North Finchley Various Memories

A Memory of North Finchley.

We lived in North Finchley between 1966 and 1978 so I was ten in 1976 and my sister was 7. We were allowed to walk to Tally Ho corner at that age, all the way from home at Friern Watch Avenue. Memories of those forays into town, perhaps not in dateline or chronological 'shop' order, but more with nostalgic licence would include passing the very old fashioned and austere Ashbeys where our school uniform came from; Jones's bakery who did the most gorgeous cakes and the snug tea-shop upstairs; MacFisheries which then became MacMarket but still had a fish tank by the fish counter and an eel swimming about in it; W H SMiths, where every year I'd enter the Win A Pony competition; Woolworths, until it burned down and was headlined by the Barnet Press as 'Biggest Blaze Since The Blitz'; Owen Owens which was fab at Christmas as the basement turned into the toy department, and the top floor had a wonderful restaurant with a huge modern art frieze along one wall, of a sunset over woods and our Nan used to treat us to tea there as they did the best toasted tea cakes in the world! We sometimes went to Chix Chox opposite and they did great cream doughnuts and huge buttery croissants. There was also Chelsea Girl which mum used to shop at, Harris's which I think was the art shop on the corner or could have been the hardware shop.....the Fountain Fish Bar further down, opposite the Gaumont Cinema and many a happy Saturday morning spent there watching Children's Film Foundation movies; through the arcade, past Mr Music where my sister bought her first single by Gary Glitter! A musical instrument shop was there too where I got a treble recorder. Then we'd make our way back up towards home, mum perhaps having taken us to the Finchely Open Air Swimming pool in all its spectacular Art Deco design, how I loved our summers there, the lions' heads spouting water in the childrens' pool, the slide, the cascade, the fountains.....we'd pass Clarks shoe shop which had an automatic foot measuring device which felt really nice, pass the drycleaners and lovely smells which looking back was pure solvent! Glovers the sweet shop on the corner, maybe four mojos or fruit salads for 1p, sherbert maypoles, bazooker Jo bubblegums and peanut rings. The chemist further up with the old medicine bottle in a window; then there was also Bonners - Mrs Bonner was my Brown Owl when I was a brownie, another sweet shop a bit further up and opposite after The Swan and Pyramids or The Malt and Hops pubs. Hillside bakery next door. You could turn right into Britannia Road and St John's, my old primary school used to be down there until it moved to Swan Lane. A walk to Nana and Papa's would mean crossing back over the High Road, to get to 1061, their beautiful old gabled 2 storey house, complete with ceiling roses, ornate carved window frames and stained glass, with the stable converted into a garage but which still had stable doors and distinct horse stalls, the long garden which backed onto Church Path and then The Pits, which was what Swan Lane Open Space park used to be called.....those are my more vivid memories of Finchley, halcyon or otherwise.