Dulwich Memories


Coal-fired oven range

I was one of the original ‘Baby Boomers’ born in Dulwich Village just after the end of World War II. It may seem strange if not difficult for those trying to recall their earliest memories of life, particularly the first five years, but, even after six decades, such memories are still as vivid to me today as they were at the time. I have been told by various people it is just not possible to remember our earliest tender years, but I disagree. It may well be those who cannot recall their own earliest memories believe this to be true, but that is their personal perception of truth, not mine. What I do not have in my earliest memories, is an understanding of circumstances. Such things develop a little later in life.

I suppose all through history, each generation has seen changes in dress, customs and practices to that of their preceding generation. I cannot help but wonder however, if during my lifetime, my generation has possibly seen more rapid changes from one way of life to another than any other preceding generation. From a post war Britain still heavily endowed with the legacies of Victorian and Edwardian values through the rapid transitional process of modernity into the modern electronic age. Social values have also undergone equally swift transformation from a time when the mention of an unmarried mother would set numerous neighbourhood tongues wagging, to an era where such things have found commonplace acceptability in society without any stigma attached. Unfortunately other values like politeness and respect and general civility for ones fellow-man appear to have taken a tragic decline.

This set of my initial memories of life are however firmly set in a world and a time much different from today. A time despite all its problems, is one that I sometimes secretly yearn for.

My earliest memory is of being breast-fed by my mother. Before anyone says so, this is not some hidden Freudian desire, it is an actual memory. Much else of this early time remains a bit foggy but being breast-fed remains crystal clear. My families Dulwich home like most housing at the time was a rented property. It was never-the less, a large house in Desenfans Road lit by gas only. There was no hot water system and the only heat came from an ever lit oven range in the kitchen. A small scullery adjoined the kitchen and contained a sit up an beg type gas cooker, a butler sink and a copper boiler set in a large block of concrete. There was no room for anything else. A separate fire needed to be lit under the copper to heat water if sheets were being boiled. The boiler was also useful for cooking the Christmas pudding. At that time it was common practice for the kitchen to be both a cooking and dining area. In winter due to the cold, the kitchen became both a play and general living area too. The amount of livable space in most homes expanded or contracted throughout the year according to the seasons. All other rooms in the house did contain fireplaces but to have these all alight at the same time would prove prohibitively expensive.

I have looked recently at the outside my old home on Google Earth and it is reassuring to know that a full-grown rhododendron bush in the front garden which I remember from my childhood is still there.

The oven range served a secondary useful purpose when it came to bathing. With no bathroom in the house, bathing was normally conducted in a shallow tin bath in front of the oven range. The bath normally kept outside hanging from a hook by the outside toilet always reminded me of a large frying pan without a handle. The bath was filled with hot water from a couple of kettles left to boil on the range to about four inches deep. It was not until later in life at Leyton Slipper Baths that I would experience the wonderful sensation of hot bath water that completely covered the body. Bathing was in strict rotation with the eldest first and the youngest last. Water was not emptied between bathers but simply topped up a little by the kettle from the adjacent oven range. Even as I write this article, I find the thought of this arrangement somewhat repulsive but it was the same arrangement that occurred in most homes just after WWII and would have been thought of as completely normal.

Bedtime followed the bath which was something of an ordeal in winter. It involved a quick dash through the cold and darkened house carrying a candle and jumping into bed as quickly as possible. A hot water bottle was always placed in the bed during winter. It was the round ceramic type with mottled brown patterning. Greaseproof paper was wrapped around the stopper to prevent it leaking. It was possible to burn ones feet if accidental contact with the hot water bottle was made. On arising in the morning in winter it was also a case of an equally quick dash back to the warmth of the kitchen. The inside of bedroom windows were always covered with ice in winter caused by condensation from breathing freezing on the icy cold glass.

I suppose the second recall I have of this slightly time disconnected period is sitting in a high chair at meal times while being bathed by the gentle warmth from the ever lit oven range. The high chair was a wooden type which had a hinged flap that lowered over the head to provide a small tray table in front of ones chest.

