Isleworth Osterley

A Memory of Osterley.

I moved from Houslow to Isleworth in about 1961. We lived off the Thornbury Road in Eversley Cresent. I used to play in Osterley Park and walk my dog there as a child. It's a beautiful park.

My elder sister Wendy and I both went to Spring Grove Central School, which with hindsight was a dreadful dump that did very little to educate us. We had a dwarfish, long haired, one-eyed, aging headmaster called Mr Lumley and the assistant head was the maths teacher, Mr Chalklen, who took great pleasure in caning the boys.

My mum and stepfather used to use the Osterley Off Licence a lot and I too remember Peter O'Donahue, who liked a tipple or two. I've been in the shop a few times when he was tipsy. My mum June and her husband Jack Fearne used to spend most evenings in the Milford Arms public house on the London Road.

I had some good friends in Isleworth, particularly Quentin Roberts and Billy Knott.