Clutching the string handle of a brown paper carrier bag containing a bottle of water and some jam sandwiches wrapped in sausage paper, I joined my brothers and friends to go on our first hike.

It was 1932 and we were all aged around 10, so we were given a limit as to where and how far we could go. Living in Downham near Grove Park gave us easy access to the countryside, as it was then.

We didn't use a map but we knew most of the locality as it was within a circle of haunts and meadows where we played.

We started at Grove Park Station and the old walls of the road bridge were covered with huge colourful adverts made from enamelled tin: Players Cigarettes with the jolly sailor face framed in a life belt; Nestles Chocolate with a wrapped 1d bar; Mazziwatti Tea in large lettering; Reckits Blue for whitening washing.

All these were banged in turn with our fists, and there being about a dozen of us, we created a din and were probably considered hooligans by the grown-ups!

Turning into Chinbrook Road, we passed under the massive horse chestnut trees that lined it, their roots invading and restricting the path alongside them. It was here in the Autumn we collected our conkers from the husks strewn around.

Half way down the road we arrived at the entrance of the meadows where we usually went to play - but not this time - as we were to cross to the other side and enter the field where a fair was held once a year.

I remember sitting in a swing chair (chair-o-plane) and flying through the air, looking down over the River Quaggy, that we were now following by the footpath, stopping now and again to jump the narrow strips.

We followed this path until we reached a little hump-backed bridge in Marvels Lane. After crossing it we skirted the extensive grounds of Grove Park TB Sanatorium that was enclosed with high wire-mesh fencing.

We could see some of the patients sitting about, others were lying flat on funny-looking trolleys. We waved to them and they waved back to us - we tried not to breathe too deeply as we were afraid we might catch TB - lots of people died from it then.

It seemed we had been walking forever, so we started to look for somewhere to stop - in the distance we could see Eltham College - a private boarding school for sons of missionaries - and made our way towards that.

We found a nice meadow. I don't remember climbing a style, just stepping carefully over some broken-down barbed wire and stinging nettles, and had to look for dock leaves to rub on to stop it hurting. I shared our bottle of water with my brothers and finished our sandwiches - we had eaten most on the way.

We spent some time looking for extra wide blades among the grasses to put across the top of our tongues, and with partly-closed lips, blow hard until we made loud, rude noises. We laid on our backs to watch the sky and make mountains and giant faces out of the clouds above us. Then we got on our feet, pulling up socks that had worked their way down into our shoes.

We were now starting on our way back home passing the college and a farm, turned into Grove Park Road - this was still open - but just alongside there were a few new houses being built.

Footings had been marked out and some digging had been started. We jumped down into these as we could see a lot of coloured broken glass lying there. We started to poke about and I found two green glass candlesticks and a lovely thin oblong glass tray with ridges and patterns on it. I don't remember what the others found, but we all had some treasures to take home.

We were excited, tired and very hungry (dirty too, I suspect). Reaching the far end of Chinbrook Road, we had to walk the full length to reach Grove Park Station once again. Those adverts on the station wall were even forgotten - we just wanted to get home to tell Mum and Dad all about our first real hike.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.