Lighting for the house was provided by gas and electricity blackouts in nearby houses were still a frequent occurrence. In today’s modern electrical age we simply flick a switch to turn a light on and think no more of it. We probably do not even give a second thought of passages and hallways that can be illuminated by using a switch at one end with the light being doused by different switch at the other end. Gas lighting however is entirely different. Either a pipe terminating with lighting rose descends from the middle of the ceiling with a see-saw chain valve to turn the gas on or, the lamp projects from a passage wall with a thumb twist valve. The lamps would normally be lit by a wax taper ignited in the eternally lit cooking range fire. The lamps are set too high for a child to light. The disadvantage with hallway gas lamps is they can only be turned off at source leaving an individual in the dark. In practice they were rarely lit and candles for moving around the house were use instead.

Occasionally the gas mantle which looked like a fine mesh incandescent white ball when lit required replacing. I recall seeing my father tie what looked like a little white babies sock around the gas lamp outlet. When the gas was turned on and lit, the little sock immediately shrivelled up into the familiar white ball. The gas mantle also became delicate and flimsy once in reached this shrivelled state and would easily break if touched. I do recall going to bed with a lit candle holder which I was allowed to carry even under the age of five.

The only toilet was set outside the house. I think at the time this was considered by planners to be a more hygienic arrangement. Little thought was given by the same planners that to visit the toilet in the middle of the night or in inclement weather was something of an ordeal. It was for this reason that use of the bedroom potty continued to thrive until more modern homes with indoor bathrooms were built or, older but still good properties eventually converted to indoor sanitation. I think it is probable that the requirement to run to the toilet through torrential rain or sit on the loo in bitterly cold conditions, accelerated the growth of indoor bathrooms from about the 1950’s onwards.

My Grandmother, a more kindly and informative woman whom I have never met, also used to live with us. Granny was born in 1881 and possessed extensive knowledge of both World Wars and the Boer War prior to that. Unfortunately her husband, my grandfather who I never knew, died a few years after the Great War possibly from after effects received during the war. Granny was the daughter of a farrier and one of six children born in Camberwell, London. Her family name was Pawsey who are believed to be direct descendants of Huguenots who fled religious persecution in France. My grandmother’s family heritage is something she was immensely proud of. I have looked at maps of Camberwell at the time of my Granny’s youth which was then part of the county of Surrey. The maps show large areas of fields and I often think of how much change my Grandmother must have seen as the area rapidly transformed from rural countryside into an urban conurbation.

Apart from creating meals and delicious Eiffel Tower size Yorkshire puddings on the cooking range, Granny also thoroughly cleaned the range once a week. Apart from raking the flues, the process also involved applying a tin of Zebo liquid lead polish to the metal surfaces and then polishing it all to a shine with a stiff black brush. The polish steamed from the heat of the cooker.

Granny also took me on outings and shopping while my parents were at work. Memories of the electric trams which continued to run along Lordship Lane at this time still fill my mind. Being very small, the conductor would always lean down from the tram and lift me aboard by my arms. The seats were a wooden bench type arrangement and quite uncomfortable for a young tender bottom. At the end of the journey the conductor would walk through the tram pushing the upright backs of the seats which were hinged at the base. The seat backs would then face a different direction for the return journey. I am sure my Granny would have pointed out places of interest on our tram journeys but I think my eyes were always glued on the driver. The driver stood at the front of the tram with his hands on two large rotating metal levers. I never really understood how they worked but the driver always appeared to be twisting the levers to and fro. I was fascinated by these levers and like all little boys, I imagined it was myself driving the tram.

My Granny would also take me to Dulwich Library located on the Lordship Lane/Eynella Road junction. I was still being pushed in an upright pram at this time and our journey took us along a long road named Woodwarde Road. All along this road every morning could be seen housewives on their hands and knees scrubbing and polishing the front door step as well as the entrance stone to their garden paths. This is a practice that has long since died out but at the time it was considered that well scrubbed and polished doorsteps were a public reflection on a well-kept house inside. If a dirty doorstep was spotted, tongues would soon start to wag.

Rationing was still very much a way of life during my early years and was something well beyond my understanding. I do recall however when I went shopping with my Granny at the Co-operative Store in Lordship Lane, watching the lady behind the counter scooping butter from a large tub and then patting it into a brick shape on a marble slab with two wooden paddles. My Granny then paid for her shopping and recited a long membership number while the shop assistant cut a little paper square from a ration book that my Granny carried.

