Harold Hill Memories

A Memory of Harold Hill.

Hi people,
Just wanted to share a few memories of living in Harold Hill. My family moved from Bow to Hilldene Ave in 1962, I was 7 so I went to Bosworth junior school which was only across the road from where I lived. I was only there a year or so as we then moved to Taunton Road, so then went to Ingrebourne Junior. I was in Mrs Groves class and Mr Chifney was in the class next door - he lived in the same road as me. It was a nice little school and had a big climbing frame at the back that I never had the courage to go on. But one day, after school when they all went home, I plucked up the courage to climb up and crawl along the ladder at the top, but unfortunately got stuck with fright for some time which made me late home, earning me a spanking from my mother. I still hate heights to this day 😄
Me and my best friend Dawn Collins were given the task of laying out the table for the staff at break time. Dawn used to scoop up handfuls of sugar from the sugar bowl and eat it and both of us snaffled a school made biscuit each from the biscuit tin - oh my, those biscuits were the best I've ever tasted.
There used to be petting animals in the foyer and during the holidays some children were allowed to take them home and look after them.
There was a freezing cold swimming pool out the back where we learned to swim, it used to have little bugs swimming in it too, but in the summer it was great when the water warmed up a bit. That's where I got my first verruca, which was treated then by being scraped out by a school nurse and then you had to have a wrapping on your toe which made you hobble about with a tight shoe, ☹️ I suffered years of limping about on and off with verrucas, good ol days 😆
At 11 I went off to Broxhill Sec Modern and got separated from my best friend but I soon made another, Pamela Carter, and later Susan Kohl. We were in Miss Spraggs class - she was the Divinity teacher. Later we had Mr Stenton who was a PE teacher. Mr Skelton was Headmaster. A mixed bag of teachers some good, some not. Loved Mr Wombell, English teacher - he was great fun - doing Lon Chaney impressions and scaring us girls witless. If you were a boy who misbehaved you got sent to the Head to get the cane and if you were a girl you would get the slipper from Miss Miller, a PE teacher.
When I was 14 we used to go to the school social, which I think was on a Thurs evening and we had a chance to show off our fanciest civvy clothes and dance to Desmond Decker or The Equals, maybe PJ Proby with his pony tail. The teachers would put the records on and keep order - great fun .
I used to go home via the fields which had a stream running through it and we used to play at jumping the stream without getting soaking muddy feet. Some kids had rigged up a tyre on a rope hanging from a big tree, but that was strictly a boy thing.

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