Carshalton on the Hill and Pine Ridge in the 40s, 50s and 60s
Bernard Everett wrote.....
Bomb damage in
Anglesey Gardens
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Reading other contributions on your website, especially that of Paul Williams, has stirred many old memories. My childhood home was in Pine Ridge, not far away from Paul’s, and I remember the shops in Stanley and Stanley Park Roads to which he and others refer.
To begin at the beginning, I was born in 1943 in a nursing home in Cedar Road, Sutton. My parents were then living at 23 Anglesey Gardens and that was the first home I remember. The house belonged to my maiden aunt and her companion, but they had been evacuated to Pembrokeshire with the children from the primary school in Rotherhithe where they taught (their most famous pupil was Tommy Steele). Perhaps to prevent the house from being requisitioned, they offered it to my parents who had been bombed out of their flat in Lewin Road, Streatham. Not that Anglesey Gardens was immune from bombing raids. I have an old newspaper cutting showing the devastation caused when a bomb (possibly a V1) landed up the road and blew the fronts out of most of the houses! |
After the war there was a severe shortage of housing and we were lucky to find a new home at 37 Pine Ridge, immediately opposite Cranfield Road East. I remember my father taking me for a walk (possible in my pushchair) and when we came to Pine Ridge there was a large muddy space between numbers 33 and 39. An elderly labourer called Mr Knight was there, completely on his own, digging foundations. My father asked him what he was doing and he explained that the plot had been bought by his employer who intended to build a house for his daughter and her husband. My father contacted the boss and suggested that there was ample room for two houses and offered to buy the second one which the builder then agreed to construct.
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The two houses were small and sturdily built, but unimaginatively constructed. They were flat roofed bungalows with only two bedrooms, hard composition floors and tiny kitchens with external larders (no fridges in those days!) I used to enjoy being taken up to the roof where I could survey the surrounding neighbourhood from what seemed to me to be a vast height! About ten years later we had an upper floor and a tile hung roof added and so, shortly afterwards, did our neighbours at number 35, who were now the Robsons. Bernard Robson was in the police force and subsequently became a member of the glamorous (notorious?) Flying Squad. He was caught up in some of the scandals about police methods in the late 1960s, but he was always a good neighbour to us and took a kindly interest in me as I grew to manhood.
Right opposite us, in the house on the upper or southern corner of Cranfield Road East, lived the Chicks who had three or four sons. The youngest, Tony, was my age and we used to play together. On some occasions in the summer all the boys would stage a cricket match in the road. There was not a lot of traffic, although occasionally play would have to be halted so that a vehicle could pass. |
Snow clearance outside 35 Pine Ridge with the two small Robson children. You can just see to the right, in the background, that the house is still a flat roofed, single storey dwelling. The upper storey was added to the Robsons' house some time after our own, next door, was enlarged in 1956. One detail is the sled in the foreground of the picture, which was made by Mr Bill Vinn, the carpenter who lived in Stanley Road
From the left: Bernard Everett, Graham & Pat Robson
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Unlike many people at that time, we always had a car – first a pre-war model and in 1954 our first new car, a gleaming dark red (but somewhat cumbersome) Vauxhall Velox. My mother did not drive, so it was used by my father to convey himself every day to the car park in Shotfield Road, near to Wallington station from where he took the train to London. My mother did all the shopping on foot. Without a fridge, she needed to buy fresh produce several times a week at the local shops or, once a week, in Wallington. She would take several shopping bags, hessian ones into which greengrocers would tip loose vegetables after weighing them or open mesh string bags which could be balled up when empty and carried in one’s pockets. There were no plastic bags of course, but the grocer (Barter’s in Stanley Park Road, next to the off licence) would measure out sugar and tea and other commodities into paper bags. You had to queue up and wait to be served in all the shops. Supermarkets did not come in until the Fifties.