On one shopping trip my Granny was pushing me in an upright pram when she met a group of friends also shopping. To a young child, this little group appeared to be chattering away to each other for hours as they gathered in a small huddle, oblivious to the rest of the world. To make matters worse, the group were chatting directly outside a baker’s window and staring at me from inside the window was the most wonderful ginger-bread man I had ever seen. I recall continuously touching the window trying to get at this tasty relish that kept smiling at me, but a small belt with clips I was wearing kept me firmly anchored in the pram. Finally to my childish dismay, I saw the ginger-bread man being picked up by a shop assistant, my eyes never left this little edible creature for a moment. A few seconds later my dismay turned to great joy as this member of staff came out of the shop and thrust the ginger-bread man in my hands much to my Granny’s surprise. On reflection I suspect the staff probably saw my pram-bound gastronomic dilemma and took pity on me. There was at least one happy little boy in the world that day.

Occasionally my parents would take me to Brixton Market. Although this was not far from Dulwich Village, the difference in environmental surroundings between the two were a stark contrast. For some reason my parents did not appear to need the ration book when buying food in the market and always came home with bags laden. I particularly remember the smell of the paraffin lamps that burned on every stall during the winter months as they spread their golden glow into the surrounding street. In many ways the market after dusk was like a fairy land with lights everywhere and people hustling and bustling as they went about their business. The winter months also meant crumpets, (muffins), were on sale and during the evening my siblings and I would sit around the cooking range in eager anticipation as our father toasted each crumpet in turn on a toasting fork in front of the oven range fire.

Our garden in Desenfans Road was an average suburban garden but my father did maintain two bee-hives. Under rationing regulations, bee keepers received an additional quota of sugar. My parents also used the honey which was hard to come-by as a form of bartering tool for obtaining other foodstuffs to supplement our otherwise meagre rations.

The outside street was paved and I could hear an occasional rumbling sound like thunder as older children coasted down the gentle slope on their home-made scooters. As virtually everything was rationed, metal for large toys like scooters was still considered an unnecessary luxury. The home-made scooters consisted of two lengths of wood joined by a hinge for steering with wheels made from ball-bearing races. It was these metal wheels that caused the low rumbling sound from the scooters along with a clickety-clack noise as the wheels went over the gaps in the paving slabs.

The other regular visitor in the street every day was the milkman with his cart. The cart with rubber wheels was pulled by a horse that must have known the milk round by heart. Apart from going to and from the dairy at the start and end of his round the milkman never rode the cart. The milkman simply walked up each garden path in turn to deliver fresh bottles of milk and return the empties to his cart, repeating the same process for each house in the street. As the milkman threaded his way in and out of each front garden to the doorstep, his horse would follow him without any form of instruction and obediently wait for him at the next house.

Sometimes my father took me to Dulwich Park which was a short walk from our home. I can recall gentle rowing sessions on the lake with my father rowing. On one day a number of people were flying kites. In those days kites were either a flat triangular shape or like an oblong box with material wrapped around each end. I still have a vivid image in my mind of one box-shaped kite which had a small dog lying prone inside the kite between the ends of the box. When the kite eventually landed, the dog jumped out and ran around before sitting back in the kite awaiting another flight.

My father also had an allotment located in Grange Lane. Our journey would take through the village where I recall a drinking fountain located at the College Road/Gallery Road junction. I think there may also have been a horse trough there but I am not certain of that. There was also a public house near this junction and on one occasion a large group of men had gather outside the public house encircling two men fighting each other with broken beer bottles. My father soon hurried me past this grisly scene. A duck pond was located at the College Road/Dulwich Common junction and we always had a small bag of breadcrumbs to feed the ducks. In the late 1940’s there was very little traffic at this junction but the last time I saw this location it was a major highway with high traffic volume and full of choking fumes.

Invariably our journey to the allotment was on a Saturday afternoon and on our route we passed the Dulwich Art Gallery and Dulwich College itself. As we passed the college, on the opposite side of the road, pupils from the college always seemed to be playing cricket on the sports field dressed in their immaculate white outfits.

