Harrow East - Shopping Parades c. 1950

Belmont and Kenton Lane - A ‘cow field’ was opposite the end of Beverley Gardens and is now the site of St Joseph’s Children’s Centre.  Thinking of Kenton Lane and ‘cow fields’, I seem to remember there still being a small ‘token herd’ of cows at Kenton Lane Farm, home of J H Braziers dairy around 1960.  I think that I still have one of their milk bottles in the loft.  I worked in my school holiday in 1957 at Preston Road Dairy (R F Brazier) where we put cream from Kenton Lane Farm into cartons and milk from Carpenders Park Farm, Oxhey Lane (S A Brazier) into bottles.  I guess all these small dairies have now been swallowed up.

During my time working in Kenton Lane during 1960-61, I was a trainee surveyor for the building of, what is now, Magnolia Court.  Our site office was the old newsagents (previously an estate agent’s office) that stood on the corner.  I remember taking my air-pistol into work to shoot the rats that sometimes showed themselves in the office during quiet moments when I was there on my own.

Whilst at the same job, I remember that the brewer’s were delivering at 'The Duck in the Pond’ pub opposite.  Whilst their attention was elsewhere, a very large full wooden barrel of beer began to roll away unnoticed.  It gathered speed down the slope of the pub entrance drive and safely sped across the relatively quiet Kenton Lane and came to a halt in the site entrance.  There was a hasty discussion amongst some of the builders as to whether to roll it out of sight but it was soon missed, so was quickly returned.  The outcome was different however when a box of apples fell off a greengrocers lorry as it turned too fast into College Hill Road and disappeared into the distance.  We enjoyed the fruit with our lunch for the rest of the week. - Robert Tayler

To the west of the bridge, were fields either side of the road, with cows grazing - no fences.  During the War there was hardly any traffic and, if they wanted, cows could just stray across the road.  The railway line ran along the eastern edge of the field.  At the far end of the field was a pond where we used to catch newts etc.  We often played in the cow field.  One morning, after an air raid, we found big bundles of chaff.  These comprised paper strips 1 inch wide, black one side, silvered the other.  Chaff was dropped by german bombers to confuse our radar.

There was a large builders’ site-office belonging to Ruddock and Meighan on the verge near the cow field gate.  It was about 25 x 12 feet and had dozens of 12 x 12 inch window panes and was not used in the War.

Long queues formed outside The Plaza, running back down Kenton Lane, when films like Bambi, Snow White and Fantasia were on.

Next to The Plaza cinema (my mum was a cleaner there), during the war, was a big static water tank 40 x 40 x 5 feet for the fire brigade.  When the fire brigade filled it they had hoses across the road from the circle.  A man came from Weston Drive on a bike.  He didn't ride over the ramps put down for cars, but thought he could ride over the hoses, thinking they would squash.  His bike hit the hose, stopped, threw him over the handlebars and he landed on his head with a sickening thud.  I remember he was bald.  After about 30 minutes he recovered and went on his way - knowing a little more about hydraulic pressure.

There were also smaller, round concrete tanks 6 x 5 feet deep which were placed at the flat's entrances by the tank-traps and next to Glasses butchers.  After the war they were emptied and stored in the alley in Kenmore Ave.  A little girl from the first house was playing in one.  She had her fingers under it when it rolled and crushed them - I think they were saved.  Her name was Sylvia Sparkes; her father owned a hire car firm.

Opposite The Plaza was The British Restaurant and Alf's Café.  Alf’s Café, if you remember, had boards by the counter with wide gaps.  If you dropped money you lost it.  We used to say Alf got it later when closed.  One evening we looked through the windows and saw a navvy sleeping on a table.

Once we saw Alf being carried back to the cafe absolutely drunk.  He'd been to a wedding do at the Belmont Hotel.

