Growing Up In Hornsey In The 50s, 60s And 70s

A Memory of Hornsey.

My parents, Bill and Jill Oliver met at Mountview theatre club in the 1950s and married in 1955. Their first home was a rented flat at 45 Ridge Road in Hornsey and both I and my sister Judy were born while they lived there with their cat Sylvester. Our back garden backed on to Stationers School and we had a great time playing in that garden where my dad put a swing up for us. I remember the Milk float being pulled by a horse when I was very small and buying four chews from the Stroud Green sweet shop for a penny.
We went to Rokesley Infants school and then to Rokesley Junior school. When I was nine we moved to another flat at 81 Nelson Road and got our first ever car. A couple of years later we moved into a flat living above my grandparents in Campsbourne Parade, part of Hornsey High Street. It was called the Happy Shop. Apart from bikes it sold matchbox cars, coloured pencils, batteries and bike and pram accessories. My grandfather Norman Ingram used to lend out novelty bikes to the Hornsey carnival which we could watch as it went down Hornsey High Street from the windows of our flat - usually on Wimbledon Finals day!
I used to love going to the library in Crouch End, shopping there, playing in Priory Park, going to the fun fair there and going to Ally Pally. My grandmother Hilda Ingram used to write for the Hornsey Journal in the 1950s and 60s, and my mother Jill Oliver later became Headmistress of St Mary's infants school.