Dulwich Toll-Gate by kind permission of dulwichonview.org.uk

When turning into Grange Lane I was always fascinated by a white fence and open gate that straddled the road. This was the Dulwich Toll and which I believe is the only toll gate left in London. Apart from there being little traffic at that time, very few vehicles used the toll road either. I did however see a few cars stop at the gate waiting for the toll keeper to come out of a nearby house before continuing on their way. It always made me wonder just how expensive in might have been to travel in days of old if one had to pay a toll fee at different locations throughout ones journey.

While my father tended his allotment the remainder of our family used to play. A little further up the hill where my fathers allotment was located were woods where we sometimes used to go to play. My father did tell us the woods were private but woods and children are drawn together like irresistible magnets. The allotment being on a hill that forms one side of the Thames Basin it was possible to see across the whole of London. My father used to point out salient landmarks of places which we did not know in our as yet young lives.

Set on the top of a hill in Carlton Avenue was the imposing structure of the church of St Barnabas where I was christened. I understand the church was completely destroyed by fire several years ago and wonder if my name on the christening scroll was destroyed as well. The church did not have a hall that was attached to the church but located in the village. My Granny took me to pantomimes held in this wooden hall at Christmas time. A line of large trees fronted the road between the hall and North Dulwich Railway Station all which had wide bands of white lines painted around them. In the recent war due to blackout regulations, these trees presented something of a hazard to drivers in the dark unable to use their headlamps. The painted white bands were an attempt to make the trees more visible in the dark. When I visited Dulwich a few years ago, the white bands had faded away with time. I did however inspect the trunks of a few trees closely and sure enough, little flecks of white paint still remain lodged in cracks of the bark to this day.

As I approached my fifth birthday my mother took me to be enrolled at the village school located at the junction of Turney Road/Dulwich Village. Although I only attended the school for a short time due to family circumstances, it is reassuring when looking on Google to see that the original building is still there.

On Sunday afternoons, we children went as a group to Sunday School at Herne Hill Baptist Church about a mile away. Most people did not have cars and even small children like ourselves were expect to walk as the norm. It was one of those Sundays that changed my family life forever. I remember at the school we baked tiny loaves of bread in a small oven and this I put in my pocket to proudly show my parents when we got home. Alas it was never to be. Even at that tender age we could all sense something was wrong when we arrived back at our strangely silent home. My parents obviously had a violent argument during our absence and I saw my mother sitting down crying unable to speak due to extensive dental injuries. It was a gut wrenching sight and one that it is not possible to deal with at such a young age.

The rest of the day was one of complete confusion as large numbers of strange people entered and left the house. I cannot remember who put me to bed or got me up again the next morning. All I know was I awoke to the rare site of a large black car outside our home waiting to take me and my younger brother to Waterloo Station and from there to an unknown children’s home where I would not see either of my parents for several months. After that I went to my dreaded maternal grandmothers home in Leyton.

As the car pulled away all I could see through the back window was my home and the only way of life I had known disappearing in the distance. In my pocket I still had the tiny loaf of bread I baked the day before. To this day, I sometimes wonder in reflection, if people or parents ever appreciate the damage they do to others with their petty squabbles.

 

Memories – 3


File:William Morris Gallery Walthamstow.jpg

id=”” align=”alignleft” width=”449″ caption=”William Morris Gallery – copyright David Gerard”

Life is something of a transient nature, nothing is permanent but ever-changing as we progress on our own personal journeys creating the history of tomorrow. We remember our childhood, our teen years, through to married life, middle age and if you are anything like myself, who has just touched the threshold of later life on reaching my 65th birthday, our thoughts turn to the next chapter awaiting to be written as it occurs.

As life changes, so does the environment we live in and Walthamstow is no exception to this. Although not quite in Walthamstow, I recall once seeing a series of photographs looking north,  taken of Leyton Green from High Road Leyton. Although I cannot remember the dates, the first photograph was taken in the late 1800’s and shows Leyton Green to be mainly open space. A few buildings at the top end of what is now Capworth Street can be seen. It is however the bend and line in the road that remains unchanged in each photograph which remains the same today. Over successive photographs, buildings arise obscuring the Capworth Street properties which were still there until recent re-development. What this series of photographs show is that out local environment is also of an ever-changing transient nature. A constant state of flux that goes unnoticed on a day by day basis. It is only memories or photographs that permanently capture the physical state of a location at any given period of time which hopefully will be passed onto future generations. Unfortunately, photographs rarely capture the essence of how life was, the public mood, practices or moral outlook of the time.

