Hedgemans Road To Goresbrook

A Memory of Dagenham.

My parents moved to the Becontree Estate in about 1926 and we eventually settled in Hedgemans Road overlooking the field near Talbot Road. In those days the council used to decorate a couple of rooms as well as keep the outside looking almost new and eventually they provided electricity. I can remember my mother pushing my brother in a pushchair with me hanging on walking down Hedgemans Road passing unfinished houses to shop at a farm near Gale Street.. In retrospect the thing that now amazes me was the number of tradesmen who called and delivered goods mainly because Heathway shops had not been built. I clearly recall Old Dagenham village including the quaint shops up an incline on the right hand side past the church and of course football at Glebe Road. Most of the earlier shopping was in Broad Street and our Whitsun clothes were from the Co-op where they amazed us with the system of paying. Miss Cullem the headmistress was my first contact with Finneymore Road School and I later transferred to Goresbrook Senior Boys in 1935, I have no complaints in fact admiration for the education I was given which has served me well. The big event in the week away from school was the twopenny rush at the Central Hall on Heathway, those serial films were spell binding to our young lives.
After all these years my only contact is with Phil Hayman who now lives in Ontario, I often wonder where all my school friends, colleges and neighbours disappeared to, probably it was the war.