Born And Bred In Wembley

A Memory of Wembley.

Having only this week come across your website, with so many writing about their memories of Wembley, I felt inspired to add my memories too. I was born in Pettsgrove Avenue in 1941 and lived there until 1965 when I married a lovely man from the Western Isles. My name then was Sheila Razzall.

I attended Sudbury Primary School, taking the short cut through Vale Farm, past the outdoor swimming pool on to the Watford Road. If I had money to buy sweets, or a penny roll (from the Mulberry Inn?)I went the long way round past the shops. The Headmaster then was Mr Evans, for whom I had great respect. I then attended Wembley County Grammar School, where the Headmaster was Mr Neil - a most outstanding Head and good teachers. I wonder if anyone else has the long roll-out photo which stretches out to 1metre,, taken of the whole school (WCGS) in September 1956? I,t's a masterpiece of photography, even on today's standards.

In Wembley High Road I remember Killips, where my sister got her first job, being the most junior member of staff by far. As mentioned by others, it had a unique method of processing cash by placing it, with the chitty, in a metal tube, which then literally zoomed through a chute to a cashier elsewhere. I also have memories of the Saturday matinees in the Regal Cinema, Ealing Road, where admission cost 6d; Sainsbury's where my sister and I had to accompany my grandma, where we patiently (or impatiently) joined each successive queue, depending on which grocery commodity we wanted. I remember years later, shopping at Henry Cooper's, where your fruit and veg were weighed out and all tipped straight into your shopping bag - there was no packaging such as we have nowadays. In those days my mother worked in the local Co-op chemist and my father in the United Dairies. It was also customary in our house to make a special expedition to the junction of Ealing Road and the High Road, to see the Queen passing by each year en route to Wembley Stadium for the Cup Final. My grandma dressed up for this - hat and all! We could hear the roar from our house each time a goal was scored. Even more so after we got married, as for the first year we rented a flat in Park Lane and my (Scottish) husband had a ticket for the World Cup in 1966, cheering England.

After leaving school I worked for 5 years in Berkeley Street in London's West End, but the 25-minute walk to Sudbury Town Station, followed by about 40 minutes on a packed Piccadilly Line train got too much, so I got a job at Dexion in Empire Way, where I remained until I left shortly before the birth of my first child. We now live in Inverness.

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