Memories of Egham
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Year: 1954
First Day of School
First Day of School Arriving at Egham Hythe Infants School, aged 5, and being placed in the care of Mrs. Spenser. There I remained for one entire term. Most of the faces in the classroom were new. Some of the names heard for the first time. Rex Aldwinkle, Richard Howard, Christine Addison, Jennifer Shore, Christine Vass. I am amazed that I remember these names as we were only in the same class one term. Mrs. Britton was the Headmistress. Wherever I went she seemed to be there. Was the school really that small? At break I learned about cigarette cards. I am now in my fifty third year of collecting them. I own over one million of them. Brooke Bond had just started issuing cards in tea packets - Frances Pitt's British Birds. And then it was Wild Flowers, Out into Space, Bird Portraits, British Wild Life and so on. Well I have them all, every variation ever issued, different papers, different backs, error cards. And I have all the foreign issues too. South Africa, Rhodesia, Ireland, Canada and the United States. I have all the albums too. With the cigarette cards as well, my collection fills two rooms in my house. And it all started that fateful day in 1954. I wonder if any readers recall this period of our lives. Is anyone else still collecting? I enjoyed Egham Hythe School. The lessons were very interesting and I always flourished. There seemed to be a much richer environment than at home. Yes that day started a journey that ended 20 years later when the Duchess of Kent conferred a Doctor of Philosophy degree on yours truly, and along the way the Queen Mother conferred a Bachelor of Science degree on me at the Royal Albert Hall. What a debt of gratitude I owe not only to Mrs. Spenser, but to Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. Corney, Mrs. Nicholls, Miss Brown, Miss Greene, Mr. Radford and Mr. Bullock. What wonderful teachers. And Miss Denyer and Mr. Hooper who taught Music and Sports. I used to live in Stephen Close and we all walked to school. There were so many of us coming from the Council Estate. It ended up that there were four of us from Stephen Close in the same class. Along with myself there were Chris Simkin, Jeff Hall and Janet Bavage. In the same year from Stephen Close there were Carol Hollick, Jennifer Usher, Malcolm Waine, Robert Phillips, David Bolton, Joey Griffith, Mick Tedder, and George Wells. And from the Estate were Roger Aldworth, Christine Powell, Valerie Yorke, Elizabeth Devey, John Hooper, Keith Capaldi, Ronnie Scammell, Andy Kirton, Terry Cox, Mick Costello, Richard Howard, David Hart, Christine Hayes, Bob Woodcock, Roger Prior, Nicholas Jones, Pat Kimber, Marilyn Cutter, Paul Orchard, Susan Hammond, Angelina Bentley, Jennifer Shore, Jean Parfitt, Hazel Markley, Brian Hill, Christine Addison and more whose names escape me. Stephen Close must have provided 10% of the intake in 1954, and the Estate close to 50%. No wonder that all of the extra classrooms were added. Sadly I only know the whereabouts of only a few of those contemporaries. Malcolm Waine and Tony Courtney are in Hampshire, Penny Andrews is in Scotland, Chris Simkin is in Fareham, Paul Edwards is in Egham, Richard Howard is in Datchet, Valerie Yorke is in Lincolnshire and Paul Orchard is in St. Leonards. How enjoyable it would be to meet them all once more. How about a 50th Anniversary Reunion for the class of 1960 in 2010? Posted: 09/02/2008 00:22 by Keith O'Brien Last edited: 13/11/2008 00:51 by Keith O'brien |
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 Egham, the Roundway c1950 (ref: E27002) |
Year: 1965
Egham
I can remember Mullen's the Chemist, sawdust on the floor in the butchers which I would scoop up in a pile with my feet, the map where you could press a button and it would light up, the steam trains passing as I swung on the swings, Auntie Winnie at the sweet shop, buying second-hand scooters and peddling them home into The Crescent, going to the phone boxes outside the post office, Dr Sam Taylor and his Ford Zephyr - with the blue painted waiting room with just a bench I think (my memory may be playing tricks on me), being lifted to post mail in the letterbox down Grange Road, a plane on fire as I walked home from St Cuthbert's at Englefield Green . . . Last edited: 12/12/2007 16:38 by Deborah Roberts (nee Sellars) |
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Egham, the Roundway c1950 (ref: E27002) |
Year: 1965
Magna Carta
The text to the Egham photographs calls Egham uninspiring. What it may lack in architectural merit (although there are gems if you look closely, perhaps an architect would care to enlighten the readers) is more than made up for by its place in history as the location for the signing of the Magna Carta by King John in 1215. This took place at Runnymede. There was a major celebration in 1965. This took place on the field just below the American Bar Association Memorial, one of three to be found in Runnymede, the others being the RAF Memorial and the John F Kennedy Memorial. The JFK Memorial was once damaged by the IRA who tried to blow it up. Appropriately the Magna Carta celebrations largely took place on Runnymede itself. There were jousting displays and various activities. I still have my replica Magna Carta written on fake parchment. Freddie Mills the boxer was supposed to attend. However, he died in mysterious circumstances which made headlines for days. Last edited: 29/05/2007 09:39 by Crispin Lancaster |
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Egham, the Roundway c1950 (ref: E27002) |
Year: 1960
The old cinema
We moved to Egham in about 1955. My father had been born in Medlake Road in 1920. We lived in Oak Avenue, Egham Hythe in a house built in the 1930s. I attended Egham Hythe Infants and Primary and later Magna Carta (on both its sites - Egham Hythe and Manorcrofts - it is now just in the Hythe). In those pre-M25 and M3 days Egham was a much quieter place. The High Street was much as it had been in the early 1900s. There were still some gas lamps which were lit by hand. Green double decker buses ran through Egham linking Staines to High Wycombe (route 441). One red bus service (117) terminated at Egham Station. One major change was that we used to walk to school or sometimes use our bicycles. Very rare now in these car dominated times. I recall the old cinema in the High Street. It was on the south side. My neighbour had once been a projectionist there. It had been converted to a building supply shop run by Battons. This form of store is now much more rare having been replaced by DIY stores. The auditorium formed the main part of the shop and remains of the screen could be seen at the back. This side of the High Street was cleared to make way for the major redevelopment that took place in the 1970s. In Victorian times Egham used to have a racecourse on Runnymede. The course can still be seen from the air during some parts of the year. There was a wonderful sweet shop in Station Road run by a charming old lady. It was handily placed on our route to school! There was also a cycle shop called "Bakers"and a newsagent called "Killicks". David Greig's shop was in the High Street. In the 1970s there was a record shop called "Record Wise" which replaced the sweet shop as the main attraction in my teenage years. Next door to this was the Co-Op. For more information on Egham see any works by Sidney Oliver, the well-known local historian. Last edited: 29/05/2007 09:41 by Crispin Lancaster |
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