25 YEARS AGO: Comedian and actor Frankie Howerd, who lived at Arbroath Road, Eltham, was invited by the Rev John Neal to open the reonovated church hall of St Barnabas at Well Hall on the Progress estate in Eltham.

He pulled a pint of bitter, chatted to the locals and declared the Frankie Howerd community centre in business.

70 YEARS AGO: V2 rockets began to attack south-east London again after a delay of several weeks caused by the Allied operation to capture the Rhine bridges. On the day British forces began landing at Arnhem, a V2 rocket fell in Adelaide Avenue, Lewisham, killing 14 people.

100 YEARS AGO: In the autumn of 1914, Biggin Hill was a quiet hamlet on top of the North Downs and the wireless testing park was at Joyce Green alongside the Thames Estuary in Dartford.

It was to be several weeks before a prototype Vickers FB5 Gunbus rose up from Joyce Green to intercept a Friedrichshafen FF29 float plane belonging to the German Imperial Navy. The Germans dropped two high explosives near Cliffe station and flew back unharmed. The war in the air had begun.