Growing Up In Tottenham

A Memory of Tottenham.

Hi All.

I was born in 1941 at 1 Oulton Road (now long gone) but lived in Harringay Road at No 27 with the grandparents until we got a flat at 107 Harringay Road, 1945 ish was sent to school at what is now Chestnuts primary school. Grandad Wright used to have a horse and cart for moving peoples furnature about, I remember going with him to deliver a load of horse manure to some allotments in wood green.
Grandad Wright used to have a Winkle stall (fast food in those days) outside the Salisbury Pub at the top of the road, he used to catch a tram into billingsgate and bring back a sack of Winkles/Wilks or Cockles then boil them in a metal bath tub on the kitchen stove. No fridge in those days, whatever he got had to be sold in a couple of days or thrown away. His stable was in one of the roads on the was up to Whiteman Road. Think it is garages now.

Grandad used to get the odd job as a nightwachman when they dug Green Lanes up, still remember the little hut and the brazier burning wood while he sat inside.

I used to be sent up to a Pie and Mash shop sometimes with my cousin with a big bowl for the mash and jug for the licker.

There used to be a cinama on the other corner next to the Woolworths, we used to nick sweets from there.

Mother worked in a Sausage/Pie factory at the end of Oulton Road then worked for Maynards Sweets.

Father worked in a metal plating factory down St Anns Road near the old police station.

When I was 11 we moved out to Waltham Cross and dad cycled to the same job every morning and evening for a few years untill he got a job in Waltham Abby.

The funny thing was by time I was 11 who should be the company to move all the familys out to Waltham Cross, it was my Grandfather and Uncle Harry, They used to load the furnature and take the lorry to the council yard, put it in a big shed, open the back doors and the lot used to be fumigated for 24 hours, they then delivered it to the new house where they piled it into one room and sealed the doors for another 24 hours, so you slept on the floor in whatever you had with you.

Got rid of the bed Bugs though.

Norman Smith.


Added 28 May 2015

#337866

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