Ewell, High Street 1924

Department of building/ Plumbing

Department of building second year of a four year plumbing apprenticeship. As an sixteen year old just starting work Ewell Tec set the standards that I have tried to keep to all my working life.

Wedding Day 1958

This is the church that my parents were married in, April 12th 1958. I haven't seen it since 1974, when we emigrated to Australia. Their wedding photos were taken in front of the church, with family members, many of whom are no longer with us.

Baldwin's Butchers Shop

I have this photograph on the wall as it reminds me of my dad, Arthur Edward Elson. He was born in Mill Lane in 1914 and worked as a 'butcher's boy' for Baldwin's which is just visible on the right of the photo.
He delivered meat to customers by bicycle which is how he met my mother, she had come down from Durham and was working for Doctor Eileen Stevenson who lived at Holmfield in Cheam Road.
He worked there until he was called up to fight in the Second World War, in fact they continued to pay a percentage of his wages to his mother Alice, my grandmother, for the duration of the War as she was a widow and survived by taking in washing.
The first Elsons to arrive in Ewell were my great great great grandparents John Elson, a widower from St Martha on the Hill and his wife Sarah Longhurst.  They were married in Ewell on 29th December 1793.

The Nell Gwynne

In our early teens we used to go to the Nell Gwynne, upstairs in the 'coffee bar' where we had what I believe was the worlds first Nickelodeon (manual version). We paid the lady 3d, I think it was, and she put our favourite record on the record player on the counter and we listened while we chatted.
Anybody out there remember the Lecture Hall School in Upper High Street (circa 1943/44)? Headmistress was a Miss Gray. I fell in love with Ann Bridson (I was 7).
Waterloo Rd had a DIY shop in those days, going under the name of 'Useful Bros'.
I went to the Infants School down the bottom end of White Horse Drive, where we filed into the air-raid shelters complete with gas masks when the sirens went!
My mate John Evans and I went to the Methodist Youth Club, to meet the girls I guess. Marilyn ?, Janet Mansbridge, Jeanette Scott, to name the memorable ones! We learnt to square dance.
I lived along Woodcote Side and 'our gang' used to play all the time on the common. We spent some nights in the basement of the Woodcote Side Laundry when the bombing was at its heaviest.

Rosebery Park

I was born in Epsom in 1936. Apparently, when still in my push-chair, I trundled down the bank shown in the picture and ended up in the water!! Later when 10 or 12 we used to sail our model yachts on the pond and in our teens spent a lot of evenings in the park chatting up the girls! Happy, happy days. I must admit there was a tear or two in my eyes when I saw all those lovely trees felled by the great storm.