Oxford Rd Cowley Place Of My Childhood

A Memory of Cowley.

My earliest memories are of meeting my dad when he came home from working at Morris Motors on his bike he was among some 11000 workers who turned out at finishing time, the bikes filled the road to the extent that traffic had a job to make their way up the road. When I was old enough to go to school my mum walked me to St. Christophers infant school which now a small housing site, when you moved on up you were went next door to the junior school of the same name and then to Temple Cowley senior school, all these are now housing developments. We played on the golf course - Shotover woods and Florence park, on coming home from school it was usual to play Poo sticks in the marsh brook which ran along Marsh Rd all covered over now. Cowley marsh was a prefab housing area with several roads running around together the Municipal Canteen that seemed to give meals to workers in the area although I never tried it. When in my early teens we used to go to the Cowley Workers club where there was a youth club one night a week plus St. Jameses hall also ran a similar venue and the Cowley Feast took place at Hockmore Street all gone now being built over by the Cowley Centre in 1962. Time cannot take your memories away - I have moved to Cornwall to get a slower pace of life as Oxford is so hectic these days as a visit in 2009 revealed.

from John Yeates

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