Fond Memories.

A Memory of Chelmsford.

I lived in Coval Lane from my 1st birthday to my 24th birthday - 1948/1971. Then I got married and moved out. At that time the shop on the corner was a wool shop because my mum, an ardent knitter, bought most of her wool there. I think somewhere there was a Barclays Bank and the Greasy Spoon Cafe as we called it was down an alleyway between the wool shop and Thompson's Builders merchants, right opposite the Pavillion Cinema, where as a young boy along with my brother we used to watch the Saturday morning pictures. Just along, further towards the County Hotel, was a fish and chip shop equal in quality to Robinson's in Moulsham Street. I can still remember walking up Coval Avenue and through the passage between the chip shop and the County Hotel with mum and my brother to get fish and chips as a treat on a Saturday evening and then listen to Journey into Space on the radio, as we did not have a TV in those days. We would all walk up to the top of Coval Lane to watch the Carnival, then down the Rec for the fair and the fireworks. When we were older we knew a way into the fair without paying - but that is my secret.