Innocent Happy Days 1953 67

A Memory of Rayleigh.

So many memories of Rayleigh! We moved to Upway in 1953, no. 18, one of the first of the new bungalows, which my dad designed himself. I remember neighbours - The Wyatt family next door, and the Snodes up the hill (who later moved to Bull Lane). There was a corner shop where we would get our 2/- Neapolitan ice cream brick and Corona (different connotation then) lemonade and Lucozade (1d back on the bottles, what happened to that idea?). I would walk to Love Lane Primary (there was a wonderful open air theatre there) on my own, and play in the fields behind our house, before all the other new houses were built. I remember playing on The Mount, and going to The Regal cinema, kids Saturday morning special rates. I remember the Coop, our number was 63850, and Woolworths (I worked there later as a Saturday girl), and Riding Stables in Eastwood Road, which then moved near to the roundabout on the A127 (I rode Bilba). At 14 I did a paper round from the newsagents near Love Lane to fund my riding - it’s still there! In 1960 we moved to Eastwood Road, and I commuted from there to Westcliff High School - bus ride and 20 minute walk - for 7 years. My mum lived there until 1990. I remember friends from Love Lane - Jean Haythornthwaite, Christine (?), Linda (?), and Hilary (whose parents had a hardware shop on Eastwood Road - we used to walk home together, get sweets from the shop on the High street - caramel pillows, liquorice wheels, Sherbert dips, fruit chews (4 for a penny) and giggle a lot). Also remember the Congregational Church on Crown Hill, where I would go every week to Sunday School, we had great church camps, and I was a teacher there myself later, and a member of the Girls Brigade. Anybody else remember those days, and Marion Willers?