I Lived Here From 1951 To 1975 (Ish)

A Memory of Harold Hill.

I lived in Dagnam Park Drive near Sedgefield Crescent and remember............Petersfield, Hilldene and Whitchurch shops, the "1st, 2nd and 3rd" woods as we referred to them, starting in Dagnam Park Drive, heading towards Petersfield shops, the 66A bus, the 174 and 174 Express with blue signs instead of black, these always fascinated me as a kid and loved to get on one, loved it when we flew past all those non Express stops.... always tried to get a 'Noak Hill' 174 to save quite a walk but still had to climb that hill in DPD! I remember hitching a ride on the back bumper of Mr. Lilly's maroon Humber Super Snipe holding onto the boot handle and keeping my head down out of line of sight of his rear view mirror, Mr. Lilly was a church member at the Methodist Church in DPD at the junction with Whitchurch Road (now demolished) and me and a few mates went to the evening club there for a while in around 1961 aged 11 ....... Early 174 buses used to have "Pentowan" on the destination roller on the front of the bus, later this destination was discontinued with the buses terminating at Tees Drive (see the site, "Friends of Dagnam Park" to see the history of Pentowan at Noak Hill, an excellent site for all things about Harold Hill, run by a mate of mine, Del Smith, look it up it's a brilliant site for those of you interested in Harold Hill and it's history.) ...... Dycorts School, a truly excellent school with Mr Tanner as the head, he was a fair man, and a truly excellent teacher called Mr Smith, what a lovely bloke he was, a one off! He used to take me swimming on a Saturday on the back of his 1950's Lambretta LD scooter ....I used to wear a full length leg caliper then and imagine the sight of this 8 or 9 year old kid on the back of a scooter with his left leg stickin' out! He did this to help me with my leg problems, how kind was that!! .......It didn't stop me climbing trees though and a favourite of mine was a large oak at the very beginning of the "first woods" just as you leave DPD for the short cut to Petersfield shops, I could see for miles when I was at the top, I used to love that view...... Quarles "School" (I use the term loosely!) with a horrible man, George William Laws, (died in 1999) a real bully boy, as the head, no-one respected him I think, only feared him. When he caned you, you'd have blood blisters on your hands for weeks if he managed to miss your wrists! ... But with a true gent, Mr. Gerrard as his deputy ... I don't remember him caning anybody, ever. This building, called Quarles "School" had more than several bully boys employed within it as, "teachers", (Teachers? Spare me ffs!) Adams and his nasty wife were two of 'em, Adams was a Welsh bloke and was a thoroughly nasty piece of work with a vicious temper, he was seen on at least one occasion punching a lad full in the face, knocking him to the ground ... what a cowardly piece of shit he was! Jeffreys, the one who had a brother as a teacher in the main building, not the annexe, was another (can't remember what his subject was, that'll tell you how much he taught me!) and Just, the P.E. "teacher" was yet another one..... going down the scale of bully boy, Ruberry was another, a truly horrible experience which lasted far too long and was a complete waste of four years of my life, as soon as I found out that their regime was one of bullying I shut off! Many kids got on with it but I couldn't deal with being bullied and was never a "goody goody", not my nature and as for being pushed around by bullies ..... Not for me thank you very much! There were a few decent people employed as teachers there though, Evans for TD, Lipman for English, Argent for French, McClaren for Religious Education, Heffernan who taught woodwork and Lindley for metalwork, I learned a lot in the metalwork classes so I did get something out of my time there but that was about it generally speaking, metalwork, mainly because Lindley wasn't a bully boy!...had he been one then he'd have been told to shove it as others were and I'd have learned nothing in his class like most of the others. .....The winter of '62 / '63 when my mate Vic Plumridge and I made quite a few bob clearing people's paths of snow which was about two feet deep during that winter. Being told by dear Mum to very carefully count in the number of coal bags being delivered to the back garden in case the coalman "did" us.....The moat, the green lake, the perch pond, the lily pond, the Manor, the old house at the junction of the Colchester Road and Gubbins / Gooshays, ..........belting down Dagnam Park Drive on a book and skate, the book being a thoroughly read and dog-eared Dandy or Beano annual......."Tin Tan Tommy" and Runouts,....Running around on the roofs of Hilldene shops....