Neighbours In Greenford Middlesex

A Memory of Greenford.

My name is Peter Simkins and I was born at 64 Runnymede Gardens on the Western Avenue in March 1939. My Mum and Dad had moved in after getting g married in 1938. We were living close to the Greenford Roundabout, the Bridge Hotel and South Greenford Halt station (whence I caught the 'push and pull' steam train to school in Ealing. We lived at Runnymede Gardens till 1958 and my brothers Geoff and Mike also spent their early years there. So far as I can recall, our immediate neighbours were Len and Daisy Burrell(s) and their daughter Yvonne at No.66, Roland and Amy Spillett, next door at 65, with their son Keith ; Godfrey and Madge Dines and their son Michael ('Benny') at 63 ; the Dales at 62, with their sons Alan and John ; the Johnsons at 61 ; and Len Shears and his wife (I think) next door to them (or very close). I seem to remember that Len Shears was known as 'Hoppy' because he had lost a leg, presumably in the Great War. On reflection, a family called the Turners may have been at No/ 60. With my Dad away in the Army, my Mum and I were there for most of the war and I seem to recall a buzz bomb which hit part of Glaxo's beyond Greenford Station in 1944.