A Million Miles from a Game of Football

 I wrote this, about 'My Home Town' for Mearns Writers in April/May 2019 in response to a homework prompt.  Little did I know how much of it I would want to use less than three months later, for Mums Eulogy.  I will post the Eulogy separately.  I travelled to London on June 18th, following a call for 'all family recommended to come soon'.  

Wembley, 1966

Wembley is a suburb without obvious boundaries. It sprawls inelegantly in many directions, with arms and legs flailing like an octopus after an electric shock.  Bookended by two ugly flat top ‘municipal’ style comprehensive schools – Copeland at its North-West end, and Alperton, still clinging gamely to its Wembley Grammar past, at the South.

            I moved there, to a semi on a tree lined cul-de-sac in the newly established district of Barham, in the summer of 1966.  Nestling a little uncomfortably between central Wembley, Alperton and Sudbury, the houses, their attached garages and gardens front and rear, grew between the old villages, between the wars.  New rooftops diminished the horizon, eating further into greenfield spaces almost daily.  In these new ‘des. res.’, with their alpine chalet styled eaves and wooden porches, upwardly mobile inhabitants stirred tea and browsed their G-Plan and Habitat catalogues from behind starched nets.

What little remained of the grand homes of the once prosperous Horsenden rural township would soon fall under the developer’s bulldozers, the long-lawned horse-chestnut lined frontages giving way to the swarm of Metroland. 

I was eight, coming up nine and the activities of the World Cup was a world away – at least three miles. My world consisted of a new baby brother, a new primary school, new friends and an enormous park at the end of our street, after No’s 27 and 28.  One Tree Hill (re-named on 16^th October 1987 as ‘None-Tree Hill!) stretched for about a mile and a quarter, bounded by more new schemes and a few rows of old farm workers cottages that still signalled their ownership by the colour of their matt paintwork.

My new life, during those summer holidays of anticipation, exploration and trepidation, was defined by habit.

Monday was bed change day, so a trip to the launderette was in order. Mum never learned to drive, so we walked the circular mile and a half or so to the parade of shops in the middle part of the Ealing Road.  Ealing Road stretched for about two and a half miles from end to end, and was liberally dotted with small shopping parades.  While the two loads swished and then tumbled, mum would buy the Woman’s Weekly and cigarettes at the newsagent next door.  The washing was transported in stiff folding bags, and stowed on the rack under the pram.  There wasn’t much room for other shopping, but we would head north up Ealing Road and call in to the Library to feed my developing habit. The fruit bowl would be topped up after a stop at Peter’s, apples, pears, oranges and bananas.  Exotics, like peaches, strawberries and cherries would be looked forward to seasonally, since we had come up in the world.  Then we would walk back along Chaplin Road, round past the old people’s home where I might be allowed to walk along the low wall, then home.  Dinner would be leftovers from the Sunday Roast: shepherd’s pie, cottage pie or cold chicken with boiled potatoes and salad.

Tuesdays, I might play in the garden and entertain the baby while mum and gran ironed sheets and shirts and ‘smoothed’ other clothing and placed them in the airing cupboard. In the afternoon, mum would do dad’s business accounts and invoices and I would help gran bake, or knit and sew alongside her. The baby would sleep in his pram.  Dinner was probably casserole or a cheesy vegetable flan.

Wednesdays was play day.  We would cut through the corner of our park and out past those still grand houses to Barham Park. Unlike ours, which was just grass and trees with one enclosed children’s playground area, Barham was the old estate grounds, with colourful ever-changing flower beds that sloped towards the road.  There was a pond, and another library, especially for children, housed in the grand mock Tudor hall.  We would then walk along the Harrow Road towards the High Street/Ealing Road junction where the real buzz of shops began, picking up a few essentials.  Dinner was salad.  And something.

