The Old Village

A Memory of Dagenham.

I remember George's second hand shop in the village, my nan would take me and my brother there for a treat that was the highlight of the week for us. Also the pie and eel shop, with the brightly coloured tiles outside on the wall. Then there was Pondfield Park, and the rubbish tip opposite, can you believe we used to love to play over there - cowboys and indians, we must have gone home stinking. We were never indoors, there was always an adventure, roller skating was another favourite, skating around Oxlow Lane up the Heathway, down to Parsloes Park. My grandad used to collect smelly fish boxes from the fish shop in Oxlow Lane and chop it for kindling for the fire, also he made a barrow from the wood to collect horse manure from he chase. We lived in a middle terrace so he would push all this stuff through the house, by gum we had the best food always - they were self sufficient, my nan made bread, cakes, stews, pies, you name it she made it. The key was hung on the door inside the letter box, ha ha could you imagine doing that now. I remember also the milkman had a horse and cart, he always stopped at ours for a cup of tea and I would take a bucket of water for the horse and a carrot from the garden, then the milky would put a nosebag of oats on the horse. My granddad would take me on a little seat on the back of his bike up to Crow Lane to see the pigs and sheep - all farms there then. We used to have a pigbin man come every day to collect all the food scraps for the pigs. Oh and the coal man that had to go through the house as well into a bunker - thats when we got posh - before then it was stored in a cellar under the stairs. I used to walk to Heathway train station at the age of 13 and go off to visit my uncle in Hammersmith every Saturday, returning same day. My uncle would come and visit and play the piano, my granddad would play the violin, we didn't have a telly. We lit our own fireworks unsupervised on bonfire night and never got burned. We used to go to a disco on a Sunday night up at the Borough Hall near Fords, the music then was Sweet Dream Baby, Bobbys Girl, The Twist - oh happy days!