The Bucks Head And London Road

A Memory of Mitcham.

Opposite the Majestic Cinema, you can just see the Tudor brickwork of the Bucks Head Inn, on the London Road corner. It was very rare that my Dad would go in, but we would be sent there at certain times of the year. A seafood stall, parked beside the pub on a Sunday, would sell cockles, whelks, winkles, mussels, shrimp and jellied eels. My Dad would give my sister and I , or my brother Robert, some money to buy half a pint of winkles and quart pint of shrimps for tea. After getting them home it would be our job to use a needle, take the eyes out of the winkles, then stick the needle in it's "head" and slowly unwind the winkle from its shell. Mum would put them in a dish and add vinegar. Lo and behold if we "broke" the winkle as we were getting them out of the shell. They were a special treat and we would miss out on them if we did not do it right. The shrimps were for Mum and Dad. We carefully took off the shell casings, got the little black vein out, once again being very careful, as there were not many of them. They were just the best Sunday teatimes as we would have real butter on our bread for the winkles and finish with a slice of jam and bread or sometimes if we were lucky, Mum had bought a small piece of walnut butter cake from Marks & Spencers if she had gone to Tooting on Saturday.
I remember quite a few of the shops and buildings along the London Road from the Bucks Head.
Nearly opposite the Bucks Head on the other side of the road was the Off Licence. Woolworths was next, where I invariably spent my pocket money savings buying Mum either Lily of the Valley, 4711 Eau de Cologne or African Violet perfume for her birthday or Christmas. Dad always got hankies with his initial on them, a tie or socks. Further along was the Coal Merchant, then the Rag and Bone man - always told they were gypsies, as they had old caravans and horses for their carts parked inside the yard. Just along from the Bucks Head was the bike shop, then a shop that sold kitset model. In its window was a model train or two with bridges, mountains, tunnels and little buildings, that lit up when it was dark. To get the trains to move you had to put a penny in the slot on the window frame. Further along was the Butchers, with sawdust on its floor. Then the Swimming Baths, where I used to train from 7am and then walk to school down Western Road. In winter they covered the pool with a 'moveable floor' taking down the diving boards and using it for social dances. Further along was the Baptist or Methodist Church, not sure which one, but it was opposite Eagle House where we had a youth club when I was a teenager. Next door was Bond Road Primary and Junior School where I attended from 1951-1957. Next to that was the Express Dairy where we got the milk, cheese and babýs' orange juice. Across the road was the UK Tea Co., a small grocer where I remember Mum having to use 'ration books' for tea, sugar and a few other things. Sometimes Mum would buy half a pound of broken biscuits and you would just hope they were not all plain ones. Further down the road was the optician, the bespoke tailors, the greengrocers - where we sometimes managed to get my favourite fruit - pomegranates. (Lucky for me while living on an island in the South Pacific I could pick them off a bush). Also at the greengrocers we would buy bamboo sticks to make a kite using newspaper and string, or a net with Mum's old stockings and wire for catching "tiddlers" in the ponds.
Then of course was the sweet shop, with all its large jars of colourful lollies and the scales where the shop lady would weigh our purchases. Flying saucers with sherbet inside, sherbet dabs, liquorice wood, black and red liquorice sticks, humbugs, gobstoppers, jelly babies, dolly mixture and so many more we could pick out for a few pennies. Orange Maid ice blocks, jubblies, ones like traffic lights, and ice cream cones. Sometimes we were treated to "Tizer" soda pop on a Saturday night. Next door was the old Mansion House that was the Adult Library, where I spent a lot of time. The Junior Library was next door on the bomb site beside our flats in Armfiled Crescent. I think I must have read all the pictorial travel books, as well as all the Enid Blyton, Famous Five and Secret Seven books. On the other side of the road was Trings Toy Shop. My one and only new bike was bought from Trings. It was a red and white Triang Tricycle. I must have been three or four years old as I was not at school. It came with a long pole that hooked onto the bike so Mum or Dad kept me in check and I did not ride away. I always loved going in there with my parents. We were allowed to look but not touch. I never knew why we went in there so often, as we never bought anything, or so I thought.
Many years later, when I wanted to buy expensive items I found out about putting them aside in the shop and paying a little off every week. That was how my parents paid for our Christmas presents from the toy shop. The penny had finally dropped.