Teddy Boys In The Fifties

A Memory of Uxbridge.

Living in Hillingdon we used to catch the 207 trolley bus into Uxbridge for shopping and entertainment and particularly on Saturdays for Burton's dancing. We would hang around the underground station always fearful of the teddyboys who would scrounge cigarettes from us (everyone smoked then) and one group were particularly aggressive.
Many times we spent what little we had in the coffee bar or on cigarettes and had to walk home to Hillingdon. That was in the late fifties. Before that we always looked forward to Saturday morning cinema at the Odeon costing six old pence, to see Flash Gordon, captain Marvel etc. In the summer it was off to the swimming pool by the Common but would have to walk all the way up from the RAF entrance. In 1954 I was at Abbotsfield school and were taken for swimming lessons from May. I remember the water was 55 degrees F. Once and we had to jump in. There was a cafe in the small parade of shops just past the bus terminus. It was run by a Cypriot family called Milton whose son Stanley was in our crowd. So we would get a free cup of tea. His father drove a huge American car with massive fins on the back which was quite unusual in Uxbridge. Don't know what happened to Stanley but he was well liked and would love to hear from him again.Uxbridge was a great community then.