The Stanwell I Remember in The Early 1970s

I moved to Stanwell with my parents in 1959 aged 4. When I was 11 I learnt to ride at Stanwell's pony club run by a lady called Geraldine Richardson who used to keep her ponies at the stables at the Vicarage (now pulled down). We made friends with Amanda Hoyle the vicar's daughter who got us all into trouble by ringing the church bells when we should not have been in the church! Charlie the blacksmith had his blacksmith's shop next to the Village Hall and used to do the ponies' shoes and take 4 hours to do a set, he was doubled over after years of shoeing horses. We used to ride and make jumps for the ponies in the fields opposite Oaks Road and buy sweets at Mr Mott's store near the Rising Sun pub. We also used to gallop flat out down between the Twin Rivers but were too scared to ride in the river as someone said it had leeches in it! I went to Town Farm Infants and Junior Schools which are still there. I too remember the fair coming to town and the entire village would turn out. There was a shop /hardware store on the corner by the village green, although its name escapes me. The doctor was Dr Venables and he lived in Lord Knyvett Close and ran the surgery from his house. I was friends with his daughter Rosemary and we all got into trouble one day by tying one of the ponies to a bench in his back garden, something scared it and it bolted across the lawn and took the bench with it! So many lovely memories, it's such a shame that beautiful village has been taken over by the ever growing industrial area around the airport. The church still stands and will be there long after we have all gone.