Happy Days

Bridge Road c1955
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Oh the memories stored away!! Charlie's opposite Cove Green, going there for sweeties on a Sunday, Cove Green (not as good as Tower Hill swings though!), Mundays closing at 1pm on Sundays, Thorntons with its yellow facade, and wool etc, I always fancied their pink woollen gloves with little pearl beads, the Post Office, with toys in the window - I remember my dad buying me a farm set from there... The butchers next to Mundays, and was it Maces grocers the other side? Moving up (or down), the church hall and its jumble sales on a Saturday, the Tradesmans Arms and the Anchor, from which many happy holiday/trip coaches were met, the little hairdressers next to another butchers opposite the garage, then the "twin" shops I used to call them, one sold clothes for children, I think they were interlinked inside and I think the other sold baby apparel. Hancocks photographers, then another grocer, then "the" bread shop of Cove as far as I was concerned, as they were the only ones about who sold the baby Hovis loaves. I remember the buses on a Sunday... just about, practically unheard of, something like one an hour, the trek home up the alleyway beside the pub to the flats then across the garages to Fowler Toad and I was home again. Or you could go the "long" way round, up St Christopher's Road, into Busk Crescent, or, even more daring, was to go up Hazel Avenue, and then Cody Road, all alongside the horses' field (I'm sorry about the dog!), watching the airshow from the bedroom window, tadpoling in the brook, listening to the mysterious noises coming from the Power House in Keith Lucas Road, playing in the woods, going home tired, sweaty, dirty-kneed from playing at the swings all day or in the fields, staying in the allotments on a Sunday evening, listening to 'Sing Something Simple', after the top twenty (no forty then!) then going home!! Tower Hill School, the spare milk ,the smell of chalk, the fact that after lunch in P.E you always ended up with a pea on your foot, regardless, the sports days, the journey up to Big School and all those miles to walk (!). The building of West Heath bridge - just how did they manage before? The gi-normous roundabout that bloomed, the five arches in the Brook and the tales of dread about the half pipe one! Lovely lovely memories ...