High Street Ruislip

A Memory of Ruislip.

On the left is the Swan pub, on the right Barbara's Pantry. My grandmother Hilda Carter used to come up to Ruislip, to Bishop Winnington's on Saturdays from East Dean (near Eastbourne) to teach elocution to my sister and me and other local girls. After the class she would go to Barbara's Pantry for tea and cakes before going back home.  

Nearer than the Pantry was a row of very old cottages; a boy in my class at Bishop Winningon's, Michael (?) Stockdale, used to live in one, and one day when my sister Janet and I were caught in a hail storm, waiting  in the front of the pet shop, and his mother found us and took us in and dried us with towels in her kitchen.

Next to that was the Police Station behind which was a tower with the siren still in place, which they used to set off now and then, just in case...  My younger brother Patch, having gone down the road by himself, was found climbing the metal ladder. The police called my surprised and cross mother to collect him.