Growing Up In East Ham

A Memory of East Ham.

I was born in what used to be the Aldersbrook Maternity Home and lived in Shakespeare Crescent, Manor Park until my parents moved in 1983 to a flat in Aldersbrook which had been the maternity home - talk about coming full circle!
I have so many memories of East Ham it's hard to know where to start. I went to East Ham Girls' Grammar School in 1964 and had a wonderful education from great teachers such as Mrs Jensen, and Miss Herbert who nurtured my love of literature.
A lot of my memories are coloured by the events surrounding West Ham United. My dad was a huge fan and season ticket holder. I remember going to see the team parade through East Ham after winning quite a few competitions (happy days!). We even met Geoff Hurst at an event in the big department store in Ilford (can't remember the name of it now) and even my mum was excited by that!
As a teenager I used to work on Saturdays, first at the massive Co Op up by the junction of High Street North and Barking Road. There were loads of us all working there at the same time and we used to try and get the same lunch break and sit in the canteen trying our first cigarettes - usually a packet of 10 Guards. Later I went to work with my mum in Ravel's shoe shop just across the road from the Co-Op. The best thing about that was getting a discount on the really trendy shoes they sold. I remember being trained to sell 'spivs' which were shoes that were really hard to sell and earned us a bonus. I was also taught how to 'stretch' shoes to fit the customer. We would tell them we were just popping out the back to use our special 'stretching machine' which was, in fact, nothing more than a broom handle that we stuck inside the shoe and wiggled around. The customer was almost always convinced that the shoe fitted better!
Life seemed very simple then, when the highlight of my week was having a dry roll and a cup of oxo with my mum in the Market Cafe down Wakefield Street, or buying a new sweater at Bernards (between Kensington and Byron Avenue) or getting my school uniform from Claire Peters opposite East Ham Station.
Great memories.