Just round the corner from us, at the top of Stanley Road, there was a pair of shops. I was not much interested in the wool and sewing shop, but the other one was the sweet shop run by Mrs Streatfield, where I would spend my pocket money and where I would be sent to buy my mother’s cigarettes.I don’t suppose that it was entirely legal, even then, to sell cigarettes to children (other than the sugary, white and red sweet cigarettes), but Mrs Streatfield knew who I was and would always check that “they’re for your Mummy, aren’t they?”
Further down Stanley Road was the parade of half a dozen shops, to which Paul Williams has referred. The cobbler was Mr Barrett and the newsagents was called Newlands. I used to buy my copy of “Lion” comic there every week and after I had read it I would swop it for the “Eagle” with my friend Michael Key who lived in Stanley Square. All these Stanley place names were of course a reference to the lands once belonging to the Earls of Derby who had been the owners of The Oaks, after which the famous horse race was named (in earlier times the Stanleys had stayed there before going up to Epsom Downs for the races).
Next door to the greengrocer’s in Stanley Road was the house and wood yard of Mr Bill Vinn, a carpenter who did a number of jobs for us in Pine Ridge. There were even more shops in Stanley Park Road, at the foot of Stanley Road. Like others, I remember Mr Payne’s bicycle and toy shop. There was a Post Office run by Mr and Mrs Harvey, whose daughter Pamela was the local beauty queen and a chemist shop in which one of the assistants, rudely known behind his back as “Willy Whiskers”, had a spectacularly luxuriant moustache. There were two ironmongers, two grocers, a newsagent/tobacconist and The Gem, a sweet shop strategically placed next to the school and one of the entrances to the recreation ground (“The Rec”). In The Gem, for something like a penny or tuppence, you could buy refreshing cordials after thirsty games in the school playground or on the Council playing field (where one had to keep an eye open for the approach of the park keeper, Mr Skinner, who always seemed to be irate about something we were doing).
On the corner of Anglesey Gardens and Stanley Park Road was the Branch Library in a 1930s art deco house with curved metal window frames. The children’s section was upstairs and it was there that I developed my taste for fiction (Enid Blyton, Just William and Biggles featuring prominently).
Mother later acquired a wicker basket on wheels for weekly treks to Wallington to the bank or one of the bigger shops. The shops would seem very old-fashioned today. There was Wise’s, a music shop where I bought 78rpm records in the Fifties. You had to order some of the more popular records (Lonny Donegan was a particular favourite of mine) and wait for them to come in because they sold out quickly and the shop didn’t carry a great stock. Sheet music was probably a more important line for them at the time. There were two small self-service shops (little bigger than what we would today call a convenience store), the Payantake and the Co-op, with its fascinating system of overhead wires to convey the money to and from the cashier sitting behind a barred grill. There was a Woolworth’s and a gentleman’s outfitter called Cladish’s (now in the hands of Mr King who had started out as old Mr Cladish’s shop assistant). My mother liked to buy my clothes there because they had a reputation for quality. But I thought their stock was old-fashioned and wanted jeans and brightly coloured sweaters of which Mr King clearly did not approve!
Very occasionally we would take the trolley bus from Boundary Corner and travel to one of the department stores, like Shinner’s, in Sutton. Even more occasionally we would go to Croydon, where the old trams still ran.
We could also obtain fresh vegetables and fruit from the smallholdings, some of which had shops. The smells of manure and the squeals of pigs would reach us down in Pine Ridge. One of the smallholders, Mr Millson, came round once a week, selling produce from the back of a lorry. We would sometimes take Sunday afternoon walks across the smallholdings to the Oaks Park. Close to the house was an ancient oak tree with enormous branches, held together with chains. It was a favourite climbing tree for us children!
We had bread and milk deliveries and sometimes, during the holidays the United Dairies milkman would let me help him, taking the bottles up and down the driveways further along Pine Ridge and then sitting beside him on the cart as he whipped up the horse and we trotted back down to my house. The coal lorry, the rag and bone man’s cart and the Corona soft drinks lorry were other familiar sights in our street.
