Oh How I Remember.......

A Memory of Streatham.

I was brought up by my parents in a house in Baldry Gardens, the top end near Covington way. As a very small boy I was put into St Helens School primary, which was a Girls school but had an infants section. Then I went to St Josephs College after that. Remember the land mine dropping on the Common; all the soot came down the chimney and buried the dog who was sitting by the fireplace. A doodlebug dropped in Covington Way and my father had to replace all the windows in the back of the house. I remember standing outside in the back garden while my mother was desperately trying to open the shelter door, and watching the German bombers fly over. Dad was on firewatch on the Daily Mail roof. I used to attend the Crusaders Union meetings in a church hall near the Ice Rink. When I came out of the Army in 1956, some friends and I used to play jazz in the Bambi coffee house (opposite the bottom of Streatham Common) and stuff ourselves with Mrs Vecchi`s marvellous spaghetti bolognese on a Sunday night.
I have very fond memories of the trams. My mother used to take me down to Brixton to go shopping there, I must have been quite small then. I loved having a tram ride; peering through the orange coloured window at the front and the pitching and rolling motion of the journey.
My courting days were spent on Streatham Common; I must have walked miles. I used to enjoy a cuppa in the cafe by the Rookery; and Mars bars were only about sixpence (I think).
I had better stop; the memories I have would take up too much room here. Wartime as well as peacetime memories and as the song says "..memories are made of this".

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