Childhood Memories Of Hatch End

A Memory of Hatch End.

My earliest memory of Hatch End is when I started at Grimsdyke School at the age of four and a half in 1948. My brother Michael used to walk me to school from Hillview Road.
I went to 2nd Hatch End Brownies which was held in the Vestry behind St Anslems Church.
After leaving Grimsdyke School, I went to Rosary Priory at Bushey Heath. I used to catch the train from Hatch End Railway Station to Bushey Heath Railway Station, then by bus to the school.
My parents, Frank and Doris Whitworth, first had the sweet shop, Whitworths, in the High Street (the shop was previously called Creswicks). Later on my parents established a card and gift shop two doors up in partnership with Bert and Joan Lovelock.
I used to go to St Anslems Church when the Reverend Charles Moxon was the Vicar and I was confirmed by the Bishop of London in March 1959.
I can recall being allowed to catch the bus to North Harrow on a Saturday morning to go to the children's pictures, a big adventure for a ten year old.
I used to go to Barclays Bank next to the Post Office and when I had one hundred pounds in my savings account, I thought I had a million pounds.
After my parents sold the shops we went on a three month cruise around the world. My parents loved New Zealand so much they sold our home and we moved to New Zealand in 1965 and later I moved to Australia where I still live.
I remember memory writer John Howard Norfolk, his brother and parents well. They were our neighbours in Hillview Road for a few years.
I have been back to Hatch End twice since my departure 43 years ago. I found Hatch End had changed. Gone was the Commercial Travellers School, now a Tesco Supermarket. Many shops were different. The corner opposite W H Smith was an antique shop rather than a grocery shop.
I now live on the Sunshine Coast in Australia, five minutes drive from the Pacific Ocean surfing beach of Mooloolaba. A big change from my childhood in Hatch End.