Bonny Downs And Vicarage Lane Playing Fields

A Memory of East Ham.

I was born on Vicarage lane in 1947, moved to a flat on Charlemonte Road then onto St Albans Ave.

I remember Bonny Downs and all the friends we had as times were very tough so we went "pinching" fruit off the grocers stall outside the shop in vicarage lane, and running like hell when he chased us..

My dad was a chef, a master baker and confectioner,he ran a bakery on High Street South opposite the Tory Club,I remember walking to it before school, getting hot bread and rolls putting them under my jacket and walking home all snug on the cold, or foggy mornings. One of the partners run off with the money leaving us broke, and he went to work at Beckton gas works for a while, where after losing a lung in a gas explosion ended with my mum working for East Ham Council, he a caretaker, she a cleaner in the drawing officer with Brian Dear's (WHFC) mum.

I remember being given a complete WHFC kit and Brians boots, playing football for the scouts with the Moranbrothers, going to Peter Brabrookes wedding, dancing with Dave Chandlers wife....

I remember well the All Saints Church disco on Saturdays, going to Chans on High Street North for Chow Mein, or when very young going to the music hall next to the station on Burgess road, which closed down and became a C&A.

I remember my first visit to WHFC in the 1955, and my last in 1972; I still support them from a distance.

Vicarage lane school, Miss Lovegrove my first teacher in infant school and Ms Higgins with her very small skirts which inspired many young men in different ways..

Mr Wernham at Thomas Lethaby, a man who inspired many kids to improve their mathematical and technical drawing skills, George Lees the headmaster who ruled with an army of prefects who if they didn't do what he said got the cane across the back of the legs, Mr Jones the english teacher who hit the back of your hands with the edge of a ruler for no reason at all (at least I don't remember why I got hit so often)

The old bombed out White Horse pub and the Broadway cinema opposite Central Park, also when young getting beat up by the bullies from Thomas Lethaby outside the sweetshop on vicarage lane...also working whilst at school for the Harris family in the greengrocers shop by the Coop on High St South, and at Christmas selling Christmas trees by the gates to East Ham market in Myrtle Ave for old man Harris.

My first love, Lyn Ainsworth, rides on my scooters as a young Mod...visits to Southend, Clacton, Margate and Brighton, the Discos in Barking Town Hall and coming out finding your scooter damaged by the local rockers..

I loved growing up in East Ham and enjoyed moving back for a while when I got married, living on Clements road whilst working as a fireman in London and my wife as a Radiographer in the London Hospital...now live out in mid-Kent retired and happy