It is really strange how things happen. Two days before the launch of our new website on 11th November 2013, I was speaking at the RAF Association lunch in Welling. Sitting next to the Branch President, I happen to mention to him what we are doing with our research project and online war memorial. The name of one of our Soldiers, Valentine Lloyd, came into the conversation. He immediately said to me… that Valentine Lloyd’s name appeared on the Bexley Woods war memorial to the 1st Bexleyheath Scout Group and gave my vague directions as to how to find it. He said the memorial used to be carved in wood, but after the 2nd World War former members got together to have it cast in steel and have it properly secured to a tree.
I had never heard of this memorial before and wasn’t familiar with Bexley Woods either. I knew the wood was tucked away behind Camden Road somewhere, but had had no reason to visit it before. Anyway, I couldn’t contain my curiosity so on Monday I Googled the Memorial and found a number of mentions, but no pictures, or exact map reference. Anyway, come Tuesday afternoon with most of my list of jobs for the day cleared I jumped in the car and drove the short distance through Blackfen to Bexley Woods.
I hadn’t realised just how big the wood is and I was searching for a needle in a haystack. I asked a jogger and she had never seen it before, but, I then found a couple of dog walkers who knew exactly where it was and guided me there.
It did take a bit of finding, but I found it, just as I was told, fixed to a tree. It is one of those things that you would never find unless you know it is there. However, the journey was rewarded, for not only is Valentine Lloyd’s name on the tablet, but also that of Raymond Storer, another Welling lad who was a 1st Bexleyheath Scout, before he founded the 1st Welling Scouts in 1912.
Their families were both in business and they were the only surviving sons who were expected to carry on the family name and business connection. Sadly, like many of the large country estates and aristocratic titles that were lost by the death of their sole heirs, so these 2 families in a more humble way, suffered the same fate.