Tewkesbury Station Road Tottenham N15

A Memory of Tottenham.

I was born in 1938 in Tewkesbury Road,Tottenham. When I was of age I attended Stamfordhill School, in Seven Sisiters Road. I remember they used to have a Barrage Balloon in the playground and we often had to seek shelter there whilst the war was on. At the weekend a man used to come round with his barrow selling cockles and winkles which we always had for tea on a Sunday, we also had a man come round with a horse and cart, the cart was like a roundabout and we used to pay him a penny or a clean jam jar for a ride to the bottom of the road and back. In 1946 at the age of 8 years my family and I moved to Station Road, Tottenham Hale. I had 9 brothers and 5 sisters, some of us attended Down Lane Junior school, sat the 11 plus and then went to Page Green School (which was demolished for new flats to be built) opposite Gestetners in Broad Lane. I left school in 1953 and worked at the Ever Ready in Ashley Road, from there I went to work at Dickinsons a few years later I worked at the Mills Equipment in Fountayne Road, from there I left to get married at the age of 21. My memories of those days were the Municipal Baths, The Royal Tottenham, the Corner Picture House, The Palace, Bruce Grove, the Florida and the Imperial cinemas. The pubs I remember although I didn't frequent them were the White Hart, the Hope and Anchor, the Volunteer and the Beehive. Upstairs in the Beehive my fiance and I used to go to learn Ballroom Dancing. We used to go to the Lido swimming pool during the summer. Christmas in our house was always chaos with all my brothers and sisters thoroughly enjoying themselves, but my parents struggled to bring us all up and they used to hire out a barrow and go round the streets selling celery and all sorts of vegetables to earn a few coppers to put food on the table for us all. We didn't have a lot but we enjoyed what little we did have. Tottenham has changed an awful lot since those days and I feel very sad that a lot of our memories of the buildings we loved have been destroyed, for example the Prince of Wales Hospital, the large Post Office in the High Cross, and all the cinemas previously mentioned here .Tottenham Hale itself, where I used to live in Station Road, is just not recognisable any more. I could mention a few more topics but feel I have said enough.