Those Halcyon Days Of My Youth!

A Memory of Wembley.

I remember my relatively short time in Wembley with great affection. At my mother's instigation we moved from Willesden to Lonsdale Avenue, Wembley, in 1953 when I was fourteen. My father paid the princely sum of just under 2000 pounds for the house - two-up-two-down, inside bath and separate toilet! - and for the privilage of moving to the more mundane Wembley. I had already finished school and had, at my father's insistance I hasten to add, started an apprenticeship as a sheetmetal worker (yawn!) with Barlow and Whitney in Coombe Road, near Blackbird Cross, Neasden. My old mate, Michael Hays,(later Mickey Most, the well-known music entrepreneur) was already there and disliked the place and the people as much as I did! We were supposed go twice or three times a week to a technical college to learn argon-arc welding, a brand new invention at the time (YAWN!).
We only went to the college every second or third time and on the other days went to the big film studios that surrounded the area. It was easy to get a job as an errand-boy -no pay, only tips! - for the film stars. A lot of American films were being made in England at the time, taking advantage of the excellent studios and, for the Americans, a very favourable exchange rate. This wasn't anything new for us as we had often played hookey from school to go there!. I met, shook hands and chatted with quite a few stars - such as Yul Brynner, Gregory Peck and, WOW!, Ava Gardner (what a woman to fire the imagination of a fourteen-year-old on the cusp of pubescence!). The tips were excellent. As the Americans found the British Pounds-Shillings-and-Pence system a book with seven seals they more often than not over-tipped. One famous star however, for whom I had run an errand, presented me with a few coppers and, when he saw my face, asked "how many dollars American is that?" He was mildly embarrassed when I told him it wasn't even cents and fished a wad of pound notes from his pocket indicating that I should take the equivalent of a dollar. I did, but for all he knew, it could have ten quid!!
Mickey and I connected up with the Cherry Tree milk bar clique on Wembley High Street and it became our point of reference for several years - even sporadically for a few years after we had gone our separate ways.
I went off to the merchant navy as a cadet and, for about five years, travelled a good piece of the world - including a circumnavigation. After that I spent six years in the army as a military policeman with postings to Münster in Germany where I met and married Edda, my wife now for fifty-odd years and Hong Kong. There I met a German business man who set me on the road to a commercial life and to eventually starting my own business in Germany.
After a long, busy and eventful commercial life, I have passed on the business I started thirty seven years ago to my two daughters and am now filling my time with writing my memories in book form -already 550 pages!
There were many in that Cherry Tree clique and, although I can recall all the faces and characters, most of the names have faded. The most well-known of them was my good friend Michael Hays, or "Mickey Most" as he was later to style himself. Regrettably Mickey passed on to that big Cherry Tree in the sky some time ago.
If any of those other friends are still about I'd like to hear from them. Some of the other names (or bits of names) I remember are:
Johnny Harold, Mick Race, Carol, my first real girlfriend (I don't remember her surname, she lived near the "John Lyon" pub) Big,tall Beryl(?), the indentured draughtsman,"the sailor", the pretty twins (one of which, Christine, married Mickey, I believe) The chap whose father was a big cheese with GEC (finance director, or so) - he was allowed now and again to take Dad's "Riley Pathfinder" for a spin and would take some of us out for a very stylish ride - perhaps to the "Crooked Billet" or the "King's Head" in Harrow on the Hill. And, of course, the chap who had that clapped-out old ex-US army, gas guzzeling Buick. For the petrol we had to organise a "tarpaulin muster" - for the benefit of the landlubbers; a whip-round. We mostly ended up in the evening back again at the Cherry Tree but sometimes a stop was made at the Ace Cafe on the North Circular Road for a big mug of so-called coffee and a "Gourmet" meat pie! - No worries about horse meat in those days,eh!! Or we might have treated the girls to spaghetti bolognese at the Paragon Restaurant - well, really cafe! - just along from the Cherry Tree.
The Cherry Tree, it must be remembered, was a slightly up-market coffee and milk bar. The somewhat tatty licenced bar upstairs , also called the Cherry Tree, was frequented by a much older fraternaty of mostly down-at-heel, has-been American and Canadian Wembley Lions ice hockey players and their "ladies". One or two of them, but not many, drove huge American cars from Simpson's down near the Triangle and would park them ostentatiously in front of the cafe. This didn't really impress us much as we would have preferred a British car such as a Riley Pathfinder or a Rover.
Well, although I could go on forever, my allocation of 1000 words is running out so I will say farewell for now and invite all those with a pang of nostalgia for Wembley and the Cherry Tree in '53,'54,'55 and '56 to write their memories too. And, of course, any answers to me personally would be greatly appreciated!

William (Bill) Rowan
bill.rowan@web.de