Ivyhouse Road And Parsloes Park

A Memory of Dagenham.

Sandwiched between the District line and Ivyhouse road was where i lived in a small 2 bedroom council house built for £ 200 quid with a shared porch and a tiny front garden and a long and narrow back garden ending at the district line it had wooden spikes held together with wire as a garden fence and a pear tree, sharing our porch was an elderly lady called Maude she lived alone and could not speak as she had no tongue she did however have a piano and she used to buy my brother and me sweets every week across the road was the Parsloes park it was the best thing a young boy could wish for apart from the swings and the paddling pool they had punch and judy magic shows mobile film vans pantomimes mobile zoos then there was bird egging tadpoles down the drains tree climbing football in the summer we lived in the park i remember the pink flamingos that had their wings clipped so they could not fly away i also remember them turning white and vanishing overnight the flower beds around the lake were beautiful looking although at the time i didn't care i just wanted a flamingo egg for my up and coming bird egg collection ignorance is bliss as i grew up they built an adventure playground with skate board ramps rope slides a club house with table tennis which i just happen to be superb at i even whooped siszi yamazakis arse many years later in a friendly match in Israel although some might say he let me win to be polite anyhow Dagenham was a great place to grow up it was warm in the summer it snowed at xmas and wagon wheels were a whole lot bigger