Growing Up In Greenford In The 1960s And 1970s

A Memory of Greenford.

Here are some random memories:

Lists Bakeries on Greenford Broadway.  Lovely aroma, tasty bread. The paper bags all used to have the slogan 'Good Flavour Always Finds Favour'.

The covered market near the junction with Windmill Lane where I was often sent by my parents to get smoked fish.

The Greenford Fish Buffet catching fire (this was at the corner of Greenford Road and Costons Lane, near the Salvation Army I think).

Various fires, leaks and chemical spillages at the Lyons factory  which was diagonally behind our house. Dad had a VHF radio and we used to tune in to the emergency services and listen in to the action.

The new bridge being built near the Black Horse on Oldfield Lane that replaced the old hump bridge over the canal.

Flooding! The junction of Currey Road and Oldfield Lane North is downhill whichever way you approach it. So it was prone to flood after heavy rain until they sorted out the sewers some time in the mid 1980s. This was too late for some of the houses opposite us -- they effectively became uninhabitable and were pulled down to make way for a multi storey car park for Glaxo employees. The houses were actually very nice ones, good solid 3 bed semis and a few old cottages. Nice houses, wrong place. Our house was set on higher ground so never flooded but it was sometimes a close call.

I often used to walk or cycle alongside the canal which was then heavily polluted. If you fell in your next journey would be to the hospital to get your stomach pumped, or so the urban legend went. Fortunately I never got to find out for myself. But certainly there were often dead fish floating on the surface and some nasty looking scum. The Garners bakery nearby smelt good though (the site is now operated by British Bakeries).

There were no BMX or mountain bikes in the 1970s, so I used to ride my very conventional sit-up-and-beg 3-speed hub-gear bike off road on the waste ground just off the Western Avenue near the Aladdin Factory (now B&Q).

I remember the British Bath Works on Long Drive and the local residents demonstrating about the noise and vibration coming from the factory. It closed soon after that. Nowadays you would never get planning permission to put a factory like that so near a residential area, or vice versa.

The little one coach push'n'pull diesel train that went between Greenford and Ealing Broadway. Frequent mainline trains using the BR line parallel to the Central Line, which still used semaphore signalling. They were often express trains going between Paddington and Banbury or Birmingham. The line is now hardly used. The railway bridge over the canal (visible from the allotments on Carr Road) was referred to as the Cattlebridge, for some reason.

The tunnel at Greenford Station -- now blocked but which I guess would once have led to the decommissioned BR station. I never did get to go down it! And the quaint hand painted sign at the ticket booth stating "All Tickets Must be Shewn Here" which was an archaic spelling even then.

I went to Wood End Junior School. My class teachers were Miss Hiden, Miss Wilder, Mr Day and Miss(or Mrs ?) Lambert. They taught me well, and without a SAT or a government target anywhere in sight. I took my 11 plus without even knowing what it was (and passed!). They were good teachers, I wonder what became of them.

The betting shop on Oldfields Circus, opposite the John Blundell furniture shop. I would pass it as I went home from school and usually there would be a race in progress. The race commentary was played over loudspeakers so there certainly sounded to be something exciting going on in there, but the windows were screened and a notice on the door barred under 18s from entering. The sign on the front said it was a Turf Accountant, which still didn't really tell me much about what they did. I'm sure all the secrecy was well meant, but it just used to make me all the more curious about what went on behind that mysterious door.

Kinmac -- the car dealer on Whitton Avenue near Oldfields Circus. I think they used to sell British Leyland cars but of course that meant their trade would have declined rapidly as better designed and built cars from elsewhere eroded their market share. The garage is no more -- the site is being redeveloped as retirement homes.

Rocky's Pizza opening in the 1970s, at the junction of Berkeley Avenue and Greenford Road. I used to think eating from there was very exotic. At the time, Berkeley Avenue was still open to traffic but later it was closed when the Glaxo site bought it from the council in order to bring the various site entrances into the overall site perimeter.

There were often car crashes at the junction of Currey Road and Oldfield Lane. It was a busy junction with a downhill approach, where drivers were often tempted to cut the corner or approach too fast. We got quite used to the sound of the impacts.

Boston Hair Fashions, the barber on Clare Road. Run by an affable, chatty, overweight man who died suddenly.

My parents lived on Costons Avenue from 1960 until 1969, and then moved to Oldfield Lane near the junction with Currey Road. I was born in 1962 and I had a lot of freedom and independence as a child, much more than today's children get. It did me no harm and a lot of good, and I'm sure overall it's no more dangerous now than it was then.

My parents sold up in the mid 1990s and moved to the south coast where they still live very happily. Their old house (451), and its semi detached neighbour (453), are now converted into bedsits. It is a pity, they were really nice family houses.