Vanishing Watford

A Memory of Watford.

My family moved to Watford in 1953 to a large house in Rosslyn Road, a side road within a few yards of the Rickmansworth Road right opposite the Town Hall concert hall entrance. I spent virtually all my childhood there plus the teen years and left when I was 20 to live in Dorset.

My enduring memories of Watford include the wonderful Mocha Bar on the Parade where we could buy real Italian Espresso Coffee.  The fabulous rolls and baking from Chef Corner Cafe. The toy shop next to the Cookery Nook cafe.   Both Department Stores, Clements and Cawdells, the latter of these two would have a Santa Ride to see Santa and we'd go on a fake boat which undulated the way toy boats always do and someone rolled the scenery past the window to make you think you were going on a sleigh ride to meet Santa.  Then they let you out of a different door to the one you came in on so it seemed like you really had been somewhere.

The Park features also heavily in my memories along with the Carnival at Witsun that ended up going through those magnificent gates which Watford planners so criminally removed for road widening.
The Canal was a wonderful place to play and watch the barges come through the lock.  The River Gade we could canoe or fish in for Tiddlers and Minnows!  
The fair was in the park at Whitsun too but that has a hundred memories of its own.

I sang in the St Mary's Choir and the Organist and Choirmaster was one George Stone who died in 1967 and has been almost completely forgotten which is a great shame as he would take us and rehearse us for singing as a stand-in choir at St Albans Abbey during the school holidays.  That was a real honour for us.

Watford had Odeon Gaumont, Carlton Essoldo and Empire cinemas and the Gaumont was also a theatre where some great American Jazz groups played including Dave Brubeck and the MJQ.   I went to their concerts always.   
Watford has lost its charm now since so much of the old town is now buried beneath crazy development.  It went from being once the 2nd most prosperous town in England and now it's just one big Trading Estate and even the listed buildings in the South High Street were demolished to make way for a business park.  A sign of the times.

A student every year would jump in the pond on the parade as a college Rag Week stunt.  Those indeed were the days.

We left Watford for Dorset just before the new massive road development went ahead.  I returned on business in the early 1970s and it was still very pleasant but in the process of being so heavily changed that the appeal was soon to vanish.

I used to cycle from our home out to Bovingdon aerodrome to do plane spotting.  I'd also break through the hedge in Orphanage Road to do train spotting by the Watford Junction Sidings.   I dread to think how I sometimes would run out to the main line track and place a copper penny on the track and then some huge steam train sometimes the Royal Scot would thunder through and the penny would be illegally squashed to about three times it's length and a tenth of its former thickness.  We didn't think it was naughty to deface a coin of the realm!

The things we got up to as kids doesn't bear thinking about.  Stink bombs and other practical jokes.

Opposite the Church Vestry after choir practice on a Friday evening a few of us would buy a plate of cockles from the stall outside the One Bell Public House.  They were 6 pence a plate and we'd put white pepper and vinegar on them and they were delicious.  I can also remember my parents treating me to fresh prawns so we'd buy a pint of them.  They were measured by the pint and served in greaseproof paper with shells still on.  It would be a kind of ritual to peel them and eat them cold at home.
Rossis Ice Cream was the best in the world and I've never had any so good since in all the 40 years since I left.   They spooned it onto the cones with a big wooden spoon like a giant quiff.  Their parlour was down in lower High Street near to Queen's Road.

Swimming Baths sessions on Sunday morning also lingers as a super experience when the baths were fairly quiet and we had some space to ourselves.   I have a great affection for Watford still and I'm pleased to see there's a preservation society for Cassiobury Park (The Friends of Cassiobury) who work hard to make sure nobody tries to take that away or develop it into housing land.  It's magnificent and one of the best in the country.  I remember red squirrels in there at one time. What a wonderful place it was to grow up.