Mitcham

London Road

My mother, Muriel Lowrey, owned the Wool Shop at 185 London Road, next door to a hi-fi shop. I remember Eric Braund, who was a local postman. His wife Lilly helped my mother in the shop and Eric and I eventually formed a recording company called 'Group Four Recordings' and hired ourselves out, doing a fair bit at the Royal Festival Hall, I remember. Great days!! When we moved to London Road I remember I was finishing my days at the Italia Conti Drama School, based at that time in Clapham, and at the Royal College of Music - so it could have been about 1958/9. I also enrolled as a 'special constable' at Mitcham Police Station - I believe the ...read more here
Contributed by Ray Lowrey

Childhood

I did get the privilege to revisit Mitcham again this year. The fair green has changed little, there is now a main road running striaght to Tooting Broadway opposite the fair green, where the Bucks Head pub was there is a paved off area and the Old Majestic still stands but is now a cinema.  Can't remember name, I am sure it was once a bingo hall too.  My aunts used to live in Tynemouth Road and living in Swindon, Wiltshire we would travel every year to visit my nan who used to live in Totterdown Street in Tooting.  If anyone remembers the house it was the one right next door to the market and the Avery scales shop.  The Bucks ...read more here
Contributed by marion lane

Memories of 1955

The delightful photographs of Mitcham revive many pleasant memories of my youth and growing up on the nearby St. Helier Estate in Carshalton. The year 1955, in particular, evokes strong personal emotions that have remained permanent. As a young 17 year old draughtsman, I worked for W. H. Armfield Ltd, a steel building company located in Morden Rd. It was here that I met my first love Jackie who worked in her father's Transport Cafe next door. We used to visit the Majestic Cinema and I remember walking home along London Road past the Post Office (or was it the Telephone Building), the Cricket Green and Leo's ice cream parlour to Mitcham Station, turning into Morden Road where Jackie lived. In ...read more here
Contributed by derek collins

History of Figgs Marsh

Having been born in Tooting Junction and schooled at Gorringe Park Middle School, I have many memories of Mitcham. However, until recently I was unaware that my ancestors lived on Figgs Marsh back in the 1840s, something I found out via the 1841 census. Does any one have any knowledge about what would have been there around this time and why a large group of people would have been living communally there, as many other people were listed on this cenus as also living on Figgs Marsh. I am aware that the area has long had a prominent travelling community and wondered if this could hold any clues. If any one has any information that they feel could shed some light ...read more here
Contributed by Carey Nelson

grandads pig farm

My memories of Mitcham  are primarily those of days spent at my grandparents' house. My grandad was Sidney Clark, my nan for some reason unknown to me was "Nanny Mick". My grandfather had a pig farm at the bottom end of Aberdeen Road. I can still remember as a youngster going out with my grandad in his lorry to local cafes and restaurants etc., to collect their waste product ,"pig swill", taking it back and boiling it up with what I think was bran, the smell was pretty horrible but the pigs loved it. Apart from the pigs there were chickens, racing pigeons, geese, cats and dogs, this place was so far removed from where I lived in Earlsfield, a densely ...read more here
Contributed by roger wilks

The Swan Inn

This photo looks like the 'Swan Inn" at the Mitcham end of Figgs Marsh where I caught the bus to Tooting Broadway to get the Underground to London.  The trees of Figgs Marsh Common can be seen in the background.  The road split in two here, the east side to Streatham and the west side to Tooting.  The common was used for Football (soccer) matches on Saturdays and demonstrations in huge tents.  I remember going to one put on by the dairy - no cows though- milk came in bottles didn't it.  Half way along Figgs Marsh was the Childrens playground, Bowling Green, Tennis Courts and a cafe/restaurant  that was closed more than open.  The gardens and floral displays at the ...read more here
Contributed by Carole Baldwin

The Bucks Head and London Road

Opposite the Majestic Cinema, you can just see the Tudor brickwork of the Bucks Head Inn, on the London Road corner. It was very rare that my Dad would go in, but we would be sent there at certain times of the year. A seafood stall, parked beside the pub on a Sunday, would sell cockles, whelks, winkles, mussels, shrimp and jellied eels. My Dad would give my sister and I , or my brother Robert, some money to buy half a pint of winkles and quart pint of shrimps for tea. After getting them home it would be our job to use a needle, take the eyes out of the winkles, then stick the needle in it's ...read more here
Contributed by Carole Baldwin

