I was so interested to read the story in Shepperton Matters some months back about the lady who has lived in Shepperton for many years. As I turned 80 last year, it encouraged me to write down a few of my memories while I am still able to remember a lot of it!
I moved here with Mum, Dad and sister Doreen in July 1937. When our house was newly built, it cost Dad £599.00 which was a huge amount in those days. He had to put down a £30.00 deposit which involved lots of overtime at work. I am still living in the same house now, with my husband Ken.
My sister and I went to St.Nicholas School in 1938 which, in those days, was approached along School Lane past the Three Horseshoes Pub. It was a long single story building which is now a playground. The school was demolished to make way for the new St.Nicholas School in Manor Farm Avenue.
We walked to school over the wheat fields (now a big housing estate), through Merricks field (yet another housing estate), down towards the recreation ground, past a field which now houses Thamesmead School. Just over Manygate Lane there were some very old cottages. One was the house of the local chimney sweep who was kept very busy in those days with all the coal fires.
We kept going past the recreation ground, down Glebeland Gardens, School Lane, past the local Blacksmith, then into school. We did this walk every day to and from school which must have kept us very fit!! During the war years there was a large Air Raid Shelter on the Rec, roughly where the Greeno Centre is now situated. It did get used when the sirens went off on the way to school. There were also air raid shelters built on one side of the playground, although I can’t remember if we had to use them much. The school toilets were also over that side… not nice especially in the Winter when they were freezing!
We all had a small bottle of milk every day which we drank with a straw – again in the Winter these bottles were usually full of lumps of icy milk – it didn’t worry us though. We were always glad to get the milk.
When school dinners started each class walked in line from the school up to the old original school hall next to the Three Horseshoes, now occupied by the School of Spice indian restaurant. The meals were cooked in a kitchen across the road and ferried over. The meals weren’t huge so at the end of the school day we would pool any farthings and halfpennies we had to buy a small loaf of bread from Vickerys Bakers (later to be Holts), which used to be on the corner of Glebeland Gardens (where the Estate Agents are now). The loaf was then torn into pieces so we could all have some before our journey home.