Out the back of his cafe, Alf got men to dig a hole for his used tea leaves - about three feet deep.  When it was full, he got another one dug.  Grass would grow over and cover it.  One day playing, a small boy ran there and sunk up to his waist in wet tea leaves.  We pulled him out crying - poor kid, he did look a sight. - John Collier

---

I lived at 119 Bellamy Drive Stanmore, just off Western Road, close to Belmont Circle.  Sidney and Dorothy Winter lived in the same road which was handy for the Essoldo Cinema where they had their studio.  I learned my dancing there fairly well and often entered dance competitions.  There is so much I know of the Belmont Circle area - from dancing in Sid Winter’s dance studio at the Essoldo to the grumpy bloke in Cato’s who you mentioned, John.  I did laugh at that.

There is so much of interest here for me, John, but especially your mention of your mother working at the Plaza Cinema, later the Essoldo.  My mother worked there for years, firstly as a cleaner, then as an usherette too.  She also did relief work in the ticket kiosk with a Mrs Huntley, but I cannot remember when she started there.  Probably just after the war, I think.  I recall she mentioned a fellow cleaning lady a Mrs Hartley (Elgin Avenue) and a Mrs Collier, possibly your mother.  I think I watched every film they ever showed because mum used to have free tickets and let me in anyway, if Mr Duncan (the manager) was not looking.  Mr Duncan was a rather dapper man who spent most of his time in his upstairs office.  The little man tearing tickets was the odd job and boiler man.  His name was Wally something?  He was a big drinker and once fell down the stairs top to bottom when under the influence.

I do not suppose you remember any of the chaps from my road when I was young but I kept in touch for years with a lot of them and still do.  We used to play a lot on the Circle at Belmont because running in and out of the bushes was such fun.  We also played at the level crossing as you did doing the same things.  Pennies on the line etc..  We were not too well off during the war so I didn't flatten too many pennies.  We played roller hockey on the street.  That was super fun but our main interest was football.  We played on a patch of ground close by the railway level crossing near Vernon Drive was it?

You mentioned Dirty Dicks Cafe in Kenton Lane and I well remember the bread pudding he made was incredibly good.

I did work for Ellingtons sometimes delivering papers, but only to help my friend out who’s round it was.  I did a bit of Kenton Lane and then down the side roads off Locket Road like Grasmere Gardens.  There were some nice young ladies, Pam Bolsover and Barbara Grisewood, whom I went out with in that area before I was married. - Peter B R Ault

We lived close to the Weston Drive end of Bellamy Drive, so about seven houses away from the V2 rocket which fell on Uppingham Avenue in about March 1945.  My brothers and I were in a 'Morrison’ shelter inside the house.  It was a sturdy thing with cast iron corners, a thick sheet steel top like a big metal table and thick wire mesh around the sides.  We slept in it every night from when the V1s started to fly over.  They were more terrifying than the V2s because you could hear them until the pulse jet cut-out.  Then you just waited…  …  …  … BANG!  We always prayed it wouldn’t land on us, and it didn’t until the rocket in the last few weeks of the war.  There were lots of near misses though.

The explosion left us dirty and covered in glass but unhurt.  The front of the house was badly damaged and we found the front door at the top of our stairs.  I remember the emergency services used a yellowy oiled canvas type of material to cover where the glass used to be, that was about two days after the bomb.  Weeks later they took out the frames and replaced the windows completely, as well as other essential repairs.

Dalston Gardens Industrial Estate

WW II

We lived in Honeypot Lane.  Opposite the playing fields, where the houses are only one side of the road, one of the houses had an oil bomb drop on it.  One could see it from the pavement - the garage door was all stained black.  It was very lucky there was no fire.

One night, opposite our house in Honeypot Lane, the whole playing field was covered in flares from incendiary bombs.  That was the night they bombed Polyfotos in Dalston Gardens - there was pieces of film floating about and burning paper etc.

The night they bombed Polyfotos

Polyfoto's Head Office was located at 11-12 Dalston Gardens.

One evening, when it was dark, the air aid warnings went and shortly the familiar sound of a German aircraft was heard… and I think searchlights were sweeping the sky.  German aircraft were identifiable by their twin engines not being synchronised - this produced a distinctive beat sound.  Then there were explosions as bombs hit the area.  Shortly after a glow was present in the factory area which was Dalston Gardens not far from my house.  Very soon further explosions were heard and the glow turned into an inferno.

