60 Gonsolva Road

A Memory of Battersea.

60 Gonsolva Road...I lived here from 1947 until my family had to move out in 1960. Slum clearance they called it. One car in the road. The Batty family, who lived further down the road, went hopping every year. A flat back lorry arrived and they all bundled on top with their gear for their 2 weeks holiday! Us kids played marbles along the gutter, and flicked fag cards at the wall. Whoever knocked the other kid's card down won. Our bread was delivered by a horse-drawn vehicle. The rolls were warm and delicious. The milkman also had a horse-drawn vehicle. The milkman used to let me drive it back to the depot which was in Acre Lane, Brixton. The rag and bone man used to come down our road with his pony and cart. The coalman also had 2 big black coal horses which were stabled in the corner property in Gonsolva. I was friends with the coalman's son Malcolm,I have forgotten his surname and would love to get in contact with him if anyone knows him. I went to school at St. Rule Street on my roller skates, then onto Tennyson Street. A lady made toffee apples around the corner and sold them from her front room window. Another man, Tom, who lived opposite made honeycomb and peddled it around the streets selling it, it was lovley. If it rained really hard our street got flooded and the water came into the house, so it was a quick move the furniture upstairs, then people would come to us asking could they borrow 'Scotty' our dog as the rats were swimming about in their house. We had an outside loo, and toilet paper was newspaper cut up into squares hanging on a piece of string. When the other houses were becoming empty the cockroaches came into our house, so when we came down the stairs in the morning they would crunch under your feet. But it was still a lovely place to have spent my childhood. Clapham Common. Battersea Park. I spent hours there. I worked at Chelsea Quilts, Caines Road, off the Northcote Road for 9 years. If anyone knows me I would love to hear from them.

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