1945 1960
A Memory of Mitcham.
What a great site this is – I love sharing everyone’s memories. It brought back my childhood and names I had forgotten.
I moved from Scotland to Mitcham in 1946 when I was four. Mum, Dad, my sisters Margaret and Florence and me all moved into an ex-army hut on the Gun Site at Mitcham Junction. Later came my sister Isabel and then much later came Yvonne. They called us squatters but we paid our rent to Mitcham council, who eventually rehoused us in 1954 to a brand new maisonette at Beaumont Court at the top of St Mark’s Road.
Mum used to take me to the Majestic Cinema and we kids all went on Saturday morning as ABC’ers. It was a wonderful place to grow up, we had the freedom of Mitcham Common as our playground and the town of Mitcham was like a village back then. There was a Woolworths with big wooden counters and wood floors, Hearns the butcher, Thorpes the record shop. I remember the first supermarket opening, where we served ourselves, which was very strange. There was the big Post Office, Frances the drapers and at the butchers we could watch a lamb being fed (we didn’t think what for!), Huttons fish shop and yes I remember the wool shop next to the bakers in Western Road. Mitcham Baths was also a regular place to go; I can smell it now sort of rubber and chlorine mix. Then there was Eagle House, a huge mansion where there was a day nursery and all the big prams could been seen out in the garden.
I went to Western Road School (1954-1957). I loved meeting my friends at St Mark's youth club or going dancing at the Wimbledon Palais - Mods at one end and Rockers at the other. Great times... Just some of the names I remember are Bob Napthine, Melvin Catchpole, Eric, George Freeman. I remember Sunday mornings at Leo’s Cafe, where I tasted my first coffee - milk and a dash!! My mum and dad (Isa and Jock Macdonald) were regular customers at the Mitcham British Legion, we had some great parties there. We all loved the annual May Queen and the arrival of the Fair. My niece was May Queen and we all cheered her along the procession.
If anyone remembers the Gun Site at Mitcham Junction I would love to hear from them, or any pictures would be great - elizabethbrock37@yahoo.co.uk
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I use to catch the 152 bus from Fair Green to Merton Park every day and it went past Western Road School. The first love of my life (I still think of her very frequently) went there. Her name was Lilene Townsend and her Dad was the coal merchant. She had a younger brother. My first kiss was with her on Mitcham Common with her friend Sheila and my school friend Paul Hamnett. Leos and those wonderful lollies were a Saturday treat but if we had one we had to walk home to RosemeadAvenue off Rowan Road and next to Rowan Road School. Up until about 1953 Wimbledon Palais was a furniture store I think. I remember people saying that it had the largest sprung floor in England. And the river Wandle there which was so polluted by Merton Board Mills that the ofam and scum would come right across th road to the bus garage,
I remember the gunsite only too well. WE used to walk past it on or way to Beddington Park. Another Sunday treat. It also had barrage balloons and kept us awake for many a night in 1940 and 1944 with the doodle bugs. The story was that they never shot anything down. It may be a trick of memory but I have a feeling that the guns were operated by women. We used to collect the shrapnel which sometimes was still hot!
The Catchpoles came from Suffolk where I now live.