Echoes of my past
Paul Williams wrote.....
Paul Williams (1946-2016)
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I was born in Carshalton on the Hill in September 1946 in the front bedroom of 74 Stanley Road. This was where my maternal Grandmother and Grandfather lived and where I was to live for more than twenty years. It was a 1930s built council house and well constructed. It had a ground-floor bathroom accessed via the kitchen but had no form of heating and was pretty-well unusable in cold winters, which were typical in the late 40s and 50s. The WC was also on the ground floor but access was via the back door, across an open archway that led into the garden. This open doorway eventually was fitted with a door but the council left a 1 foot gap at the bottom and the curved arch above was also left open. Its insulation value was non-existent! In the winter a tiny paraffin lamp about 6 inches tall was left burning in the toilet all night to try to ward off frozen pipes.
The house had gas lights installed in the kitchen, living room and the three bedrooms. These were most welcome. They provided a small measure of warmth in the bedrooms in winter when mine would be lit for an hour before bedtime and were invaluable during the many power cuts experienced in the post war years. There were no power points and apart from one 2amp socket used for the wartime ‘Utility’ radio there was no provision for any electrical appliances or standard lamps. |
The only source of real warmth was the living room coal fire, which also provided hot water by means of a small back boiler behind the grate. That fire was much loved as the hearth and a toasting fork provided, toast, crumpets and chestnuts; all beyond the capabilities of the four legged Stoves cooker and the ridiculously poor gas pressure that supplied it. There were two other small fireplaces in the main bedrooms but there was never enough coal to use them. We got used to thick ice inside the windows.
Irons were heated on the cooker burners, although I recall seeing an unused gas iron that ran off a poker point. When appliances like a vacuum cleaner (an old Canadian Fillery I think it was called), electric iron and hairdryer came along, they were all fitted with a bayonet plug to connect to a light fitting. No earthing at all!
After I was born, my Grandfather, Charles Moore, who had fought with the ‘Buffs’ regiment in the First World War and was Air Raid Warden at The Mount in the second, fell victim to lung cancer and died after a long struggle in the War Memorial Hospital by Carshalton Park when I was two. Sadly, I have no memories of him although I am told he played with me a lot. Nor do I have any recollection of holding up two fingers to Winston Churchill from my push-chair when he visited Croydon (so I am told).
When gas pressure allowed we could use a gas copper to heat water for washing clothes. Rinsing was done in the Butlers sink and laundry was finished off on the great cast iron mangle that sat outside the back door – next to the two zinc baths that were used for bathing in front of the living room fire in winter.
Our coal store was a redundant Anderson Shelter and deliveries by black faced coalmen wearing their distinctive head-ware were all watched closely during deliveries as there were many tales of short deliveries! There was a small coal depot in Stanhope Road with high walls, behind our house.
Gas was the fuel for street lighting too. The warm mellow light these provided was quite adequate and there was no glare to hide the stars on a clear night. Some were lit manually such as at railway stations and private roads but ours had permanent small wind-proof pilots and were operated by long running clockwork motors that turned them on and off. They were well maintained and adjusted. They weren’t bad either on the long foggy nights that always seemed to follow Guy Fawkes night and the celebrations that everyone seemed to participate in.
Much more enjoyment was had from simple events such as the London to Brighton veteran car run or the University Boat Race, when small favours such as plastic oars were abundant in every newsagent, each sporting a ribbon in your choice of the dark and light blue of Oxford & Cambridge. Sporting events, local and national were enthusiastically followed and there was a strong sense of national pride that emerged after the weariness of the long years of war and hardship. Records achieved, for example, in aviation and athletics were lauded and cynicism was quite uncommon. Newspapers were generally regarded as trustworthy and responsible, placing emphasis on real news. I particularly recall headlines in the Daily Sketch and Sunday Express reporting on the death of Queen Mary and Joseph Stalin, the ascent of Everest and the Coronation; also, the national concern for the fate of the captain of The Flying Enterprise, a small freighter that had listed badly after a storm in the Atlantic. After days of struggling towards safety the list got worse but the captain refused to leave. He was joined by a brave reporter from the Express. They were rescued just before the Flying Enterprise sank.
The Coronation was a unique event, especially for a six year old going on seven. Apart from the excitement of the fancy dress costumes and the abundance of cakes and other treats, I don’t think I have ever seen such real enjoyment in the community since.
