Faircross

A Memory of Barking.

I was born in Barking Hospital in 1967 but my family moved into Upney House at Faircross in 1953 I believe, this may have been when these were first built. I have lots of memories of Faircross Parade, mostly of the different shops that came and went. To my knowledge, the branch of Bartons Barkers in the late 1970's became one of the first bakers in the area to bake it's own bread on the premises. Preedy's newsagents used to right below our flat and I spent many years delivering newspapers to all of the Leftley Estate and beyond South Park Drive on the Ilford side. I went to school at Barking Abbey across the road and have lots of memories of playing in the school playing fields behind the bus garage every summer. My parents were brought up during the war with may father serving in the chindits in Burma and one memory that always sticks out was during an anniversary for the second world war. There was a fly past of spitfires and a lancaster bomber and as we watched from our flat with the planes flying from upney lane seemingly destined to go straight over, my mum remarked, just watch and they will turn 90 degrees in a second. As soon as she said it, she was right! they turned towards barking park and carried on flying. She remarked that the german bombers always followed the Thames into London and that there was a large station of anti-aircraft flak in Barking Park for just the moment that they turned towards london. Not sure how true that was but it impressed me!!