From Barry Brown....................Kent...............9th July 2010

Hi,

Love the website! Well done for taking the time to build it.

Initially I was researching a model railway idea for photos of the section of Barking station where the Blackhorse Road overground station connected (before they closed the real Queen's Road and renamed Blackhorse Road).
(It is now two separate words Black Horse.) [Richard]

I was born at 208 Brettenham Road in June 1964. It's one of the block of Warner Estate maisonettes built after dear Adolf flattened a range of the original 1900s houses with an aerial mine.
At that time Walthamstow was in the County of South West Essex, and that's what my birth certificate says. When I get told of about my driving then I tell them "it's because I'm an Essex man".
My later father was an electronics engineer working for Stanwood Electrical who had the corner shop on the crossroads at the bottom of Chingford Mount Road. It was the one on the left heading down the Mount towards the Crooked Billet.
My mother worked for a while in the DECCA record factory behind the Crooked Billet before having my brother and I. Occassionally she would help out at her Aunt's transport café in Queens Rd near the coal yard.
In those days we used to walk just about everywhere and thought nothing of walking to my Uncle's doctor surgery near Chingford railway station and or down to Grandparents near St.James St railway station. If we were a bit flush that month we used the #69 bus as a treat. How many people jump in their car for this now?
Seeing the photos on the website brought it all back to me.
* Chapel End Infant & Junior schools.
* The bus garage near the swimming baths (another treat if we could afford it)
* Lloyd's Park backed onto our garden so in effect I had the whole park and the pond to play with
* The Warner Estate maintenance man pushing his handcart around the streets repairing properties and repainting houses day in - day out. You'd have thought that was a job for life in those days
* Homework done in the library at the end of Brettenham Road instead of copying it off the internet
* Walthamstow Avenue F.C.
* We used to take part in flower shows at the "Davis & Timmings Turned Screw Parts Co" in Billet Road or in the hall behind St.Johns church. Hours were spent preparing the chrysanthemum heads with cotton buds so that the reflex leaves looked even all over...
* When the wind was in the wrong direction you could smell what sweet flavourings were being made at the Bush, Boak & Allen site further down Billet Rd. Or even the paint being used to make the toys cars at the Britains factory
* Coppermill Lane was one particular haunt, remembering to duck your head as you rode a push bike through the 4 foot headroom tunnel
* My Nan's house was near Essex Rd and I used to play in the park there. The entrance gates were just to the left of the arch shown in your pictures. The access road ran down to the pavillion and playing fields behind and the dare used to be to walk across the black sewer pipe over the stream without falling into the mud. We knew to stay away from the big storm drains though! The spinney of trees next to the pavilion was great for a game of soldiers
* Testing the 4-minute warning sirens each month. Our nearest one was mounted on a huge mast at the Crooket Billet bus terminus. The one that used to be outside the pub that is now an underpass. I was only 6 at the time and thankfully never understood the problems of Cold Wars and Cuba.
* And I vaguely remember going up to the Lord Mayor's show and Oxford St shopping and seeing the last of the steam trains at Liverpool St station but I would only have been about 3 1/2 thenso it's a very vague memory.
* Apparently they used to put fog warning caps on rails in bad weather. As the train came down the line it used to alert the station master and afterwards the porter would have to go and fit a new set. Mother says you used to be able to lay in bed (Clacton Road) and hear the trains going up & down the line in the morning by the small explosions.

Well I eventually met a lady who became my wife - I moved to Kent to be with her. And the vicar who marrried us.......................grew up as a barrow boy in Selbourne Rd. It's a small world indeed.

I often felt I was born in the wrong era and would have preferred growing up in the 50s.
I returned to Walthamstow 2 summers ago for a day. On reflection I think I was right. But that could also be because I've become accustomed to a more rural lifestyle.

Regards,
Barry

From Gilly Bowes...............Woodford...................8th July 2010

Hi Richard,
Just found your site - I also lived in Theydon St from 1955 until 1971.

I am trying to find out if anyone remembers the alleyway along Walthamstow High Street that had a little sort of club-house where I used to go to for ballroom dancing. It is really driving me mad, as most of my old friends from that area think I am mistaken (I am not that senile yet).
I think it was somewhere near Grubby's veg stall and Sainsburys. It was not down the allleyway with cobbled stones and the little book shop.

Help please. I love your site it brings back great memories.
Thanks for your time,
Gilly

Problem Solved! It is the Buxton Club by the side of Sainsbury's. Had a reconnoitre on Saturday afternoon and found it. Gilly can now sleep at night! Click here for photo. (Richard)

From John Stott......................York......................17th May 2010

Hello there!
Thank heavens someone else remembers 'Billy Bean and his machine'..came across your site when I put Billy Bean into Google (The things that it can find!)