Growing up

I was known as Digger Dawson back in the days. My mates and I used to have a crafty fag on beehive bridge when in our early teens. I will always remember Armfield Crescent, Fair Green, the cricket green, leo's lollies, broken biscuits, St. Marks School. The place has changed a lot since then. Last time I was there I got lost! Trams were running and my mate Dennis Brown was being a right anorak and taking down bus numbers. Memories of Bob Rogers, Mick Gray, Dave Cabot, Pat Brunton - to name a few. The best was trying to eat an orange jubbly, they were enormous! Lovely.
Contributed by james dawson

Childhood days

Mitcham a lovely little place, here you used to catch the buses to Sutton and beyond, the picture house and opposite the pictures used to be a sweet shop where I can remember Mars bars used to cost 2/6 in old money, gobstobbers that used to fill your mouth for 1d.  The walk home to the flats up St Marks Road.  The trolley buses that used to run to West Croydon and the antics seen when the pole came off.  Lovely days.  The teddyboys used to hang out round Huttons shop.  Now living in Norfolk I wonder what Mitcham looks like.
Contributed by David Buettner-Banks

The Fair Green

The Fair Green was one of the first places my sister Valerie Cooper (nee Hook) worked in her capacity as an apprentice horticulturist for the Mitcham Council. When she went for the job they told her that she would have to do the same work as the men. If it meant climbing trees and pruning them , she had to do it too. If it snowed and the roads had to be cleared she would have to go out with them with the shovels and clear the snow. She also did a lot of the planning of garden beds and designs for the Parks department of the council when she had served her apprenticeship. She did ...read more here
Contributed by Carole Baldwin

The Majestic Cinema

Between the tree and the cinema you can see the roof and top floor of one of the blocks of flats in Armfield Crescent so we did not live far from the cinema. When we were small we were given a shilling to go to the Saturday morning pictures - The ABC Minors we were called. We even had a song we sang before the films began. Sixpence was used to get into the cinema and we had sixpence to spend on lollies or ice cream that was sold from the counter between the entrance and the doors into the theatre. It was always noisy in that area where you would meet up with other kids ...read more here
Contributed by Carole Baldwin

Mitcham

As a child I grew up in bomb ravaged Mitcham. I lived in 16 Ashtree Avenue, Mitcham. We were bombed as so many other people were. I attended the 'Star School, Benedict Road. until around 1947ish then the family moved to Battersea. The Star School was memorable for me in that Miss Gregory a Welsh teacher took particular delight in tormenting pupils, in particular myself. And Daddy Weston ditto, one day he walloped a kid that lived in 'Rocky', a lot of gypsy people lived there, this kid's father came in and punched 'Daddy Weston' in the face. Mr Rackley or Brackley the head master was dithering around as a small ineffectual man only can. I remember we kids cheering loudly. ...read more here
Contributed by Richard Watson

Dancing at The Majestic

I have many happy memories of Friday, Saturday and (I think) Sunday nights learning to dance at The Majestic, run by  Don Stevoni and his wife Pat (I think her professional name was Chandler the same as my maiden name, but no relation).
I had lessons with Don, paid for out of my Saturday job at Woolworths, I was 15/16 at the time,  and he was an excellent teacher - I remember my favourite dance was the Cha Cha Cha - music Tea for Two, Patricia, and the like - Oh happy days.  I think they eventually moved on to Hayling Island.  The assistant instuctor was someone called Bill (can't remember surname)  he was a nice man who moved on to ...read more here
Contributed by First Name Last Name

Dancing at the Majestic

The restaurant at the Majestic was used as a ballroom dance school in the early 50s. The first that I remember was run by somebody named Bobby who later moved on to a school near Mitcham station. Later Don Stevoni and his wife ran a school there. Don besides being a dance teacher was also an antique furniture restorer in his leisure hours. Also Bernard Lee taught out of the Stevoni school for a while. Bernard's daughter Tanith (who we baby sat for a free lesson) later become a leading UK science fiction writer.
Contributed by John Borwick

Leos cafe/espresso bar

Although I lived in Tooting, all my cousins lived on the Mitcham side! I was a tomboy and used to hang around over Figges Marsh, playing rounders or smoking illicit ciggies in the red shed! The Teddy boys (later the mods) used to congregrate at the childrens playground on the marsh, or Leos Cafe. I remember going there to listen to the juke box and drink foamy espresso, but I can't for the life of me remember where it was! Was this Leos Ice Cream parlour on the cricket green? I seem to remember it being at the Morden end of Mitcham - perhaps all those fags addled my brain! At weekends we'd go the swimming baths or the library in ...read more here
Contributed by Jackie Rice

Three Kings Piece

I don't know why we called it Three King's Piece but in the mid 50's to the early 60's when I was growing up, that was what we called it. I lived in the flats in Armfield Crescent and when we went to Three Kings Piece we went the back way. Down St Marks Road to Baker Lane, on the corner was St Marks Chuch, to Hilary Avenue. At the end of the avenue was an alley-way. It had a high wall on one side with broken glass embedded on the top and the blank sides of houses on the other. I don't know what was on the other side of this long wall as ...read more here
Contributed by Carole Baldwin

