Twenty Years

A Memory of Maidenhead.

We moved to Maidenhead in 1961, when I was 10. I didn't particularly want to but my parents said I could go and see "Village of the Damned" at the ABC cinema on the day we moved and that swung it for me - I was easily pleased. My parents bought their first house here - a maisonette - for about 2000. Times have changed.

Those early years are remembered so well - walking to Courthouse Primary, across the park, lessons with Mrs Palmer. Then on to Gordon Road secondary, initially to the annexe on Castle Hill, then the main school, always down Belmont Vale, by my friends house. Those were the days of Mr Addison (kipper), our head - a strict task master - pity there are not so many now. So here's to you all, those that were there from 1962 to 1966, and Messrs Severn, Bristow, Lacey and the rest of the teachers I've forgotten, if you're still around.

Then off to work at the old Police Station, just off Queen Street - Berkshire Constabulary then, follwed by a decade at a local insurance brokers in York Road.

Life moved on and after twenty years in the town it was off to Windsor, but those days before ring roads and by-passes - and modernization - will be the memories I will keep. I have only driven through Maidenhead a few times in the last 30 years, driven through really means on the town bypass - it is not the same, but it cannot be expected to be as it was. Not going back means the memories are not clouded with moden day images. That's how it should be.

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