A new member of the Forum is developing a website on a “People’s History of the Harold Hill Estate”. Several members of the forum lived on the estate and so I thought it would be a good idea to use this thread to collect our impressions of this place.

I arrived on the Harold Hill estate in 1963. I was eighteen at the time and this was the family’s fourth council estate. We had originally lived in Chingford. One of the boys in the street was Colin Lacey, who went onto become Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex. We later became friends and talked about our time on this council estate. Colin passed his 11+ and went onto write Hightown Grammar, a book that helped to persuade the Labour Government to bring in comprehensive education.

We then moved to the Debden estate. The standard of the housing was fairly good and the estate had a good community atmosphere. The local schools were uninspiring and all of my mates, including myself, failed the 11+. My father was killed in a road accident in 1956 and my mother decided that it would be better if we moved away from Debden. It was a strange decision that she still finds difficult to explain.

We moved to a prefab on the Dagenham estate. These tin huts had been built as emergency housing during the Second World War. The area had been heavily bombed as Dagenham was the site of factories involved in the war effort. The plan had been to pull them down after the war but the government never got round to it. The prefab was extremely cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. Mum was very excited by the idea of the built-in fridge, but one could soon see why this innovation had been included.

The local school was appalling. I cannot remember any of the teachers trying to teach us anything at Campbell Road School. The main reason was that the teachers found it difficult to create an environment where learning could take place. Most of the teachers were former soldiers (there was some sort of government scheme where members of the armed forces could teach in schools like ours without qualifications). However, as they were not able to use their weapons on us, their army training was of little use in keeping us under control. Only our Maths teacher, Mr. Jones, could control us. He was an intelligence officer who interrogated German soldiers during the Second World War. He told us he had been taught how to make people cry by staring at them. We believed him and as crying in front of your mates was the worst thing that could happen to you - we behaved in his lessons. Not that Jones used this control to teach as anything. He seemed completely bored by Maths and only became enthusiastic when he told us about his war experiences.

It was not possible to take exams at the school and so was not allowed to carry the title “Secondary Modern”. I left at fifteen to work in a local factory. Soon afterwards Campbell Road School was burnt down. Clearly, I was not the only one who was unimpressed with the school.

In 1963 my mother moved to the Harold Hill estate to be close to her mother who had a bungalow on Farrington Road. It was a flat in Cardigan House. It was not as good as our house in Debden but was far better than the prefab in Dagenham.

I did not know anyone from the estate. Most of my mates were from work or from the football team I played in. One of my football mates, Jimmy Sewell, lived close to the estate, and heard about a disco being held by the local Catholic Church. Jimmy was a Catholic but I considered myself to be an atheist. Jimmy got me into the disco and that night I met a local girl, Judith Harris. Her mother was very religious and had sent her daughter to the dance to find “a good Catholic boy” and was not too pleased when I turned up. However, as far as I was concerned, it was love at first site.

Judith did not have the same accent as the other girls from the estate even though she had lived there for the majority of her life. She did not get this from her father who came from the East End of London and worked in the docks. As the eldest daughter of six children Judith had developed a very close relationship with her mother. Her mother was from Plymouth and she clearly had subconsciously mirrored her accent. In fact, her mother was a bit of a snob and constantly picked up the children on how they spoke. Her father had come from a middle-class background but had died when she was young. My working class accent and my lack of religious beliefs did not make me the ideal future son-in-law.

At around this time I had got interested in politics. This was mainly because of a man I worked with. At this time I was serving an apprenticeship as a printer. Bob Clark had lost his only child. He was a man looking for a son. I was a man looking for a father. He had also left school without qualifications but had educated himself by joining the local library. We used to spend most of our dinner-breaks discussing politics. Although I came from a Labour voting household, I held fairly conservative views at the time. I have to admit that I was initially shocked by the political opinions of the older men in the factory. They had served in the armed forces during the war and were part of that generation that had elected the Labour Government in 1945. They were still socialists who felt betrayed by the Conservative government that took power in 1951. They all seemed excited by the possibility of a Labour Party gaining office. This was 1963 and Alec Douglas Home was prime minister. Harold Wilson was leader of the Labour Party and everybody seemed fairly confident he would win the next election.