Thursday was one of the two main shopping expeditions of the week, back to the exciting and busy junction.  Fresh vegetables, collected in the wheelie trolley, because we left the baby with gran.  We shopped at Coopers at the top of Ealing Road, loading up with potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, swede (or peas or broad beans or runner beans), apples, pears and bananas. We could, on occasion, have our fruit and veg bagged and totted up by Good ‘Ole ‘enery (Cooper) himself, though more often it was his brother or the wives who managed the shop daily.  Codeine pills, maybe some bubble bath and jars of Heinz baby foods might be bought from the chemist shop, where later, both me and my mum would work.

Shop fronts were dull, standardised.  Low brick or concrete clad wall, windows with a display shelf well above my eye level and wide heavy wooden painted frames.  The fishmonger was white and blue, the greengrocer, green and the butcher red.  Most other shops were brownish or greyish, often looking in need of some touching up, and most of them had been there, handed down families, for several generations.

There was a covered market just down Lancelot road, that formed the final arm of the cross roads. We would visit several of the regular stalls. Sweeties, not to be consumed until the next day, baking goods and the second hand book stall were my favourite. 

On one corner was Rumbles, the school outfitters (I think they sold gentlemen’s shirts and ladies night dresses too) had those Lucozade-yellow pull-down plastic blinds that protected the goods against the sun, but which meant you couldn’t actually see anything they were trying to entice you to buy.  On another was the fascinating Killips, the haberdashery, run by two spinster sisters. One knitted, the other crocheted, always with burned-down cigarettes drooping from the corners of their mouths. The clickety-click of needles greeted every clang of the coiled bell over the door. As well as utilitarian wools for our grannies to knit mittens or pullovers, they stocked buttons and ribbons of various hues and the most amazing textures, and fabrics, in a growing range of colours and patterns.  If you purchased, your money and a chitty were placed in a metal tube that was then sent on a trajectory, as if  rocket powered, round a set of rails, then whooshed upwards.  There was a window in an office, on the floor above, where sometimes you could see the cashier retrieve the tube, examine the chitty, proffered notes and coins, note something in a ledger, then return another receipt and any change due by a return route.

We might call in to Woody’s of Wembley, around the corner on the Harrow Road parade, if dad was planning a weekend fishing trip.  It became quite usual to have a sealed box of maggots and sawdust in the fridge for several days. Woody’s sold fishing tackle, maggots, guns and ammunition and flights for your darts. It smelled of sawdust and nestled next to Fanny the Florist, which I recall had a deep pinky-red painted exterior. Fanny’s was a delight of colour, carnations and freesias I remember most, and smelled delicious. Maybe that’s why we went there next.  Then a little book shop, which would later on benefit from all of my birthday gifts and any pennies saved from paper rounds. A funeral parlour (Saville’s) with glossy black paintwork and rich gold lettering, would also become sadly familiar, and remains to this day. Conveniently (or perhaps deliberately) it resided on the corner opposite the lovely St John’s Church, with its Wych Gate, yew tree and monumental headstone scattered grave yards, where many years later, I would be married.

Sometimes we even went as far as Woolworths, up the High Street, for shoe laces and boot polish) and a rare treat of a DeMarco’s Ice cream cone.  Dinner, another casserole type meal, or maybe chops, with creamy mash and fresh vegetables.

Fridays we went the other way, down Eagle Road to the middle parade. A weekend joint of meat, some chops, sausages and bacon would be purchased over a long chat in the butcher’s shop.  The newsagents next, to pay the bill and pick up more ciggies and matches, then to the Express Dairies. We would purchase basic groceries: tins, packets, eggs, cordial and some chilled goods and pay the weekly milk delivery bill. There was a fish counter, small and unexciting, mostly white (or grey) flattish fillets.  We would take some home for dinner.  They would be fried in butter, and eaten with boiled potatoes.  

Saturdays were almost another week-day as dad worked until the middle of the afternoon, then came home to watch ‘World of Sport’. I would be allowed to play with friends at our house or in the first part of the park – just until the clump of Elm trees about 100 yards from the entrance.

Sundays were about cooking, or visiting family in the surrounding suburbs, dad’s parents perhaps or aunties and uncles and maybe going to different parks or for woodland walks.  If dad went fishing on Sundays, mum might walk me to Sunday School but otherwise we were around the house and garden, playing, or reading in my own bedroom.