We were very well served by abundant local shops. Within a few paces across the road in front of our house we had a shoe repair shop with belt driven machinery. The noise of the equipment emanated from the doorway, as did the heavy odour of adhesive. I can’t remember the purpose of shop to the right. I vaguely recall the windows being obscured by brown paper.
The next shop in the line was the all important newsagents, sweetshop and tobacconists. Here my father used to purchase single ‘7 o’clock’ brand razor blades and his packets of ‘Players Weights’. Next door at the end of the terrace was a general grocery store, at one time run by a family named Benjamin. From both shops you could buy snacks such as Lyons individual fruit pies. They were square and consisted of a rather shallow pastry case with a fruit filling (the terms pastry and fruit being rather loose) in a cardboard box. They cost 3d and the most disgusting one was apricot! When sweets came ‘off-ration’ you could have unrestricted access to joys such as Cadbury’s fudge bars, Fry’s ‘Five Boys’ chocolate sandwich bars ,Wagon Wheels (not like the miserable imitations today) with varieties that included vanilla, strawberry and butterscotch. Seemingly countless rows of large screw top jars lined the shelves. These were filled with a bewildering choice of sweets; many of which have long since vanished; liquorice, of course, All-sorts, Pipes, Comfits, Pontefract cakes, Wheels, Twists and rock-hard Bassatti . Then there were flying saucers, mallow fried eggs, honeycomb, aniseed balls, gob stoppers, penny chews imps, mushrooms, cigarettes, sherbet dabs and jaw-breaking toffees to name but a few.
Two other shops followed in the row just beyond access between the two terraces. The first was the butchers shop. Sawdust on the floor and a selection of large knives and saws behind the counter with its butchers slabs. Rows of rabbits hung in the window. Tripe, kidneys, liver and other offal all formed part of a display of meat quite uncommon in earlier austerity years. Next door was Ede’s the green grocer. They supplied all the seasonal fruit and vegetables we needed, as well as my supply of orange boxes at 3d to 6d a time that provided wood for all sorts of boyhood constructions that my imagination could conjure up.
Behind our house, next to the coal yard, two other shops plied their wares, a small general store adjacent to a fish and chip shop. The latter was strictly seasonal and opened only during the months that old potatoes were available. Next to the chip shop a small alleyway between houses led to Windborough Road. This was not a public right of way and was chained closed once a year to confirm this. The alleyway was well used but has now disappeared, along with the shops and the coal yard. From my bedroom window I could look between the buildings and with my little brass telescope I could read the clock on the control tower at Croydon Airport.
Returning to the front of the house, there were more shops further up Stanley road near Cranfield Road West, one of which was a small drapers on the opposite side of the road, set well back with its neighbour. Another ‘corner shop’ was lower down the hill at the junction of Stanhope road. Opposite the upper junction of Stanhope road stood Cooper’s a large brown general store that sold grain etc. from hoppers in front of the counter. I recall the wooden floor, rows of different sized brown paper bags ready to dispense from the large scales, with their large set of weights. The building was on a corner, curved at the doorway.
The area was a strange mixture of houses; non-local authority terraces and semis, as well as the younger council houses that made up the eastern middle of Stanley road and Stanhope road. These contrasted with buildings such as Cooper’s that were clearly much older. Our home, for example, was opposite a large old house with very wide frontage under a canopy of trees. It had a shallow U shaped drive with stone pillars at each entrance. I think its name was Stanley House, although locally it was simply known as ‘Oscars’. It had a large abandoned apple orchard at the back which invited ‘scrumping’ at the appropriate time of year. ‘Oscars’ was between the main row of shops and a very tall but tired, imposing Victorian terraced houses. They were two or three storeys high, with cellars I think. Front doors were approached up a large flight of stone door steps. At the other end of this terrace stood a large Victorian building, fairly dilapidated, that had once, the old locals said, been a substantial hotel built for those following sporting pursuits. The rooms were now used as flats. The front doors to the Phoenix, as it was known were firmly shut and access was at the rear, where there were large metal fire escapes. The main hallway and staircase to each floor was dingy and heavy with the smell of cooking. At the rear of the Phoenix was a large children’s playground with a good selection of the standard equipment local authorities provided at the time on a hard tarmac surface. A tall slide, roundabout, a long multi seat swing that you could stand up on each end and work up until nearly horizontal (exiting certainly, dangerous – very probably) and a long way from what would be acceptable today. All this and two other sets of swings, all unsupervised!