The journeymen in the factory taught me how to be a printer. However, more importantly, they taught me about the world of politics. Soon after I moved to the Harold Hill estate Bob suggested that I joined the Young Socialists. Mrs Harris was a member of the Labour Party and she found out where they met from the man who collected membership subscriptions. It was the Old Folks Club in Bridgewater Road. It was at a place which had been built for the senior citizens on the estate.

There were only a handful of people at our first meeting. I later discovered that most were the sons and daughters of local councillors and were not actually terribly interested in politics. That was not true of Jim Smith who was chairman of the Harold Hill YS. He was younger than me. I think he was about 16 or 17. Although he was fairly shy he obviously felt very strongly about politics. If Jim had not been there I doubt if we would have gone again. However, I was very impressed with Jim’s knowledge of politics and despite his age, I suppose like Bob Clark, he became one of my mentors. Other members included John Stephenson and Pat Dodge.

As membership was so low, we sometimes had joint meetings with the Romford Young Socialists. This included Tony Reid, Dave Verguson, Terry Ward, John Riley, Tony Gordon, Dave Rugg and Simon Ridley. At the time they all seemed very posh. They had been to grammar school and were on the verge of going to university. They were all very left-wing and were constantly quoting from the works of Leon Trotsky. My immediate reaction was to argue against them. They all knew far much more than I did and so I took Bob Clark’s advice and joined the local library.

Jim Smith told me he got most of his information from the Guardian. I therefore started buying the Guardian instead of the Daily Mirror. I found it difficult to read at first. One of the problems was that the articles assumed that you knew about the history of every subject. The language was also difficult, but with the help of my mentors, I gradually got the education that my schools had failed to give me.

In retrospect, I am pleased that I got my education in this way. It was something that had evolved rather than imposed. I am convinced that it is far healthier to be self-educated. What I had previously found to be boring was now exciting. The more I read - the more left-wing I became. Although, unlike some members of the group, I remained highly critical of communist governments that ruled China and Eastern Europe. I saw people such as Lenin and Stalin as betrayers of socialism. Trotsky’s actions against the Kronstadt sailors in 1921 was enough to stop me from becoming a Trotskyite. In fact, I was convinced that if he had taken over from Lenin, his rule would have been just as authoritarian as that of Stalin. Within months of joining the Labour Party I was describing myself as a libertarian socialist. My views have not changed over the last 40 years.

Despite our different views, we all worked for the Labour Party in the 1964 General Election. As far as we were concerned, Harold Wilson’s government was far too right-wing and we spent a lot of time and effort trying to get critical resolutions passed by the Romford Labour Party. Our main enemy was Ron Ledger, our local Labour MP. We conspired with left-wing councillors such as Harry Packham and Arthur Latham in an attempt to remove Ledger as our MP. Central Office reacted very badly to this moves and the conspirators were threatened with expulsion.

Our main objection to Harold Wilson was that he refused to condemn US policy in Vietnam. It is my generation of Labour Party members who felt so strongly about Tony Blair’s decision to join forces with Bush in Iraq. Blair of course was busy pursuing a career in pop music during the 1960s but according to Francis Beckett’s biography of Gordon Brown, he was active in the anti-Vietnam Movement. However, life has taught me that to get to the top in politics you have to abandon most, if not all, of your political principles.

We also thought Wilson should have been urging the United Nations to take action against the racist regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa. We were also highly critical of the huge amounts spent on defence spending. Nor did we like the way the government tried to keep down the wages of the poorly paid public sector workers. On reflection, Wilson did a good job of redistributing wealth in Britain. When compared to Blair and Brown, Wilson was indeed a left-wing prime minister.

After the election victory in 1964 we picked up some new members. This included Bill Eldridge, Jim Reid and Linda Benjamin. I also persuaded my younger brother to join. David was a reluctant member at first so we made him secretary of the YS. We also had visits from Roger and Anne Richards, who had met and married while at university. As far as I remember, they were the first university educated people I had encountered. Roger was a Trotskyite and I had very passionate arguments with him about politics. I thought I did quite well in these debates and I remember thinking at the time, if I can do this than maybe I was bright enough to go to university. However, as I was working in a factory and saving up to get married and as I had no paper qualifications it had to remain a dream at this stage of my life.

