Mayo Road........Saunders Family/Jenkinson Family, 1950s/60s

A Memory of Willesden.

I was born in Park Royal hospital on a hot July day in 1957 and was taken home to Mayo Road, where almost our entire family lived at numbers 46, 53 and 56. I was christened at St Mary's church, on my christening certificate the vicar's name is G. Oakley. My dad and his family lived at number 46, and my mum's family lived at 53 and 56. It would be almost impossible for that to happen these days! My grandparents on my mother's side (Saunders) had 11 kids. My mum, Bunty, was the 3rd-youngest, born 1938 in Honeypot Lane hospital. My grandparents on my father's side (Jenkinson) had 6 kids and my dad, William Hugh Jenkinson (known as Hugh within our family, but Bill to all others) was also the 3rd-youngest, and also born in 1938. He passed away in 1999. My mum is very much alive and well, she's 1 of only 3 (of the 11) on her side that are still alive now in 2019 - one older sister, Ethel (born 1936), and the youngest sister, Margaret (b. 1944). Both left London many years ago, as indeed did my mum. Margaret married Mick Ellis, he and his family came from Oldfield Road. Another of my mum's sisters, Margaret's late twin-sister, Tilly, married George Cornish. The Cornish family lived further up Mayo Road towards Church Road, near the Wright family. I went to Bridge Road School (both the Infants and the Primary) and still remember many names from those days. I'm still in touch with Deborah Munday, who now lives in Brisbane, Australia.
My mum has a whole load of names of the families that she remembers from Mayo Road, I'll get a list from her next time I'm over in the UK and post it up on this page. She was evacuated during the war (to the Liverpool area) but returned to Mayo Road at the end of 1943, not long before the V1 and V2 attacks started. She absolutely hated being evacuated and my granddad (Charlie Saunders) went up to Liverpool to bring her back home. He was born in 1895 and had already done his army service in WWI. During WWII he was in what was known as a "Reserved Occupation", he was on the lorries distributing Exide batteries for the war effort and so was exempt from joining "Dad's Army", the Home Guard. He had 5 older sisters and they were all taken as little girls and put on the boat to Australia. My mum remembers that it made her dad extremely sad every time he talked about them. I'll be back with some names of those whom my mum knew in Mayo Road and those from her class in Gibbons Road school.
Cheers for now.
Mark Jenkinson