Between the Phoenix and the playground lay the wide, shallow sloping entrance to an air raid shelter which turned 90 degrees to the west and ran behind the playground. An emergency exit was provided by way of a steel ladder covered by a manhole in the grounds of the Pannett & Neaden’s ( I can’t vouch for the spelling) dried herb factory that fronted the foot path that ran between Coopers and the top of Fir Tree Grove, abutting the allotments that now grow lavender. The aroma that came from this little factory was amazing. The smell of drying mint and sage was heady and pleasant and spread all over the neighbourhood.
There was a large courtyard between Coopers and the Phoenix that gave access to the playground and the footpath to Fir Tree grove. At the rear was a wall with a small building behind. This was used in the post war period as a dispensing clinic, where mothers could collect jars of the most horrid concentrated orange liquid supplement, cod liver oil and malt extract for their children’s well being! I didn’t mind the cod liver oil that much; the malt was something of a treat but that orange!
The shops I have mentioned met most of our daily shopping needs. Milk was delivered by an immaculately turned out horse and milk float of United Dairies. Bread from the Co-op bakery was in a less shining example of a van with fading livery. It may even have been electric.
One luxury, which I think was too expensive for us to enjoy, was a regular delivery by the Corona lorry. This carried vast quantities of large glass, metal secured china-stoppered fizzy pop; Lemonade, Limeade, Orangeade, Cream Soda, Dandelion and Burdock, Cherryade, Sarsaparilla etc. Walls ice-cream was also delivered regularly for a weekend treat, Wafers, Cornets and Neapolitan bricks.
Recycling in many forms was quite the norm too. Old newspapers were used to wrap ashes from hearths and collected for potash. Food scraps went to the bin of ‘The Pig Man’ who called weekly to collect organic waste to feed the pigs at the Woodcote small-holdings. Bottles too; empty milk bottles were meticulously collected by the milkman and most beer and pop bottles had deposits levied to ensure their return.
Further down the road in Stanley Park Road, only a few minutes’ walk away, we had another array of shops. A large general store on the corner of Stanley Road, two telephone boxes with their buttons A & B and un-vandalised telephone directories, an Off-Licence run by Fuller, Smith & Turner, the Post Office, Chemist, Johnson’s the Iron Mongers, a drapers, another butchers, bakers and Sabin’s newsagents where you could buy penny lollies from the freezer with a watery chocolate or spearmint flavour. The Gem, another sweetshop and newsagent where, in the summer you could buy frozen pyramid shaped cartons of ‘Jubbly’ orange juice. A fine wet fish mongers, Payne’s, with toys in one window and bicycles in the other, rounded it all off nicely. Just as well because public transport to and from this sub village of Carshalton on the Hill was non-existent.
Where we lived was a good mile or more from Carshalton Beeches railway station and about half a mile from Boundary Corner where the 654 Trolleybus service ran (slightly longer to get a less frequent service towards Kingston on the 213 at the junction of Stanley Park Road and Staplehurst Road).Other services meant a longer walk to Carshalton High Street or Wallington. Having said this it never was an issue, walking was the order of the day then for all of us.
The nearest cinema was the Odeon in Wallington, where I was taken to see films like The Dambusters, Titfield Thunderbolt and the Man from Laramie. The Odeon, at the corner of Ross Parade is now a pub, a long throw from when my paternal grandfather helped build the original cinema. Other delights awaited a small boy in Croydon, where you could visit a rather good zoo, complete with chimps at Kennard’s Arcade. Croydon Airport was just a bike ride away and many hours were spent looking over the gate at Mollison Drive watching the bi-plane Tiger Moths on training flights. Some learner pilots did very passable impressions of kangaroos on landing, bouncing high into the air several times before coming to an embarrassed stop. Some civil commercial services still operated such as Morton’s flights with four engine De Havilland Herons to Jersey and Rollason’s manufacturing business making their small single seat Turbulent with Volkswagen car engine. The biggest aircraft that regularly used Croydon were ex WW2 Douglas Dakotas. One would roar over our house in the early hours most nights, taking newspapers to Paris. All this disappeared, along with the Trolleybuses, steam goods trains, gas street lights and very importantly to me, The Oaks mansion in Oaks Park.
