D is for Debden

The theme for my A-Z posts this year is London Underground Stations.  I've chosen a station for each letter and at the end of each post I've listed the other stations for that letter with their Wikipedia entries.  I've tried to visit each station and take my own photos.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

There aren’t many “D” stations on the London Underground but Debden was the obvious choice for me.

I’ve never actually used the station myself.  It’s on the Central line and is almost at the eastern end of the line and is actually in Essex.  However I have collected people from the station quite a few times over the years.

The attraction of Debden for our family is the camp site and Debden House set in Epping Forest.  We have been there many times for our family camps. 

This was a tradition started by my husband’s parents and went on for many years.  We would usually go on the August bank holiday weekend, arriving on Friday and staying over until Monday.  We often had good weather but there were some very wet times as well although I can’t remember a totally wet weekend.

The family gradually expanded – eight siblings all marrying and producing children has that effect!  But this site is ideal for that – we would take over an area of a field (no formal pitches there)  pitch our tents in a circle, set up a fire and have a great time.  We’d play games, cook together and just chill.  The kids would amuse and look after one another and the adults could relax in lovely surroundings.

Debden station is the nearest to the campsite but it’s a 40 minute walk away and loaded down with camping gear, driving is the only way to go with that but husbands, children, friends etc would often join us by train so one of us would head down to the station in a car to collect them.

Lots of happy memories of our weekends and quite a few photos that most of us don’t want to see the light of day.  After a couple of nights in a tent, with not much sleep no one looks their best!  Adults tend to stay up late singing and drinking but babies don’t understand the concept of lying in the next morning and our age range usually went from almost newborn some years to elderly grandparents with a fair distribution across the ages in between.  We often had at least 30 of us there.

A very old camp photo - 2010!  As I said, not very flattering. 

(I'm in the pink top behind our lovely matriach who sadly died in January this year.)

More recently we have opted for a roof over our heads and a comfy mattress under our bodies for this annual get together and we now head to a converted Oast house in Kent.  Sounds more civilised but the inclusion of electricity means the karaoke sessions can get quite loud.

Not much info about the station here but I did warn you on day one that I have a tendency to digress which also starts with D!

Other “D” stations are:

Dagenham East

Dagenham Heathway

Dollis Hill

Next stop E is for ….? Check back tomorrow to find out.