My Hometown

A Memory of Hornchurch.

I was born in Horncurch in 1938. I lived in Kent Drive for 14 years and attended Suttons Primary and went onto Romford High in 1952. We backed onto Suttons school and were very near the aerodrome. Kyles the green grocer on the corner of Stanley Road. Oxos (I think) the sweet shop. Maisie the milkman's horse who delivered daily along with the baker and on Fridays the fish man with cockles and mussels. Doctor Crainer our marvelous GP. As a child I would walk with my mother to the White Hart in the village where many shops had been destroyed by air raids. The Home and Colonial Stores was my mother's favorite port of call. Burtons tailors was on a corner with a billiard hall above. At 14 I moved to Upminster Bridge and after leaving school I worked at Ford Motor Co in the drawing office. I was both confirmed (1948)and married (1960) in St Andrew's Church. When as a child, I had attended the church often and remember that on Mothering Sunday we would walk around the church outside giving it a 'hug' as it was the 'mother church'.