I seem to have left out so much; a myriad of days exploring the local country side. Wet days pouring over copies of Eagle, RAF Flying Review and Practical Wireless. School days, Cubs and Scouts meetings at Holmwood Hall (10th Wallington) and happy memories of 350 Squadron ATC at Beddington. Local fetes and at Queen Marys, the Carshalton Parade which started at the hospital and passed our front garden gate, the sounds of home during those years. The one o’clock hooter at Queen Mary’s hospital and the school bell ringing from the tower at Stanley Park Juniors, summoning us back for the afternoon. Old radio shows, early television and happy holidays. Real carol singers at Christmas. Bob a Job weeks, London’s bomb damage that lasted for years, fishing in Carshalton ponds, collecting conkers in the park and best of all, as a small boy, a Christmas trip to the Gamages store in Holborn to see the model railway layout and Father Christmas.
Irons were heated on the cooker burners, although I recall seeing an unused gas iron that ran off a poker point. When appliances like a vacuum cleaner (an old Canadian Fillery I think it was called), electric iron and hairdryer came along, they were all fitted with a bayonet plug to connect to a light fitting. No earthing at all!
After I was born, my Grandfather, Charles Moore, who had fought with the ‘Buffs’ regiment in the First World War and was Air Raid Warden at The Mount in the second, fell victim to lung cancer and died after a long struggle in the War Memorial Hospital by Carshalton Park when I was two. Sadly, I have no memories of him although I am told he played with me a lot. Nor do I have any recollection of holding up two fingers to Winston Churchill from my push-chair when he visited Croydon (so I am told).
When gas pressure allowed we could use a gas copper to heat water for washing clothes. Rinsing was done in the Butlers sink and laundry was finished off on the great cast iron mangle that sat outside the back door – next to the two zinc baths that were used for bathing in front of the living room fire in winter.
Our coal store was a redundant Anderson Shelter and deliveries by black faced coalmen wearing their distinctive head-ware were all watched closely during deliveries as there were many tales of short deliveries! There was a small coal depot in Stanhope Road with high walls, behind our house.
Gas was the fuel for street lighting too. The warm mellow light these provided was quite adequate and there was no glare to hide the stars on a clear night. Some were lit manually such as at railway stations and private roads but ours had permanent small wind-proof pilots and were operated by long running clockwork motors that turned them on and off. They were well maintained and adjusted. They weren’t bad either on the long foggy nights that always seemed to follow Guy Fawkes night and the celebrations that everyone seemed to participate in.
Much more enjoyment was had from simple events such as the London to Brighton veteran car run or the University Boat Race, when small favours such as plastic oars were abundant in every newsagent, each sporting a ribbon in your choice of the dark and light blue of Oxford & Cambridge. Sporting events, local and national were enthusiastically followed and there was a strong sense of national pride that emerged after the weariness of the long years of war and hardship. Records achieved, for example, in aviation and athletics were lauded and cynicism was quite uncommon. Newspapers were generally regarded as trustworthy and responsible, placing emphasis on real news. I particularly recall headlines in the Daily Sketch and Sunday Express reporting on the death of Queen Mary and Joseph Stalin, the ascent of Everest and the Coronation; also, the national concern for the fate of the captain of The Flying Enterprise, a small freighter that had listed badly after a storm in the Atlantic. After days of struggling towards safety the list got worse but the captain refused to leave. He was joined by a brave reporter from the Express. They were rescued just before the Flying Enterprise sank.
The Coronation was a unique event, especially for a six year old going on seven. Apart from the excitement of the fancy dress costumes and the abundance of cakes and other treats, I don’t think I have ever seen such real enjoyment in the community since.
We were very well served by abundant local shops. Within a few paces across the road in front of our house we had a shoe repair shop with belt driven machinery. The noise of the equipment emanated from the doorway, as did the heavy odour of adhesive. I can’t remember the purpose of shop to the right. I vaguely recall the windows being obscured by brown paper.