(How did we get up there?) The adventure playground in St. Neot's Road with Amy Crockford running it (what a lovely lady she was! - she eventually got a well deserved M.B.E. or O.B.E. so I understand) and that tractor!... "Ching Chang Wallah" which later became known as scissors, paper, stone, the Regent snack bar which was the cafe at Petersfield shops...The A&BC Chewing Gum factory, the Eastern Electricity Board canteen, both where my dear Mum worked, the White Lady (ghost!) The mud hill, the log and the island in the green lake, the log across the moat, the death track which we'd use on our bikes, stream jumping in Central Park, playing marbles on the green outside our house which used to have a well trodden mud "path" across it from DPD to Sedgefield Crescent, now it's all grass as everyone has a car I suppose, same as all the other pathways we kids made over the manor, all gone and now overgrown with kids nowadays otherwise engaged playing computer games etc. at home............ playing conkers almost anywhere,....Getting a tanner (6d) a day for the tuck shop ... making and using catapults made with the "Y" of a tree branch, 1/8" thick black elastic bought from the toy shop at Petersfield and a leather tongue cut from an old shoe for the pouch,.... the sweet shop where I used to get 2oz (rarely, a quarter lb) of various sweets from one of the jars on the shelves, along with Jamboree bags, Sherbet in a yellow tube with a liquorice straw, blackjacks, rainbow drops, fruit salad, liquorice etc., It was called "Mayfair" and run by a lovely husband and wife team ... learned recently from a relative of the owner that he'd lost a leg in Italy during WWII ...., the shoe shop, Fairways grocery shop next door to the Post Office (Roy was the boss there I remember, Mum used to shop there for a while, always on a Friday and having carefully prepared a neat and accurate shopping list beforehand), Pearks (general groceries next door to the Mayfair sweet shop), the fish shop, the hardware shop and the telly shop on the end next to the William the Conqueror pub (Sidney Gray Stores), all at Petersfield shops. The cafe there too (The Regent Snack Bar), which had a serving hatch / window looking out to the pavement where sweets were on sale from a tall, balding, oldish man wearing a white coat, I think he had a white moustache matching the little bit of white hair he had left at the sides. Frozen Jubbleys.....The little street sweeper man who had a hump on his back and who swept the streets around Petersfield shops pushing a lidded, two wheeled barrow in front of him....He wore a flat cap and blue bib & brace overalls I remember.... an ice cream "brick" as Dad called it, wrapped up in newspaper by my Dad and left outside in the cold until after dinner (no fridge!)...Carnation milk, the Corona lemonade lorry..........The tennis courts and the parkie's hut at the manor, the Pink Paraffin lorry and it's rival, "Boom Boom Boom - Esso Blue!" both of which supplied fuel for our bathroom heater used once a week on bath night. Bread and dripping....Spam fritters, banana fritters, bread pudding, pancakes....Bonfire night, with my dear old Dad letting off the fireworks around the bonfire in the garden, he loved it more than us I reckon...French's offices at the end of Petersfield Avenue, they were the builders of the huge estate....Setting off on a Saturday morning on the 66A bus from Dagnam Park Drive for Saturday morning pictures in Romford at the Odeon or the ABC cinema (singing, "We are the boys and girls well known as, Minors of the ABC, we're all friends together.........") or to the swimming baths in Mawney Road, Romford where I normally ended up in the small cafe bit at the front, with an Arrowroot biscuit and a cup of hot Bovril....The gas and electricity meter men who would leave behind a great pile of shillings and sixpences after emptying the meter boxes. (It took me a long time to fathom that one! We'd put money in the meters and a month or so later, a bloke in a black mac would come round and apparently give it back to ya!) The "Let Down" cupboard as we called it, and the wooden draining board in the kitchen with a curtain beneath held up by a plastic covered stretchy spring with an eyelet at each end .. ...putting together a bike from various parts scavenged or swapped, rarely bought, ...cowhorn handlebars, fixed rear wheels, (with these you always had to be turning the pedals and you couldn't freewheel) ......carts with rope steering and nailing bottle tops to 'em, I had an articulated one with a long trailer fixed to the cart with a single long bolt.....The poor gentleman who hanged himself round about 1963 at the manor close to Dycorts infants school (sorry about that, a tragic event). The Jungle Jim (Gym) and the drinking fountain near the walnut tree in the playground at Dycorts. Scratching the metal walls of Dycorts Junior School with our fingernails (just the thought of it, even now!!). The tall, old gentleman who came round in a big old grey van once a week to collect and deliver the dry cleaning, (I never heard his van's engine running, he always used to roll from one house to another down DPD - his mpg figures were probably quite good!).... Mr Hollingsworth, the insurance man (very respectable); Provident cheques which my mum used to pay for at the door every week so that she could buy my brother and I clothes, usually from Shirleys, a shop in the market place in Romford, probably because it was the only local shop which accepted 'Provi' cheques at the