Born In Croydon 1953

A Memory of Croydon.

I was born at Mayday Hospital 1953. I had an older brother, John Read, and sisters, Judith and Gillian. John went to the Catholic school St Peters and Gillian and me went to the convent in Lingfield until we all emigrated to Australia in 1962.
My memories of Croydon were when my sister Gill and me used to go swimming in the summer holidays at the swimming pools by Croydon Market, down the hill. I remember the tiles all over the walls I think being light green and I think you could even go there to have a bath.
My father worked in Regent Street, London, and went on the train in his bowler hat, bow tie and swinging his umbrella. He walked home along the path next to the railway line that lead to the bridge by our road and we would often go to meet him. I remember him spraining his ankle outside the gates to the park by East Croydon and having to run home for help.
I can still see the Maypole dancers in the park and always wanted to be one but never knew how you could become one.
We owned the corner house 58 Friends Road and had lodgers as it was so big for us. My mother also fostered babies from the local church and I think it was Father Flood who brought her the babies saying 'Thelma, can you take another one' to which she never refused. I remember one of the babies, Christy, being adopted by a Doctor and his wife who had a little boy but could not have more and we were so sad at seeing him go at about 9 months old. There were many more before and after this.
The local gypsies with their lavendar baskets used to use our porch to shelter and feed their babies. My mother used to fill the milk bottles up with milk for them. In those days you held the teet and stretched it over the bottle lid. I always hoped I was not one of their offspring when I was little (I have the birth certificate to prove not!).
My sister and me went, I think it was 17 stops on the train from East Croydon to Lingfield and used to sit with the railway workers in their overalls and they used to bring trick cards and games for us. These days it would not be allowed.
I still have a teddy bear made from curly lambs wool that I got for Xmas when I was 4 years old from Alders. I also remember Milletts where I got a stuffed pixie doll, and the arcade with the chiming clocks that struck on the hour, with people and gongs, and loved to be there at the right time. Surrey Street market where we spent ages just wandering around. I loved it there.
My sister rang the fire brigade's bell outside the fire brigade and ran. In those days you always got caught and she did.
I played with a friend called Roger Bowels whose parents owned the shed that stood at the bottom of Friends Road where they sold newspapers and weekly's. I had a weekly comic and my mother had Woman and Woman's Own on order. I remember them having a row one day and the whole shed shook! We would not go in!
My sister and me had to take the big pram to, I think it was Dingwall Road, to get the free milk, orange juice and vitamin drops for the babies.
My mother used to go to the whist drive in the week and come back pleased as punch when she won some money. She walked over the bomb pit, if you remember it. We used to play there until they fenced it off.
My Aunty Dorothy had a house on the other side of our road, down by the Dentist and his family. I remember my father going to him and coming back and laughing as he had to take impressions and had taken the moulds and shoved them straight into my father's mouth straight from an old tobacco tin! No harm was done and we all went to him regularly when he mostly pulled out our teeth.
Lloyd park was our favourite and we used to walk on a Sunday up the paths next to the park over to Lloyd park where we could climb the oak trees and ride bikes down the bomb sight.
It never looked the same on my return from Australia and South Africa but was our home and we had a lovely childhood there. It is again time I returned and walked the walk as they say! Happy memories. Names I remember Francis McIntosh, my brother's friend Bruce Bailey, Molly Mason who lived in the big house opposite, Miss Yarnold who came to tea, Sheila & Duncan Fraser from Woodstock Road, good friends of my parents Thelma and Bill (Ernest) Read and my friend Anne French.