Further Afield

A Memory of Hounslow.

Osterley Park became within striking distance of my Hounslow home once I had a bike and from about the age of 12 (1960) would cycle there with a school friend with our bottles of pop and jam sandwiches, to roam the grounds and generally explore. As long as we were home by the time the street lights came on we had the freedom I don't think children of today have. I remember on one of these jaunts on a hot summer day a groundsman catching us with our feet dangling in the lake in the attached picture and he bellowed his warning that we were sure to catch polio and to get our feet out pronto and get home and wash with carbolic soap! Well, we never did get polio and I am not sure we were really at risk (having been inoculated in about 1955) but I think he scared us at the time.