Growing Up In Tottenham In The 1960's
A Memory of Tottenham.
Although I was born in the Mothers Hospital in Hackney in 1957, we lived in Tottenham at Tenterden Road (N17) until about 1970, then at Ida Road (N15) on the then new Avenue Road estate for a couple of years until moving to Wilmot Road (N17) near Downhills Park. I went to Lancasterian School and then on to Tottenham School. My memories of Tottenham include the fact that despite living about 5 minutes from the Spurs ground I grew up supporting Arsenal as an uncle took me to see them first. Growing up in Tottenham in the 1960's and supporting Arsenal wasn't a great combination and I remember my mum trying to buy me an Arsenal shirt at Elseys in the High Road and more or less being told by the shop assistant to "p*** off up to Highbury to get one". I know it's an old cliche now to say it was a different world then but it was. I remember spending many playing football over Bruce Castle Park with the famous old oak tree and watching cricket matches in the summer with over 20 a side teams of West Indian blokes who would play on until it was too dark to see the ball. We would play runouts and war games in the old empty terrace housing around Whitehall Street and Love Lane in the late 60's and continue when the new maisonettes were being built. I was a member of the 3rd Tottenham Boys Brigade and the Army Cadets (225 Tottenham) in the new huts built behind the old Drill Hall in the High Road. Saturday morning pictures at the Florida (the fleapit), the Palace or at the Regal at Edmonton. I remember being envious of mates who lived in flats in Millicent Fawcett Court or the pre-fabs in Ashford Road because they had bathrooms and an indoor toilet which our little terrace house in Tenterden Road lacked. We looked after cars on a Saturday when Spurs were at home. Sadly ther isn't much of the Tottenham of my childhood left now - the shops at Bruce Grove including the old North London Store and Burgesses the department store and the houses (and streets) where I lived have all dissappeared.
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