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Barclays used to be at in the Dr’s surgery on the corner of SGR and Hanley while the Midland used to be in the building where the Chinese clothes and massage place opposite the end of Lorne Rad.
But here's a little tid-bit for you.
My way to the library from Florence Road once I had became a steam train enthusiast was via a path that ran from Dagmar Road to Quernmore Road parallel to the main line railway. (i'll tell more about this later) - but I remember distinctly coming out of the pathway in I suppose (without going into research) February 1951 and seeing a news placard outside the newsagent's shop near the library with the words written very big 'The King is Dead'.
Before I go further I'd like to tell you a few general things.
Most people had only the clothes they had on their backs. Us schoolchildren were supposed to have a uniform, if I recall correctly the colours were red and green stripes. Shirts had to last a week, there were even those who had their mothers turn the shirts inside -out for a further week. Underclothes were changed on Sundays - that is Saturday night was bath night. The tin bath would come out, the kettle and all available pans would go on the stove and everyone would have a bath. I had to go into the front room while my parents bathed (one after another of course - the bath was only small). Then it was my turn and afterwards clean pyjamas were issued. This state of affairs went on quite a long time as money was scarce in most families.
There was one really hilarious incident. Rowing boats were cheap on the lake in Finsbury Park simply because the cost coud be shared between for. And there was an island in the middle of the lake (I assume there still is), well this was like Treasure Island for us, if we rowed round the back we couldn't be seen from the boathouse and we kept our eyes open for park attendants. We liked to chase the ducks on the island and get them flying madly away. On the shore there was a large over-the-water-hanging willow tree. One day, as we were passing underneath this tree one of the lads (C) stood up and grabbed an overhanging branch, this was the signal for the two rowers to accelerate and C was left dangling in the air above the water. To keep it short - he fell in and went to wait in the island until we turned around and picked him up. Of course he went home wet. Well, he always wore a grey coat and grey trousers. But for two or more days he didn't come to school. When he did he was wearing what appeared to be new clothes, when remarked upon he admitted that the clothes weren't new - they had been dry-cleaned and so showed their original colour. !!! That's how things were.
On a Sunday most children went to Sunday School, I went to the baptist Church in Stapleton Hall Road - what I do remember is the harvest service and the masses of fruit, corn and vegetables piled up to show the 'goodness of the lord'!.
I only had one pair of shoes. Unfortunately the school expected us to play football on some Wednesday sport afternoons and dad would go mad when he saw the state my shoes were in. But he repaired all the family shoes himself. He had a shoe jack, you don't see them now I suppose - it was an L-shaped iron foot which he put on the chair between his legs and set to work. He simply bought squares of rubber (for this purpose) or leather - depending. Then he'd remove the worn-out soles and heels, on the stove he had a pot of glue bubbling away for this purpose too. He'd then cut the rubber for the soles and heels roughly into shape, glue and nail them to the shoes, wait until the glue was dry and then simply trim the edges around the shoe until the job was finished. If he used leather he had a special shoe dye to soak into the leather until everything was black again. easy isn't it!
I live at that end of Regina and recognised the roof of the now Dairy but am so late to the thread that I didn't get in in time to say so and wouldn't have wanted to steal anyone's thunder...
Incidentally the cost nowadays is £5, or £1.25 each if you're in a four.
My girlfriends granddad was a POW in in Japan during WW2 and he has all his diaries still in tact along with almost everything of any significance in his life documented such as his first car receipt, old driving licenses and even a letter to his wife from the King saying he was dead! Imagine the shock/joy when he turned up 3 years later.
It's amazing for us to be able to understand what life was like and to appreciate the sacrifices made at the time. As a child of '77 modern society is all I've known. I'm humbled by some of the stories I've heard and welcome anyone with similar memories to share them with us all.
1947 was a year that entered the annals of the meteorologists because we had a very hot summer and a very cold winter with masses of snow. Quite honestly I can't remember the snow but the summer was a sizzler. In fact it was a year that became famous for its wines as the heat was all over Europe.
No-one could sleep, you could toss and turn all night without pyjamas and just with a thin sheet but it was to no avail. Everybody had all windows and doors open, in the evening everybody was outside sitting on the garden walls. The ladies often just in bras and shorts/knickers/slips - and the men strpped to the waist; there was no money for bathing costumes (and for what)! But there was a good neighbourly atmosphere and we all had the feeling that things would only be getting better.
