The Pictures

A Memory of Croydon.

I was born on Clyde Road in 1950, and in 1954 moved to Caterbury Road in West Croydon, where I attended school Elmwood, and then Lambfrank (spelling?).  Mr Reeves was a teacher at Elmwood, and always answered anything he didn't like with a WHACK on the bottom from one of many different shoes that he kept for punishment (depending on how much punishment he wanted to inflict that day). But the good thing about him was that, all we had to do was to ask a question and the war and he would talk for the next hour non stop about the jerry's.

I like other writers here also remember Kennards and what a joy it was to be there.  We didn't shop too much, because funds at the time were very limited, and Kennards was not the place where we went to buy, (only look at what others could afford).  But I do remember going to the pictures, and seeing "Old Yeller" at the Davis, "The Horse Soldiers" at the Savoy, and every Saturday morning at the Granada, to sing songs, see an old B&W serial, a movie, and stomp your feet shouting, "We want film, We want film". Serials, like Zoro, Flash Gordon, Buck Jones, and Hopalong.

My family and I moved to San Francisco, California in 1962.  Today I live near Hollywood, but wouldn't trade my memory of Croydon for anything. From what I understand a cousin still manages a barrow at the Market, his name is "Redpath".  Does anyone know of a Michael Gooch, Paul Bigrigg, or Michael Cody, that I went to school with?