My Family Church

A Memory of Edgware.

This was the church I attended with my family as a child from 1950-1966 when I moved away to college. My father is buried at the end of the path up to the entry to the church. The rector for some time was Rev. Cottrell with three children who were about the age of my twin and me. The boys were called Richard and David. Our lives pretty well revolved round the church with sunday Services,Sunday school and church breakfast and the youth group as we got older and scouts and girl guides. The rector lived in a huge cold manse next to the church where we would have the annual summer fete.To get to church we would ride in my fathers Turquoise Vauxhall Velox ( his pride and joy until he got a huge old Humber Super Snipe) or we would walk across Canons Park. We lived in a community near North London Colleigate school opposite the Principal, head mistress Dame Kitty Anderson. My father used to walk to Canons Park Station to get the underground to work off Oxford Street in London. In the evenings in summer we would cross Canons park to meet him and if the sun was setting he would lift me up on his shoulders to see the "fairy Castle" in Stanmore which glowed an opulecent white and he would say it had been built with little children's baby teeth! There was a lake near our home, the Seven Acre Lake where we would spend our summers swimming fishing and playing in boats. Our social life was great as there were so many families living there and the diving board would team with children of all ages from the older teens to little tots learning to swim in the muddy waters. In winter we would test the ice and on odd years we had ice thick enough to skate on. Having left in 1966 I have only once returned and it was wonderful to look at photos and reminise about my childhood which was so free and carefree.