Although change occurs on a day by day basis, overall change mainly goes unseen if we live in a particular location. It is normally only those who occasionally visit a location after an absence of a few years that suddenly see changes to what their minds-eye and memories had anticipated.

It is possible however to still see a glimpse of how things looked in undeveloped sections of our shopping areas. Although shop fronts rapidly change as new products and traders seek to capture the public eye, the buildings above shop level rarely receive attention and frequently remain the same as when they were first built. Buildings above shop fronts can be compared to living photographs of our history. The next time you are in Hoe Street, the High Street or St James’ Street try to look at the scene from above ground level and a wonderful living history of Walthamstow, often unnoticed, will be revealed.

Although I no longer live in Walthamstow, the modern technology of Google Earth does present the opportunity to look at locations as they are today. It is possible to do a virtual walk around ones old haunts and reflect on changes and memories of times past.

I have been recalling some of the places and locations I either used to visit or that have substantially changed from what they used to be. None of which are in any particular time-frame order.

Jobstocks was a small business that attracted people from far and wide. Located at the St Mary Road/West Avenue Road junction, Jobstocks dealt exclusively with ex-army surplus equipment. Just as the handbag stalls in the street market seem to be honey-pot for attracting females, Jobstocks was a similar magnet almost exclusively the preserve of men. The windows were crammed full of what looked exotic equipment at the time, all normally coloured army olive-green or black. Switches, knobs and dials festooned most of the equipment, all of which engendered masculine thoughts of what I could do if only I had one of those.

The inside of the shop only sported a tiny space for customers to stand in front of the counter. The space being so small that two customers would form a crowd, both not daring to breathe in at the same time. There always appeared to be about three or four shop staff manning an equally small space on the opposite side of the counter, each one who would scurry away to rummage through vast unseen stock in back rooms to fulfil an order.  The remainder of the building including the back rooms appeared to sag under the voluminous weight of little brown boxes containing numerous unseen exotic items. It was not possible to even tell the content of the boxes as the labels only displayed WD markings and codes with an equally unintelligible abbreviated description of the contents.

I do not recall ever seeing the colour of the walls or even the walls themselves, as every square inch of the building was covered by waxy brown boxes stacked one atop of the other. I always felt certain the building would erupt like Vesuvius if it ever caught fire. No matter what one wanted, Jobstocks had it. Even if one did not really know what one wanted, it was only necessary to give a brief outline of  the task you wished to accomplish and a member of staff would soon find something that would do the job. Overall the shop always gave me a feeling of a subterranean cave full of goodies.

The thought often occurred to me why NASA spent billions of dollars putting a man on the moon? Possibly they were unaware that Jobstocks existed and could have supplied them with everything they needed. Looking at the building using Google Earth, it now appears to be a private dwelling with an upper floor seemingly to have been added to part of the building from what I recall.

In the early 1950’s car ownership was still something of a rarity. As a consequence the Bank Holiday traffic did not yet exist and frequently a family day out was much closer to home, sometimes almost on ones doorstep. It may be now difficult to visualise, but one such location people flocked to was the lake on Woodford New Road adjacent to the Rising Sun public house. An aerial view using Google Earth shows the lake to now be much smaller and giving the appearance of being no more than an overgrown bog. The lake was completely visible from the road but again it now appears to be completely obscured. However on summer weekends hundreds of people used to flock to this location. Deck chairs were available for hire as were rowing boats for use on the lake. Swimming and paddling were also popular features and a permanent refreshment kiosk selling teas, sandwiches and ice cream was located near the shallow sandy banks of the lake. This is a good example of the ever-changing and transient environment we live in that I mentioned earlier.

It was probably the coming of mass car ownership that sounded the death knell for the lake. People could now travel further afar to real sea-side resorts or the countryside. People simply stopped coming to this location and the boats, deck chairs and refreshment kiosk all disappeared without trace. The next time you have an opportunity to drive along Woodford New Road, spare a glance for the lake which may have gone unnoticed before. Try and visualise this sorry-looking bog which once rang to the sound of children’s laughter, sunbathers, swimmers and serene boating.

