My Memories Of Mitcham

A Memory of Mitcham.

I was born in Mitcham in 1929 and lived as a baby in Queens Road aka "rocky" or "Rocks Terrace" my Grandfather was called Truelove and had a shop in Queens Road. Hard to belive now but a horse and cart owner would stop outside his tiny terraced house, unhitch the horse, and walk it through the house out into the back garden.
Later I lived with my Grandparents at 20 Mount Road. She taught piano and I think charged 1 shilling and sixpence for half an hour. She managed to teach me to read music and was very unhappy when I gave up my scales and simple little pieces to try and play boogie woogie which I still try to do today.
My friends were Kenny Wurt and Ray Findley, they lived in Mount.
No antibiotics back then so there were children and adults being taken away and not coming back again.
My first school was the infants school in Prince Georges Road.
I also attended London Road school next to Eagle House and along with many other young boys lost many penny gliders over the high wall.
There were open fires in the class rooms and a wrought iron stair cases on the outside of the building.
We played marbles in the school yard and for some reason we called them glarnies, all in wonderful coloured glass, and some were extra large. These prized items were kept in a draw string bag that made a wonderful clatter. The best player was a boy called Parrot so we called him Polly and he won some of my best marbles.
There were seasons for different games like conkers, fagcards sounded like fackards, whip and top, paper and balsa wood gliders, games like bunk the barrel, knock down ginger, hop the bargee where one boy would carry another on his back and hop around on one leg barging against his opponent to try and knock him over, none of these allowed with todays health and safety.
When Bond Road school was completed I went there and still remember the new smell of paint and wood and the wonders of pushing a button to get a drink of water.
I lived in Raliegh Gardens with my dad and we lodged with the Paice family at number 14. The air raid sirens were being tested at that time in 1939 and many nearby large houses had been deserted, some left fully furnished and open to us young explorers who raided the gardens for fruit and probably caused a lot of damage before the bombs did!
I then lived in Steers Mead with my cousin Ken Jones at number 27 - a family called Stanley lived next door and because they went to boxing classes, organised matches in the street where I would hope my opponent would not be too big and strong.
I was not very tall and good at dodging, but lost a few wobbly teeth before they were ready to go, so no tooth fairy back then.
Just to mention the Three Kings Pond, back then there were gypsy families living in caravans in Western Road they used to run horses up and down Western Road when they were selling them and I recall men peering inside horses mouths at what appeared to me to be huge teeth. In those days Three Kings Pond had an opening each end and people would walk their horse with cart attached in one end, give both the horse and cart a good wash, and then walk out the other end.
The milkman, baker, and coalman did their deliveries using horse and carts, sometimes
a horse would bolt and I recall Mount Road being flooded in milk and littered with broken glass. Somehow the horse broke free and ran towards Western Road, it was amazing that he seemed unharmed.
I attended Singlegate school and spent a lot of lesson time in air raid shelters built on what was our football pitch.
Reciting our tables with a gas mask on was hilarious as the valve at the side would make loud farting sounds which we young boys would make the most of, much to the frustration of the poor teachers who had probably been called out of retirement to replace those young men that had been called up.
The air raids are another story........I would just mention that my granddad was unhappy with our Anderson shelter being about 12 inches deep in the back garden, backing on to Hadfields paint factory. My dad and uncle took it apart and put it deep down in the front garden with cement floor. We slept in it for three nights when a bomb knocked off the chimney and buried itself just in front of where the shelter was. Nan was upset because her bone china tea service was broken.
Nobody seemed certain whether the bomb had exploded as it had gone deep into the wet soil. Before throwing up a huge mound. Anyway last time I looked number 20 was still there!
When I drive through Mitcham now I am sad to see so many changes and missing
buildings. Very odd to see the public toilets at the Fair Green are now a cafe, I gave it a miss!

I have tried to locate my friends from way back then but no luck.....

Derek Jones