Wood End School

A Memory of Greenford.

My parents had a ground floor flat in Wood End Lane, and my father worked in a reserved occupation at AEC in Southall. In late 1940, my mother was pregnant with me, and she went to stay with her brother in Durham, wher I was born. I was an evacuee, 'in utero'! We returned to Greenford in the summer of 1941.. My memories of the war are hazy, but I can remember my father taking me out to see a flight of aircraft from Northolt airfield, which was a Polish fighter base, flying Hurricanes.
I went to a nursery at Wood End school as a small child, and then to the infants school. Believe it or not, I am still in touch with two other men who were there at the same time, Ian and Brian.
In 1948 we moved to a new council estate, Newnham Close. Looking back, these were very fortunate times. The houses were steel framed, and got the nickname 'Tintown', but they were very comfortable with primitive central heating. I visited there a few weeks ago. They are all now privately owned, and have been refurbished beyond recognition, but are as strong as ever. A shame present governments don't have the vision of the post-war Atlee government!
I went to the junior school at Wood End, and can remember some of the teachers. The head was a Mr Henton, ex-RAF I believe. The school had four houses, Montgomery, (which I was in), Mountbatten, Tedder and Cunningham. There was a music teacher, Mrs Walker, who taught us a German marching song, and another, Mr Webster, who sang a hauntingly beautiful song, ' Did you not hear my lady go down the garden singing' which inspired in me a love of music. I only rear not recently that it is from a Handel opera. There was another teacher who encouraged my to write essays. My mother was a dinner lady for a time at the girls school, and had a friend there, who was Rick Wakeman's mother. He was a few years younger than me.
I got a scholarship to Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, together with another friend Noël Howerd. I would commute every day for eight years via the 187 bus to South Harrow, and the Picadilly and District lines.
I was a member of the cubs, then scouts, and of the St Barnabas youth group and the Raglan Players. We put on Revues, Pantomimes and serious plays. I have photographs of some of our performances, and am still in touch with seven others from that time. There is a group of five couples and we meet up three or four times a year, although most of us are well into our seventies.
We all lived around the Oldfield Circus/ Fairway/Carr Road area, but no relatives or friends are there now. Harbers was the confectionary store, Perks and Williams Brothers the grocers, Catos for hardware. The Post Office was run by the father of John, one of our group. He had an old MG Magnette. I had an 8mm cine camera and we made a film 'Cat Burglar', with the MG as the getaway car! I now have it on DVD. We made other films, including a London documentary, along the lines of Peter Sellars' 'Balham'.
Whilst living in Wood End Lane, my sister and I would walk in to Northolt to go to St Mary's church for Sunday School. Many years later, my wife Linda and I were married there.
Whilst at Latymer I was involved in the school dramatic society, which had, and still has, a high reputation. In one show I was in a play where a very young Alan Rickman had a chorus part. Other products of the Latymer drama department were Mel Smith, Hugh Grant, and more recently,Imogen Poots. Noel Howerd went on to become owner of Bermans, the theatrical costumer. Sadly he died a few years ago on location in North Africa.
After school, I went to Bristol to study engineering, and never really returned home, as marriage and work took over. Sadly my father's death coincided with my first marriage breaking up. My mother moved from Newnham Close to a flat in Northolt, built on the old racecourse. I can remember as a child walking on the racecourse, Which was just fields at that time. I remember going to a market there with my parents, and having a banana for the first time. It must have been just after the war. There was a wireless station at the end of Wood End Lane, and we were forbidden to go into it. Nevertheless my sister Joyce and I would go blackberrying there! I
have extremely happy memories of my time in Northolt and Greenford and it is fascinating to read other people's accounts of similar experiences.