The next shop in the line was the all important newsagents, sweetshop and tobacconists. Here my father used to purchase single ‘7 o’clock’ brand razor blades and his packets of ‘Players Weights’. Next door at the end of the terrace was a general grocery store, at one time run by a family named Benjamin. From both shops you could buy snacks such as Lyons individual fruit pies. They were square and consisted of a rather shallow pastry case with a fruit filling (the terms pastry and fruit being rather loose) in a cardboard box. They cost 3d and the most disgusting one was apricot! When sweets came ‘off-ration’ you could have unrestricted access to joys such as Cadbury’s fudge bars, Fry’s ‘Five Boys’ chocolate sandwich bars ,Wagon Wheels (not like the miserable imitations today) with varieties that included vanilla, strawberry and butterscotch. Seemingly countless rows of large screw top jars lined the shelves. These were filled with a bewildering choice of sweets; many of which have long since vanished; liquorice, of course, All-sorts, Pipes, Comfits, Pontefract cakes, Wheels, Twists and rock-hard Bassatti . Then there were flying saucers, mallow fried eggs, honeycomb, aniseed balls, gob stoppers, penny chews imps, mushrooms, cigarettes, sherbet dabs and jaw-breaking toffees to name but a few.
Two other shops followed in the row just beyond access between the two terraces. The first was the butchers shop. Sawdust on the floor and a selection of large knives and saws behind the counter with its butchers slabs. Rows of rabbits hung in the window. Tripe, kidneys, liver and other offal all formed part of a display of meat quite uncommon in earlier austerity years. Next door was Ede’s the green grocer. They supplied all the seasonal fruit and vegetables we needed, as well as my supply of orange boxes at 3d to 6d a time that provided wood for all sorts of boyhood constructions that my imagination could conjure up.
Behind our house, next to the coal yard, two other shops plied their wares, a small general store adjacent to a fish and chip shop. The latter was strictly seasonal and opened only during the months that old potatoes were available. Next to the chip shop a small alleyway between houses led to Windborough Road. This was not a public right of way and was chained closed once a year to confirm this. The alleyway was well used but has now disappeared, along with the shops and the coal yard. From my bedroom window I could look between the buildings and with my little brass telescope I could read the clock on the control tower at Croydon Airport.
Returning to the front of the house, there were more shops further up Stanley road near Cranfield Road West, one of which was a small drapers on the opposite side of the road, set well back with its neighbour. Another ‘corner shop’ was lower down the hill at the junction of Stanhope road. Opposite the upper junction of Stanhope road stood Cooper’s a large brown general store that sold grain etc. from hoppers in front of the counter. I recall the wooden floor, rows of different sized brown paper bags ready to dispense from the large scales, with their large set of weights. The building was on a corner, curved at the doorway.
The area was a strange mixture of houses; non-local authority terraces and semis, as well as the younger council houses that made up the eastern middle of Stanley road and Stanhope road. These contrasted with buildings such as Cooper’s that were clearly much older. Our home, for example, was opposite a large old house with very wide frontage under a canopy of trees. It had a shallow U shaped drive with stone pillars at each entrance. I think its name was Stanley House, although locally it was simply known as ‘Oscars’. It had a large abandoned apple orchard at the back which invited ‘scrumping’ at the appropriate time of year. ‘Oscars’ was between the main row of shops and a very tall but tired, imposing Victorian terraced houses. They were two or three storeys high, with cellars I think. Front doors were approached up a large flight of stone door steps. At the other end of this terrace stood a large Victorian building, fairly dilapidated, that had once, the old locals said, been a substantial hotel built for those following sporting pursuits. The rooms were now used as flats. The front doors to the Phoenix, as it was known were firmly shut and access was at the rear, where there were large metal fire escapes. The main hallway and staircase to each floor was dingy and heavy with the smell of cooking. At the rear of the Phoenix was a large children’s playground with a good selection of the standard equipment local authorities provided at the time on a hard tarmac surface. A tall slide, roundabout, a long multi seat swing that you could stand up on each end and work up until nearly horizontal (exiting certainly, dangerous – very probably) and a long way from what would be acceptable today. All this and two other sets of swings, all unsupervised!
Between the Phoenix and the playground lay the wide, shallow sloping entrance to an air raid shelter which turned 90 degrees to the west and ran behind the playground. An emergency exit was provided by way of a steel ladder covered by a manhole in the grounds of the Pannett & Neaden’s ( I can’t vouch for the spelling) dried herb factory that fronted the foot path that ran between Coopers and the top of Fir Tree Grove, abutting the allotments that now grow lavender. The aroma that came from this little factory was amazing. The smell of drying mint and sage was heady and pleasant and spread all over the neighbourhood.
There was a large courtyard between Coopers and the Phoenix that gave access to the playground and the footpath to Fir Tree grove. At the rear was a wall with a small building behind. This was used in the post war period as a dispensing clinic, where mothers could collect jars of the most horrid concentrated orange liquid supplement, cod liver oil and malt extract for their children’s well being! I didn’t mind the cod liver oil that much; the malt was something of a treat but that orange!
