A House In Gidea Park.

A Memory of Gidea Park.

I was born in Carlton Road in 1937. Got bombed out when a landmine dropped down the road and we were evacuated to Clacton while my Dad worked down the Underground tunnel when his factory and the machines were moved away from the air raids. Went to a boarding school in Surrey because I got very good at forging notes to my teacher and playing hookey. Forgot one thing - the attendance officer. Family Services suggested the boarding school in Cranleigh, Surrey and I was there for about five years. Grasshopper Coaches from Ilford took the school home for the Summer holidays because most of the boys at the school came from Romford or Ilford. Playing with my friends would be out on our bikes in the surrounding streets or over Raphael park - we stayed out until it was dark. We had TV but mostly it was 'Uncle Mac' and Children's Hour. The school taught me an interest in horticulture. Leaving, I worked for Romford Council at their Bedfords Park Nursery with Ted Theobold and Des Ward. Called up for National Service to the RAMC - I served my two years in Cyprus. My dad worked for the Plessey Company in Ilford and Mum looked after us and my brother Christopher. She took us with her when she walked down to the market on a Wednesday to do the week's shopping and look at the animals being sold in the cattle pens and listen to the banter of the stall holders as they auctioned off two sets of dinners services that they balanced, a different one on each hand. The comedy was better than Jasper Carrot! Near the Town Hall was The Laurie Cinema where we watched the Charlie Chan serial on a Saturday morning and later on the Batman series, which of course were in black and white. Trouble with The Laurie was that you sometimes went home with more than you arrived with! There was still a Woolworths in London Road and of course, the Brewery. The end of the Brewery wall was, what we called 'the dog meat shop' and on a Saturday morning Dad would drop me at about six o'clock to the end of a queue to get horse meat steaks when the shop opened at 9. No ration book needed. Worked on a stall outside St Edwards church on a Saturday for a while selling plants for a nurseryman. Every inch of cobblestone was covered by the stalls selling everything imaginable, but then the council started pulling buildings down and building shopping centres and the old shops went the way of progress. They stopped traffic going here and there, and more time was spent searching for a parking space and everything changed. Parking meters and a self cleaning toilet.
We had a tent and a Morris Minor and we camped during the holidays all over, even getting two weeks in Oban when the weather was in the 80's. Did it rain when I was a kid? I suppose it must have. Now I live in Ft. Lauderdale and it's sunny every day.
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