I Remember

A Memory of Ilford.

I was born in Ilford in 1961, in Stanley Road, opposite the cemetery of St Mary the Virgin! I remember well shopping trips 'Up Ilford' with Mum or Dad as a child. I remember too, going into C&A for clothes, and visiting the Clarkes shoe shop, down a side road, I believe it was near the Town Hall, there was a tank of fish in the shop. Does any one else recall the Nativity that appeared on the Town Hall steps each Christmas? I used to walk past the Ilford Palais on a Saturday when all the 'big boys and girls' (probally all of 13 or 14) were queued up, vowing that one day when I was big I would be going there on Saturday afternoons! (I moved from Ilford just before I was 13, so never got there!) What else, the Unigate Milk depot. The Pioneer Market, where Dad and I brought Saturday night sweets. Mum worked for a while at the bakers stall there and used to bring home mini Hovis loaves. The record stall at the end of the market. I brought my first Top of the Pops LP there!