Molesey Memories

A Memory of West Molesey.

I was born at the Bearstead Memorial Hospital in 1946 and lived on Hurstfield Road for my first 5 years, then moved to Weston Avenue. That house backed on to Hurst Park racecourse and I used to love to look over the fence to see all the jockeys pretty colours, and would say hello to Gordon Richards and Lester Piggott as they came out of the loo, which was just behind our fence! The racecourse ran over the road in two places so one could go and see some of the races from a free vantage point. I was there on the occasion when the Queen's horse Monaveen had to be destroyed, and was upset for days. My grandfather had a smallholding in Weston Avenue, and an allotment on the Hurst road. He used to grow bedding plants and vegetable seedlings as well as produce, which he sold. At the end of the road was a wonderful old horticulturalist, Mr Cooper, who grew roses, unusual fruit trees and hybridized clematis. One of our neighbours, 'Milky' Farr was the shepherd for the sheep at Hampton Court. I was one of the few people post war who had a pony (my grandfather had only one arm and consequently could not drive or ride a bicycle so used a pony and trap as his means of transport). My dearest memories are of riding my Shetland along the river bank, or along the lanes by the gravel pits, giving me a life-long love of nature. The pony was tethered on a strip of waste land at the edge of Church Farm which then had 50 acres of arable land under cultivation. My father kept bees and was a member of the Mole Apiary Club, and had hives in various large gardens in East Molesey; one of which was the home of Sir George and Lady Berrisford Stooke. I remember my father often going to 'Speeds' auctions in East Molesey to pick up bargains, and would buy 'Dragons Blood' from Kents the chemist in East Molesey for staining microscope slides. How I loved that store with its huge carboys of coloured liquid in the windows and beautiful wooden drawers containing every imaginable elixir and cure. Clutterbucks was the general hardware store in East Molesey. I began school at St Ann's, the kindergarten attached to St. Joseph's convent in Beachaump Road. I then went to East Molesey Church of England School where the headmistress was Miss Snow - quite renowned. We used to go to three church services a year at St Mary's and would spend weeks practicing chanting the psalms to perfection. The greatest honour was to read the lesson with Miss Snow's perfect elocution - something that I was never chosen for. I was in the choir at St. Mary's where John Le Mesurier was the vicar and my father was secretary of the PCC for several years. There was a large fete in the grounds of the wonderful (very dark and cold inside) Georgian vicarage each year (it was opposite the rather up-market flats at Kingfisher Court on the Walton Road). After the vicar retired we used to go to the services at the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court. I volunteered at weekends at Molesey Cottage Hospital where the local Doctors' Townsend, Foster and Maxwell-Muller were in attendance. This led to a career in nursing. Does anyone remember the annual parade which started in Weston Avenue and went all the way down to the land behind Hampton Court Station (sorry the name of that place escapes me)? There were floats and individual entries from all over and it was quite a big do with a fair at the finish. My maiden name was Metcalf in those days.