We became community activists. One campaign involved trying to unionize local schoolchildren. We also helped young people who were being victimized by the local police. This included Del Smith who had drugs planted on him. This involved making contact with organizations such as “Release”. I remember one very interesting meeting with Caroline Coon in London who had established the organization in 1967. I was very impressed how this student at university had been able to establish her own pressure group.

http://www.carolinecoon.com/

The Harold Hill Young Socialists also began producing its own magazine. I was chosen to be editor. This was a strange decision as I was virtually illiterate at the time. However, the other better educated members agreed to read through the articles and correct them, so I agreed to do it. I soon discovered I loved writing and churned out regular articles for what became the Target Magazine. I still have copies of these magazines but I am not brave enough to re-read the articles that I wrote during this period.

I also carried out interviews for the magazine. This included an exclusive interview with Jack Dash, a shop steward who was leading an unofficial London dock at the time. He had been vilified as a communist agitator and was refusing to talk to the mainstream media. A friend gave me his phone-number and after a long discussion he agreed to give me an interview.

I also interviewed Arnold Shaw, the Labour MP who represented Ilford South in the House of Commons. He had also been my uninspiring history teacher at Campbell Road School. In the interview I discovered that he lived in Stepney during the 1930s and as a young Jewish man became involved in politics in opposition to the fascists led by Oswald Mosley. Not that you would have realized this from his teaching of history. If he had been passionate about this subject in the classroom, maybe he would have got me interested in history when I was at school.

I left the Harold Hill estate when I got married in 1966. We moved to Dartford and although we joined the local Labour Party we were too old for the Young Socialists.

As a member of the Labour Party I joined the campaign to persuade Wilson’s government to create an Open University. I remember getting involved in heated debates at constituency meetings about the wisdom of this proposal. Members used to say it was a ridiculous idea of allowing people to go to university without “A” levels. Despite these criticisms Wilson went ahead with this measure. In his memoirs Wilson said that it was the most important legislation he introduced during his time as prime minister. I agree. I joined in the first year of its existence and it changed my life. I remember the tutor who marked my first essay saying that I wrote like a political pamphleteer and that I would have to change it I was going to be awarded a degree. She was right of course. My early essays took the form of Target articles. That is all I knew. After all, these articles were my “A” level essays and my fellow comrades were my teachers. I eventually changed the style of my essays as I wanted a degree as a passport to get me into another world. However, I refused to change my politics and became a regular contributor to Open Sesame, the OU newspaper.

I have fond memories of my time on the Harold Hill estate. It was where I got a decent education - although this experience had nothing to do with schools or universities.

In reality there were few working-class lads like me at the Open University. Most students were middle-class people who had for a variety of reasons had not completed a university education. I was therefore one of the first of a small batch of working class students to graduate. As a result of my articles in the OU newspaper I was seen as the representative of the working class and I was asked to give a radio talk on the subject. I was also asked to contribute an article on my feelings about getting a degree. I no longer have a copy of this article but many years later a quotation from it appeared in Roland Meighan’s “A Sociology of Educating”. It was in the chapter on assessment in schools (page 17). This was the passage that interested Meighan:

“I know that I was no more intelligent than the rest of the kids at my school… My case does not show how intelligence wins through. My case shows how, year after year, we allow the intellectual abilities of thousands upon thousands of children from the working class to go to waste.”

I added that unlike most working class kids, after leaving school, I had the luck to meet several people who helped me to obtain a desire for education. Most of those people were young people living on the Harold Hill estate.

Hi John,

It's interesting that you bring up the autodidact tradition within the working class because I'm currently reading The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes by Jonathan Rose.

It's also interesting that you mention Krondstat because I'm also currently reading Victor Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary.

Both are recommended for a greater understanding of the respective subjects.

Del Smith has already dropped your name in an interview that is on the site in reference to a certain infamous article - but I wonder if he's confused about that episode and really means your brother? I know that he was good friends with him.

