Clare Road

A Memory of Stanwell.

My memories are of the hairdressing salon in Clare Road. It had only been open for a short while. All the shops were new. I went to work there as a hairdresser's apprentice in April 1959. My first job after leaving school. The salon was called Joan Basten. Joan Basten was the owner and she and her husband, Dennis, had a lovely flat upstairs, really 1950s modern. I worked at the salon till 1962. It was very busy; we had some really nice clients and the staff were very friendly. My name is Cherry and the lovely girls I worked with were Valerie, Teresa and Norma, and later Maureen, Jackie, Vanessa and Kim joined the team. Also, when Joan stopped work to have her baby, a manageress called Dorothy (Holly) took her place and then, when she left, Margaret. I remember when the planes started the engines our voices were drowned by the noise. I also remember when the post office got held up at gun point, I happened to be looking out of the window at the time and saw the men with their guns rushing out and getting into their car and roaring off, it looked like a film. Then the police came clanging up the road. They came into all the shops to see if anyone had seen anything, and of course I had. Very exciting when you are only 16. There were some nice shops there, really everything you needed. When I left, I didn't return to Clare Road until the late 90s; I went with my mother on a trip down memory lane. It all looked so different, hard to remember it as it was.