A quick skim through local newspapers from a century ago, December 1924, reveals a Penge which in many ways is strangely familiar, and in other ways definitely not. The main entertainment venue was, of course, the Penge Empire, where the big draw in the run-up to Christmas was Peeps into 1924, a “novel revue” featuring “comedy, music, dance, beauty and colour”. The stars of the show were Sam Wayne, Freddie Westcott, Miss Lily Bruce, and “The Twelve English Dancers”. I have absolutely no idea what sort of performance the Twelve English Dancers provided: suggestions welcome.

In addition to professional entertainment at the Empire, there were also plenty of home-grown options. The “well established and prosperous” Penge and District Choral and Orchestral Society put on a concert at the Crystal Palace; and the Anerley Men’s Guild (attached to Anerley Congregational Church) organised a Bohemian Concert at Melvin Hall. That Melvin Hall was, of course, an earlier building than the present Melvin Hall, but on the same site and clearly providing a similar community service.

Also, rather astonishingly, the local Police let their hair down on a regular basis. Their monthly dance in December attracted a “satisfactory attendance”, with Inspector Smith in his usual role as Master of Ceremonies.

Talk of police leads us to the local courts, whose proceedings were reported in local papers in far more detail than would be permitted today. Among the miscreants hauled up before the beak in December 1924 were John Rose of Kingston on Thames, charged with playing an electric organ “to the annoyance and disturbance of residents in Kent House Road”; and Ernest Gray, milkman, of Thesiger Road, charged with “cruelly working a brown mare in an unfit state” when delivering milk in Beckenham. It’s rather moving to see animal welfare taken so seriously, though it didn’t do the poor old horse much good; the court ordered that she was too old and infirm to work and should be destroyed.

December 1924 seems to have been a significant month for Penge Urban District Council, with two long-running projects coming to fruition. Firstly, an extension to the Town Hall on Anerley Road was formally opened. And secondly, after much delay, it was agreed that the names of local men and women who lost their lives in the Great War should be attached to the War Memorial in the Recreation Ground.

Finally, Penge’s charitable instincts were as evident then as now. The Penge and Anerley Philanthropic Society launched its annual Christmas appeal to “bring a little brightness into the lives of residents in the evening of their lives”. Donations to be sent to Mr. F.W. Foreman J.P. at 18 Howard Road. As part of the fundraising effort there was a whist drive at Oakfield Road School, now long gone, which used to stand on the site of today’s retail and industrial estate.

Times change, but Penge endures. Merry Christmas!