Lower Morden

A Memory of Morden.

I was born in 1941 my dad bought the house in Lower Morden Lane in 1939,I went to Morden Farm School. Morden was a great place to be as a child I remember starting school and not liking it one bit I only started liking it in the last few years mainly because of the sports which I enjoyed. I went on school trips to Denmark and a year later to Austria to travel to places like that was exciting and we had a surprising amount of freedom. I lived opposite the site that became Hatfield school although it was Peacock Farm then, I don't remember it being used as a farm it made an excellent place to play it had old farm carts in what was a small orchard.Just a short way down the road was Morden Park ( we called it the golf course ) from about the age of 13 a group of us spent a lot of our time there we had an old windup gramophone we played 78 rpm records of Bill Hayley,Elvis and Little Richard etc. On Sundays the bandstand in the park was popular most of the bands were good but the best was the American Air force band, At weekends I spent a lot of time with my friends in a cafe near the Woodstock playing the jukebox and making a drink last for hours ( I looked on Google earth and a cafe still stands in the same place) I don't know if it has been a cafe all of that time but it would be nice to know. I the late 1950s I remember going to the jazz club at the Crown Pub Morden they had all the top jazz bands Aka Bilk,Kenny Ball among others it was a great place to go with your friends.After I left school I worked in London so time spent with friends was more at weekends playing football for Morden F.C, swimming at Wimbledon baths and sometimes skating at Stretham ice rink , evenings the Odeon Cinema Morden or the Granada North Cheam if they had a good film on. The Woodstock pub was a favorite place to meet,sadly its an Asda supermarket now .I later moved to Silsoe Beds. and then to Hemsby Norfolk and for the last 13 Years just outside Killarney in Ireland. I still think of Morden and all the great childhood and teenage memories.

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