Grays At Its Best

A Memory of Grays.

I remember with great fondness old Grays. I was born in the back bedroom of 191 London Road, Grays. My mother and father lived with my mum's mum and dad, also my brother Ronald was born there 7 years before that. London Road was a wonderful place, especially Edie Dobson's sweetshop along the road a few houses, which was situated in her front room. The smell was so wonderful when we entered the shop. Also I remember running out of the back gate past Grandad's Anderson shelter in the back garden and along the back of the houses to the children's playground where I would while away the hours on the swings and my favourite thing, the large swinging seesaw. Then I would go home for dinner, sometimes carefully crossing London Road with Nan to the side of the house opposite where we waited till a metal shutter was pulled up and ordered fish and chips in newspaper, or we would go to the Co-op to buy goods and Nan to get her stamps. Also, she would have a stream of visitors to the door, insurance men, rent man, the baker with his big wicker basket tempting nan to buy. I thought it was wonderful. Sometimes we would walk into Grays with Auntie Maud and I would hold their hands swinging between them, and she would sometimes buy strawberries as a treat for tea, I was so excited, I couldn't wait for Grandad to arrive home to blast out "Grandad. we have got strawberries for tea", to which he'd reply "Alright newspaper, don't tell everyone". On Sundays we would listen out for the seafood man in his van, and we would go and get shrimps, cockles and winkles for Ssunday tea. Even after my mother and father were given a new house in Stifford Clays our family with (two more children by then) used to walk from Stifford Clays estate along Hogg Lane to Nans house and back every Sunday for tea, great days indeed, no moaning about sore feet, you just did it. My Nan used to often take me to Southend on Sea on a top deck of a bus from outside her house. It was a long journey but well worth it, going round the shops and markets and then sitting on the grassy bank looking at the sea. On good days we walked along Church Path, a magical place to me as a child, and down past the old wooden houses to Grays beach where we would play and sit and have a drink in the Beach Cafe. To this day these places fill me with emotion. I loved old Grays and also my childhood there and on Stifford Clays estate, they truly were the best days of my life! Sadly Grays is now is a shadow of its former self, all the old lovely buildings and history are gone and the characters with them. I so miss and grieve for them still, and I am now 58 and my dear old mum is 84. Her name is Iris Alice Gilson and my dad who sadly died aged 56 was Charlie Oakley who I love and miss still. My Nan and Grandad died in 1975 and 1982 respectively and I think they would all hate Grays today.

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