The project started in 2003. It originally took about 18 months to piece together. It meant, not just interviewing people, but painstakingly going through, week by week from 1945 onwards, the Romford Times / Romford Recorder.

I still seem to be adding stuff.

Just this weekend I finally managed to add some older articles/essays written by others:

http://www.haroldhill.org/other-historians/historians.html

I grew up on the 'Hill but moved away, going to John Moores University to study history. (I attended an Access to Further Education Course at Havering college)

Moving back, I was invited into the setting up of a local branch of the Independent Working Class Association, and although I found myself for periods living in Hackney, Islington and Couch End, we had a very energetic three year existence, polling credible results in the 2002 local elections.

I stood in the Gooshays ward and ended up with 856 votes.

I was offered a council flat in Harold Hill and I've been living here ever since.

I knew that there was a story to tell when it came to Harold Hill, and I also knew that story simply couldn't be told in isolation from the historic events that happened both before and around its creation in the 40s/50s.

The site has been up for scrutiny for a few years now, and although I've reread it a number of times, I've only had to change a couple of minor factual points.

Another aspect of my intentions when originally writing it was to make sure that it was as near tas possible to 100% historically correct in tone and detail before it went live on the world wide web - I didn't want to embarrass myself by making major edits later on.

You mention the prefabs and finally I think I have found somebody who has photos of them!

There haven't been any around before and none could be found for the 40th and 50th exhibitions.

As a result of this posting Del Smith has sent me this annotated photograph:

A, I think his name is Laurie, YCL

B, Linda Pugh, girlfriend of mine from Harold Hill

C, Me

D, Terry Ward

E, Paul White, Albermarle

F, Bill Divine, Albermarle

G, Dave Rug

H, Tony Gordon

I, Tony Reid

J, Terry Kent, Albermarle

K, Jim Smith

L, ????? You can fill this gap for me

M, Bill Eldridge

N, Jean Rugg

O, ??????? YCL I think

L is John Stephenson. I cannot remember his name but I think "O" died of a heart attack a couple of years later. He was indeed a member of the YCL. I will phone Terry Ward up tonight. I am sure he will remember his name.

A great book. Serge is a more important commentator on the Russian Revolution than Trotsky. Serge, along with Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, had attempted to mediate between the Kronstadt sailors and the Soviet government. His account of the uprising appeared in his book Memoirs of a Revolutionary.

The final assault was unleashed by Tukhacevsky on 17 March, and culminated in a daring victory over the impediment of the ice. Lacking any qualified officers, the Kronstadt sailors did not know how to employ their artillery; there was, it is true, a former officer named Kozlovsky among them, but he did little and exercised no authority. Some of the rebels managed to reach Finland. Others put up a furious resistance, fort to fort and street to street; they stood and were shot crying, "Long live the world revolution! Hundreds of prisoners were taken away to Petrograd and handed to the Cheka; months later they were still being shot in small batches, a senseless and criminal agony. Those defeated sailors belonged body and soul to the Revolution; they had voiced the suffering and the will of the Russian people. This protracted massacre was either supervised or permitted by Dzerzhinsky.

You can find my page on Serge here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSserge.htm

Del has sent me the article by email. Although I had forgotten the article, once I started reading it, I realised that it was my work.

John, I can't open this attachment

I don't know why?

Del Smith has said that if anyone wants a higher resolution copy without the letters to email him and he will send it on.

Here is the first of three photographs showing Young Socialist from the Havering area outside 10 Downing Street on the day of the large anti-Vietnam War Demonstration in London on 17th March 1968.

This picture shows me accidentally hitting the policeman outside No. 10 with my placard. To my left is Jim Smith, a fellow member of the Harold Hill Young Socialists.

I was lucky that the policeman I clobbered by mistake cooled down quickly and did not take the incident any further. The bloke on the following BBC website describes how he was not so lucky.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness...000/3516162.stm

This photo shows the policeman on the right still simmering after my accidental attack.

I am smiling as I walk away, but I was probably feeling pretty nervous after the scuffle with the afore mentioned policeman.

