Film director who used to live in Church Road was cinema campaign supporter.
Film director Ken Russell, who has died at the age of 84, once lived in Church Road, Upper Norwood.
Back in 1990 the director of Women in Love, The Music Lovers, The Boy Friend and The Devils, wrote to the then chief librarian at Upper Norwood Pat Scott about his time at Beulah Villa, 124 Church Road - which stands to the left of the entrance of Fitzroy Gardens.
"I understood it was a shooting lodge for the Prince Regent. The back garden was 600 feet long and - according to the people who gave a mortgage - useless.
"But a short time later - I bought the house in '58 - I sold 400 ft of it to Wates for the price I paid for it - £4,000.
"The house had rising damp and the ghost of a little girl on the stairs. The area had a lot of character when I moved in, but by the time I moved out six years later, it was becoming overrun by crass development and was fast losing its identity. "I left just in time."
But Ken found time to lend his support to the Picture Palace Campaign. Talking of the former Granada cinema at 25 Church Road he said:
"I think Crystal Palace would certainly be all the poorer if that cinema couldn't come back to the area. "I remember fondly my trips there – it had a personality of its own and it would be tragic if that were taken away."
The Huntley film archive has one of Russell's earliest films - part of which was shot in the old Crystal Palace high level station which stood on the corner of Farquhar Road and Crystal Palace Parade - in its collection. The scene from Amelia and the Angel, made in the late 1950s, features a dog wearing angel's wings. The film is numbered 3523 in the Huntley archive.
Further details about the film can be found in posts on Sydenham Town Forum
