Time To Unload Some Memories

A Memory of Aveley.

There've been about 2 feet of snow out there and it's about minus 10 deg, so I thought I'd stay in the warm and catch up on what everyone's been saying and better understand/manipulate - sometimes not so easy - this website (I found messages I didn't even know I'd received!). So I hope this appears properly. I found that, if I couldn't get to sleep easily I should go through my old grammar school in Dagenham and try to remember each classroom and teacher/subject, or go from one end of Aveley with each building and shopkeeper to the next, I was asleep in no time (such memories after sooo many years!). So how about a trip from the bottom of Purfleet Road (PR) to the other end of the villlage, starting on the right? I'll state many things/verbs as "fact" (was, were), otherwise I'd be saying "maybe", "used to", "I think" all the time. And I'll try not to repeat too much from earlier memories, from me and others. So if you know better, just accept it or correct it in your mind.
At the bottom of PR on the corner was a cafe, for the drivers passing on the Southend Road (A12?). At the back of this was a corner of the TBM sports ground where there was sometimes baseball on a Saturday with "terribly" shouting US players (from air force bases somewhere). That was a shock for my tender English ears.
After some green or field came the entrance (a driveway) to the TBM club house, where we went Friday evening as I and Tiggie said elsewhere.
After more green or field came the entrance, a tree-lined footpath to the Tunnel sports ground (more pleasant, not as bombastic). That's where we played football in the summer, as I and Tiggie already said elsewhere.
By the way, we didn't always go down PR to get to the Tunnel sports ground. We could also go across the fields from Love Lane. And then, on the way back, we went scrumping (stealing apples) along the gardens of the houses in PR that backed on the fields.
Then, continuing up, I suppose all the private houses started as far as Love Lane, where there was a big house on the left. But I can't remember what was on the right.
Shortly after was Manning Street, then a stretch of grayish houses, and Field Road, with a bus stop for the 371 here at the top, which I had to take to Rainham when going to school. A little further was an entrance down into ? Road and then came the doctors' surgery (all the Bees), and the stretch of houses, elevated from the roadside, where Tiggie and June Girken lived, ending at Wakefield's the butcher's and the post office.
Below this the entrance to the Rec was built with space for parking, and toilets at the opening. Someone who parked his Mini there regularly was a painter call Dennis, who often brought me and Kevin back from the steam baths in East Ham on Saturdays. Either here or further down was a bank (Lloyds?).
Another stretch of old houses then Reads, the "paper shop". The row after that set back from the street wasn't there in my time (I can only imagine old houses).
From there to the corner of Ship Lane was an assortment, I'll try at the sequence. The Dairy run by Mr and Mrs Cole (son Michael) where Elsie first worked, Woodyatt's fruit & veg (a lovely bustling), the sweets shop of Mrs Johnson before she took over the post office.
At the corner of Ship Lane I seem to remember a zebra crossing to The Ship. Then in his dark little workshop (beautiful leathery odour) came Fryer the shoemaker where we had our heels and soles repaired. There must have been more houses between here and St Michael's Church and the war memorial.
If anyone's interested, an M. Bonifield (?) has produced a website with a plan of the graveyard, numbering all the graves and listing who are buried there. It's fascinating when you think of the old family names from way back that we heard as children (in other words living in Aveley centuries later). Then he shows a plan of the church where you see that parts of it date from the Normans in 1120!
This has been a bit exhausting. I'll jump under the shower and continue another time. Bye4now