A Happy, Friendly Place For A Boy To Grow Up ...

A Memory of New Haw.

Born in Woking in 1945 I lived in New Haw from 1947 to 1964, firstly at Warren Road and then from 1949 in Braeside.

I remember Mrs Crab at West Byfleet Primary who taught me to read; I remember Mr Bean at Fullbrook who made me a prefect. I recall so many names: Ruddick; Sears; Wade; Read; Mandeville; Sheppard; Crossan; Mullins; Francis and Bint - from Braeside. The Bints had the electricity pylon in their garden: we awoke often to the sound of a fry-up on the air whenever the atmosphere was damp and it made the pylon wires sizzle. Then, I recall Lavender; Bott; Carter, Ayres and McDaid in King's Road. Caldwell in Broomfield. Kelland; Freshwater; Lake; Hurley; Church and Richards in Park Side. And many more besides.

Our childhood NW Surrey playground was vast: Heathervale Recreation ground where we used to build camps in the undergrowth at the edge of the rec. (And where, aged about 5, I sang 'Oh What A Beautiful Morning' in the rec. from the back of a lorry during a local election rally); the Basingstoke Canal tow paths; the Wey Navigation; Woking Sandpits at the six cross-roads; Chobham Clump: the River Wey at Brooklands where we played under the banking and in the fields alongside; and fishing on the River Bourne. There were summer evenings at The Black Prince sitting under the huge willow tree in the pub garden. We could swim at Woking Lido and go to to 'the pictures' at the Woking Odeon, Gaumont and Ritz cinemas. We shopped in Guildford, Staines and at Bentalls in Kingston. New Haw was a well-placed bus ride from all these important Surrey towns and only a walk away from the nearest railway station at West Byfleet on the Portsmouth Line from Waterloo.

In New Haw proper on one corner of the crossroads of Woodham Lane, Scotland Bridge Road and The Broadway stood the local Morris garage run by the Linnell family. On the diagonally opposite corner was The Co-op. And of course opposite that was The Black Prince. Harold Gadd ran his landscape gardening business from his old SCC ambulance/ office behind the pub. Further along The Parade where we shopped for almost everything, there stood at the corner of King's Road, Worrall the greengrocer. In the direction of Woking, Jack Hargreaves, a prominent local builder and my father's political rival, also a councillor, lived with his family on Woodham Lane. I went to school with my contemporaries, the young Linnell and the young Hargreaves. Travelling in the other direction towards Addlestone, past the entrance to the Vet. Labs. and before reaching Crockford Bridge Farm, stands New Haw Bridge and New Haw Lock. Here were the sites of: The White Hart, run by my school chum Dave Cook's father; an entrance to Bentley's Farm run by schoolfriend Maggie Bentley's family and where during the school holidays we used earn money pulling vegetables; East's garage run by Ronny East's family and where my father used to get his car serviced; and Tilly the coal merchant. On the other side of New Haw Bridge, in the direction of Byfleet, the Stanton family ran their Formica business.

My father was a Chertsey Urban District councillor and Surrey County Councillor elected by constiuents in New Haw and other surrounding localities, and stood for Parliament at Surbiton in the 1950s. Our house at Braeside was so often full of party workers and party literature in those days. He worked at Weymanns Bus factory and later at Airscrew. My mother occasionally worked at the Marconi / Plessey / Racal factory on King's Road in New Haw. No small irony, I always feel, that the very radar displays she helped to build in the King's Road factory were some of the same items I later maintained on board RN warships. To get about New Haw, by the way, my mother had a motorized push-bike made by Cyclemaster of Byfleet. I worked in New Haw for a time. I worked part-time at the newsagents on The Broadway in the early 60s while doing my GCEs. That's it alongside the telephone box in picture N183014. John Morris owned and ran it. For a while, after leaving school in 1962 I worked at the Vet Labs. and at Crockford Bridge Farm. Eventually though, I moved on and joined the Royal Navy in 1964. My farewell 'do' was held at the the Park Side Club at the end of Broomfield Road. For all the places in the world I have since lived and worked, the Park Side Club is still one of the most memorable drinking and darts emporiums in my history of social activity.

Happy days indeed. 17 of my first 19 years growing up in New Haw. I still go back every few years to see how the old place looks. It's fine and whatever the 'experts' say about its uncertain history it was my childhood home and I loved it.

E&OE