Waddon Etc

I was born in 1948 and lived in Waddon Court Road until 1963. I remember the joy of Waddon Ponds just three doors away, and rRunning the gauntlet with the park keepers such as 'Pegleg', a cruel nickname following the 'legend' of a leg break by a swan!

The paper shop next door to Coopers was Wickhams and at the other end of the parade was the cafe run by Mr Coombes. He had a daughter Susan. The Saturday milk round finished here with two rounds of toast and an orange juice. The UD milkman was Maurice. This was about 1957/8. After the milk round I had a job with the butchers, Poulters if I remember rightly. One Saturday morning the bike fell over in Court Drive and one or two joints of meet became unwrapped and fell on the road! A quick wipe off and rewrap and I don't think anybody knew a thing. I used to buy 'Autosport' in those days and I kept all the cover photos in a scrap book - a spare school book - and one of the rewrapped meat joints leaked blood. I still have the scrap book and the blood stain is still visible.

Every other Saturday was a bus trip to Croydon with Dad to go to the Library. I would choose books from the childrens' section and then go to find Dad who always selected French books. He read French, spoke fluent German and learnt Italian in 1966 for our 1967 holiday. After the library we would walk to Kennards for icecream sundaes upstairs in the restaurant. Wicker chairs and two or three elderly ladies playing the piano. A large Art Deco bar at which the ice creams and coffee etc were sold.

Sometimes it was horlicks in Jo Lyons at the top of the arcade. Visits to the zoo and the pony rides and roundabouts at the bottom of the arcade. Years later I worked for Kennards selling carpets but that's is a different story but I did get to see the workings of the compressed air pipe system used for sending money to the cash office. A fantastic piece of machinery.

School was in Beddington to start with and then Lanfranc Boys in 1960. Obviously 1961 was a shock to all of Croydon.