people. Even in the innocence of childhood, differences of belief could separate people in ways that felt real and, on some level, inevitable.
Other incidents at the school are etched into my memory. I remember a girl falling from a rope swing in the playground, hitting her knee on a stone, which required stitches and a trip to Lewisham Hospital. I recall my own minor rebellions, like possibly throwing a shoe at the headmistress, though the details are hazy now. The school environment was largely English, but my presence as a child of Italian heritage added a personal cultural layer to my experience. It was at Royston House that I really learned to speak and write English in a structured environment, grappling with new words, subtle differences in spelling and pronunciation, and gradually becoming part of the language. These early experiences shaped my understanding of words, meaning, and communication for the rest of my life.
Amid all of this, the Amerigo Vespucci shines in memory with extraordinary clarity. My mother, proud of her Italian heritage, brought a pamphlet illustrating the ship to the school, and I remember sharing it with my classmates. The ship itself, a tall Italian Navy training vessel launched in 1931 with gleaming wood and burnished gold detailing on its stern, visited British waters in the 1950s, including at Portsmouth in 1953. While the exact date it may have appeared on the Thames is uncertain, the ship’s presence in UK ports was well documented, and it is entirely plausible that we saw it from London. The image of that gilded ship, the tall masts against the sky, combined with my mother’s pride, made it a formative and vivid experience, one that bridged my two worlds — the England I was growing up in and the Italian heritage that shaped me.
But the Amerigo Vespucci did not remain only a memory of childhood. It became a lifelong presence, recurring at key moments in my life. When Sandra and I married, we visited the ship with her parents and even had lunch with the captain, a moment that made the ship a shared part of our family story. Later, when I was in Italy, I attended an open day at La Spezia and saw the ship in dry dock, marveling at her structure and history. More recently, I visited the Vespucci again with friends in Livorno, and each time the ship seemed to anchor a sequence of memories that stretched across decades — a symbol of heritage, adventure, and enduring connection. In every sense, the Amerigo Vespucci has become a metaphorical anchor, tying together the early days of childhood, the joys and learning of youth, and the richness of adult experience.
Eventually, Lewisham Park and the school underwent dramatic change. By the mid-1960s, the Victorian houses of Royston House School were demolished as part of council redevelopment, replaced by three tower blocks.
I remember returning once after my family had moved to Forest Hill to find the school abandoned. The buildings were empty, the garden overgrown, and my secret clearing in the hedge, where I had spent hours in quiet reflection, was fenced off. The playground and garden that had shaped so many daily adventures disappeared, yet the memories of learning, discovery, and imagination remain vivid, echoing the voices, laughter, and little triumphs of those years.
Royston House was more than a school. It was a place where language and culture intersected, where curiosity was nurtured, and where friendships, minor dramas, and tiny adventures left lasting impressions. In particular the expectation for our classes, specially lined up in front of the War memorial, of seeing Her Late Majesty’s Coronation convoy drive past us and the excitement of the Amerigo Vespucci all became intertwined with my understanding of the world. Those moments, the smells, the sounds, the textures of the school are inseparable from the city, the park, the hospital and the streets of Lewisham — a place and a time that continue to resonate deeply in memory, decades later, with the warmth, complexity, and sometimes bittersweet quality of childhood remembered.