In the Forties and perhaps into the early Fifties the country was short of most materials and very little was wasted. We had regular salvage collections of old textiles and waste paper and, chained to the trees on the grass verges, there were “pig bins” into which we were encouraged to deposit our food waste. This was taken away and converted into swill to feed animals.
Just round the corner from us, at the top of Stanley Road, there was a pair of shops. I was not much interested in the wool and sewing shop, but the other one was the sweet shop run by Mrs Streatfield, where I would spend my pocket money and where I would be sent to buy my mother’s cigarettes.I don’t suppose that it was entirely legal, even then, to sell cigarettes to children (other than the sugary, white and red sweet cigarettes), but Mrs Streatfield knew who I was and would always check that “they’re for your Mummy, aren’t they?”
Further down Stanley Road was the parade of half a dozen shops, to which Paul Williams has referred. The cobbler was Mr Barrett and the newsagents was called Newlands. I used to buy my copy of “Lion” comic there every week and after I had read it I would swop it for the “Eagle” with my friend Michael Key who lived in Stanley Square. All these Stanley place names were of course a reference to the lands once belonging to the Earls of Derby who had been the owners of The Oaks, after which the famous horse race was named (in earlier times the Stanleys had stayed there before going up to Epsom Downs for the races).
Next door to the greengrocer’s in Stanley Road was the house and wood yard of Mr Bill Vinn, a carpenter who did a number of jobs for us in Pine Ridge. There were even more shops in Stanley Park Road, at the foot of Stanley Road. Like others, I remember Mr Payne’s bicycle and toy shop. There was a Post Office run by Mr and Mrs Harvey, whose daughter Pamela was the local beauty queen and a chemist shop in which one of the assistants, rudely known behind his back as “Willy Whiskers”, had a spectacularly luxuriant moustache. There were two ironmongers, two grocers, a newsagent/tobacconist and The Gem, a sweet shop strategically placed next to the school and one of the entrances to the recreation ground (“The Rec”). In The Gem, for something like a penny or tuppence, you could buy refreshing cordials after thirsty games in the school playground or on the Council playing field (where one had to keep an eye open for the approach of the park keeper, Mr Skinner, who always seemed to be irate about something we were doing).
On the corner of Anglesey Gardens and Stanley Park Road was the Branch Library in a 1930s art deco house with curved metal window frames. The children’s section was upstairs and it was there that I developed my taste for fiction (Enid Blyton, Just William and Biggles featuring prominently).
Mother later acquired a wicker basket on wheels for weekly treks to Wallington to the bank or one of the bigger shops. The shops would seem very old-fashioned today. There was Wise’s, a music shop where I bought 78rpm records in the Fifties. You had to order some of the more popular records (Lonny Donegan was a particular favourite of mine) and wait for them to come in because they sold out quickly and the shop didn’t carry a great stock. Sheet music was probably a more important line for them at the time. There were two small self-service shops (little bigger than what we would today call a convenience store), the Payantake and the Co-op, with its fascinating system of overhead wires to convey the money to and from the cashier sitting behind a barred grill. There was a Woolworth’s and a gentleman’s outfitter called Cladish’s (now in the hands of Mr King who had started out as old Mr Cladish’s shop assistant). My mother liked to buy my clothes there because they had a reputation for quality. But I thought their stock was old-fashioned and wanted jeans and brightly coloured sweaters of which Mr King clearly did not approve!
Very occasionally we would take the trolley bus from Boundary Corner and travel to one of the department stores, like Shinner’s, in Sutton. Even more occasionally we would go to Croydon, where the old trams still ran.
We could also obtain fresh vegetables and fruit from the smallholdings, some of which had shops. The smells of manure and the squeals of pigs would reach us down in Pine Ridge. One of the smallholders, Mr Millson, came round once a week, selling produce from the back of a lorry. We would sometimes take Sunday afternoon walks across the smallholdings to the Oaks Park. Close to the house was an ancient oak tree with enormous branches, held together with chains. It was a favourite climbing tree for us children!
