The Real Heart Of Dagenham
A Memory of Dagenham.
We moved to Dagenham from Plaistow in East London when I was two years old. We moved to Leys Avenue, on the Rookery Farm estate. It was out in the sticks then with the remainder of Rookery Farm still in business with cows and horses.
At the end of Leys Avenue the road continued for about a quarter of a mile down to the Sanitorium. I don't know whether the Sanitorium owned Rookery Farm and sold part of it to the council to build the Rookery Farm Estate or if it was government owned and had part of the farm hived off.
The strange thing about Leys avenue was that, although there were very good pavements on both sides of the road where the houses were, people visiting the Sanitorium would always walk down the middle of the road. Probably a throw back to the times before the estate was built and it was paved. If a car came along they would get onto the pavement and when it had passed they would get back onto the road.
In the mid fifties, at the age of 9 or 10, I would do the weekly shop in Crown Street for my mother. She would give me a list of items and £1 and I could keep the change.
I got quite good at this and could normally make between 2 shillings and half a crown by knowing the prices in the various small shops. There was Turners or Sid's as we knew it. They were on the right, just passed the Bull Garage in Rainham Road South, but moved into Crown Street when the main road was developed. Cambridges were on the corner of Crown Street and the main road and the Co-op were half way down Crown Street on the left.
I can still remember my mothers Co-op number, 44018.
Arthy's Bakers was just down on the left and there was a small seed and animal feed shop a little further down. Charlies second hand shop was at the bottom by the bridge, on the right, just before the Rectory, with the Church just a bit further up on the left. I always assumed that when the Saxon Daecen settled in around 700AD and Dagenham was born, it must have been at the bottom of Crown Street where the road crosses the Bourne. Thats the real heart of Dagenham, not the sprawling mass it is today.
Lots of history there.
Presumably the Bourne would have been a river then but it was just a small stream in the 50's. Times were safe then and we would wander for hours on Rookery farm and would play football every evening until it was dark.
My father worked in Fords and my mother in May and Baker. We were a typical working class family with never enough money - but I have some very fond memories now.
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The houses on the estate were two-story, originally pressed-metal walled with asbestos roofs and were, we were told, gifts from the people of Norway to the bombed -out people of London in gratitude for the British actions during WW2. They were semi-detached with ample front and back gardens and the Labour council maintained them very well - if not a little simplistically . Alternate blocks were painted one of two different colours, a pattern which was repeated all around the estate.
On the ground floor was a kitchen, a ' middle room ' and a ' front room ' along with a semi-enclosed outside toiet and a too/coal shed. Upstairs there was a bathroom , a ' box room ' and a front and back bedroom- quite spacious in the minds of us kids.
I remember most of the avenue residents by name . No.1 was odd in that it was occupied by a Mr. and Mrs. Tibbett- but no children. No.3 was the Bysouth's, (Bill) and Maisie with children Sharon, Adrian and Lee-Lindsey. No. 5 was the Campbell's, John and Florence with Jean and Colin, No. 7 Mr and Mrs Carr with three girls, Pat, Margaret and Carol, No. 9 was the Shepherd's , Bill and ( ) , also with three daughters, Doris, June and Lillian and next door to them at No. 11 were the Gilberts with Irene, Ann and Steven. At No.13 were the Bakers, Jack and (....) with children Tom and Jaqueline and at No. 15 were the Lovelocks with several children, Eileen, Roy, Johnny and Beryl, I think. No.17 was the Sequins with one daughter, Violet and next to them were the Staffords, another large family of kids comprising Martin, Bobby, Carol, Rita and Beryl, I think. The last semi on the avenue was occupied by the estate caretaker and his family, a Mr. Cox at that time with two sons , Lesley and Alan with the very last house set aside for the rent-collector . I think their names were Bailey- but we didn't really mix with them.
There were no tragedies in Leys Avenue, no criminalities and a minimum of dramas that I knew about although there was a murder in my own street a bit later on, a young girl being the victim and also an accidental death when a badly-stacked pile of hundred-weight ( remember that ?) cement bags became undermined in heavy rain and fell upon a group of children playing.
We were really very lucky and happy- as Tom points out- living in ' the country ' but right on the edge of the city with factories in distant view. Everybody worked, the dole was shameful, and we saved for our futures and drifted away , probably to all the countries and capitals from which our streets took their names; Wellington Drive, Canberra Crescent, Ottawa Gardens etc. Named, no doubt, by somebody who foresaw our futures before we did.
I lived at number 13 directly opposite the school entrance although we were there when it was still a farmers field.
Mr and Mrs Tibbett had one son who was a policeman and they were there because of Mr Tibbetts disability. He struggled to walk but managed to get on a bus each morning and go to Dagenham East station where he got a train to London to work. He was a very frail man and Mrs Tibbett was the opposite, a robust looking woman. Sadly, when he finally retired, she died shortly after leaving him alone. Mr. Bailey, the rent collector, was imprisoned for fraud. Mr Cox also had a son called Tommy who lost it one night and tried to kill Mr and Mrs Cox but Alan came home and restrained him. I am not sure what happened to him. Mr. Sequin had a drink problem and could be seen like toe archetypal drunk, swing round the lamp post outside their house. He eventually died and Violet subsequently had a serious breakdown.
I prefer on-line anonymity myself but thank you for the detail you've provided. I didn't recall a Tommy Cox at all and I've thought that it was Leslie Cox who had the breakdown until now. Memories become eroded , don't they, unless they're reinforced. You've clarified the situation with the Tibbetts and the Sequins for me too.
On reflection there are some inaccuracies in my summing up of the Leys Avenue folk. Mr., Bysouth was Fred, of course, and not Bill whereas Mr. Shepherd was Bill. Mrs. Gilbert was Sadie but her husband's name escapes me. He was a painter and decorator, very cheerful and whistled tunes whenever passing by.
I remember the cornfield opposite your house. I badly gashed my knee on a piece of flint when playing there once and big Doris Shepherd carried me home. The building of the school was bit of a disappointment to all the kids, I think.
I've looked at it all on Google Earth, Tom- and there's no doubt that our time there was a bit of a renaissance in terms of post-war socialism. It all looks terribly cramped and distorted now and I'll never go back. You must remember the Olympic-standard swimming pool they provided for the estate ? Leys baths open-air pool was fabulous for kids- chattering teeth, blue noses and a six-penny mug of hot Oxo. Yeah ! :)
It’s a shame you wish to remain anonymous. I like to know who I’m talking to
Every Saturday morning grandma and I would walk down Crown Street and pop into Arthy''s for a loaf and cakes. The aroma of the bread being made out the back drew you into the shop.
Roy Ridgway