Five of our group, photographed as they walk away from 10 Downing Street ( We were supposed to be delivering a petition to the PM at No 10)

LEFT TO RIGHT - 1) Linda Benjamin, 2) Jim Smith, 3) ? Unknown, 4) A woman friend of Del Smith, 5) David Simkin (me)

As some members have been having trouble viewing these photographs I have added them to my website:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/HHYS.htm

Terry Ward tells me that "O" is Dave Harvey. He indeed died of a heart attack in his twenties.

In his twenties! God.

I'm going to pilfer your demo photos and place them onto the website.

Harold Hill: The Musical

Coming to the Queens Theatre in 2008.

I've just been chatting with the Queens Theatre and they are going to write and put on a special play to celebrate Harold Hill's 60th birthday.

They've asked me to get involved and help with the writing.

Any named Hollywood actors John you'd like us to approach to play you?

Do you think George Clooney could do a Harold Hill accent?

Whereabouts do you live now John?

I was going to say that if you're ever in town (London, not Harold Hill) I'll meet up with you for a drink and a chat.

Sussex. I let you know when I am in London. I also see my mother, aged 93, who lives in Rayleigh. You might want to do an interview with her?

I have been sent this account of life on Harold Hill in the 1950s. They have asked me not to include their name in the posting:

I was a year old when our family moved to Harold Hill and at that time it was relatively small and very raw. I do remember looking out of our bedroom window up to Dagenham Park Drive where there were no houses, only trees. Also there was a mud pathway down the side of our house, which was later turned into a road with rented garages at the bottom. One day there was a lot of banging and crashing outside of these garages and, as the men in work overalls were making such a racket everybody thought they were genuine and ignored them. It turned out they were thieves and stole all of the cars!

Much of the estate was still in a state of construction for many years. The cut through between the houses at the bottom of the road was locally known as the Cinder Track, obviously because that was the surface covering at the time. I don’t think it was ever officially named and is still known as The Cinder Track. Opposite our house was a green with three gorgeously tall trees. I used to love climbing one and sitting in the fork reading for hours, it was the only time I ever managed to get some peace from my siblings. On this green there were also playground rides (I remember a seesaw and a roundabout), which were put in long before Health & Safety was invented. I remember my young brother falling off the roundabout and being dragged underneath by his knee. All of the neighbours came running out and managed to lift off this dreadfully heavy thing and Matt bears the scars today. On the green at the bottom of the road there was an umbrella and swings, but these playground toys were closet child killers and eventually the Council had to take them away.

During the winter storms the electricity was always going out over the whole estate and I remember many a night sitting in the dark at the window watching the rain sluice down our steep road, with a mug of cocoa in one hand and a lit candle in the other. I often wondered how the folks at the bottom of the hill managed with the excess water. Our electricity was fed by shillings into an ever hungry meter in a metal cupboard by the front door. Our mum always made sure she had plenty of shillings as she couldn’t afford for the electricity to go off while she was cooking (she was always cooking!), but the neighbours weren’t so forward looking and were always knocking on our door for change. She always kept her temper and never spoke ill of them (at least not until the front door was shut).

I remember that the shops at Hilldene Avenue had not been built, so we had to do our shopping in Cambourne Avenue, grow our own food, or rely on local travelling vans. My older brother used to help Johnny the greengrocer in his van every Saturday. Johnny was Polish and I can still remember his “Huuuuuuup te hup” cry, which might have been a Polish saying but nobody was really sure. In Cambourne Avenue there was a fish and chip shop that used to use lard for frying and regularly caught alight until chip shops were forced to start cooking with oil, which spoilt a lot of fun for the local children. Opposite these shops was a chewing gum factory who had the brilliant idea of leaving piles of gum outside on the grass as a preventative measure to stop children breaking in and stealing. Mum had the cheek to actually go into the factory and ask for a bag of samples for her growing family and they were so impressed at her audacity that they gave her a full bag. My mum was a saint! She gave over half the garden to grass for us children to play on and the other half was turned over to growing vegetables. How she ever managed to grow anything is a miracle as the soil was nothing but huge chunks of clay. I can see her now trying to cut them in half with a shovel. Another travelling van was the rag and bone man (“Rag, bone, lumber” was his cry). Mum used to send me out with a pile of old clothes that would be exchanged for another green cup and saucer to replace our ever diminishing stock of china that used to be broken on a regular basis. One day when she was in china credit she let me choose a toy for myself. I chose a paper bird with wings attached to a piece of string that was tied to a stick. When whirled around it made a very pleasant whistling sound and I loved it.

