Mitcham

A Memory of Norbury.

I lived in Manor Road in the late fifties and then Lymington Close until the end of the sixties, it was a great place to live then. We played on Mitcham common going to the seven island ponds on our bicycles and the old gun site. Mr Brown who owned "Browns garage" in Manor road used to sell spares for bicycles and was a nice old man who always wore a boiler suit and a beret. At the end of Manor road and north borough road were our local shops....Cusdens the grocers, Bunkers the sweet shop, the dairy, post office, Foxes ironmongery, the Globe library run by two ladies and best of all Long and Watson a lovely shop run by lovely people selling radios, TVs, bicycle parts etc. Plus further up Northborough road was the chip shop where we got threepence worth of chips with "crackling"
I went to Pollards Hill infants, junior and secondary school where Mr Dawes was the Headmaster. Opposite the school in wideway were corrugated Nissan huts where people lived and in South Lodge Avenue were prefabs.....now all gone.
When I was a teenager in Lymington Close I had a motorbike as did my friends Colin and Graham.....our poor neighbours! We used to go to Thornton Heath Pond where there was a pie shop in a kiosk and lots of "Rockers" used to go. We shared our time between there and the Saltbox cafe at Biggin Hill and Chelsea Bridge and the 59 club. Happy days that I miss.
My mum used to go to a small grocers shop in Greyhound Terrace at the bottom of Streatham Vale run by a lady called Nelly Boff who was a good friend.....does anyone remember her?
As I write this it brings back so many memories. My sister who was three years older than me had a good friend called Susan Nunn. I thought she was great and she was always so nice to me, every time I hear the song " Good Timing" by Jimmy Jones it instantly reminds me of Sue because she loved that song. Unfortunately in July 1971 poor Sue was murdered by her husband Eddie Clasby a useless person, that was a sad time.
I haven't been back to South London for many many years.
Thinking back to schooldays I remember one of my form teachers Miss Edwards who was a lovely lady, Mr Jarman who took a load of us to Cuckmere Haven near Beachy head for a camping weekend ( we had to walk over the seven sisters cliffs from Eastbourne to Cuckmere Haven ) we had so much fun. Mrs King ( Flossie ) taught s English, I remember her as a strict teacher. Mr Coward who taught us maths was terrific, very eccentric, he used to stare out the window while we worked and he would crunch up an apple. He also used to chuck our excercise books at us after marking them. I really didn't like Mr Park our pe teacher he was not a nice teacher at all. Mr Baker ( nickname Loaf ) also taught maths and his son was in my year I think his name was Richard ( nickname Crumb )
I had a schoolboy crush on a girl called Christine Hall, I fancied her all through secondary school but I was small for my age and didn't get a look in. I thought she was so pretty.
I remember one of our prefects was a guy called Les Gray who was in a band called Mud, I can remember a coach load of us going to Brighton to see Mud at the Brighton suite.....this was before they became famous. Somewhere on this site I recall someone mentioning Alan Beckley, he was about three years or so older than me and was in the same year at Pollards Hill school as my sister, at this time I was about seven or so and I remember Alan giving me his blue pushbike that he had grown out of, I was so excited because it was my first two wheeler, it was so kind of him.
Another memory this time of our junior school, the boys in my class had a craze of buying small model one and a half volt electric motors that ran off a tiny battery. We took them into class and quietly one by one turned them on, they ran silently until you pressed them against the school desk when of course they would buzz.....so from different parts of the classroom you could hear buzzing while our teacher was talking. We all thought this was very funny but needless to say the teacher was not amused.
I wonder whatever happened to my old classmates, Michael Osborne, Raymond Wallis, Jim Reilly, Robert Longman, Peter Jackson, David Jelly, Joseph Sacovitch, Paul Everett, Linda Enever, Elaine Ferguson, Christine Mcvie and others I can't recall.

---

---