We had bread and milk deliveries and sometimes, during the holidays the United Dairies milkman would let me help him, taking the bottles up and down the driveways further along Pine Ridge and then sitting beside him on the cart as he whipped up the horse and we trotted back down to my house. The coal lorry, the rag and bone man’s cart and the Corona soft drinks lorry were other familiar sights in our street.
In the Forties and perhaps into the early Fifties the country was short of most materials and very little was wasted. We had regular salvage collections of old textiles and waste paper and, chained to the trees on the grass verges, there were “pig bins” into which we were encouraged to deposit our food waste. This was taken away and converted into swill to feed animals.
Primary school prefects, taken in the playground at Stanley Park Road County Junior Primary (as it then was). Girls (from the front): Marjorie Savage, Gillian McAlister, Jennifer Watts and Valerie Duhome. Boys: Tony Billin, Tony Chick, Bernard Everett and Bob Hedderley
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From the ages of five to eleven I attended the infants and junior schools in Stanley Park Road. After being taken along by my mother on my first day it was always a matter of self-respect that we children walked to school unaccompanied by parents. My route took me up Cranfield Road, down Stanley Road as far as the clinic, along the footpath by the playground to the allotments and then down Fir Tree Grove. Normally there was a group of us and on occasion we got up to mischief, such as scrumping apples from the trees in the grounds of the small church in Fir Tree Grove.
There were four classes in the infants’ school, all presided over by elderly (or so they seemed) ladies with the exception of the reception class under the supervision of the appropriately named Miss Young (who promptly went off and got married): a collection was taken and we bought her a suitcase as a leaving present!). The classes were crowded. I think the minimum class size during my time there was probably 48. But the education, certainly for fortunate middle class children like me, was excellent. I eventually passed the Eleven Plus with flying colours and won a county scholarship to KCS Wimbledon to which I commuted by train every day from Carshalton Beeches station. I suppose we would nowadays consider that Stanley Park Road was a “rough school”. Certainly the pupils came from a wide range of backgrounds and some of the neighbourhood housing, propped up by wooden beams, was definitely sub-standard. Discipline had to be strict and slapped legs or a clip round the ear were fairly commonplace. With such large classes it was important to keep order. The Head teacher had a cane. In the junior school this was Mr Quick (whose name rhymed with stick!). He was a heavy smoker and eventually had to have a lung removed. But the cane was kept more in reserve, as a final sanction, than anything else. I only saw it in use on a single occasion. |
Socially diverse, we were ethnically homogenous. The Dixon family, who lived in Windborough Road and were Anglo-Indian, may have been the sole exception. There were three children, two girls who did well at school and their younger brother Chris, who was the local tearaway (he was quite decent to me, but terrorised many others in the neighbourhood). The Dixons had a claim to celebrity because they had taken in the Webbs when the latter family returned virtually penniless to the UK around the time of Indian independence. It must have been quite a crowd in the modest semi-detached house. However, young Harry Webb (subsequently known as (Sir) Cliff Richard) was unhappy at Stanley Park Road School and had moved on by the time I went there.
I can remember the day when the first pair of black children arrived at the school. Mr Quick had thought it necessary to warn us all at morning assembly that they were joining us, that they were no different from any other pupil and that we were not to stare at them!
This reminiscence would not be complete without mention of Queen Mary’s Hospital for Children, the grounds of which backed on to the gardens of the houses across the road and further up Pine Ridge from us. In the 1960s I worked there as a porter during several school or university holidays, the last time when I was between jobs in 1966. A strict class structure operated there and the nurses were strongly discouraged from associating with the porters and other unqualified staff. We nevertheless had a good time, driving round the grounds in dilapidated old vans and lorries, delivering supplies to the single story wards, waving to the children and the young women who were caring for them. Conditions were pretty primitive by the standards of today, especially as regards hygiene. I was given a dusty blue jacket to wear, but this was seldom changed or washed and the pockets were torn. One of the duties, when one was assigned to “dirty van”, involved collecting bags of dirty laundry from outside the wards. Some of this consisted of soiled nappies soaked in Lysol. The bags were heavy and had to be manhandled bodily. Sometimes a nappy would fall out and have to be retrieved. But I don’t recall being offered any kind of protective clothing, not even a pair of gloves!
