Romford, Junction Road 1908

Shopping

My mother used to take me from Hornchurch on the 66 bus when i was a small child. She always went to Lous' stall opposite the cinema (flea pit as we called it) She knew him well and could rely on him. We would go and see the cattle being weighed and the sheep and pigs being tagged ready for sale. It was always very busy and noisy but i really enjoyed going. However as the years went passed the cattle disappeared and the cinema was knocked down and gradually what was once a thriving market became very drear

School Days

I attended this school in 1952-1956. I can remember Miss Bubbers the headmistress well. She roamed the corridors with her black gown flowing about her. A very stern and not to be crossed head of school. My first teacher was Miss Parfait who seemed very young. Miss Brown was our science teacher who invited the class to have tea with her and her 14 cats!. Our music teacher, whose name i forget, came to school on her bike with her yorkshire terrier in a basket in front of the handlebars. Miss Jordan was great for hockey,netball, rounders and cricket.I made a lot of friends there -Valerie Russell, Lyn Wilkinson, Ann Page, Pauline Nutt, Thelma Wren, Thea Davies to name a few. Our uniform was bottle green and heaven help you if you did not wear your green beret! I lived in Hornchurch at the time and either rode to school or caught the 66 bus to the Drill and walked from there. Quite a handsome building with wonderful grounds. Although a girls only school we linked with the Royal Liberty boys school - thus i met my husband!

When buses ran past Lloyds Bank .....

I am told that once upon a time buses ran through Romford Market towards Gidea Park. Apparently I was happily standing in the queue with my mother and newly-born sister in a pram waiting for a 174. I held tight to Mum's coat so as not to lose her. Imagine my surprise to find that the coat in question belonged to a stranger, and my mother and sister had boarded the bus and were moving away! Luckily the kindly lady looked after me until my poor flustered mother and sister returned. Thank you, kindly lady. Louise Hands-Heathfield (now living in Bournemouth).

Romford and Havering-atte-Bower,very fond Memories

We moved to Romford in 1951 from Havering where we lived with Nan and Grandad in Pinewood Road. It was an exciting time for me but also an unhappy time leaving Nan and Grandad's house. We moved in a council house in Chelmsford Ave, I made friends with a boy called Raymond Crane, we started school together ,his mother and father ran a market stall in Romford and he had a young brother. I remember mum and I would go to the market twice a week, I loved the place, it was like Aladdin's cave, the eel stall used to fascinate me, in those times you could buy puppies and kittens. We use to visit Nan and Grandad three times a week in Havering,t hat was great, we used to walk, it was all country roads then. In 1955 we moved, but the year before that Raymond moved away, I remember being heartbroken, he gave me a photo of himself and his little brother which I still have to this day. Over the years I have often wondered what happened to him. Those memories will stay with me for always, they were good times.

Doing the Shopping

I lived a mile or so east of Rush Green, in Barton Avenue but my Mum would send me with a note to get the shopping for the family. She would give me sometimes had eight half crowns or £1 a lot of money then. I would cycle down, first to Brown's the butchers, the first shop after the houses. Mr Brown who had huge butchers fingers would serve me liver, H-bone or chops and he would write how much I owed on a marble slab underneath the wrapping paper. At the end of the week he would expect the bill to be settled. Sometimes mum had not given me enough, he wasn't happy then. Then I'd go into Ewins the grocers with a long list. I would wait in the queue then be served one item at a time. No supermarkets then. My friend at school was Barry Kitchener and his dad was the manager of the Coop butchers round the corner in Dagenham Road. He lived over the shop and his mum had asthma which she used an old fashioned air pump with a rubber bulb which she would pump air into a mask on her face. She was so breathless which frightened me a bit. Opposite Brown's was what we called the oil shop, I think it was called Everards a hardware store. When I'd finish shopping, I would have a heavy bag on each side of the handle bars and cycle home. Mum was always very pleased with me.