During the time when the Cuckoo Hall Lane estate was being built in the field behind my home I had many opportunities to explore the site after the workmen had left for the day, climbing up ladders and jumping from scaffolding into piles of sand, but my favourite excursions were still to places on the other side of the nearby railway line. I would make my way to the end of Cuckoo Hall Lane, which terminated at a gate covered with corrugated iron sheets which was intended to prevent access to the railway line which ran into London's Liverpool Street station. The formidable barrier was not totally effective, however, as a trench had been scooped out in the soil at the bottom of the gate, through which children could wriggle. When I was quite small, children's visits usually just involved putting halfpennies on the line to await a train that would flatten them into the size of pennies, but as I grew older, I would adventure further by climbing around the side of the gate on the other side of the track, into a lane that ran up to Ponders End station. On the left up this lane was a sewage farm, where several large circular filter beds had long wire-supported pipes rotating above them spraying liquid from which solids had been extracted in an adjacent building. This separation process could be seen through the windows of this unit, but it was not a pretty sight!
Further up the lane was a wood yard, where planks sawn from large logs were piled up in the open air for natural seasoning. Separating the planks to allow air flow around them were long sticks, some of which had been discarded after use and could be liberated from the yard, to be used for pole vaulting over the stream on the railway side of the lane. These sticks were quite thin, and not really designed for this purpose, so would sometimes break in the middle of a vault, causing the make-believe athlete to drop into the water. Unfortunately, the stream, officially identified as the Brimsdown Ditch - but known by another name by locals - ran through the coal yard at Ponders End station, where it acquired a cargo of coal dust. Arriving home in filthy clothes after one of these mishaps, my mother would berate me, saying something like - You've been playing in that Black Dyke again, haven't you!'
Turning right instead of left, I would come to a water-filled old clay pit - locally known as the Blue Lake - the nearest bank of which was beside the chain link fence of the sewage farm. On the other side of this fence was the area where the solids from the farm were deposited, and where one could see giant green vegetation. I later learned that this mainly consisted of tomato plants - the seeds of which apparently pass unharmed through human digestive systems - which had grown huge by being in soil so extremely rich in natural fertiliser! The shortest way to the most interesting areas of the lake was along this bank beside the farm, but its first section had fallen away over the years leaving a wet, slippery edge. It was necessary to cling onto the wires of the fence to cross this gap, which a fairly easy task for bigger boys, but very difficult for younger and smaller ones. It was at this spot that I had lost my grip on the fence and nearly drowned years before.
I was often alone on my forays away from home, but on one occasion I met up with some other lads, and together we made a voyage to a small island on the lake upon which we seen some swans. We sailed on the raft that was always present there, which had been made from railway sleepers, probably taken from the old abandoned track nearby that had been laid years before to remove excavated clay. When we reached the island, the first boy ashore shouted that he had found the swan's nest, so everyone else rushed excitedly to the spot, leaving no one on the raft, which, unnoticed, drifted away. When the loss of our lifeboat was spotted, an argument developed as to who should have to plunge into the muddy water to retrieve it. This dispute was only resolved by one lad actually offering to do the job, since, as he boastfully declared, he was the best swimmer present. After stripping to his underpants, he attempted a quite stylish looking dive into the lake, but this ended in a shallow belly-flop as the water was only about two feet deep at that point! He could have reached the raft by removing just his shoes and socks, without even having to take off his trousers. On other occasions I would often angle in the lake for sticklebacks and redthroats, using just a worm on the end of some strong cotton. No hook was needed as I could see the fish in the shallow water, and whipped up the line at the moment when I saw that one had the end of the worm in its mouth. My catch would be brought home in a jam jar, along with any newts that I had also found, to be placed in an old tin bath outside our back door.
When I ventured to the far end of the lake I would encounter what we called the moving bog. This was a strange area where water plants and grass had grown all the way over the top of an outlet of the lake that fed into the River Lea, forming a sort of wobbly mass which could be walked upon. It was on a visit to this phenomenon one day that I went on a little further, to cross the Lea at Picketts Lock, and somehow found my way up the bank of the adjacent William Girling Reservoir, which was in the final stages of its construction. After finding a tree branch leaning against the concrete side, I climbed down into the vast area, light-heartedly musing about how quickly I could get out if someone turned the tap on. However, I did not venture far from the tree branch as it was the only means of getting out, as to do so I needed to get up over the very large curved overhangs at the tops of the concrete sides about ten feet above. The reservoir was completed in 1951, so I would have been ten or eleven at the time. Perhaps this exploit demonstrates the massive amount of freedom I had whilst growing up - although possibly a rather more than most - compared with the restrictions on the children living as I write this in 2025.
