But You Cant Take The East Ham Out Of The Boy

A Memory of East Ham.

I was born at Howard's Road Hospital in 1954. My parents lived with relatives in Walpole Road then Elm Park before coming back to East Ham. We moved about the manor a fair bit. Mountfield Road, Stannard Crescent at Becton and Napier Road. What a great place to live and grow up in. The High Street was like a golden mile, the clothes shops, Brent and Collins, the boozers, C & A where I used to stand at the edge of the mirrors and cock one arm and leg out just like Harry Worth did in his shows. I have fond memories of going to Vicarage Infants and Junior Schools, Windsor Juniors and Napier Road juniors. I went on to Thomas Lethaby and started work in 1969. The town show was always good, I think it used to be in June at Central Park. Used to go to the Barking rec, I remember an old plot of land opposite the Ferndale pub that we used to use for cycle speedway, we'd play football on Flanders playing field after climbing over the fence at the end of Napier Road and when we finished we would go and pinch apples or pears off of trees from the back yards that led onto the playing fields. As a kid I did milk and paper rounds to earn a bit of cash so I could go and by reject Levi's from the shop on Barking Road, just up from the Denmark, 7/6d they were. When we lived at Becton our back yard faced East Ham united, it was great watching the football on a Saturday afternoon. We used to go down to the docks and watch the ships come in to Albert and Victoria dock, the bloke who lived next door worked there and would come in and he and dad would often do a deal, I think they must have been the original Arthur Daley and Del Trotter. New year's Eve was always special, parties, and the pubs full and lively and at the stroke of midnight people would come out and bang pots and pans and dustbin lids and make a hell of a noise to celerbrate the new year. Going to watch the Hammers, oooh fantastic, Bond, Burkitt, Bovington, Moore, Sealy, Hurst, Peters - those were the days', when West Ham won the World Cup! I looked up on google earth and can't believe how the place has changed with all the new bypasses etc. I do hope it is for the better. I had many friends who lived there, unfortunately time takes its toll and you lose touch, I now live in Australia with my own children and grandchildren but I shall always be a kid from East Ham. I read on different web sites that the place isn't the same these days, that's such a shame, still one thing they can't change and that's EAST HAM E6