Newton House, 1 Commonside West

Opposite the pond was my mum Lois's family home. My grandfather was a master builder and his name was Thomas Baker. My grandfather had his office in Newton House and as children my brothers and I liked to explore it but we were not allowed in the cellar. My ancesters the Slaters lived in Love Lane and grew lavender on their land. William Slater was a distiller for Potters & Moore and then he emigrated to Australia in 1858 and took with him Mitcham lavender which he grew on his land in Nunawading, near Melbourne, Australia and he named his homestead after his place of birth Mitcham Grove.
Contributed by Monica Peck

Paddling

I was based at St Helier Ambulance Station in Morden. On afternnon in 1968 we got a call to Three Kings Pond to a young lad who had paddled to the island and in doing so had cut his foot badly. I rolled up my uniform trousers but keeping my shoes on paddled out to the island where I bandaged his his foot and carried him off the island to the applause of the watching crowd
Contributed by Richard Whiteland

The Cricketers Arms and the Town Hall

I always remember the Cricket Green as the lazy hazy days of summer.  My father played cricket here, I don't remember the name of his team, but we had to sit and watch him.  I liked it when the crocuses poked their heads out of the ground at the beginning of the season.  They would appear in glorious colour in all the corners of the green, with the cricket pitch in the middle.  We were never allowed to play on the green.  If we wanted to run around or fly our kites on a bit of grass we went to Commonside East or Commonside West, just up the road, where there was plenty of room and no one to tell us ...read more here
Contributed by Carole Baldwin

City Village

I grew up in Mitcham, born in 1976 and left there in about 1997. I feel like I have two Mitchams in my head - the old and the new.

I felt a link with the place because my dad had grown up there and my grandad had links with Morfax and ran his own engineering company in the town later. My dad shared lots of memories with me about his growing up in the town and so I had a real feeling of place and continuity.

During my lifetime I saw the Canons leisure centre built, the clock tower moved and the fair green pedestrianised along with the one-way system. I went to Links primary school (in Tooting ...read more here
Contributed by Jim Pearson

The 40/50s

It was the 118 bus Colin. It went from Clapham Common to Mitcham Cricket Green. I also remember well those wonderful Leo's ice lollies. After those awful slabs of lard between 2 wafers that went soggy they were magic - Walls's! My family moved from Northborough Road to Rosemead Avenue in March 1940 as all the Lcc schools were closed. My sister and I went to Pollards Hill School. Both of my brothers went there or to Alfred Mizen some 10 years later. I went on to Rutlish in 1946 on the 152 bus from Fair Green up Western Road past the school and the gas works when we all held our noses. The first love of my life went to ...read more here
Contributed by paul croxson

MAJESTIC CINEMA

Glad someone remembers the Majestic Cinema at Fair Green. We lived in Norbury, just over the border in Croydon, but my Dad was a Cinema Manager with the ABC chain, and regularly did relief stints at the Majestic when the regular Manager was away. The cinema had a Hammond organ, and Dad remembers allowing the late Roy Budd, then a teenager, to practice on it regular - Roy later became a successful jazz musician and composer of TV and film music. My link with the Majestic is that for a time in the late 50's/early 60's I was a member of the 20th. Mitcham Sea Scouts, based in a school near Wide Way, and every year all the Scout groups used ...read more here
Contributed by COLIN MARSH

Saturday morning pictures

My lasting memory of the majestic cinema was going to Saturday morning pictures: with my sister Linda and all our mates watching Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Superman, The 3 Stooges and all the cartoons. I still love Tom and Jerry now! The funniest part was going up in the gods and dropping our lollysticks on the kids below, and spitting on them - charming kids eh! And all for sixpence. I saw my first film there in 1953, it was called Genevieve. You were either an ABC minor, or a granadier if you were common and went to the Granada in Tooting. All those black jacks and fruit salads, could get sick for tuppence then. Does anyone remember thorpes record bar ...read more here
Contributed by james dawson

My home town

Memories, Used to go to school at Western Road, the cinema on a Saturday morning, Roy Rogers and Silver. Ahh memories, now I'm 60 and living in Norfolk. I remember fondly Huttons Fish Shop, Leos Ice Cream at the cricket green, the lovely ice lollies with cream on the top then red substance and a coca cola bottom.  The buses turning round at the cricket green, the Cricketers pub where me dad used to have a pint of bitter and me a packet of Smith crisps, the fire engine station behind.  Lovely memories...............
Contributed by David Buettner-Banks