Una Rd

A Memory of Parkeston.

I was brought up in Una Rd in the 1960's and 70's. My mother still lives in the same house after more than 50 years. One thing that always strikes me now when I visit are the number of cars. I can still name the people who owned a car and the type of car it was in Una Rd when I was a child. Probably only seven cars maximum!
Two Morris Minors, an Austin A35 van, Wolseley 1500, Reliant Regal van ( 3 wheeler), Ford Anglia, yellow and white, with american style spare wheel holder on the back and a Heinkel bubble car. We did not own a car which grieved me terribly as I have always loved cars!
On Sunday morning there would be what seemed to me dozens of people all dressed up in their best clothes, complete with 'walnut whip' hats for the ladies. All heading off for either of the two churches in the village. If I waited by the front gate, Mr Bell from 3 doors up would usually give me a packet of KP peanuts on the way home from the service.
Una Rd was called by some 'the posh end of Parkeston' as the houses were built later than the first part of victorian Parkeston, many having bay windows and small front gardens as well as large rear gardens rather than back yards like the properties on the Garland Rd side of the village. With hindsight my memory of Una Rd is that it was quite smart with all the properties being well maintained all be it in a dated way for the time. I think many residents had moved in to the houses when they were new and therefore by the time I was born they were all getting older, and probably retired. Many were quite gentile and straight laced although there were scandals or gossip lurking under the surface as in any place.
At Christmas Mr & Mrs Masterton always had lights in their bay window, that proclaimed 'Merry Christmas'. How I would have loved those lights in our bay window!!  
When I was six I began piano lessons with Miss May down the road, a spinster who's house was exactly as it was when first built, complete with a black leaded range in the back parlour replete with all the edwardian decor and ornaments.  
Howards' shop on the corner at the end of Una Rd was where my friends and I would take our pocket money to buy sweets. I can still remember having six old pennies before decimalisation in 1971. The sweets were usually anything that would last and/or make your mouth sore. ie sherbet dip dab, cough candy twist, bubble gum, gob stoppers that made our tongues black, or if we had enough money, chocolate. I can still remember the first time I tasted chocolate. It was a bar of Galaxy, in a cream and pale blue wrapper. I can actually remember the taste in my mouth and no chocolate I have eaten since has tasted so good.
  


Added 19 February 2007

#218858

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