More Ramblings From A Barking Boy

A Memory of Barking.

My first posting concentrated on my birth and school life in Barking, next a little about different memories of my early life.
I lived in the prefabs in Ilford Lane on the corner with Victoria road, a few more yards up and I would have lived in Ilford. Opposite us was an Esso petrol station and I recall the queues for petrol during the Suez crisis and the second hand car lot next door where one day I was shown a racing car that was in storage in one of the lock up garages.
Funny the little things you recall!
In Victoria Road there was a cobblers run by the Upson family and further on an off licence called the Uphall arms where I used to go to get "Rustic Ales" for mum and dad and perhaps a bag of salt and shake crisps from the jar or a large arrowroot biscuit, also from a jar, for me. Running parallel to Ilford Lane was Uphall Road scene of a very large fire at a chemical works, quite spectacular lots of fire engines.
To one side of our small prefab development was a road bridge that carried a stream under the road into Barking Park,this park was my childhood playground for many years. I remember the park lake and the paddle boat, one day it was found sunk in the lake. The wooden rowing boats and the small petrol driven motor boats, you were timed out in them and given a shout when to come back by a boat attendant using an " as loud as you can shout " hailer.
More entertainment was given by the small gauge railway with the driver sitting on the engine, it ran from near the boathouse up to the Longbridge Road main entrance. Of course once a year there was the Fair with the, we thought so at the time, "dodgy" attendants and their scruffy kids. The outdoor swimming pool was always cold but you could get a hot Bovril in the refreshment place.
To the other side of the park lake from the boathouse was an area we used to know as the wilderness, or the "wildo", it stretched from the lake back to Loxford Lane in Ilford one way and across to Faircross the other way.
End of these ramblings, next time my recollections of Barking High Street and Faircross.

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