St Mary's Church,Hanwell W7

I have vague memories of Cuckoo Estate due to leaving the estate at the tender age of five after my parents marriage ended.
I would guess my parents moved into one of the prefabs in the late 40s, we are the King family.
My father Ronald King ( Ron ) lived their with my mother Almarie who was known as Dot, they had three children Edwin ( Eddie ), Terrence ( Terry ) & myself Gillian ( Jill ).

My father worked as a baker at Mother's Pride bakery I'm not sure if my mother was in employment at that time.
I can remember a big row breaking out between my parents & my father sending the three of us to a neighbour, I am not sure if her name was Sylvia.
I seem to recall her having a pond in the garden with a little bridge over it, in fact I fell in that wretched pond & can remember my brother's getting a good telling off for not watching me.
Do you recall any of the names mentioned ?

My parents split up after that big row & to this day I do not know what it was about.
My father couldn't cope with three young children so we were put temporally put into children's homes.
An Auntie Ester used to look after us Ester Philips originally from Southall, I am not sure if she was our baby sitter before of after my mother left.
She became our step mother when we came out of the children's home's, one in Hawkwell Essex & one in Northolt to be nearer our father.
Ester was rather young at the time, maybe my father was having an affair with her & that was why my mother left but I cant say for sure was now our new mummy.
So I am referring to a ( Ron & Dot or Ron & Ester ) with three children Eddy, Terry, & Jill

I can remember the prefab with it's old belfast sink with a wooden draining board each side of it on which my father would sit us to give us a wash.
We had a shed in the back garden with a corrugated curved tin roof & an air raid shelter,
The rag & bone man often came down the street & would give us a gold fish in a bag if we gave him something.
Ah yes,a the fresh fish barrow, dad would buy a pint of winkles for sunday tea, we would have our pin's at the ready to get them out of their shells.
Soft cod row was another favorite on toast, I didn't mind that but I cant say I was keen on the winkles just the thought of them make me cringe now.

There must have been a golf course near by because I can remember my brother's collecting the golf balls that had gone astray & selling them on.
We used to go to saturday morning pictures I can visualise the organist even now, my brothers loved watching Roy Rogers on the big screen.
I can remember a bridge that looking back must have gone over the river brent with it's curved concrete post's that I used to peer through as a youngster in the hope of seeing some ducks.
We used to got to Ruislip Lido or Horsington Hill for family days out.

I used to love sitting on the pavement outside our prefab playing with my whip & top, the boys would be playing marbles or with their sweet cigarette cards seeing how far they could flick them.
Going along the avenue to school with it's tree's either side or maybe it was a nursery where little beds were pulled out on which we had an afternoon nap.
As children my brother's would take me with them whilst they played in the dungeons of which I thought was the asylum but after reading other's stories now wonder if it was the old school community centre.
On guy fawkes night my father lit a rocket that took off only to go into somebodys chimney across the road & catch it alight, the fire engine was called to put the blaze out. It is such a shame that no photo's of the prefabs are to be seen but I think I can recall the street party I saw on the site.
That lovely old photo's seemed to ring bells in my forgetful head so maybe my family were part of the gathering.

I would love to find other's that perhaps remember member's of my family especially my mother Almarie known as Dot because we didn't see her again until much later on in life. I only met her twice because sadly she was killed in a motor accident.
When I met her late in my twenty's she was living with an irish chap known as ginger who I am told was also living on the cuckoo estate in one of the houses across the road
I believe he lived in one of the houses across the road the road from us, maybe it was he that was behind the breakup of my parents marriage.

I too was married at St Mary's Church, Hanwell, but in1973. I left Hanwell then and moved to Bedfordshire. I grew up in Brants Walk and attended the same schools as you from Infant School to St Anne's, which I left in 1965 at 16. I remember going to the Baptist Church Sunday School in Cuckoo Avenue.
I've recently been researching the area again and the whole area is very different now, many of the properties privately owned and the old Cuckoo Estate is a conservation area. Many front gardens have been turned over to concrete drives for car parking but it still has the tree lined avenue. With the coming of Crossrail to Hanwell station it seems to be a popular area.
Do you remember the Hanwell Carnival parade which started from the Community Centre and Cuckoo Avenue? As a child it was always an exciting day.

The curved tin roof that you refer to was an ANDERSON SHELTER from the 2nd world war.