So many memories for so many people.

As the accountancy practice leaves for pastures new, I think about all the different people who have must have passed through the doors of this building over the past 70 years.

Some stopping off for light refreshment on their way to the coast. Some meeting their friends to discuss motorbikes and music, some for a wild night out, some wide-eyed and straight out of school starting out their professional career and many coming to meet their accountants to get advice on whatever financial challenge they are dealing with.

I guess it started as just a café on the A20 of which they were of course many, before motorways changed the way people travelled around the country.

After the war ended in 1945, those who finished their national service got a payment from leaving the armed forces. This was often enough to buy a motorbike and give them a chance to live for a short while the youth that they had missed out on.

National service wasn’t applied to anyone born after 1939 so the so-called baby boomers had more freedom than earlier generations and this gave rise to the two distinct groups of mods and rockers that emerged in the 60s.

Johnson’s Café as it was known then (although it’s actual name was the Rising Sun Café) was home to the rockers. Mods were not welcome.

A good friend of mine who remembers the time told me how he drove past on his Vespa unaware of the cafés reputation.

When the rockers in the car park saw him, they jumped on their bikes, chased after him and kicked in the bubbles on his Vespa. Another lady told me how she had stopped just to use the outside toilets and when some of the girls saw that she was dressed as a mod was beaten up!

When the member of the Johnson family who ran the café passed away in 1979, the business was unable to continue. Enter Oscar.

Oscar rented the building and ran it as a dinner dance night club for many years. Legend has it that you could buy anything at Oscars. If you told Oscar that you wanted to buy a battleship, Oscar would ask what colour you wanted it in. Many of the comedians and song and dance acts who graced our TVs in the 70s performed at Oscars.

When Oscar moved onto pastures new, the club became known as Kings Lodge Disco. Back then there were no ID checks in the pubs and clubs. In fact we didn’t have any ID that could be checked anyway!

If the landlord asked your age and you told him you were 18, he had done his job whether he believed it or not.

Many people had their first illegal drink at Kings Lodge disco and most Friday nights ended in trouble of some kind. When I first inquired about changing the use of the building, the local licensing officer for Sevenoaks police told me that the building had been “the bane of his life” and that my plans to turn it into offices had “made his weekend”.

I’m told the local celebrity and DJ Pete Tong played regularly at Kings Lodge disco while he was making a name for himself and well before he became cockney rhyming slang..

But the business failed and the building fell into disrepair. For nine years from 1990 to 1999 it became an eyesore with metal grills on the windows and a site being used for fly tipping.

Somewhere along the line, the eyesore was noticed by an aspirational accountant driving past the building on his way to work. Then he noticed that the sold board had disappeared. Enter me.

I made some enquiries and found out that each time a sale had been agreed, a problem had been flagged up by a surveyor.

So I did a deal with the next-door neighbour that if I bought the site, we would do a simple fix that suited both of us. Then I did the deal to buy the site from the Johnson family. And so began the next chapter in the story as Kings Lodge became home to A4G Chartered Accountants.

It might not have been quite as loud and they definitely weren’t as many people in the building but for 26 years, Kings Lodge has seen many young people arrive as trainees and the work their way through their exams towards becoming qualified accountants. Thousands of businesses have relied on A4G to keep them on the straight and narrow and help them with all the challenges that come with running and growing a successful business.

The history of the building fascinated me though and there were regular reminders of its past. We ran an open day and did it on the theme of Johnson’s café. We wrote to some biker magazines and had guests visiting on their classic Triumphs and Nortons. Occasionally someone would just drop in because they had driven past and wished to pop in. A couple told me they had met in the building. One of the Johnson family (in her 80s by then) came in and pointed out where bedroom had been.

And then there was the bizarre. One morning we noticed the name “Dave” spelt out in the grass verge at the front. One of my team who had been in the office at the time confirmed that a cou0ple of cars had pulled up and poured what were clearly Dave’s ashes out. Boy, this place must have been important in Dave’s life.

We mustn’t forget the Japanese tourists as well. Dressed in 50s biker gear, they came to have pictures taken outside. “Johnson’s café is very famous in Japan” they told us. We’ve still not got to the bottom of that one.

But like the Johnson family, Oscar and whoever ran Kings Lodge disco (if you know, please tell us), it has reached the time to move to pastures new. The site has been sold and new life will be breathed into it.

In the meantime, to preserve the history and the memories we have teamed up with the Richard Hogbin and the Stansted history society who are going to research the history properly.

If you remember Johnson’s café, Oscars or Kings Lodge disco, we’d love to hear from you. Pictures would be even better! Contact me on malcolm@a4g-llp.co.uk or log on to our Facebook page.

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