Happy Childhood In Crouch End

A Memory of Crouch End.

This is how I remember the Broadway from the eyes of a very small child walking around with my mum's gloved hand securely holding mine and my nan and my sister walking along with our dog Pepi. We would either be shopping or on the way to Rokesly School, the other very regular place we walked through the Broadway to was to visit Dr Campkin at her surgery on the corner of Tottenham Lane, I can also remember the nurse in there called Mrs Ward. I can remember being bought toy cars from Timothy Whites which is to the right by the black van. United Dairies had a shop on the right on the corner of Weston Park opposite the clock tower, this became one of the first Kentucky Freed Chicken shops in 1971 (let's not go there though). Out of view and over to the far left was Wilsons department store which was just like the Grace brothers in 'Are you being served', my mum would be seated confortably whilst the assistants showed 'Modem' their latest hats, they also had a coffee shop in there and my sister Jill, myself and our friends would buy our bottles of Zing and drive the blue miniskirted waitress mad with our precotious antics. The poor man who drove the lift didn't eacape us either. Wilsons was ripped down in 1970 and became Budgens.


Added 28 December 2009

#226816

Comments & Feedback

I was born in Crouch End in 1946..my first school was Birchington prep near Highgate Hill...then Crouch End Secondary Modern. I remember Bill Webb's cafe on Crouch end hill, for beans on toast.
My mother had a dress shop on Topsfield parade. As a teenager I went to the Royal at Tottenham and the Atheneum at Muswell Hill, of course as I got more adventurous I headed for the west end. My best pal's parents ran the Kings Head..when I moved to Ealing and then Richmond, I would still consider Crouch End as the best of London and I still do. Now I live with my wife in Cheltenham and love it here...but my children all live and work in London...Hampstead, Richmond and Notting Hill. I have nothing but good memories of Crouch End.
Yes I did mean St. Gilda's School. Also it was Joan Collins and her sister Jackie Collins who used to be regulars at Bunty's Icecream Parlour in Park Road ( my family's shop ) in the 50s.
Yes I did mean St. Gilda's School. Also it was Joan Collins and her sister Jackie Collins who used to be regulars at Bunty's Icecream Parlour in Park Road ( my family's shop ) in the 50s.
Bunty's is very interesting. Thank you for sharing your memories. Can you say roughly what years it was running. I can't find it in the pre-war Kelly's or the phone book. But I've seen a photo of it! Was it quite a short-lived business?

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