Growing Up In Post War Luton

A Memory of Luton.

I was born in 1939, many say that the war was probably partly my fault!
My uncle Steven Garside owned an electrical and aeromodellers shop in Park Square opposite the Technical College and my father "Ernie" Russell had a woodworking business at the rear and a lean-to stripwood selling business where I helped with the machining and sales on Saturday's, it was situated next door to Brown's cafe where we enjoyed egg and chips. Bill Johnson owned a small narrow fronted cafe next to a cycle shop higher up and nearer to the Corn Exchange where I puchased jugs of tea for our lunchtime breaks.
I attended the indoor swimming pool in Waller Street and in the winter the same venue when boarded over and renamed as the winter Assembly Dance Hall, opposite there was a dubious "theatre" featuring nude models that we boys would try to peer at through a grubby window, unsucessfully I may add.
Sainsburys was situated at the bottom of Chapel Street, I loved the smell of cheese when passing and often stopped to watch the counter assistants preparing pieces for sale holding the cheese down on a wooden table and using a wire strand, sliced off the size chosen by each customer, the smell of freshly roasted coffee wafting from the roasting and grinding machine.
My schooling was at Denbigh Road, starting with the infants, then junior and senior school before qualifying for the famous maroon blazer worn as a pupil of the Technical College.
My sporting qualification was limited to snooker played in a smokey room above "Burtons Gents Outfitters" under dim lighting, where I attended before the start of college.
My apprenticeship was served with Britannia Engineering Company located in Ashon Road with a machine shop and works in Bury Park where as tea boy I purchased a jug of tea for overtime refreshment from Nelly, who ownd a small cafe in the small group of shops opposite the archade.
When in my late teens we lads visited "The Engine" and "The Bute" public houses in Bute Street now presumably located somewhwere under the foundations of the Arndale Centre.
Does anyone out there remember me?
John Russell
31st May 2016