West Hendon 1940s 1960s

A Memory of West Hendon.

My Harrison ancestors all came from Cambridgeshire, mostly from the Downham, where they were agricultural laborers and my father, Victor Alfred George Harrison was born in 1914 in Peterborough. His father, George William Harrison, my grandfather, finished his service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force after he was wounded and decided to move from Peterborough to the Camden, London, area is search of work as a cobbler.

This was how we moved to London. Before the war my father had become an inspector at the Phoenix Telephone Company at Burnt Oak. In due course he met my mother and they married in Hendon in 1937.

We lived at 8 Ramsey road. Next door, at number 10 were Albert and Peggy East. At No.6 lived the Mumford’s, and a blind women who had a club foot she lived above them. She used to give me two shillings and sixpence every Saturday to do her shopping which I spent on cigarette cards I bought from the post office shop.

It was nice to walk up West Hendon Broadway, I could take my time looking in the window of Jimmy’s cycle shop at the top of York road, and I used to look and laugh at the window cleaner. He had a small ladder as he only did shop windows but he had a white bulldog that used to walk around the ladder and a brown duck that tried to stop customers going in the shop. The customers took no notice of the duck and went in anyway. Every time he put his hand in the bucket the duck would peck at his shirt. It was a big duck, every time he would go to the next shop, the dog and duck would follow him and they would both stop as he waited to cross the street. But all good things come to an end, the blind women moved away, the Mumford’s moved out, and the Kelly’s, who lived above us, moved out and about 7 years later Peggy and Albert East moved. Sadly, contact was lost with everyone.
I grew up hearing stories about the huge bomb that devastated parts of West Hendon in 1941. The mother of my great pal, Jackie Macintyre, told me once that their roof caved in when he was then about two years old and when she went into his bedroom she found the ceiling had fallen at an angle over his cot and she claimed that it was the crucifix on the wall that had saved his life.

In West Hendon Broadway I used to go to the Pet shop (which we called the grain shop in those days). Mr. and Mrs. Burton ran the shop and lived above it and I used to go to school with their son Terry. Next door was the barber’s shop which was run by two Cypriots. Beyond this shop there was just waste ground.

I also recall Woolworths on West Hendon Broadway, the Ex-Servicemen’s Club, and the coal-fired Public Baths which were opposite St John’s Hall. It used to cost three pence for a bath (3d in old money, about 7p now). I used to go there with my friend Alan Sangers, whose family lived above the Mumford’s with the blind lady I mentioned earlier. George, the man who ran the Baths refused to allow a single boy to take a bath because too much water would be used and it was cheaper to double up so I had to share my bath with Alan.

I had my 21st birthday party at the Ex-Servicemen’s Club in 1960 and many friends from 302 Airborne Royal Engineers (Reserve), friends from Deerfield Youth Club, where I was a Deputy Leader, old school buddies, and neighborhood friends. I had a great time except at the end my brother nicked some of the packs of cigarettes I had been given.

Over at The Hyde, Chalky White was the local blacksmith and his wife ran the newsagents from where I did my paper round when I was about twelve in 1951. The Red Lion pub was on the corner of Red Lion road and Edgeware road.

I used to go to Sunday School on West Hendon Broadway but anything we did there has faded from memory but it was an excuse to get me out of the house.