The shops I have mentioned met most of our daily shopping needs. Milk was delivered by an immaculately turned out horse and milk float of United Dairies. Bread from the Co-op bakery was in a less shining example of a van with fading livery. It may even have been electric.
One luxury, which I think was too expensive for us to enjoy, was a regular delivery by the Corona lorry. This carried vast quantities of large glass, metal secured china-stoppered fizzy pop; Lemonade, Limeade, Orangeade, Cream Soda, Dandelion and Burdock, Cherryade, Sarsaparilla etc. Walls ice-cream was also delivered regularly for a weekend treat, Wafers, Cornets and Neapolitan bricks.
Recycling in many forms was quite the norm too. Old newspapers were used to wrap ashes from hearths and collected for potash. Food scraps went to the bin of ‘The Pig Man’ who called weekly to collect organic waste to feed the pigs at the Woodcote small-holdings. Bottles too; empty milk bottles were meticulously collected by the milkman and most beer and pop bottles had deposits levied to ensure their return.
Further down the road in Stanley Park Road, only a few minutes’ walk away, we had another array of shops. A large general store on the corner of Stanley Road, two telephone boxes with their buttons A & B and un-vandalised telephone directories, an Off-Licence run by Fuller, Smith & Turner, the Post Office, Chemist, Johnson’s the Iron Mongers, a drapers, another butchers, bakers and Sabin’s newsagents where you could buy penny lollies from the freezer with a watery chocolate or spearmint flavour. The Gem, another sweetshop and newsagent where, in the summer you could buy frozen pyramid shaped cartons of ‘Jubbly’ orange juice. A fine wet fish mongers, Payne’s, with toys in one window and bicycles in the other, rounded it all off nicely. Just as well because public transport to and from this sub village of Carshalton on the Hill was non-existent.
Where we lived was a good mile or more from Carshalton Beeches railway station and about half a mile from Boundary Corner where the 654 Trolleybus service ran (slightly longer to get a less frequent service towards Kingston on the 213 at the junction of Stanley Park Road and Staplehurst Road).Other services meant a longer walk to Carshalton High Street or Wallington. Having said this it never was an issue, walking was the order of the day then for all of us.
The nearest cinema was the Odeon in Wallington, where I was taken to see films like The Dambusters, Titfield Thunderbolt and the Man from Laramie. The Odeon, at the corner of Ross Parade is now a pub, a long throw from when my paternal grandfather helped build the original cinema. Other delights awaited a small boy in Croydon, where you could visit a rather good zoo, complete with chimps at Kennard’s Arcade. Croydon Airport was just a bike ride away and many hours were spent looking over the gate at Mollison Drive watching the bi-plane Tiger Moths on training flights. Some learner pilots did very passable impressions of kangaroos on landing, bouncing high into the air several times before coming to an embarrassed stop. Some civil commercial services still operated such as Morton’s flights with four engine De Havilland Herons to Jersey and Rollason’s manufacturing business making their small single seat Turbulent with Volkswagen car engine. The biggest aircraft that regularly used Croydon were ex WW2 Douglas Dakotas. One would roar over our house in the early hours most nights, taking newspapers to Paris. All this disappeared, along with the Trolleybuses, steam goods trains, gas street lights and very importantly to me, The Oaks mansion in Oaks Park.
I seem to have left out so much; a myriad of days exploring the local country side. Wet days pouring over copies of Eagle, RAF Flying Review and Practical Wireless. School days, Cubs and Scouts meetings at Holmwood Hall (10th Wallington) and happy memories of 350 Squadron ATC at Beddington. Local fetes and at Queen Marys, the Carshalton Parade which started at the hospital and passed our front garden gate, the sounds of home during those years. The one o’clock hooter at Queen Mary’s hospital and the school bell ringing from the tower at Stanley Park Juniors, summoning us back for the afternoon. Old radio shows, early television and happy holidays. Real carol singers at Christmas. Bob a Job weeks, London’s bomb damage that lasted for years, fishing in Carshalton ponds, collecting conkers in the park and best of all, as a small boy, a Christmas trip to the Gamages store in Holborn to see the model railway layout and Father Christmas.
Words and images Copyright © the Estate of Paul Williams (1946-2016)
Posted 12 July 2008
Posted 12 July 2008
