A Southall Kid

A Memory of Southall.

I was born in 1950 in Westbury Avenue on the Waxlow Farm Estate.
Although not idyllic my childhood was good and we had a lot of freedom.
Westbury Ave was a long treelined road perfect for cycling and roller skating which I spent most of my time doing.
The 'hills' of Bycroft and Sunnycroft Road were perfect for out of control races and with very little traffic that's what we did.
Tennis was played in the road ,marbles in the gutters and hopscotch on the pavements.
We had Jubilee Park on our doorstep and the Parkies were lovely as long as you behaved , woe betide you if you didn't. With hard paths to skate on grass to kick balls on and the equipment a massive slide, witches hat roundabout, low roundabout, big swings, baby swings , seesaw and rocking thing that looked to me like a hippopotamus there was something for everyone and no Elf n Safety rules to worry about.
We scrumped from neighbouring gardens, collected stick insects from the trees and frogspawn from ponds made daisychains on the lawns and played out til it was dark. When we got brave we went of to the cut by Taylor Woodrow or over the Rec both of which were forbidden by Mum !
We had shops on Allenby Road and the first we came to sold sweets what more could we want ?

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