Close by to the Rising Sun lake and also part of Epping Forest was Whipps Cross Lido and the Hollow Ponds. The ponds originally created in 1905 as relief work for the unemployed and I believe the Lido may have been built about 1920 with the modern utilitarian look. During summer school holiday, large as it was the lido would be packed with swimmers and sunbathers. I do not recall any grass at the lido, just concrete which acted like a storage heater on hot summer days. Sailing model boats on the smaller of the Hollow Ponds was and I think still is a popular pastime, with boating on the large pond available for those is search of more tranquil and leisurely pursuits. Although the Hollow Ponds still remain, alas the lido fell victim to a combination of vandalism and falling numbers. Sadly the lido eventually closed and the land was returned to the forest.

I lived for some time near the Hoe Street/High Street junction before moving elsewhere in Walthamstow. Understandably I remember locations around that area reasonably well.

Selborne Park was my local playground and the park was divided into two sections separated by a long pathway lined with trees. One side of the park backed onto the library and old swimming baths and was also overlooked by the long closed Selborne Restaurant. This was the children’s side of the park with swings, roundabout and slide. A large grassed area also allowed a ball to be kicked about. As a child the slide seemed quite tall and was very slippery. On more than one occasion I got a sore bottom as I shot off the end of the slide and my backside made painful contact with the ground.

The opposite side of the park was for more sedate leisure activities. It contained a well manicured bowling green and an open air draughts board surrounded by wooden benches on three sides. Several huts around the perimeter allowed  shelter to usually elderly people, to while away the time with each other. Players moved the draught pieces using long wooden poles with flat bladed hooks fitted on the end. Flower beds adorned the outer perimeters of this section of park. Generally children were tolerated provided they were quiet and just watched the bowls or draughts. However children were never allowed to use the equipment. It really was a case of children should be seen and not heard in that section of park.

Alas with the redevelopment of the town centre the park had to go. The children’s side of the park is now a bus station and the adults side of the park is an open grassed area with pathways leading to and from the bus station and Selborne Walk Shopping Centre. The tree-lined pathway between both sections of park is the only feature to survive. I remember watching with great dismay the day a bulldozer tore up the bowling green.

The library still remains and from the outside looks unchanged but the adjoining swimming baths have long gone to be replaced by the new swimming pool in Chingford Road. I never used the new swimming pool but I do remember the old one quite well. A set of large permanently closed wooden doors separated a narrow walkway around one end of the swimming pool from the pavement of the High Street. The pavement was always wet at this location as dripping water from the wet feet and bodies of swimmers leaked under the door. Upper galleries with stepped seating ran along both sides of the pool but I never recall seeing the galleries in use. There were no real changing rooms just wooden cubicles with half height doors lining both sides of the pool. The cubicles allowed a view of changing bathers heads and feet. Females and males used the cubicles on different sides of the pool. I think one got about 45 minutes – 1 hour of swimming time for one’s money and although no tickets were used, our clothes were left in the small changing cubicles so attendants knew if anyone overstayed their time.

Opposite the swimming baths and library was the Congregational Church. This was set back a bit from the pavement of the High Street with a low boundary wall defining its perimeter. The entrance to the church had the fossilised remains of a tree trunk on display. I do not know the history of this tree trunk but I was always fascinated by this wood turned to stone feature. I believe the church once had a tall spire which was replaced by a more smaller squat shaped one more like a small circular roof. A pathway alongside the church led to a hall known as the Conway Hall. A youth club used these premises several times a week to play badminton. I went to the afternoon Sunday School at this church when I was young. I don’t think it was my mother caring so much for our moral upbringing, but more of a case of getting rid of the children for a bit of peace and quiet for a period of time.

Adjacent to the swimming baths and facing the High Street was an old school which housed the Youth Employment Service. I never really found out what this organisation actually did. A few months before I left school, I did receive a letter from the Youth Employment Service inviting me to attend an interview. When I arrived I was told by a smartly suited man sitting behind a desk in his office to “Find myself a job”. That was it, no advice, no nothing other than find myself a job. As job seeking was something I was already undertaking the advice seemed as pointless as the organisation itself. I am not certain if a Y.E.S. still exists but if it does, presumably they have changed their working methods from years ago.

