Burnt Oak Good Old Days

A Memory of Burnt Oak.

I was born in Dagenham 1950, but moved to Blundell Road, Burnt Oak in 1955. I attended Goldbeaters from 1955 to 1966 and can remember many of the people and teachers with whom I studied. Some of the teachers were really quite sadistic with their punishment regimes and I remember numerous incidents when punishment was over the top and didn't fit the crime. However, we survived and learnt from it. Some of my earlier memories were from the Infants and Junior school and some of the names I can remember are; Jenifer Salad with whom I shared a desk, Quarmey who also shared a desk in a later class, Barbara O'Malley, Sue Parsons, Angela O'Keefe, Isabel Houston, Coral Campbell, Gavin Heath, Sandra Davis, Diana Church, Pat Simonette, Oliver Goldsmith, Gerald Fuller, Alexander Munden and many more from my time in the seniors. I often wonder where they are now. Also, I'd like to know if any of the teaching staff from that era still survive. At one time in the juniors we had a temporary teacher from Canada (Mr Peters). I don't know how he managed it but he had a huge Mercedes sports job that made the other teachers A40's and Triumph Heralds look a bit insignificant.

I remember most of the shops in Watling Avenue, including the market. I bought my first bike from Peglies in 1962 and bought my Technical Drawing kit from Watlings Tool Stores. I also remember buying the ocassional "threepenny loose" (Woodbine cigarette) from Toni's ice cream parlour. It wouldn't happen now.. You could buy virtually anything you wanted in the town. Phillip Normans' Menswear shop was (at that time) quite a trendy shop to buy modern clothing, but it was a bit too expensive for most of us.

There was a second hand bookshop near the station bridge which had a stall outside with hundreds of used books and a huge sign on the front of the shop which said "Borrow a Book and Banish Boredom". Also the nearby Ladybird shop sold all the school uniforms for the surrounding schools.

It could be somewhat hazardous to be in the town if you were s stranger to the area and I remember that on one ocassion there were a group of lads from Neasden that came looking for trouble, but nothing much happened other than a few black eyes and some dented ego's.

We had two visiting milkmen - Arthur from Express Dairies and Clive from United Dairies. Both had horse drawn carts, but they converted to electric floats in the early 60's. We also had a chap from "Jet Dry Cleaners" that collected and delivered clothes for dry cleaning. During the winter we had a Paraffin delivery man who also had an Ice Cream van (Mr Whippy) during the Summer. Quite enterprising really.

My parent remained in Blundell Road until 2001 when my Dad died and Mum was taken into a local care home.

I've lived and worked nationally and intenationally as an engineer and laterly as a musician, but have since retired to the South Coast. I was a member of Friends Re-united, but since it's demise there is no way of finding or tracing others from the past. Sad really, but I'd be delighted to hear from anybody that might remember me.