When I was a child in the sixties all the adults were always mentioning the War. The War this, the War that. “In the War ….” It was a normal topic on conversation. To us, as kids, it had a mythic status though being over long before we were born. As I grew into a teenager it seemed odd that they were still so driven by it.
As a man in my fifties looking back I begin to understand. When I do the maths the child I'm recalling must have been no more than eight which means the War had actually been over only twenty odd years and things like rationing and national service much less. Twenty odd years to the teenager still would seem to be a lifetime but twenty odd years later I look back at events from my teenage and early twenties and they seem like yesterday – and that didn't involve being bombed and losing my home nor the streets being filled with servicemen who may be off to battle tomorrow some never to return.
This blog is not about those people however, nor the War itself, but I have other memories about my youth which have echos from that time. In the early Sixties we still had bombsites to remind those adults about the war. Small parcels of land in the middle or end of a terrace boarded up and where emergency work had been done to clear the damaged buildings and weatherproof the ends of the remaining parts of the terrace with cement. Often used as dumping grounds (as such land often is) they were strewn with broken radios and fridges and the like. Kids liked the radios as the transformer cores could be broken into their laminates and they then got loads of steel “E”s which could be flicked like playing cards, as an adult I dread to think of the damage that they could have done if they'd hit someone in the eye, luckily the kids only used them to play up the wall.
Some of the old bombsites had been used to build “prefabs” however. These temporary prefabricated houses were the major part of the plan envisaged to address the post–War housing shortage. They had a planned life of up to 10 years and through use of the wartime production facilities and creation of common standards developed by the Ministry of Works, the programme got off to a good start, but more expensive to build than conventional houses, and of course only 
being temporary, in the end, of 1.2 million new houses built from 1945 to 1951 only 156,623 prefab houses were constructed.
The ones I knew were on these cleared bombsite in terraces, a couple here an odd one there, most have now been replaced by modern houses and few survive, though that they lasted into the seventies in many cases is itself a testament to the durability of a series of housing designs and construction methods only envisaged to last 10 years. 
Once a common sight in inner south London they now have to be sought out and soon you will probably have to go to a museum. The last ones I know in south London, which I used to see on my way home from work, are on a back street in East Dulwich. So the other day I set off to see if they were still there. Well a couple were, but I'm sure there were more a few years ago, and next door a new block of flats, so even here it looks like they have been reduced in number. In the pictures above and alongside you can see the remaining ones I know and the wall of the house next door rendered to protect was originally built as an internal wall.In Catford a whole estate has gone following a long battle which you can read about here. I've also linked to 
the film from youtube as it shows very well the types of buildings which were once a common sight on street corners in ones and twos and now are only memories.
Laurie
Near to where I went to school, both primary and secondary schools, and in fact across a lot of London stand blocks of flats built from the beginning of the 20th century, up until the Second World War. They come in many variations around the same idea, some in London Stock with Red Brick edging, some unusually in a Brown Brick. Most have white highlights on the balconies etc. They have stairs, which are sheltered but open, are often built around a courtyard, commonly have four floors above the ground level, (restricted by having no lifts of course) and, (this being the mysterious bit to me when I was a kid), have grass areas surrounding them with odd bulges and an odd design in fencing.
How odd is the design? Well the pavement boundaries are a low wall often topped with a glazed or polished brick, out of which sprang black metal uprights in pairs every 6-7 feet, fixed to these were horizontal poles which ran along and supported meshwork filling the gaps and making the fence.
So far nothing sounds odd, but there was a final element which defied my brain to suss it out for years. Inbetween the uprights, the horizontal poles zigged back from the straight for no reason making little "v"s all the way down the fence - a design element I thought, but why doesn't the mesh follow the zig-zag then, and why are the zig-zags so close to the ends?
In some of the green areas these fences surrounded, the ground bulged up into (often) squared off bulges and once I remember I saw an entranceway into one (Though I can't remember where! Any offers/photos?)
I was quite young and mother pointed out this was a bomb shelter so that made sense as these building were as I said pre-war.
Still I never saw any link to the designer fencing....
.... for there is a link and it's also a good example of reuse of old items, which is more efficient that recycling and shows great ingenuity.
For the "fence panels" were originally stretchers, and as soon as you imagine them cut away from the uprights and rotated around their long axis you can see the zig-zags on the long rods 
are legs for keeping the stretcher off the ground.
It seems so clear to me now, as all things are when looked at with the right perspective; but I'm guessing there are still people who don't realise, particularly as the further we go on in time and more of these are replaced as they are damaged.
Right along from where I took these pictures other sections of the fencing have been changed out for boring arrowed railings and even these 
examples are not original as the original mesh was attached with metal straps which I presume allowed flexibility and movement; desirable in a stretcher, but not in a fence; the panels in the pictures above are welded, however these panels on the left are from Kennings Way and are original.
There are few like this about now - soon these too will probably be gone, but if they are being repaired to keep the zig-zag frames at least, there might still be kids in the future who will look at them and wonder.... and if they are cleverer than me, will puzzle it out.
Laurie Smith
being temporary, in the end, of 1.2 million new houses built from 1945 to 1951 only 156,623 prefab houses were constructed. 
the film from youtube as it shows very well the types of buildings which were once a common sight on street corners in ones and twos and now are only memories.
