Hounslow As It Was

A Memory of Hounslow.

I am a bit younger than the other contributers being 2 when I moved to Hounslow in 1950. I wasn't born there but regard Hounslow as my home town and well remember the Odeon (Saturday morning pictures) and later learning ballroom dancing in the upper rooms. Food shopping was always done at Hounslow West - walking up from the junction of Bath Road and Sutton Lane/Wellington Road North (where I lived), and remember our first "supermarket" opening - MacFisheries! I used to play in Lampton Park with friends (remember the putting green? - a treat once or twice a year) and generally roam the local streets with impunity. We seemed to have so much more freedom then. School swimming lessons took place in the Hounslow Baths in Trinity Road and I remember the children's library and wanting to be "big enough" to join the adult one. As a teenager still at school, I did Saturday work in the "new" Woolworths and got paid the princely sum of 15s. I also remember the subterranean toilets in the middle of the Bell Junction - a nightmare to use with a small baby in a pram in tow. You couldn't take the pram down with you nor leave the baby unattended - you definitely needed to do your shopping with a friend! I was married in Holy Trinity in the High Street in 1966. I haven't been back for years but Google Earth, especially Street View has shown me how much the area has changed.