Early Times In Colindale

A Memory of Colindale.

I was born after the war and lived in Sheaveshill Avenue until I was married in 1971. I lived in a house that which had the dubious distinction of being directly opposite to the Titanine paint factory on the other side of the road. This occasionally provided some excitement and entertainment if there was a minor fire as the local brigade, from the Burroughs, usually arrived within five minutes, but there never was a really major incident to disturb the otherwise tranquil location. The factory staff used to hold practice fire drills on a concrete pad located behind the houses on the edge of what was known as the Backs and they were interesting to watch from a bedroom window.
The Backs was our playground for many years and I'm sure we covered every square foot of it playing one game or another. The land extended alongside the Northern underground line on one side and the Silkstream river - with its tributary which ran from the airfield at Hendon underneath the Police College playing fields to join near Chalfont and Marlow Courts which were on the other side of the river - on the other. I remember one day in the 1950's when a neighbour, who was in the ATC I think, tested an ex-RAF dinghy by paddling it up and down for a hundred yards or so - great fun to watch.
The Backs extended just beyond the White Bridge near Rushgrove Park to an area used by the construction firm Farrows for storing their material; I recall it was good fun to play around the large drainage pipes that lay there - simple pleasures! I also recall a wooden mess hall for the workers which you had to pass on the path down from Colindeep Lane down to and over the Northern Line which by eventually skirting the Police College housing estate you would come out on Aerodrome Road. I believe you can still make that journey today although finding either end of the path is now much more difficult.
Trainspotting, in the classic sense, was undertaken near the end of the pathway where it turned right and passed beneath the LMS main and suburban/goods lines. Many a long day was spent with friends and Ian Allen books watching all manor of traffic to and from St Pancras and Cricklewood. The top of the wooden fence which formed a large triangle with the railway lines up to the Colindeep Lane road bridge over the lines and which encompassed a considerable number of allottments was our perch with excellent views North and South. All that land is now light industrial units.
I think the fantastic thing about Google Maps is that you can get right down and see these areas in such detail, as they are now.
Oh for a camera and some sense to use it 50+ years ago!!