The Pelican Restaurant

A Memory of Ickenham.

We lived in a charming little bungalow in, I think it was called, Parkfield Avenue, a little cul-de-sac with a footpath that led to a golf course. Going out of the cul-de-sac the other way and then going right towards Swakeleys Road. We used to go shopping there. Good well known individual shops, David Griegs I remember well, I used to love the dark wood doors with the glass windows and brass fittings and the counters! were a joy to see (and to remember). The marble tops and the large (huge to a little girl) red machine which cut the bacon or/and the ham. Things were rationed, but the service was personal, very polite, and the counters and utensils scrupulously clean.The shelves, of deep, dark wood (mahogany or dark oak) were filled with jars and tins and packets of all wonderful foods, it must have been hard to believe we'd just been through a war. There was also, I believe it was a Liptons, along this parade of shops. Quite elegant too, but I can't imagine we went there that often as I don't remember it that clearly.
What I do remember was a small restaurant called 'The Pelican'. It had two bow windows with panes of swirly glass so it was hard to look out. There were bentwood chairs and small gate legged tables. It was quite a popular place, we ate there quite often. Till, one day, I being a very young child, spilt something and my mother made her way to the kitchen, at the back, to get a cloth to wipe what had been spilt. She came back with a cloth and a very unhappy face. We left almost immediately. 'It's so dirty back there' she said 'All this is just show'. I do not know what had happened or what she saw, but not only we never went back there, again but we rarely ate out again. Lyons Corner houses were the only places she would take us to.

I also remember a nursery school, Miss Camb's it was called. Much further down Swakleys Road in a very grand Gothic mansion (well that's how I remember it). It had a very imposing door way and a grand central staircase. The teachers were quite nice, teaching us French as well as the alphabet and how to be polite and how to eat nicely. Oh yes and singing in French which was very amusing. The standards of  behaviour were high and the teachers set a very good example, by their demeanour and deportment, the impression stayed with me even through adolecence, when I often remembered their ways in contrast to the rough uncouth behavour of what had become 'popular behavior' (in Slough in the 50s).
Walking home was nice too. If my parents did not come for me Miss Camb or one of the teachers would make sure I had been entrusted to a responsible senior to walk me home along Swakleys Road, past the little church, and along to Parkfield Avenue, and my little bungalow with the two Aspidistras, one on either side of the door. Once home I always fed my cat, a massive marmalade cat, which used to love sitting in my pushchair in a basket, and being pushed around the garden.