The Upminster Years 1949 - 1953

Dad got a mortgage for a new house in Lingfield Avenue, but became ill with Polio during these years. Mum tried to pay the bills by working in a telephone exchange in London. I was five when we left Upminster, Bob was three.

Lingfield Avenue was only partially built when we moved in. The south end was nearing completion, and down the hill, Derby Ave was a building site. Although we had a lot of freedom to roam, we were not allowed to go near the building works.

Dad in Demob Suit.

Part of these works must have required a crane which was parked on a field at the south end of Derby Ave. It was very attractive to kids who would climb all over it. Rumour had it that some kids were playing on the jib when it collapsed and one lad was crushed to death.

First memory: I'm at nursery while Mum commutes to her job, I'm very young and in a pram - one of those big upholstered ones, it's a sunny afternoon and I've been put out in the sun for an afternoon nap. The bedding smells sweet and I am so, so, cosy.

I'm very small and sleeping in bed between Mum and Dad when I have a nightmare. I wake crying, sure that there was a gnome sitting on Mum's head. Somehow, in the semi-darkness, I'd transposed a picture of me that was on the opposite wall, onto Mum's head.

I'm playing in the street and desperately trying to fit Dad's bricklaying trowel through a drain.

Bob and I find a hoard of model ships in a pile of sand up the road. Lovely models of battleships, about 6 inches long down to much smaller destoyers. They were abandoned, so we thought to give them a good home. When we presented them to Mum she told us to take them straight back, I argued that someone else would steal them, but she was adamant. Ever so reluctantly we put them back where we found them and never saw them again.

Jibbling - an old Irish word for mucking about with water. I often stood on chair at the sink pouring water from jugs to bottles and vice versa. Great fun. Only this time, I dropped the bottle, it broke, and as I tried to catch it, cut my thumb quite badly and ended up in hospital. I can remember the smell of hospital, it's not the same these days, but if ever I get a whiff of something similar, it takes me right back to that night. I don't remember the pain until days later when they took the dressing off. The gause they used had congealed with the blood, and after a few attempts to be gentle, the nurse just ripped it off. I cried a lot. I stiil have the scar and if I hit the inside of my thumb at a certain point, my thumb goes numb.

After Dad came out of hospital, he got involved with TV repairs. As a result we had one of the first televisions in the area. We had an 8 x 6ft shed outside and it was shelved on both sides floor to ceiling with TV's, together with boxes of valves (the old thermionic tubes) and other paraphanalia.

What a constitution my Dad must have had. After months in hospital and told he would never walk again, I remember sitting on the handlebars of his bike as he rode up the Hill to Lingfield Avenue.

We were able to watch the old cowboy movies - Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, Hoppalong Cassidy. We had a green sofa with a deep back which Bob and I used as a horse. We rode many a mile on that sofa, whipping the horse to go faster and digging in spurs. I could ride to the side to avoid Indian arrows and sometimes fell off when getting a bit too low.

Mum and Dad had a wind up gramophone - not the ordinary kind - this was a big, highly polished floor standing unit which played 78 rpm records using a needle. I became a dab hand at changing the needle when it became too blunt to work properly. My first record was 'The Ballad of Davy Crockett' which had a light blue label. I used to like another record called 'The Bluebell Polka'. Of course I remember the HMV labels - His Masters Voice - with the gramophone and the dog.

We were able to go almost anywhere in those days, so we were at the brook which still runs near our house. Bob was very young then, and fell in head first, I dragged him out by the scruff of the neck.

Bob & Me

I went to school briefly over the bridge across the brook. I don’t remember much about the school apart from a large airy classroom with lots of pictures on the wall, and tripping over and head butting a wall, which drew blood and hurt a lot.

Travelling to Dagenham by train to visit Grandad Simmonds and Nanny. They lived in Hedgemans Rd. Looking out of the train windows to watch the fields, cows and allotments which seemed to border the track.

Me in the garden at Hedgemans Road

Coming out of railway station and crossing the bridge where there was a ramshackle hut which was a bakery that carried that delicious aroma of freshly baked bread and cakes. I’ve always thought it was Upminster Station but I can’t recognise any features on Google maps.

Entering the platform of a station where a huge main-line locomotive was stopped, gently chuffing away, when without warning, the driver vented a great cloud of steam – just like the end of The Railway Children. The noise was so loud it scared the life out of me. I cried. Despite that, I’ve always had a love of anything steam driven.

Remember, I'm no more than five years old, and I cook Mum and Dad breakfast in bed. They were both asleep at the time when I cooked them porridge, standing on a chair to reach the oven. It was almost perfect, just a tad too much salt - well - a lot too much salt. It was inedible, but really looked good.

I'm getting my hair cut. The barber would put a board across the arms of the chair and I would sit on that to get to the right height. Suddenly we hear this horrible screeching sqealing sound from outside and rushed to the door. When I was finished, Mum took us up the road past Upminster Bridge, and there, on the other side of the road was a lorry with one wheel missing. There was a lady laid out on the pavement with blood on her face and someone had covered her with a blanket. Apparently, a wheel had come off this lorry and rolled down the road, onto the pavement and hit the lady. I heard later that she had died.

I'm on a trike pedalling down the hill from the mill. The wall on the side of the pavement is made of irregular shaped coke - very popular back then for it's varigated colours of black, yellow and shades in between. No doubt going to fast and oblivious to calls from Mum to slow down, I lose control as the road curves round and take off umpteen layers of skin from my right had as I graze the wall.

The Queens Coronation: We went to Dagenham where Coleman Rd was closed off and tables were placed down the centre of the road. Everybody took food and drink so that a great feast was had by everybody. Lots of Union Jacks and red, white and blue bunting all along the street. We all got a coronation mug.

I'm very small, Grandad is coming down the stairs in Hedgemans Road and we talk. He holds out his hand and shows me his hand with one finger missing. I'm frightened by it and he laughs at my fear. It's one of my few memories of Grandad. I found out later that he lost that finger on the Somme in 1916 - a bullet shattered the butt of his rifle during an advance, and it wasn't till later that he realised his finger went with it. How I wish I could go back and ask all the questions I have for him now.