Worcester Park

Collision junction

The photo of this junction at the bottom of Central Road brought back memories of a motorcycle accident I had resulting in my girlfriend, later to be my wife, breaking her pelvis and me losing a front tooth. It was dark and the car driver failed to see me, pulling across into my path, resulting in both of us flying over his boot. Very painful.

Houses in The Avenue

I lived in Woodlands Avenue and used to walk down The Avenue every day in term time to catch the bus to Kingston. At that time many of the big houses were still standing but one by one, probably as the owners died or they became too much for them, they were demolished and flats built. Even today there are some big houses still standing, mainly towards to top of The Avenue as you approach the church. It holds many happy memories for me and now it's all on Google Street View. I often browse the roads which were my playground.

Worcester Park

I don't know much about Worcester Park really, my dad's family (Prowses) lived in Washington Road, he was the eldest of 14 so a lot of people crammed into quite a small house. I remember him talking about an ice cream parlour and a few other places.

Morley's bakery

Morley was a funny old chap, he ran a top bakery but was rather miffed when 'these 'ere new fangled electric vehicles' started being used for home deliveries ... his response was as the previous poster related - to pull his wooden delivery carts to the top of the steep Central Road hill behind his car and let his delivery men continue through the higher streets pulling their vehicles behind them. It was a 'Canute' effort I'm afraid - doomed to failure.   He was an enthusiastic gambler on the horses and would back every animal in the Derby each year with a convoluted system designed to guarantee a successful financial outcome - he would boast 'I always back every horse running'.
On a different topic, does anyone recall those huge houses in The Avenue (seemingly mentioned in one of H G Wells's books) - I seem to remember them being 5 or 6 stories high - what happened to them?

School

John Major, who lived with his parents in Longfellow Road, started school this year, 1948, in CHEAM COMMON ... which was Balmoral Road School when I was there in 1932! His father's garden ornaments were sold from the family shop in Central Road.
Yes! He did become Prime Minister.

Pam Cook and Mr Morley the baker

Pam lived with her family in Washington Road and on leaving school at  first worked with Mr Morely the baker in his Longfellow Road shop, helping to keep the books and doing counter work.
Years later when Pam was 24 we were married in St Philip's Church - now no longer there.

Worcester Park from the bridge

I lived in Worcester Park from when I was born (1939) until early 1956 when I joined the RAF as an apprentice. The lad in the picture (W455012) could so easily have been me (it isn't) because I was often there looking in the model shop window, as he is. Memories of Keil Kraft and Jetex and balsa wood and plastic cement.....
The picture is actually taken from the lower slopes of the ramp leading up to the station, on the left. The road dropped down behind the camera to the right, under the railway bridge which was too low to accommodate ordinary double-deckers. In the shopping parade in the distance can be seen the shop of Elliot & James, where my father bought my first bicycle, a Hercules Tourist Kestrel. A small green is on the right with the Huntsman's Hall pub just beyond. Past that was a petrol station and Toni's ice-cream parlour. Happy days!

Worcester Park, Central Road

The concrete streetlamps only appeared in the mid-1950s. Before then, the street lights were puny strutures housing ONE electric bulb. Everything was very dark at night. You would think that all the motorists would drive around on dipped beams, but no...Everyone drove on sidelights as use of headlamps was thought to induce glare. Motorists who used their headlamps were much disliked.

When the new lamps were installed they contained state-of-the-art sodium bulbs. At first they were disliked because the lamp posts were considered ugly, and because the yellow light was revolutionary. As a young boy, I thought to myself "Yeah, but at least you can see where you're going now."

Then there were the pre-war-built 213 buses - awful vehicles. They used to struggle up the hill, engines wheezing and grating their gearboxes. They frequently broke down and I can remember one bus that had struggled to the top of Coombe Hill actually caught fire!

Last memory of this part of the world was a jumble sale organised by the Epsom & Ewell Ratepayers Association. For some reason they held it in a hall in (I think) Caldbeck Road. Deep inside Sutton & Cheam territory, the local inhabitants had little regard for the interlopers from over the tracks. Heavily outnumbered, the Epsom and Ewell organisers lost most of the stock to pilfering and never again did they mount a similar venture.

The Bakers

I remember Mr Morley, who owned the bakers at the corner of Longfellow Road, roping the bread delivery cart , fully loaded, to the back of his old Ford car and pulling it up the hill to his shop at the top , with the delivery man, who only had part of one arm, swinging between the shafts of the cart. The poor old delivery man's feet barely touched the ground with the rear metal support wheels striking sparks from the road every time the cart lurched back onto the wheels. If the rope had given way, the cart plus the dangling delivery man would have gone backwards down the hill! Health and safety was not the same in those days.