I am also 1946 vintage and live in York. We got our first TV set in 1956 just as ITV opened for the north of England (I remember the Mayor of Leeds standing on the Town Hall steps and switching ITV on), so guess the Billy Beans I saw were re-runs about 1956...Also remember Muffin the Mule, Mr Turnip, a hand puppet called Hank. Oh, and puppet theatre with a dragon called Pongo.

I've been searching out early ITV stuff also...The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (can still sing the opening song), The Buccaneer, The Invisible Man (1958, a favourite of mine), have found the opening theme for this on youtube, along with a whole host of other early TV stuff...do you remember BBC Television Newsreel? With the words going round the aerial and that wonderful marching tune, The Girls in Grey? Well look on youtube, and into the search slot type 'BBC News and Newsreel 1954.

What about 'I Married Joan'...again early 1950s BBC...remember that? With doorbell notes at the beginning . I've been watching parts of some episodes on you tube, and they are wonderful. It all comes flooding back..
Well, I think that will do for now, just good to know I didn't imagine Billy Bean, When I've asked friends of my age no one seems to remember him - but I do, including that silly bird that laid the egg!

Best Wishes...John.

From Alex Gordon....................18th January 2010

Richard,
Sitting with a friend who was born in Thorpe Coombe Hospital, lived in Chelmsford Road and attended Thomas Gamuel school Walthamstow, I fell upon your Walthamstow Memories, almost by chance. Whilst I was born at Hollybush Hill, Wanstead, just 3 houses outside the London boundary, and therefore, do not have any claim to domicile in Walthamstow, I was struck to find that we had just the slightest common ground.

In 1959, I started my working life at the Gaumont (née Savoy) Cinema, at the junction of Markhouse Road, Leabridge road, and Church road. However, by then I was already familiar with the area, and can recall the 581, 555, 557 and 661 trolleybuses running along Leabridge road: that familiarity being due to paying frequent visits to my father's garage located down the hill. Before my time, it had been the home of his private bus fleet, but nationalisation led to a change of use, and it went over to selling petrol, and repairing and servicing cars. The garage occupied the entire block of land between Flempton road and Belvedere road, and the building was reconstructed in the mid-50's to provide extra space for showrooms, parts store and a larger workshop. Eventually, the parts store was relocated into the vacated Liden Whitewood building, across Flempton road.
Several of the staff working in the garage lived locally, and I recall a father and son, named "Critchley" were living in HItcham road.

One of the customers at the garage was the Reverend Fox, and having heard that I was learning to play the organ at my school in Norfolk, allowed me to practise on the organ at the Emmanuel Church. I was told that he was a frequent customer of the Hare and Hounds immediately opposite the church, and he had at some time, made the comment that he felt it worth spending time with the sinners as well as with the good! Very conveniently, a zebra crossing was placed between them, so crossing from church to pub and back was made considerably safer!
If you were living in Hitcham road between the 1950's and mid-1960's we might well have seen each other!

Kindest Regards,
Alex Gordon

Followed by,

Of course, Walthamstow was on the shopping charts, as we bought a lot of our clothing in the High Street on Saturday afternoons. Shoes from Continental Shoe shop, and silk chokers from a stall.
I wonder if your father and mine were acquainted? My father (whose name was Alfred Sneiman, incidentally) had started by buying one bus, and then built the business up so that more staff were required, and they were all from the local area, I am sure. He called his business "Gordon Omnibus Company", and it was located at 219 Leabridge road.

After the buses were nationalised, many of his staff, went over to the new national bus company "General". Would your father, possibly have been amongst them? I did meet one such driver, when I called in at the confectionery shop at the top of the hill, more or less opposite the Gaumont, and the shop owner recognised me (I can't imagine how) and introduced himself as having worked with my father.

My friends in Hitcham road lived just along from the Emmanuel Church, and there were no houses on the other side of the road where Liden were located. However, further along the road there was a righthand bend, and as I recall, there were then houses on both sides.

Opposite the Gaumont was "Rolo for Records", then Marston and Heard, an excellent photographic shop and film processor, and then the London Coop dairy shop. A few more shops followed, but I really do not remember what they were. I do recall "Roma Cafe" on the other side of the road, next to the Westminster Bank on the corner of Markhouse Road, and have long puzzled why the light green marble facia was identical to that of the "Ferrari Cafe" at the Baker's Arms, which I understand, my father frequented, more than my mother liked!.

In answer to the query one of your contributors posed: the cinema at Chingford Mount was an Odeon, and it was equipped with BTH Supa projectors and Projectomatic control system. It was a very smart, stylish cinema as most of the original Odeons were.

Kindest Regards,
Alex