Much of the time I was in the open air and, even if most of the nurses were “off limits”, there were always the younger female domestics (many of them Irish or Italian) with whom one might try to secure a date. I enjoyed the work. For me it was a source of pocket money. But for the permanent staff, there were families to support and the wages were not princely. One veteran porter, called Les Cheeseman, would take home little more than eight pounds a week. Even in the early Sixties this was hardly a living wage. But Les had brought up his son, of whom he was inordinately proud, and put him through dental school. Now in practice locally, the younger Cheeseman bought his father every Christmas a season ticket for Arsenal, the one luxury which Les really appreciated!
I can remember the day when the first pair of black children arrived at the school. Mr Quick had thought it necessary to warn us all at morning assembly that they were joining us, that they were no different from any other pupil and that we were not to stare at them!
This reminiscence would not be complete without mention of Queen Mary’s Hospital for Children, the grounds of which backed on to the gardens of the houses across the road and further up Pine Ridge from us. In the 1960s I worked there as a porter during several school or university holidays, the last time when I was between jobs in 1966. A strict class structure operated there and the nurses were strongly discouraged from associating with the porters and other unqualified staff. We nevertheless had a good time, driving round the grounds in dilapidated old vans and lorries, delivering supplies to the single story wards, waving to the children and the young women who were caring for them. Conditions were pretty primitive by the standards of today, especially as regards hygiene. I was given a dusty blue jacket to wear, but this was seldom changed or washed and the pockets were torn. One of the duties, when one was assigned to “dirty van”, involved collecting bags of dirty laundry from outside the wards. Some of this consisted of soiled nappies soaked in Lysol. The bags were heavy and had to be manhandled bodily. Sometimes a nappy would fall out and have to be retrieved. But I don’t recall being offered any kind of protective clothing, not even a pair of gloves!
Much of the time I was in the open air and, even if most of the nurses were “off limits”, there were always the younger female domestics (many of them Irish or Italian) with whom one might try to secure a date. I enjoyed the work. For me it was a source of pocket money. But for the permanent staff, there were families to support and the wages were not princely. One veteran porter, called Les Cheeseman, would take home little more than eight pounds a week. Even in the early Sixties this was hardly a living wage. But Les had brought up his son, of whom he was inordinately proud, and put him through dental school. Now in practice locally, the younger Cheeseman bought his father every Christmas a season ticket for Arsenal, the one luxury which Les really appreciated!
The front of Bernard's house at
37 Pine Ridge in the late 50s/early 60s
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And the rear elevation,
taken on the same day
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In the 40s and 50s we had a good sense of community spirit. The neighbours and the parents of the schoolchildren got together to organise street parties to celebrate the Coronation in 1953. But in the 60s I began to move away, first to university and then to work overseas. After I married in 1970, I came back and bought a flat in a brand new block at the top of Woodcote Road in Wallington. During the three years we lived there, we saw virtually all the big houses in the road pulled down so that more apartment blocks could be built. Our family doctor continued to operate his surgery single handedly from his house in Shirley Road across from where my wife and I now lived. My wife sat there for a whole morning after she went into labour with our first child, before being taken down to the War Memorial Hospital to give birth. Not long afterwards, the doctor moved to a purpose built group practice, as the character of Woodcote Road changed completely.
My parents continued to live in Pine Ridge until the mid-1970s and I would still visit from time to time. Since then I have lived in seven different countries and am now resident, as are all my children, in the north of England. The world has shrunk and we have absorbed more change than I could ever have imagined possible when I began life in Carshalton!
My parents continued to live in Pine Ridge until the mid-1970s and I would still visit from time to time. Since then I have lived in seven different countries and am now resident, as are all my children, in the north of England. The world has shrunk and we have absorbed more change than I could ever have imagined possible when I began life in Carshalton!
Words and images Copyright © Bernard Everett (now living in the north of England)
Posted 2 November 2015
Posted 2 November 2015