They'd hit the Polyfoto factory, which at that time was the only one in Dalston Gardens, and the contents, which were highly inflammable, went up like tinder.  By now the sound of fire engines and rescue vehicles could be heard.  The fire raged and lit-up the entire area.  This went on till the early hours of the morning, when us kids went up there, and amid the lingering smell of burnt film, picked up loads of charred pictures which littered the area.

The V1 flying bomb

We lived in Honeypot Lane.  The sirens had sounded and things were quiet.  I went upstairs to look out of the back bedroom window which faced down the gardens of Wigton Gardens toward the Bakerloo Line railway embankment and saw a flickering light in the sky approaching low over the railway embankment.  By now there was a deep rumbling sound which was getting louder.

The next thing I can remember the thing came into view just over roof-top height making its characteristic rumbling sound and continuing over Wigton Gardens... then silence.  I rushed out onto the landing and grabbed hold of the two uprights between the bedrooms.  My mother, who was also upstairs at the time, dived under the bed.  The deathly suspense was the scariest thing.  Where will it come down?  The next thing I knew was a terrific explosion, the house shook and, when we recovered and ventured downstairs, there was glass and what was left of ornaments everywhere.  The curtains were shreaded and blowing outside…  and the sound of rescue vehicles… and people rushing about.

A V1 flying bomb had come down on Pearswood Crescent.  It claimed many lives.  All the victims were placed in a mass grave and listed on a memorial in the cemetery at Harrow Weald near The Leefe Robinson public house.  The only boy I knew in Pearswood was a Peter Dossel.  When we subsequently visited the cemetery, one of the graves bears that name. - Roy Young.

An LGOC B-type omnibus at the top of a bleak-looking Stanmore Hill.  Time: midday, summer (high sun, open windows).  Date: undeclared - but, since 'B-types’ were not introduced until about 1912, the image probably dates from the period of WW1 (before official ‘bus stops’ were designated).  Route: High Street Watford - Bushey - Stanmore - Edgware - Kenton - Cricklewood Bdy - High Road Kilburn - Cambridge ?  and Kilburn Park.

If you don't recognise the acronym ‘LGOC’, London General Omnibus Company, that was because it became defunct in about 1912 when the company was subsumed into AEC (of Aldenham Bus Works fame).

'B-types’ carried 16 passengers inside and had seats for 18 on the 'open' top deck.  Outside seats were fitted with wet-weather canvas covers." - Wikipedia.  Pneumatic tyres would have been replacing these solid ones by the end of that decade.  The driver’s waterproof sheet looks as if it could become a bit unruly at speed…

The plethora of horizontal slats in front of the rear wheels may have been an early ‘health & safety’ feature to minimise the risk of hapless individuals falling foul of the rear wheels (similar to those longitudinal side-rails deployed on articulated trailers today).  Bus body shapes evolved, so there was only need for a single slat on ‘RT’s of the mid-20th Century.

The ad. on the side?  ‘Photoshop’ allows one to discern "BUCHANANS" (a Scottish confectioners established in 1856 apparently)… .

Could that be a diminutive human peering-out from the pub door-way?  "TEAS"? - How very civilised.

Ah yeah, in those days, every telephone was connected back to the local exchange by its own, individual, pair of wires.  The development and deployment of ‘multiplexing’ (frequency division) technology eventually addressed that issue - allowing multiple conversations to be passed down a single pair of wires - minimising the depletion of the planet’s reserves of copper - and avoiding the need for an unsightly ‘tree’ atop telegraph poles.

A thoroughly ignominious fate befell the public house - The Vine is now an Indian Restaurant.

The iconic clock tower of Thomas Clutterbuck’s Stanmore Brewery lurks on the left.

The image (originally on a ‘half-tone’ postcard) was forwarded by Keith Salmon - thanks Keith - you're a champion!