Everyone on the estate was poor. At Christmas all of our toys were second hand and all of the boxes would have been repaired with sellotape, but we never minded and never mentioned it. At the weekend our hearth would be full to brimming with orange peel. Mum left it dry out overnight and used it the next day to light the fire.

Winters were something to be dreaded because of the cold. Mum would spread dad’s overcoat over our bed as extra warmth and, in the morning after we had scraped a hole in the frost on the window, we ran downstairs and put on socks that had been warmed in the oven. Once, after we had all been ill, the doctor said that we should not get out of bed and put our feet down onto a cold floor. Mum took a deep breath, went down to the decorating shop at Hilldene shops (in those days you had to ask them to cut off an inch of plain white paper at either end of the wallpaper roll) and tried not to feel humiliated as she begged them for old sample books of carpets. She dragged these home on the pushchair, dismantled them and carefully stitched them together into Josephs’s rug of many colours. I thought they looked beautiful and would probably be called retro or boho sheik nowadays. As for using the outside lavatory in the winter…. well I have tried hard not to resurrect that memory… but….We weren’t allowed to use the indoor toilet for anything other than “onesies” as mum was worried that with such a big family the lavatory would block. For anything else we had to climb down the step outside of the kitchen door (dad put a piece of railway sleeper there as it was such a high step for our little legs), trudge through the snow into this cold, dark, damp cavern where we had to use cut-up “butcher’s” paper that had been wrapped around the Sunday joint, strung on string and hung on a hook. Later very slippery San Izal toilet paper was invented, but I will always have fond memories of the Butcher’s paper. Eventually mum nagged dad into putting up an electric light bulb in the outside lavatory so that we could have fun watching the salt patches form on the walls as we sat there. In time he even built a lean-to wooden frame with corrugated plastic between the kitchen door and the outside lavatory. Such bliss – mum could put the washing machine out there and mangle the wet clothes in comparative comfort, every housewife’s dream.

The estate was serviced by the 174 bus and I always thought our family owned the bus. “Here comes our bus” mum would say and I always resented the other passengers on the bus, didn’t they know it belonged to us? There was another bus servicing the estate, the number 87 but we didn’t use this often as it went all the way to Dagenham, which was two planets away and totally foreign. I heard they had a docking station there called Dagenham Heathway, but it may have only been a rumour.

Like everybody else we had a coal fire in the living room and in the winter nappies would be festooned on lines hung from corner to corner. Because of the pollution from all of these coal fires we used to get filthy fogs come down. Our mouths had to be covered by scarves so that we didn’t breath in the toxic waste. The fogs (pea soupers) were so thick that it was impossible to see farther than a hand in front of our faces. Coming out from school we had to have one hand touching a brick wall to ensure we found our way home. Every body knew that if you let go you were a gonner, lost in the mists of time, never to be seen again (probably ending up on Dagenham Heathway!).

Eventually Hilldene Shops were built and a small Sainsbury’s opened up, where mum’s parked their prams outside six deep. If your pram was the one by the window it was a real challenge trying to get it out of the pram jam. Inside the shop the queue to the till went past the stairs down to the butchery and the smell of raw meat wafting up was truly stomach churning. Opposite Sainsbury was the Co-op where you were given tin discs in your change (known as “divvie”). These coins were taken to a window at the back of the shop and paid into your Co-op account and exchanged for groceries at Christmas time. Our divvie number was 941151. At the top of the parade was a haberdashers where school uniforms could be purchased. The assistants would put your money into a tube, pull a chain and the tube would shoot across the ceiling on a rope and pulley system to a glass windowed office where your change was counted out, along with a receipt, and the tube would shoot back across the ceiling to the assistant, who handed it to you with your package. Every Christmas there would be a group of strangely uniformed people singing nice songs by the area next to the bus stop. They clanked tin cans and talked about loving and giving and I eventually came to recognise them as “Sally Anns”.