Water was a problem. As it didn't rain and as there were no real reserves the taps were dry. The council had no other choice than to send tankers filled with water around the streets and all families would come out with vessels of all kinds including the Saturday-night tin-baths. The amount of water you could have was free but was rather restricted to the amount you could actually have standing around at home on the floor in vases, jugs, pails and so on. This water also had to be used to rinse the toilets so going down to the street with a couple of bottles didn't really sort any problems!
We children were as brown as berries, in fact part of the problem about sleeping was the fact that we played outside until late in the evening and then overheated and still excited were supposed to drop into bed and sleep.
We are talking about the time of the Ally-Pally Push and Pull.
The steam locomotives were a source of great pleasure (for us children) simply because the glowing ashes and coals they spewed out of the funnels set the embankement on fire, the grass being so dry. At times it was so bad the fire brigade were called out - the problem of course was water. If those of you who live on the ex-railway side of Florence Road go to the end of the back garden and look over the garden wall you may well see a ditch. In the 40s and 50s this was filled with water, the run-off from the embankement. This rest water was quickly used up by the fire brigade so basically they were left with no other choice than to try to beat out the fire by hand using any available instrument.
In about early September the heat came to an end with a massive thunderstorm. The whole of Florence Road was flooded, deepest on the Lorne/Marquis Road side, we went wading in bare feet thankful to at last have cold weather.
We were often in Finsbury Park and because of the heat mainly down by the New River, it was fairly shallow and because of the water shortage very slow-moving, so we'd climb over the fence and dip ourselves in it with one eye open for the Park wardens, who, dressed in brown suits were immediately distuingishable from all others.
You will all know that Alexandra Palace was, at that time, already sending out TV programmes - next time I'll tell you how our family became the first to have a TV in the home.
How little has changed - sounds like the seating area outside the White Lion of Mortimer on a sunny day
I know it's difficult to imagine today but Florence Road was virtually and empty road, even in about 1948 there was only one car parked and one motorbike with sidecar. Some deliveries were made by horse and cart and a vehicle was so seldom that we could play football in the road without having to stop or move out of the way.
I'm telling you this because even then, when the whole area was car- free Alexandra Palace was sending out a TV programme.
I doubt that we knew this, no-one had a set and no-one ever mentioned anything about it.
Until Dad said he was going to build a set himself.
Drawings appeared, blueprints as they were then called, and Dad sat down to list what he needed. In those days radios and Tvs consisted of valves, tuners, transformers, resistances, cathode ray tubes and a host of other things which you don't hear of today.
The first thing he came home with was a large sheet of aluminium about 3mm thick. He then scored it on one side at all edges then cut the corners and bent the al. so that the result looked like the lid of a box. This was the chassis. He then, according to the plan, bored all the holes and inlets needed. Don't forget there were no home electric drills, so he had two hand drills, one for small holes and one for larger. Both drills had a 'chest rest' so that you could put pressure on the drill by pressing onto it. But the large holes he needed were larger than the bits so he filed these holes out...
Once the chassis was ready he started to shop for all the pieces he needed, the purchase of these was restricted to what he could afford at any given time but it slowly went ahead. In the evenings he'd clear the kitchen table and start soldering all the wires onto all the parts. I can remember the day he came home with the cathode tube. It was a 9" screen and had a length of about 18 inches. Once he had soldered everything together he proudly stood up (it was evening) and said 'finished' . He plugged it in to the mains and in short after juggling about with the ariel we found ourselves amazingly watching tv from Ally Pally. I think there was about two hours of TV per evening. As far as I can remember it was mainly news and music hall and each evening started of with a picture of Ally Pally radiating waves from the large antenna on the roof.
Afterwards he went down to the shops and came home with a large piece of thick plywood, this was for the cabinet and he made this too all by hand. The joins were dovetailed, each cut perfectly, the cabinet when finished was then stained and then french polished. The chassis was fitted into the cabinet, bakelite knobs were added a piece of silk cloth glued over the loudspeaker hole and our TV was finished!
As you can imagine it was quite a sensation and there was a stream of neighbours all wanting a view and in the end all wanting him to build one for them too. For a while he did this but then slowly Tvs came onto the market, the main make was 'Pye' - they were somewhere (Ilford?) along the Southend Arterial Road (as it was then called) and he was often called upon to repair these sets which got on our nerves at home because the kitchen table was permanently occupied in the evenings and at weekends.