time. They were pink and had the total amount which could be spent on them. I believe Harry Fenton's at Hilldene accepted them later on. Harry, the cheery mobile greengrocer, a real nice character, Wally - the mobile sweetshop,... remembering to give the Co-op divi number to the milkman every week when he called for payment (I'll never forget that number, 673405)...the charity box in the chemist's shop at Petersfield where a wooden spotted dog would place your penny into a slot in the the box as the weight of the penny made it tilt forward, (I was only allowed to put one in... ONCE!) Ingrebourne 42895, later changed for some strange reason to 42897, the number of the local phone box in Dagnam Park Drive. Hopping into the back of a lorry at the traffic lights at the junction of the A12 and Gooshays drive and see where we went. The drone of piston engined airliners occasionally and leisurely going over at night (very few jets then!) The old boy who wore a brown workcoat and a flat cap who was the baker that delivered Price's bread. He was a short plump man wearing a brown work coat, I remember....he used to leave the white uncut loaf in a shopping bag Mum had hanging in the back porch as everyone would be out at work or school during the week. Di-Marco's ice cream van (early 50's), the co-op van (a Fordson) which sold chocolate bars in a green wrapper (cost 6d) as well as bread etc., watching Picture Book, Bill & Ben with "Weeeed", Rag Tag & Bobtail, Andy Pandy, The Woodentops and later on, Arthur Haynes, Benny Hill, Charlie Drake and later on still, Crackerjack with Eamonn Andrews,.....The Adventures of Robin Hood, Sunday Night at The London Palladium with Tommy Trinder, then succeeded by Bruce Forsyth with "Beat The Clock" (the best bit I thought), then Norman Vaughn ... and the Tiller Girls and at the end, all of those in the show stood behind the large letters in the name of the show which were placed around the edge of a slowly revolving turntable, Norman Vaughn took over from Bruce Forsyth I think ....Dixon Of Dock Green with Jack Warner (Evenin' all!), No Hiding Place with Detective Chief Superintendent Lockhart and Sergeant Baxter, The Four Just Men, (Jack Hawkins, Vittorio De Sica, Dan Dailey and Richard Conte)....... Armchair Theatre, The Army Game with Bootsie (Ne'er mind eh!) and Snudge (I 'ate you Bisley!) and later in Bootsie & Snudge, (I got my beady eye on you Bisley!) ...the hut number was 29,... I painted that on my Dad's shed, "Hut 29" in yellow paint which I found somewhere in the shed, I'm sure it brought a smile to my Mum's lovely face, not so sure about Dad's thoughts though but he didn't say anything about it and it stayed there for good.),... The Invisible Man, (I used to love that bit where he took his bandages off and there was no-one there!)...Emergency Ward 10, Harry Worth, Charlie Drake, Arthur Haynes, The Human Jungle with Herbert Lom as the psychiatrist, The Saint with Roger Moore as Simon Templar with his Volvo Sports car, ST 1,.... Take Your Pick with Michael Miles and Bob Danvers-Walker as the announcer (I used to like the "Yes - No" interlude where if a contestant said either of these words, or nodded their head, they'd be gonged out!).... Double Your Money with Hughie Green and Monica Rose, Juke Box Jury with David Jacobs, Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford (Ten Four!), Dragnet, Cannonball, Quatermass, What's My Line? ... with Eamonn Andrews as the host and on the panel, Barbara Kelly, Lady Isobel Barnett, Gilbert Harding and David Nixon, etc., etc. all on our little black & white Ferguson telly (which regularly broke down requiring a new valve or something else expensive!) - Channels 1 and 9 with channel 9 being ATV and channel 1 being the BBC......Billy Cotton, shouting "Wakey Wakey!" on the radio on a Sunday morning....the sound of a hand pushed lawn mower and Dad clipping the hedges with hand shears.......My Mum cleaning the windows with Windolene, it used to turn white (still available!)......and Mum cleaning the brass doorstep with Brasso or Duraglit (also still available!) Palmolive soap, Lifebuoy soap, Pears soap. Daz, Omo, Tide, Dreft, Ariel and Surf washing powders, Brylcreem white hair cream ("grease") with a red and black label (Vaseline was another brand with a green and black label), the flexible rubber spout attached to the kitchen sink tap so you could direct the water around the Belfast sink, Summer County margarine, only used to make cakes, we only liked butter! ...The iron Mum used to use to iron shirts etc. which had to be heated on the gas stove, ..... We could have eaten our dinner off of the floor in that house, it was always absolutely spotless inside and out......... and before I sign off, remembering my dear, dear Mum, Dad and my brother... really GREAT memories and I often go back to reminisce ... I even bought our old original house number from the current owner ... number 172 ... I have it in a perspex case I had made for it!
It's so true what they say, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone!" We took it all for granted didn't we? Lovely, lovely Days! Miss 'em loads! Oh .. to wind back the clock!