Leyton Haunts Memories Of Post War Leyton

A Memory of Thurnscoe.

My parents were from Shoreditch and Clapton and moved to Leyton. Because of the war my mother was sent to Willersley Castle in Derbyshire to give birth to me. We were living in King Edward Rd when we were bombed out and spent the following years in a Nissan hut somewhere between Whipps Cross hospital and the Green Man.
My parents started a tie making business at 589 High Rd Leyton and we lived above the premises. There was a bomb dump opposite and 589 was freezing cold and had gas lighting in addition to electric. I caught pneumonia there and nearly died in Whipps Cross hospital. David Hannaford, a child cockney actor and mate lived a few houses along towards the Lion and Key. I went to school at Oxford and Elson House on Wallwood Road but on the day of the London smog could not because it was so bad we could not find the edge of the pavement, let alone the bus.
Many happy memories of post war Christmases and the goods that fell off the back of a truck at the Walthamstow market. Playing on the bomb dumps, picking blackberries, going to Butlins at Clacton, taking the bus to visit my grandparents in Islington on Sundays.
I was so weakened by the pneumonia my parents decided to emigrate in 1953 to warmer Australia.
The boat trip was an education through adventure at the age of nine and changed my life forever. I did return to Leyton 2 years later and went to Leyton County High before heading off to Australia again at nineteen but got diverted to Japan for two years before returning to SOAS to do an Honours degree in Japanese studies before setting off again to Australia in 1969. I now live in Canberra where I rolled to a stop 50 years ago.
A life of highs and lows started in unforgettable post war Leyton.