Hertford Road Barking Happy Childhood Memories

A Memory of Barking.

I stumbled across your article and it brought back happy childhood memories. Like you I also lived in Hertford Road Barking up until the summer of 1970 when we moved to Fairlop. Our homes were compulsory purchased by the Department of Transport for the development of the A406. My parents moved in to Hertford Road in 1953, but my memories are only from the mid 1960’s. We lived towards the end of the road, as Hertford Road merged into Watson Avenue. I remember one of my brother's friend’s parents owned May's Cafe at the bottom of the road. Our houses backed on to allotments where the back gate in our garden opened up on to my dad’s allotment where he grew champagne rhubarb. My dad was a keen gardener and I remember our garden really clearly, beautiful roses and dahlias. It’s strange how fashion has changed in the gardening world, everyone had low level fences then with very little privacy from one garden to the next. At the top of the road there were old fashion petrol pumps where my friends and I used to roam the block on our bikes. My older brother would often have to call me by whistling from half way up the road to come in for dinner. My Dad played tennis nearby at the gas board sports club and I would watch him play through the wire fence sitting on my bike in Watson Road, but I wasn't allowed to call out to him especially if a match was in progress ! What a great shame with the exception of the gasometer it’s now all over-grown, the tennis courts, and bowling green are long gone its looks very eerie. I remember as a short cut we used to drive under the arches along Stevenage Road to my grandparents who lived in Manor Park, but when I went there recently it had been blocked up with access to bikes only. My grandfather’s friend took the roof off his new van as he misjudged the height of the under pass he forgot his new van was slightly taller !! If we weren’t lucky enough to be in the car with dad, my mum and I used to catch the 147 bus and walk over the iron bridge near Gladstone Avenue or walk down Burgess Road from East Ham Station. I walked that route every day to school and it seemed to take forever thank goodness there was a sweet shop on the way home. For whatever reason no-one in our family seems to have taken a photo from the front of our house in Hertford Road and I’m having difficulty in sourcing a photograph of these houses before they were demolished. If anyone has a photo they could share I would love to see it. Happy childhood memories.

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