My Childhood Memories Of Life In Hooley

A Memory of Hooley.

Our family lived in The Fruit Shop (the shop currently sells doors) between 1958-’64. Mum and Dad served customers with the support of Mrs Garner,a rotund jolly lady who lived in Star Lane. Dad could often be seen delivering ‘Pink Parrafin’ to houses in Hooley, Netherne and Chipstead in his little green van. Adjoining our shop to our right was the chemist. Mrs Porter the pharmacist was a lovely lady; to her right there was a hairdressers, where I once suffered a ‘Twink’ perm,(which turned out far too curly to my chagrin).To our left, Mr Merritt had his butcher’s shop, and to his left there was a café.

In our time, there was a lovely comeraderie amongst all the proprietors, many of who lived above thier shops as we did. The public used a footpath which ran between our shop/back garden and the butchers. Mrs Trowbridge often used to stop and chat to us over the fence, on her way up to her house in the road behind. One day she had a kitten in her arms which I successfully pleaded to adopt and sadly eventually got run over.

My sister Moira and I used to attend Chipstead Primary School. Two or three school buses ran from Hooley up to the school. One waited by the garage in Star Lane, but for some silly reason, we had to walk up to Maple Way to catch ours. If you were late, the bus went without you and you had a very long walk!

On Saturday mornings several of the local children used to catch the 405/414 green bus to the ‘pictures’ at the Regal Purley(by the fire Station) and when we were older, Saturday afternoons were spent dancing round our handbags at The Orchid Ballroom. Vivienne Hilsdon and I won a copy each of the Beatle’s ‘She loves you, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,’ one Saturday, not sure what for now – certainly not the quality of our dancing!!

During those years, the Hooley Community Centre used to put on shows, I recall a crowd of us kids being taught and performing ‘Black & White Minstrel’ routines for one of the shows, not too politically correct nowadays, but great fun at the time!

I have very fond memories of those years in Hooley and the people who lived there when we did.