Croydon Has A Child

l was born 1939 and lived in westfild rd friends with Doris Hubbard and maureen Bain we use to play all day in wandle park once aweek we would take maureens littles brothers push chair and go in all the shops on pitlake bridge collecting all cardbroad boxs and paper we would flaten them out jnto bundles and take them to duppas hill rag and bone yard share money out then next day go to purley way open air pool spend all day there. we would paddle in the pond in wandle park and make up dances and dance on the band stand , A lot was always going on at St edmonds hall for us kids l went to croydon British school untill it closed my teacher there ran the Y M C A there was also a dance school wich my sister ran Anyone remember the old man shelter in the park were old tramps would sleep all day we use to hate going passed it and would run as fast as our legs would take us l enjoyed my childhood as there was always somthink to do

Ah yes, Wandle Park! I was born in September 1951 on Scarbrook Road opposite the Alms Houses which I remember had immaculate gardens. I went to the primary school, Parish Church, which backed onto the Old Palace girls school run very strictly by nuns!!! For a school games on a Wednesday afternoon we would walk two by two down to Wandle Park to play football with out big toe capped boots and laced up rock hard leather football praying that it wouldn’t rain and make the ball as heavy as a medicine ball! By this time the boating lake was no longer in use, probably closed for WW2 and never reopened. It was a lovely grassed area which we played on during the long summer holidays.
The ‘rag and bone’ yard was called Hewlitts I think and was situated near the Waldrons. We knew it as the scrap yard and my father would take his scrap metal there. The procedure was that you weighed it in, different metals had to be separated because they had different values, were given a chit which you then had to take up some wrought iron stairs to be paid out! That was a happy event for me as dad always gave me sixpence to spend down the local sweet shop on Pump Pail!