High Mead Leagrave Luton

A Memory of Luton.

In the 1920's my parents bought a new build property in Limbury, number 8 High Mead, the only detached property in the road (It cost £620.00), but being situated on a bend the property was lacking garden space as the land was triangular, wide at the front with a narrow pointed back garden.
However my childhood memories picture it differently! It was as big a Wardown Park but probably no more that 25 feet from the house to the point and the same wide!
We had a fish pond at the pointed end probably no more than 30" wide and 50" long but to me it was huge with water lilies, golden orfe and goldfish. In the summer we used to go to Leagrave Marsh for newts and frogs that I would introduce to the pond.
Dad built a miniature steam railway the wound its way through the rockeries.
We had a chicken house large enough for me to use as a den where I kept a few sticky boiled sweets in a secret jar. I owned two pet rabbits and one day when times were hard mum sold them to the Butchers in Alder Crescent. As food was rationed and when coupons all used the butcher would sell "Savory Roll" a concoction of every scrap and offal imaginable bolstered up with oats or breadcrumbs, it was fantastic when fried up with tomatoes or fried bread and far more appetizing than the fatty pieces of meat issued against coupons.
I drove past the property recently to find that it has been modernized with the frontage extended, I wonder if the fish pond is still,in the back garden (complete with my newts).

John Russell
7th June 2016

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