About

The Authors

Phil Waller

Phil Waller was born in Farnborough Hospital in the 1970s and lived in the Tubbenden Lane area, attending Tubbenden Lane Primary School and then Ramsden School for Boys in the 1980s. A local ‘boy done good’, Phil started work for Sainsbury’s at Locksbottom as a student and went on to work for them for twenty years, leaving as a manager in IT. Phil now works as for a world leading global education organisation, responsible for IT capabilities and services around the globe. Phil’s passion for local history started the day he explored the then reference department in the former Orpington Library and the librarian showed Phil the filing cabinet of old pictures, postcards and maps. Phil subsequently read Dorothy Cox’s The Book of Orpington and he was hooked. Phil started the Orpington History Organisation in 2006 and in 2013 was asked to be the first chairman of the London Borough of Bromley Heritage and Arts Forum.

Tom Yeeles

Tom Yeeles was born in Farnborough Hospital in the early 1950s. For his first ten years he lived in Downe village before his family moved to the Chelsfield Lane area of Orpington. He was educated at the Ramsden School for Boys in the late 1960s prior to commencing a long and varied career with the global communications company Cable & Wireless PLC. Various management roles with the IT department gave Tom the opportunity to travel extensively. Married with two grown- up children, Tom continues to live in the Orpington area. Following retirement in 2012 Tom’s interest in local history commenced when he met Phil Waller (in a local pub!), and provided many photographs for Phil’s first book Around Orpington Through Time. A second book, Orpington & Around History Tour, was co-authored in 2017. .