So Long Ago

A Memory of Mitcham.

So long ago. We (the family, Mum, Alun, Rob & me) must have left Colliers Wood just a few years after the war had ended. We moved into a Nissan hut, one of which seemed to me in a small suburb of huts, but no streets, just rough ground. It was near the railway line and there was a derelict two storey house that was both fascinating and scary, I suppose it was war damaged.
Not far away, behind a fence made of wooden stakes and twisted wire, were the allottments, always it seemed to me, smelling of cabbages and I suppose part of the war effort.
I went to school in the road near the cinema and there was (maybe still is) a small row of shops opposite. The best of course sold sweets (I remember a machine outside); was there an undertakers? And on the corner a chemist or a shop that had apothecary bottles in the window with wonderful coloured liquids.
Two pubs on opposite corners of the road, yes there was a stall outside selling whelks and the like, and then on up London Road, the swimming pool, rows of shops on either side, Eagle House, the 'Gypos' ground, dairy and right towards the end, the library. Oh, I loved that place.
Let me dredge up more another day.

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