The day I caught the train with David Bowie

Not long after being diagnosed with cancer, David Bowie reportedly made a secret trip to London to say his farewells. One of his stops was No. 4 Plaistow Grove, a modest terraced house in the heart of suburbia where he grew up, having moved there in 1955. I knew the house well. It was five minutes down the road from our home, which stood in a private lane alongside the golf course, in the village of Sundridge Park. Here, Davy lived with his mum Peggy and dad John.

Back in the early sixties, heady rock and rolls days even in Bromley, it was clear that Bowie – or Davy Jones, as he was then – was hell-bent on stardom. I saw Davy often on Bromley High Street; he was a well-known figure, hanging out outside the Wimpy Bar or one of the coffee bars where teenagers gathered, eschewing the upmarket Coffee Importers where mums met for cups of ground coffee after shopping at Marks and Spencers.