Gants Hill Smiths Bus Stop

A Memory of Gants Hill.

I used to live in Montreal Road, off Perth Road, and remember the bus-stop outside Smiths stationers. There was also a real butchers, greengrocers, shoe shop, Woolworths, banks, a small dress shop and later a Jewish delicatessen/bakers and a kosher restaurant.
The photographer is standing with his back to the Gants Hill tube station on the Central line, and behind him to his right there used to be a taxi rank and public phone box.
I remember this area particularly, since my next-door neighbour (an honorary Grandma) was taking me with her, shopping at the Co-op stores while my sister was being born!
Had the photographer walked on down the hill, he would have passed Valentine's Park and reached Ilford, where there was also an overground train service to Liverpool Street and to Southend. The road running across the intersection oast the Odeon cinema was Eastern Avenue, and passed through the Green Gate area, named after the public house where Bill Haley had sung with his group, the Planets.