The estate was almost a self-contained universe. There was no real reason to leave the estate as almost everything was provided for us by The Council. Which is one of the reasons why I hated it. I remember longing to see trees and greenery. To give the Council its due, they did try to plant trees, but the children kept knocking them down so the Council gave up. I remember road after road after road of houses, with very little distraction in between. Eventually a small library was built opposite Hilldene Shops and, when I was 11 years old, I remember mum begging them to let me join the adult library as I had ready every book in the children’s library. Enlightenment to the adult world of books wasn’t allowed until 14 years of age, but at 11 I was reading Ian Fleming’s “Bond” books and thought they were fantastic. The swimming pool wasn’t built until it was too late for David, Judith, me and Gillian to enjoy, but at least Mary and Matthew had the benefit. The estate was one of the biggest Council estates in the country and somehow had a way of keeping you locking in, I have school friends that live on the estate still. I hated it, I hated the way it kept you down and seemed to stifle any form of progression or enhancement, I hated the lack of greenery and the way people talked – they would slit their eyes, thin their lips and say words like “aaaahs” for “house” and “que” for “thank you”. I hated the constant barking of dogs, the dog poo that was everywhere and the metal grills on the shop windows because of breakages and thefts. Ours was the only house in the street that hadn’t been burgled and mum put that down to the fact that ours was such a big family and therefore there was always someone at home. I couldn’t wait to get my daughter off the estate and, now that I have no family living there, I hope never to have to go back.

You're back online - you've paid your bills I see

Thanks for above - why anonymous though?

Alright, so it does get a bit personal, but one persons recollection is just as valid as anybody elses.

A lot of contributions that are volunteered now are very upbeat, a typical one being:



Finding the negative ones is harder. I guess it's just the psychology of remembering. If you hated the place and couldn't wait to escape, you'll hardly going to want to spend time, decades later, recollecting it.

At the end of day, it was a self-contained suburban estate. Those with a bit of a spark in their character would have felt alienated by this. Certainly, if you didn't have a family or kids then there was little point, if you had a choice in the matter at least, in hanging around.

First I would like to say how exellent Andy Walpole's site is at capturing the essentals of Harold Hill and that it evoked many memories for me and transported me back to those times.It reminded me of a story my sister told me years after which emphasised the gulf between some people on the Hill and those living off the estate within a couple of miles.When we came to the Hill in 1951/2 there were no local schools and she had to go to Gidea Park where a Miss Samuels was the headmistress. We were surviving from day to day and whereas the school demanded dinner money paid weekly my mother could only give it to take on a daily basis.This caused my sister a load of grief because Miss Samuels could not grasp the notion that she could not pay on a weekly basis and made my sisters life a misery.In addition my sister also attended in wellington boots one day simply because it was the only footware she had and my mother was insistant that she still attend school.This became an additional source of anxiety for my sister as the headmistress got on her case.There was also a tendency for the the girls from the Hill to be treated like second class citizens.Another girl from Harold Hill who had also had similar problems to my sister was with the headmistress while my sister was waiting to see her about the wellington boots saga.Suddenly this child shouted at Miss Samuels in sheer frustration at being unable to penitrate the head mistresses stubborn ignorance of her situation "Why don't you fuck off back to Jeruselem".She was immediatly expelled.
Del Smith's contribution about the Albermare and the drugs situation on the Hill brought home to me how quickly that scourge had gained ground in the culture.I was unaware of this degree of change since I was a youngster 4-5 years earlier when drinking was the main pastime.I remember Del saying in about 1963 that everybody he knew was on blue bombers and I remember that I was not familiar with this behavour although grass was common enough by then locally.
Like a lot of people who grew up on the Hill from the early 50's I loved the freedom of the environment and the great people who lived there.Never felt deprived in any way and in fact felt lucky to be living there.One downside was that it was monocultured.The only professional we met was the gp and everybody was working class which gave me a socially restricted view of the greater society and I think reduced options in educational and career prospects.