Further down the High Street where Palace Parade now stands was the huge and towering edifice of the Walthamstow Palace. This was Walthamstow’s own theatre which had seen better days. I was  normally taken there by my mother during the pantomime season to watch a production. It always seemed to me that foreigners must have thought the English a very strange people with male actors dressing up as women and vice versa in a pantomime. I also recall seeing a production of a play called the Black Narcissus. The auditorium of the Palace Theatre was large but I always thought this monolith of a building looked a bit ominous when silhouetted against the skyline.

The shop I think I remember most in the High Street was Woolworth’s or to give its correct title blazoned on the outside of the building, F.W. Woolworth & Co.Ltd. Woolworth’s was located on the corner of Blackhorse Road and the High Street. The location of the building was the cause of an acute double bend between the Blackhorse Road/St James Street junction. The inside of this Woolworth’s was never subjected to the more modern and I think disastrous layout of its successor. This was full of long dark wooden counters everywhere, all manned by shop staff. Each counter was crammed full of the minutia of items needed for the everyday running of a household. This Woolworth’s always felt warm and welcoming. The big advantage of the low counters being it was possible to see from one side of the store to the other and I cannot but help think this is one things the planners got wrong in the new store.

An ironmongers shop used to be located in Hoe Street in the section between the High Street and Selborne Road. It was opposite a large Halfords cycle shop which Google Earth now shows to be a fruit and vegetable store. I cannot recall the name of the ironmongers, (possibly Colemans), but it was always manned by staff wearing long brown overall type coats. This was not a self-service shop but the staff were always quick and efficient locating ones requirements. I loved this shop and how I wish ironmongers of this type would return. Nails and screws were at that time sold by weight and not just a couple of nails in a cellophane packet. Normally one could buy a pound of nails quite cheaply and hear them clattering into the weighing scales. Normally the staff added an extra handful of nails just to ensure you were not short-changed. The inside of the store always had the aroma of oil and paraffin pervading the air. Paraffin was used a lot for heating prior to the wide scale introduction of central heating. One had to bring your own container and the paraffin dispenser in the shop was like two large one gallon glass jars encased in a metal box. One jar was always full and a hand crank was used to draw paraffin from an unseen reservoir into the empty glass jar. Graduation markings on the jar showed when the required amount had been reached and then by putting a hose into your fuel container, a valve was opened discharging the contents of the jar. As a firefighter I always though paraffin heaters were dangerous. Normally they worked well when new but neglect in maintenance over years of use caused problems. I unfortunately attended a number of incidents, some fatal, where paraffin heaters were involved. For some strange reason whenever paraffin heaters are mentioned, I always think of the “safe” indoor fireworks that were once advertised. As if there could ever be such a thing.

Further along Hoe Street at the junction with Orford Road was the Co-op department store. This was a veritable emporium of a store supplying everything necessary to furnish a home. I am not certain if it was at this store, but I seem to vaguely recall a system of wires running from counters to a central teller. Money would be placed in a metal container suspended on a tight wire. By pulling a lever a pinging noise was heard and the container shot along the wire over everyone’s heads to the teller. Change and receipts returned the same way. The  location of the store may seem a little strange being some distance from the street market but if one looks above shop level as I suggested earlier, the moulded relief near the roof shows the building was constructed in 1911. At that time the High Street market would not yet have developed to its full potential and the Hoe Street/Orford Road junction was an important crossroads leading to what is now known as Old Walthamstow.

Just across the old borough boundary of Lea Bridge Road  stood the Leyton Swimming and Slipper Baths in High Road, Leyton, the site of which now appears to be a large supermarket. Although I went swimming there on a number of occasions, my mother used to take me and my siblings there weekly when I was younger, to the slipper baths, when we lived with my grandparents in Leyton. I suspect the concept of slipper baths may seem a bit alien to a younger generation, but it should be remembered modern equipped bathrooms are still a recent historical development starting from about the 1960’s.

