Living In Melrose Ave, Willesden Green In 1950s
A Memory of Willesden.
Hi, my name is Liz Ely (maiden name O'Connell) and I was born in Melrose Ave, Willesden Green in 1953 and I still live in the same house. I remember doing my mother's shopping in Sainsburys in Willesden and going across the road to the Co-op. My mum would give my brother Tim and I £5.00 to do the week's shopping. We would know all the bargains - any change from the shopping we would split between us. I would buy the Bunty, Judy, Jackie and Diana comics and my brother would get the Dandy, Beano and Buster comics. We grew up with a house full of Irish lodgers; anyone looking for a bed or chair, my father would bring home as long as they were Irish.
We always played on the streets, Gladstone Park swimming pool in the summer. I remember a man with a shop, a Mr Cook. He would come round in the evenings, mainly Saturday, with his van and mum would always get us a treat. Wonderful days..now that we look back. Children had respect for their elders and if not, the belt would come out and looking back it never did us any harm.
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My name was Maureen Nash and I was born in 1945 at 57 Sandringham Road Willesden Green. I went to Villiers Road nursery, linacres Road infant and Junior school opposite the convent and then The Hub in Gladstone Park for a year or two before it closed and we went to a school near Roundwood Park, cannit recall the name of it!. I attended St Mary Magdalen RC church but married at St Gabriel's in Walm lane in 1965. My dad, Charlie Nash, ran the cubs and then the scout group, then ran youth football teams before becoming a referee. My mother, Bella Nash, worked at The Spotted Dog for years. The door to our small flat was always open to family, friends and neighbours and we once took in a destitute family of five for weeks until they got rehoused in Wemble. They were call The Wilsons. I remember my parents being one of the first families to get a TV for the coronation in 1953 and out front room was packed full of people watch the small screen. Then a street party with all the children in fancy dress. My dad used to arrange the street couch outing to Southend. I remember a safe street to play in for hours and wonderful Gladstone Park a short walk away. I remember 'Steers' the department store in the high street with its suction payment tube goint to an office where it was emptied and change was sent back down in the tube again that used to fascinate me. I loved 6p bag of chip from a shop in the high street. The Salvation Army band played on Sundays in our road , coal man and rag and bone man came along and there were hardly any cars.
if you remember me or my family it would be great to hear from you. Maureen