By Sue Skelton nėe Penman
My parents were born in Central London (Holborn and Spitalfields), but families gradually moved out of the city after the war and my parents lived with my grandparents in Central Road in Morden in the 50’s. Like most couples at that time, they were on the council waiting list and in 1954 were lucky enough to be offered a house on the brand-new Preston Hawe estate. Although when my mum was offered the keys the man from Merton and Morden council was unsure whether or not she would accept; it was number 13. But my mum wasn’t bothered, she just wanted her own home. And so, in 1954 they moved into Longmere Gardens with my sister and a year later I was born.
When I was a child, the estate was new and fresh and although the council owned the houses, the people were proud of their homes and the council actually looked after the properties. Every few years the council painters would descend on the estate and all the houses would be given a fresh coat of paint and the front doors that had been fading would become bright and fresh again. The front doors were always painted in either red, yellow, blue or green, ours was always blue. And for anyone that can remember cardinal red polish my mum would polish our front doorstep as would most of the other women on the estate.
It was a brilliant place to grow up, the houses opposite ours backed onto what as a child appeared to be a huge field. In reality, as a grown-up it wasn’t that big, but it was edged with trees which we spent hours playing in and making tunnels in between. That all changed years later when we were plagued by Dutch Elm disease and most of the trees were cut down.
I went to Merland Rise infants school which had a field at the front which was used every sports day for races. Opposite the school were the prefabs where some of my friends lived. During the years I was at Merland Rise the prefabs were gradually demolished and what we referred to as the new estate was built. Many of my friends were rehoused there, my best friend moved to Coxdean.
I started at Merland Rise infants in 1960. The lady in the office who looked after children when you’d fallen over in the playground, Mrs Crossley, was still there when my niece went to the school many years later. I remember Mrs Woodcock, she was small and round and really sweet, other teachers in the infants were Mrs Frost, whose children both went to the school and Mrs Thomas. In the juniors Mrs Wilson was the headmistress and Mr Andrews was the deputy head. In my first year in juniors, I had Mrs Case, she shouted lots and I do remember the sting of her ruler if you misbehaved.
I’m not sure if they are still there but during my time in the juniors there was a tragedy at the seaside, two pupils on a family day out were drowned, somewhere on the south coast, I don’t recall exactly where, in their honour the school planted two trees on the school playing field to Kevin and Glyn Dowley.
Unlike these days, snow did not close the school, except with the exception of the winter of 1963. Mind you the only reason it closed then was because the coal delivery hadn’t arrived to heat the school. As soon as that arrived, we were back at our desks which was a shame as we’d spent the previous couple of days building a brilliant snow fort on the front lawn of our house.
The estate had everything my mum needed. At the bottom of Marbles Way was the parade. This little row of shops was always busy, we had a butcher, a general store which sold tinned goods, cooked meat, fresh bread etc. and a hardware shop run by Mr & Mrs Ferris which sold paint, hardware items like light bulbs and pots and pans, paraffin for heaters that most people had as there was no central heating. There was also a wool department where most of the women had some wool put by and would pop in every week when they could afford to buy another ounce (25gm) to continue with what they were making, usually school jumpers! They also ran the post office, and my first national savings account was opened there, I was the proud owner of account number Preston Hawe 28. And lastly, we had a newsagent run by the Bydes, as well as the usual newspapers, comics, and sweets most of the kids knew that as you got older you could buy single cigarettes which would definitely not be allowed today.
It was a very safe estate to grow up on, everyone knew each other as most of them had moved in at around the same time. The other reason was that local Police Constable Storey knew everyone and you could pretty much guarantee that if you were caught doing something daft you would get a ride home in his little blue and white Morris Minor police car.
De Burgh school wasn’t even built when my parent moved in but by the time my sister and I got to senior school age it had been there a few years. Not that we went there, we both went to Nork Park County Secondary Modern, now known as the Beacon School. The children leaving De Burgh school had a tradition every July that they would throw all the books in the Marbles Way Pond and every July the council had to come and clear the pond!!!
The main employers for the estate were Kinloch’s Cash and Carry which was where Asda now stands, and they used to employ a lot of the boys from the estate when they left school. The other really good employer was the Legal and General at Kingswood (also sadly now gone). They used to provide a minibus that would come through the estate in the morning and pick up some of the ladies who worked in the kitchens and canteen and in the afternoon, they would bring those ladies home and pick up the ladies who would go and clean the offices in the evening (my mum and most of her friends).
We didn’t have a health centre, we had Dr J R Elwell. His surgery was at the back of his house in Merland Rise where you would sit and wait for your turn. He ran his surgery on his own every morning, then he would go out and do his house calls and then he ran another surgery in the evening. You never had to book in for an appointment, you walked into his consulting room, and he got your notes out of the filing cabinet, he knew everyone. I’m not sure any doctor these days would even consider such a job.
As we grew older, we had the Phoenix Youth Centre to meet in. That’s where I met my husband Tony, he lived in Pit Wood Green. In those days, a lot of the teenagers on the estate were heavily into motorbikes and that was reflected in the youth club, especially on a Saturday night when we often had a live band playing rock and roll. One room in the club was designated as a coffee bar and several of the boys painted some beautiful murals on the walls. The delicacy of the painted swans completely polar opposite to the leather clad lad called Aubrey who painted it. We had two youth leaders, Frank and Bubbles Ell. Frank would organise things for the boys to get involved in and Bubbles had a room to one side where the girls regularly met and chatted with her about anything and everything, nothing was off limits.
I also remember the opening of the Banstead Athletic Football Club bar which was named after Fred their oldest serving supporter. Lots of the local lads played for them in an amateur capacity.
Every year as we got close to bonfire night the local kids would start building two bonfires, one was on the field, which was opposite the houses in Acres Gardens, where the Dobsons and the Wentworths lived and the other was on the green where Marbles Way becomes Preston Lane. There were always loads of fireworks and I don’t ever remember anyone getting seriously hurt, the odd burn from a sparkler but nothing more.
I moved out when I married in 1975 but my parents lived there for the rest of their lives. What started as a £3 per week council house became their own, thanks to the Margaret Thatcher Right to Buy Scheme. When my dad retired in 1980, he used his lump sum from his pension to pay cash for it, £10,000.00. He always said why leave the money sitting in the bank it was far more use in bricks and mortar.
My mum passed away in February 2000 and dad in 2001. They still knew all their neighbours and in fact we sold their house to the daughter of dad’s good friend who lived next door but one. And Joannie Rolls, my mum’s best friend, whose house backed onto theirs from Marbles Way was still living there and had been keeping an eye on dad after we lost mum. They were good neighbours and friends.
When I visited a few years ago it was strange, everything has changed. On the site in Merland Rise of the Tattenhams Community Hall where my parents played bingo, the Phoenix Youth club where Tony and I met, the allotments which had been next to the swings and the swimming baths where my mum took her grandsons, stood lots of new buildings. The only thing still there was the Banstead Football club.
Now there is a brand-new community facility. I hope the same spirit of community is still alive and well.