London Trolleybus in the centre of New Malden

The Fountain - New Malden
Click on picture [294] for an enlarged version

From: "Tony Kerr" <kerr_tony@hotmail.com>

The Fountain, a road junction in the Centre of New Malden. The brick building in the background is the police station. You can see the air raid siren on the roof.

When I went shopping at Kingston with my mother, we would normally get of the 213 here and walk round the corner to the trolleybus stop. If my father was with us, we would get off the 213 one stop earlier because this saved tuppence ha'penny!

From: "Brian Foster" <brifos@onetel.com>

Have just discovered this site and was looking at picture 294. There was a water fountain in the park nearby and my younger brother and I went there on the day of King George V Silver Jubilee. We had two empty milk bottles which we wanted to fill with water, one pint and one half-pint. My brother had the smaller one and that fitted under the tap but mine would not [I being a pig had the larger one!]. As we struggled to work out what to do, and old lady approached us and left me with a motto I have never forgotten after all these years - "What can't be cured must be endured". Then she showed us how we could use the smaller bottle to fill the larger one! I wish I could say I went on to become a famous philosopher or whatever, but alas.....

Fire Engine Accident in New Malden From: "Tony Burke" <burke5@btopenworld.com>

By chance, as a result of a recent fire engine crash at the Fountain roundabout in New Malden, a friend put me onto your trolleybus site. I can only say what pleasure it has given me with its atmospheric pictures and vivid colours - living in New Malden I spent my childhood riding the 604 and 605 routes and witnessed with sadness the last run before they were withdrawn. I have even convinced myself that I recognise some of the background figures.

Thank you for putting together such a fine site.



From: "Mike Broadway" <michaelbroadway22@btinternet.com>

I stumbled across the photograph of the 605 trolleybus at Shannon Corner and the memories came flooding back.

I am now retired and living in the Yorkshire Dales but from 1955 to 1960 I was a pupil at Wimbledon College [Edge Hill SW19], and for the first three years [until I was thought grown up enough to ride a bike to school] the 605 was my mode of travel. We lived in Kingston, near Richmond Park, and my daily journey involved two buses; first a 602 from Kings Road to St Peter's, Norbiton then a change to the 605 for the remaining trip. I seem to remember that the 605 sometimes only went as far as New Malden and we had to decant and wait for the next bus.

We had a class reunion in 2005 and one thing that we all remembered was the standard excuse for being late for school - "Please Sir, the trolleybus came off the wires".

Happy days!