Much of the older housing stock prior to that time still had tin bath ablutions and outside toilets. Although I had always bathed in a tin bath prior to moving to my grandparents, with so many families living under the same roof, obtaining sufficient hot water let alone the tin bath was almost impossible. By comparison the Leyton slipper baths were pure luxury. For a small fee my mother would be handed a number of bath towels and we would enter a numbered tile lined cubicle with a voluminous enamel bath. There was a long line of these bath cubicles all in constant use. The bath had no taps only an outlet about the size of a drain pipe. An attendant who patrolled the corridor outside used a special key they carried to turn a tap outside the cubicle and fill the bath with hot water, a process that took less than a minute due to the size of the outlet. Prior to the slipper baths I had no experience of hot bath water completely covering my body as one had to make do with only a few inches of rapidly cooling water in a tin bath. Random calls from the cubicles resounded along the corridor for “More OT in number 4”. This was local vernacular language for more hot water in cubicle four.

The Vestry House Museum is a location I enjoyed visiting even with its creaking floorboards. My first visit was a school excursion and something of an eye opener. I find it surprising that little mention is every made in history programmes of the Bremer car at the museum which must be one of the earliest cars ever made. One room of the museum was converted into a Victorian parlour and it is amazing the amount of paraphernalia that was considered necessary for the well-to-do Victorian family to display. The thorough dusting of such a room and the laying of a coal fire must have taken some time and it is little wonder that so many maids were employed by those that could afford them. Sometimes I come across semi-historical objects in a museum that I have personal experience of using. It is on those occasions that I always realise just how much has changed in the world since my youth and that perhaps I may have reached my “sell by” date.

The other museum I liked visiting was the William Morris Gallery in Lloyd Park. I always found it fascinating to try to visualise the view from the house as it would have been in William Morris’s day. Splendid laid out gardens which now form the back bone of the park with much of the housing and shops in Forest Road yet to be built. I imagine the view in the mid 1850’s would have been of pleasant rolling fields leading uphill to Walthamstow Village. Although William Morris was a socialist, he certainly knew how to live in opulent style.

I suppose in about another 60 years or so, Walthamstow will have donned yet another new face as the relentless change we call progress continues ever onwards. There is probably a small child already living somewhere in this north-east London community who in future years will put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, or even more likely just their thoughts which will automatically appear in electronic form. What ever the method of committing ones thoughts to the media, those words will probably start, “I remember Walthamstow when…………”.


Roger King who worked in Coulston’s, the ironmongers shop I mentioned above, and also its sister shop, Cole and Deakin located towards the S James Street end of the High Street, kindly sent me his memories of working in both shops.

 

“I started working in the ironmongers shop ‘Cole and Deakin’ at the St James Street end of the High Street as a Saturday boy in 1957. I enjoyed the work so much I took on a full time job working for the boss, Douglas Cole after leaving William Elliot Whittingham school in 1958.

It was a family company registered as H.J.Cole and Son (Ironmongers) Ltd.

The company also had the branch at 220 Hoe Street, R.F.Coulston, a tool specialist, selling top quality branded tradesman’s tools.

As with tradition, the High Street shop was old, dingy and very cold during the winter months. I was the paraffin boy measuring the smelly liquid into 1 gallon measuring cans and pouring it into customers own carry home cans. This was before the automatic vending machines that you very accurately described in your article. Aladdin Pink was the brand. Another rather lucrative side of the business was the general overhaul and cleaning of paraffin heaters..As to the loose nails, I wouldn’t mind a penny for each time that a nail made my fingers bleed. No work gloves in those days.

Over the next five years or so I studied retailing in the tool and hardware industry and eventually became manager of the Hoe Street shop.

Why the High Street shop had Grey coats and the Hoe Street shop had Brown coats was a mystery to me. One of my first management decisions was to have all staff in Grey coats. Good decision, the staff enjoyed the change.

By the early 70s, the two old shops were looking very tired and needed modernising, and so over a 12 month period each shop was closed for a short time, while the buildings were gutted and a new shop front and internal fittings installed. The trading name of both shops was changed to ‘Coles of Walthamstow’

I thought the change was a bit of a shame as the tradition had been lost, however retailing was changing, pre packaged goods were coming in, everything was hanging on hooks, gone was the advice that we gave to our customers, we just became till operators.

I stayed with the company for 23 years,”

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