Youth

A Memory of Wood Green.

I was born in Wood Green in 1940.
My earliest recollection is being in a classroom in Lordship Lane with other children and being told I was not supposed to be there.It's possible I had wandered from home,which was on the Tottenham side of Great Cambridge Road,to this school and "joined the party!"Which may make me 4 years old at the time.
When I was about seven mum would put me on a trolleybus(643 or 625) for a Saturday morning at the Wood Green Gaumont.For a few hours we would be lost to "the pictures".If a western was shown we would tare out after the show and become cowboys all the way down to Turnpike Lane.Pedestrians probably took us for early terrorists!
A nice day out would be to take the Q bus 233 from Station Road opposite the Rex cinema up to Ally Pally (Alexandria Palace) and wander about the grounds and boating lake.Of course in the fifties we had the LNER railway line from Finsbury Park to explore
I remember mum taking me shopping along Green Lanes between Bowes Park railway station.I usually managed to lose her and had to walk home by myself.It was safe for a youngster then.
I recall being taken to Edmunds(?) store and was captivated by the overhead wiring system.A customer would buy an item,the server would put the payment inside acontainer,pull a handle and send the cash up and over presumably to the head cashier(I suppose).
And of course Woolworth was always a stopover for mum.
Retracing our steps back to the Gaumont cinema,actually almost opposite the cinema was an empty space where people could sit on benches and watch the world go by.Sometimes someone would perform the "escape act".He would get someone to put him in a bag,put a chain around it and get himself out....then hand the hat round!
Beside this space was a side road which the trolleybuses used to get to their terminal.Also down this road was a bus garage.The Wood Green terminal for the City Bus Company of North London.I loved this garage because it contained the brown coaches and buses which took us to our Riviera known as "Sarfend on sea".
I can close my eyes today and recall waiting for a little coach with the family and watching the mechanic walking about in his brown overalls and the smell of petrol.
Then entering the coach which then set off along Lordship Lane passing the Gas Board offices,the Lordship pub,the bowling green,the old Co op and on into Tottenham on the way to the seaside.
There was also another little trip I enjoyed,although it wasn't very long.We some times caught a little train which consisted of a tiny engine(steam of course) and two very comfortable coaches which ran from Seven Sisters Stn via West Green Road,Bowes Park to Palace Gates.Which was another route for us to get to Alaxandra Palace.
Sometimes we would stand beside the bridge at Wood Green/Alexanra Park Station and watch the express steam engines roar down the lines on their way in to London and the reverse trip of course.I especially loved the special sound of the streak (A4) giving a warning as it sped down the line from Bounds Green....
Another regular sight,which we took for granted until they were all gone,were those lovely quiet,clean trolleybuses up and down Green Lanes and Lordship Lane.Why did they take them away?I just hate todays buses with a vengeance and now they have bendibuses.
By the way,I was born in a building opposite the church off Jolly Butchers Hill.
Wonder what it is today.I'll have to go back and check one day....I live in Kentucky,USA now.
My best to all you Wood Greenians!!!!