Stanley Road

A Memory of Croydon.

I was born in Keston Road, but when war was declared my parents moved us to South Harrow. We returned after the war to Stanley Road into a shop which was owned by one of my aunties. It had previously been occupied by another of my aunties who had 3 small children and had found it difficult to manage. The customers were varied and quite colourful. We were opposite to a public house called The Pauline Arms. They regularly had pub outings and the regulars, which were mostly men, would load the luggage boot of the coach with crates of beer. In the late evening they would return rather the worse for drink and would tumble out of the coach into the arms of their respective wives who propped them up in order to get them home. On one occassion a fight broke out between the men and a pile of jackets were deposited in the road as the 2 sides squared up to each other. There was shouting and yelling and some of the wives joined in. Someone shouted that the police were coming and the road was in an instant completely empty. A quick sobering up and a satisfactory result for the police. A little different to these days.

I went to Lady Edridge Grammar School and left in 1953 starting work at St Helier Hospital, Carshalton as a medical laboratory technician. I have many happy memories of Croydon post war. It was a place where you could walk around at any time of the day quite safely and in some ways I wish those days could return.

The no. 42 tram took me to school. They were fun to travel in. I especially liked the top deck where when we reached the terminus we could move the seat back rests so the passengers faced the correct way. We had swimming lessons at Thornton Heath Pool. I used to go in the school holidays and on one occasion it was so crowded that we had to wait until a cubicle was available. Two of my friends were already in the pool and indicated to me that I could use the cubicle which they had changed in. No sooner than I had changed and plunged into the water than a whistle blew and my 2 friends were told their session had finished. I too had to leave and no argument. An expensive 5min swim. I learned to ballroom dance at Mrs Taylors in Brigstock Road and danced 3 times a week at the Orchid Ballroom. A good way to keep fit. There was a small ballroom near the old fire station but I cannot remember the name. It was also somewhere that I used to frequent. During school holidays I used to boast that in Croydon we could go to a different cinema every day of the week. Unfortunately I cannot remember all their names but I do remember The State, Odeon, Hiippodrome, The Curson? and the Davis Theatre. There was the the old music hall, The Empire, in the high street as well. I remember the Bolshoi Ballet performing at the Davis. I was working at that time and many of the staff wanted to go, so I was allowed the day off to purchase the tickets, along with another member of staff. It was such an event that we knew the demand would be high so we arranged to queue up early morning. We started out at about 5 am and joined the queue which by that time was so long it had streched to a near by road and into a car park. The queue travelled very slowly and my companion was relieved by other members of staff but I, being the most dispensible, stayed at my post. At 6 or 7 pm we had just reached the front of the queue and were the next to be ushered into the theatre when an announcement was made that no further tickets were available. To add insult to injury, when I reached home, I found that the TV had broken down so I could not even see the televised performance scheduled that Saturday. I believe Ulanova was performing Swan Lake so I was really disappointed.