South Chingford War Years

A Memory of South Chingford.

I was born in 1939 in the Chingford Mount Hospital. My late father Sam Shapiro (later Shepherd) owned the business Chingford Mount Radio near the corner of Chingford Mount and Larkswood road next door to one of the wartime British Restaurants established in a community or church hall at the corner of Larkswood Road. He used to drive around in a small cream coloured van with the ad "Your Murphy Dealer" on the side. My father used to talk about the day he retreated to a bomb shelter in the back yard of the shop and there was a huge explosion when a German bomb made a direct hit on the shop. He emerged to find a lot of rubble and bits of radios, valves, cords, plugs etc scattered all over the road. Our family migrated to Australia in 1948. I have been back several times since but it a lonely experience unless you can find people to talk to who can remember.