I live at 80-something Florence Road, backing onto the Parkland Walk. I've often wondered if any photos exist of the train taken from one of the back gardens. I've not found any to date.
I should add that when having a new lawn laid a year or so ago, we came across a large immovable metal object in the ground - given the history of the area, we decided to leave well enough alone...
There were two trains running to Finsbury Park, just backwards and forwards with the engines always at the same end (hence Push and Pull). They had only two carriages and the engines were N2 class. At that time anyone who had a camera had a Kodak Box camera. The problem was the cost of film and the cost of processing the photo's.
If you go into the website of the Hornsey Historical Society you'll maybe find out more.
The large immovable object you left alone in your garden was probably an old Anderson shelter. We had one in 'our' back garden. They were dug into the ground and roofed over as a place to go when the sirens went, ours stayed in place at least until 1952/3 when we moved.
The real economic upsurge in the UK took place in the 50s. The post -war 40s were, I suppose, rather boring. There was a lot of poor people, a lot of men who were war-injured; - legs, arms , eyes lost. Of course you don't see them today because they are all dead. But it was normal then and as children we didn't think much about it.
In Finsbury Park, by the lake, there was (maybe there still is) a cafeteria. This cafeteria sold Wall's Ice Cream in big chunks between two wafers. It also sold Tizer (the appetiser!), a fizzy drink with a special taste. We took real pleasure in dropping great clods of ice cream into a glass of Tizer, waiting until the ice cream had melted a little then gobbling it out with a spoon!
In about 1946/7, all schoolchildren in London were told to bring a small bowl to school. A ship had docked in the Port of London filled with a cargo of cocoa and the government had decided to buy the cargo and let it be distributed to all the schools in London. We all went home one day with about five tablespoons of cocoa in our bowls. The advice given was to mix it with the same amount of sugar and eat it just like that, which we did. It was absolutely delicious!!! We still didn't know how bananas, pineapples and other tropical fruit tasted. In about 1948 we had a chicken for Christmas dinner. Unbelievable!
I'd just like to say that during the late 80s my wife and I had chicken in a small restaurant in Greece. After the first bite or two I had to put my knife and fork down because I could again taste the chicken of 1947. The stuff called chicken that we have today is a tasteless, factory mush.
I was fortunate in that I had a lot of friends who were interested in a lot of things. We evolved together with stamp collecting, chess, model making, cubs and boy scouts, playing football, cricket and hockey in the road, collecting train numbers, occasionally going to the Arsenal stadium on Saturdays - 9d to get in and sit virtually on the touchline! Until the moment came when, one after another, we started to get bikes.
Most bikes were made from frames collected from a junk heap, bombed-sites or back gardens, wheels swapped or begged for, any sort of saddle available, and most of the bikes at the beginning were fixed-wheel, that is no gears but just a direct drive. This fixed wheel drive was also the brake(s), so when you put pressure on to stop pedalling the bike stopped too - in relation to your speed and the strength of one's legs!
We had a new freedom and a chance to go on discovery trips - places we'd never been to before; Hackney marshes, Epping Forest, Broxbourne, Geoff's Oak, Cuffley, are some of the places that come to mind. And we discovered something else; there was a pet shop in Camden Town who's owner had a good market for grass snakes. So, at the end of June we'd ride out to Cockfosters (the bikes by the way were slowly getting better) each with a couple of dried-milk tins with holes punched in the lids - mothers of babies could get dried milk on the National Health - go to a small brook we had discovered to be full of snakes in late June/early July, catch one or two then ride back to Camden Town and sell them for 5 shillings in this shop.
Life was slowly turning into a real adventure and the introduction of pocket money created opportunities almost unheard of.
How many many legs do you have? My grandpa had only one. He lost the other in the war. A tank fell off the Vickers production line in Leeds where he worked. As a kid I used to greet him by giving him a quick kick on the shins to see if his leg had grown back. I invariably kicked him on the wrong (real) leg.
Plus, it is very interesting.
Maybe in these days of electronic entertainment when no-one really bothers about the world outside it is difficult to imagine or concieve of a world where things only got done by making an effort. But that's what we did and it has remained with me for all these years as something very valuable.
Enough said. Busby.
I think I speak for most people on here in saying that your posts are some of the most readable and informative threads on the board. The nature of this type of board is that anyone can make a comment whether it is relevant or not and sometimes this can divert from the thread. Please dont take any notice of such diversions and keep coming out with your memories.
Keep up the good work.