First I would like to say how exellent Andy Walpole's site is at capturing the essentals of Harold Hill and that it evoked many memories for me and transported me back to those times.It reminded me of a story my sister told me years after which emphasised the gulf between some people on the Hill and those living off the estate within a couple of miles.When we came to the Hill in 1951/2 there were no local schools and she had to go to Gidea Park where a Miss Samuels was the headmistress. We were surviving from day to day and whereas the school demanded dinner money paid weekly my mother could only give it to take on a daily basis.This caused my sister a load of grief because Miss Samuels could not grasp the notion that she could not pay on a weekly basis and made my sisters life a misery.In addition my sister also attended in wellington boots one day simply because it was the only footware she had and my mother was insistant that she still attend school.This became an additional source of anxiety for my sister as the headmistress got on her case.There was also a tendency for the the girls from the Hill to be treated like second class citizens.Another girl from Harold Hill who had also had similar problems to my sister was with the headmistress while my sister was waiting to see her about the wellington boots saga.Suddenly this child shouted at Miss Samuels in sheer frustration at being unable to penitrate the head mistresses stubborn ignorance of her situation "Why don't you fuck off back to Jeruselem".She was immediatly expelled.
Del Smith's contribution about the Albermare and the drugs situation on the Hill brought home to me how quickly that scourge had gained ground in the culture.I was unaware of this degree of change since I was a youngster 4-5 years earlier when drinking was the main pastime.I remember Del saying in about 1963 that everybody he knew was on blue bombers and I remember that I was not familiar with this behavour although grass was common enough by then locally.
Like a lot of people who grew up on the Hill from the early 50's I loved the freedom of the environment and the great people who lived there.Never felt deprived in any way and in fact felt lucky to be living there.One downside was that it was monocultured.The only professional we met was the gp and everybody was working class which gave me a socially restricted view of the greater society and I think reduced options in educational and career prospects.

It's this last statement that makes me doubt the entire evidence.

Firstly, yes Harold Hill was created as a self-contained estate. But this never happened. All the time people were telling me that nights out, if they could afford it, were in Romford, Harold Wood, Brentwood or London.

Clearly, not 'everything' was provided by "The Council".

Trees and vandalism: Vandalism was a feature of Harold Hill in this period but as for 'give the Council its due, they did try to plant trees, but the children kept knocking them down so the Council gave up'.

I'm sure that a lot of young trees were vandalised, but as for that statement above, then why is it now that every street in Harold Hill has rows of mature trees that were planted and grew in this period? The tree planting programme at the time couldn't have been that much of a failure.

'I hated the lack of greenery'. This completely contradicts every piece of evidence that has ever been presented to me. The biggest attraction for young (and old) Harold Hill residents during this time was the abundance of greenery, trees and parks.

'They would slit their eyes, thin their lips and say words like “aaaahs” for “house” and “que” for “thank you”. '

I don't know how to respond to this. So what? People spoke in a certain way.

'Ours was the only house in the street that hadn’t been burgled and mum put that down to the fact that ours was such a big family and therefore there was always someone at home.'

My mum, who at the time was living on Chippenham Road, was the victim of a burglary during the period that this person writes about. They broke in and stole £10 – a lot of money then. But this was shockingly unusual.

I carried out an extensive interview with former PC Bert White and he stated that burglary did happen, but mostly for taking the cash out of gas meters. The author states that every house on their street other than their own was burgled. This doesn't ring true. Every house? I've never heard of this endemic crime wave before.

A family friend from Romford was a primary school pupil during this period - she states that everything that went wrong at the school was blamed on the Harold Hill kids.

A BNP win at a council by-election in Harold Hill. I've posted a comment about it on my site:
http://www.haroldhill.org/latest_news/latest-news.htm

"The whole by-election has a sadness about it as the local white working class bites at the teether about perceived advantages given to immigrants and Black Africans. Ever heard the one about fighting for the crumbs from the rich man's table?

But, in truth, if you introduce X amount of foreign labour into a society where competition for jobs and housing is already intense then there is going to be a backlash.

But at least the middle classes and business people, the architects of the current policy, have an endless supply of cheap nannies and workers to employ (and exploit)."

Quote from Andy's website. The forthcoming recession will only make the situation worse, although when the middle-classes start to hurt they will start putting pressure on the government.