A Childhood 1940s
A Memory of Stevenage.
My grandfather bought Hendersons in c1911 and it was the principal drapers and furnishers in the town until my Dad sold the business c1961. It then became a John Blundells and is now I believe the Waitrose in the Old High Street.
In the just post-war days, apart from the normal shops like Woolworths and Boots, Stevenage was possibly best known for its innumerable pubs. From the Marquis of Granby on the Great North Road towards Baldock, to the Roebuck nearly in Knebworth - there must have been over 20 - it was impossible to do a full pub crawl in one night! Are The Two Diamonds, The Red Lion, The Unicorn, The Marquis of Lorne, Our Mutual Friend, The White Hart, The White Lion still in existence?
The other thing was the outlying Greens - Fisher's (where I used to go riding on Tom Kelly's horses c1950...Ah! (Thalia Danks and Marigold Gibbons, where are you now?) and Todd's in particular but there were others that I now forget.
The original Stevenage Town Football Club that my father helped found just after the war wasn't far from the Mutual Friend...where I believe the station now stands.
The war is memorable - I was at the Avenue School and always late because of the, largely American, convoys passing through ("Got any gum, chum?") - the sirens - a doodle bug nearly knocking the chimney off the shop ("Tacker-tacker-tacker-tacker..." then silece as it came down followed by the blast) and the V2 that nearly hit Watton at Stone Church - I was at Heath Mount then).
The annual fair up the High Street on September 22 and 23; The Publix 'fleapit' Cinema just above the Green and the Astonia behind Trinity Church; the annual pantomime at the Town Hall in Orchard (?) Road (fell in love with the genie in Aladdin, she was so pretty and I was 5!); walks up the Avenue - collecting conkers - to St Nicholas Church to put flowers on Grandad's grave; concentrated orange juice got from the Food Office opposite the Cromwell; Harry Horsnell's sweet shop next door to Henderson's, and Geoff Shepherd's Butchers; the Book Nook where I got all my Dr Dolittle books, and Waby's the toy shop all figure in my childhood. Ah Me! "It's all changed you know..."
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Reading your note was as if it had been written by me. I knew both Marigold and Thalia and mucked and rode at Tom Kelly's stables on Fisher's Green. ( Marigold’s name was spelled ”Gibbens”; her brother Herbert Roger was a classmate and being named “Green”I was next to Roger in the alphabetical class list.) You must also recall their Marigold and Thalia’s mutual friend, Joyce Vaughan, whose brother Tim was also an Alleynian.
I was at Alleyne's from 1952 to'58. Another classmate worked at the Publix. Another classmate’s mother ushered at The Astonia,. ( Owned by Aston Ayres and daughter Rosemary . I knew them both.)
My first real girlfriend worked at Henderson’s and I remember Harry Horsnell and his cyclist son Reg. Another classmate “”part-timed”“ at Shepherd’s the butchers.
I have no recollection of Waby’s although the name “”The Book Nook”“ is familiar. Was it in the High Street near Orchard Road?
Because of this I’m assuming that you are older than I. ( My birthdate was 24th December 1940. )
My family was the seventh to arrive in the New Town and I lived in Brox Dell, at the top of Sish Lane, in which lived the Elmes family. The head of the Lines ( hardware) family lived in Pound Avenue, next to the Astonia. .
The nearest good toy shop was Munt’s in Hitchin; only a short nice bus-ride away.
Where are you now. I am in Montreal and first emigrated to here in 1969.
I have enjoyed this reminiscing and would continue. My email address is leslie.green@videotron.ca if you wish to pursue this dialogue.
Thanks ....................Best wishes ................................Les Green