The William Girling and 1912 King George V reservoirs were sited either side of Lea Valley Road, which ran from Ponders End to the bottom of Kings Head Hill, Chingford. It was along this road that I and other pals would ride in a 102 bus, or on our bicycles, to get to Epping Forest, another haunt of my younger years, probably with some sandwiches supplied by our mothers. After visiting Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge beside the Royal Forest Hotel, we would play on the grassed area where fairs were sometimes held, or among the trees of the forest, making our way sometimes to Connaught Waters to hire a rowing boat. Towards the end of the afternoon, if we had arrived by bus, but later spent the money we should have saved for transport home, we would have to walk. Our route would take us beside an old POW camp, past an obelisk bearing a brass plate marking the Greenwich Meridian, and down a slope upon which I would toboggan in later years with my children, to arrive near the bottom of Kings Head Hill. A little further on we would reach the Lea Valley Road, and the ensuing long walk between the fences guarding the reservoirs would seem interminable to our tired bodies, and we would argue bitterly about who had suggested that we spend our return bus fares.
Ponders End station was visited often, usually to collect train numbers, but was where I had always had an irrational fear of falling through the steps on the upper section of the stairs used to cross the line when the crossing gates were shut. This was due to the fact that, unlike the lower sections, these steps had no risers, and I could see through the gaps to the rails below, so I always clung to the sides when going over the top. Train numbers were also sometimes collected during trips to Liverpool Street station, and it was on one of these that, when leaning out of the carriage window, I got some grit in one eye - probably coal dust contained in the smoke from the train's steam engine. A little old lady, on seeing my distress, suggested holding the affected eye closed with my fingers, whilst blinking the other. Being a polite little boy (?) and not wishing to appear rude by ignoring her advice, I did as she directed and was amazed to find that the cure worked immediately. I thanked her profusely, and ever since I have watched out for incidents where I could pass on this tip. Whilst at Liverpool Street I would always spend sixpence on the machine that punched out metal labels with letters selected on a large dial by a rotatable brass pointer. I never actually found a use for these labels, upon which I punched my name, but I really enjoyed the experience of their production.
One day it was from Ponders End station that I set off with Bob Cherry, a schoolmate who had to wear callipers on one leg, to go to Broxbourne, a couple of stations along the down line. I can't recall if we were playing truant, but Bob had somehow obtained what seemed to me a rather large sum of cash, from which he paid for everything that day, including the hire of skiffs on the River Lea. I found rowing one of these an exhilarating experience, but was bemused by the fact that I could not see where I was going. On our arrival home, we popped in to Bob's house, where his mother offered us something to eat, suggesting sausage sandwiches. I had never eaten one of these before, and the combination of warm soft white bread containing halves of delicious brown sausages, with some brown sauce, proved to be wonderful. When I arrived home, I demanded to know why Mum had never served such delights in the past, but got the impression that they were the sort of thing that only people from Council Houses regularly ate. Another trip to Broxbourne with Bob was for an overnight stay in a tent on the greensward on the banks of the Lea, and we set off eagerly early one morning carrying all our equipment and copious supplies of food supplied by our two mothers. On our arrival, after we had pitched our tent on the grass a little way back from the towpath, we were attracted to look at some ducks and swans swimming on the river. When the birds moved away, we turned back towards our tent, only to see that some cows, who we had not noticed before, had moved from their previous pasture to investigate our camp. In doing so, they had trampled our tent into the grass, but more disastrously had rummaged around in our provisions and gobbled at all our food! The was no point in staying with a damaged tent and no eatable fare, so we made our way back home, to arrive, very crestfallen, at still only about eleven o'clock in the morning.
As I grew up a little, I was one day allowed to join my brother's pals on a bicycle ride to Broxbourne, which was not a great success as at the end of the long tiring ride, I struggled to keep up with them on the way home. This was partly due to the fact that my smaller bike only had twenty-four inch wheels compared with their twenty-six inchers. However, one good result of this trip was that on the outward journey, which had taken us along The Crooked Mile that started at Waltham Abbey, I had noticed an avenue of Horse Chestnut trees off to one side of the road. That September, I remembered this avenue and persuaded some friends to join me on a visit there, to see if we could get some conkers. Collecting conkers usually involved the repeated throwing of a fallen branch up into a tree in the hope of dislodging the spiky fruits, which was very tiring and usually resulted in a very meagre harvest. However, when we climbed over the gate and walked up the avenue, we were delighted to find quite a lot of conkers already lying on the grass under the trees, and could also see more brown shapes peeping out of green cases above. We hoisted one of our group up into the lower branches of one of the trees, with instructions to climb as high as possible and shake the top of the trunk backwards and forwards. This he did, resulting in a virtual thunderstorm of conkers raining down on us waiting below. Other boys took their turns up only another couple of trees, which still resulted in us collecting almost more than we could carry. I had brought a straw bag in which Dad would bring home fish from Billingsgate with me, which was really too large for the expected number of conkers, but was the only one with carrying loops that would fit over my bike's handlebars. I filled this huge bag to the brim, and when I arrived back home, was able to sell the contents to local children at something like tuppence for ten.
I had another successful escapade at Edmonton Green, involving Salmons Brook, which flowed alongside the Cross Keys pub. By the early 50's, when I was around eleven years old, the brook had been routed through a culvert so that it ran under the old railway track and below The Broadway. Wearing my plimsolls under my dad's wellies, armed with a torch, and accompanied by another lad, we managed to climb over a fence down into the brook, and started to splash through the water in the culvert. It was very dark, and we prayed that our torches would not die on us - as the batteries often did in those days - since there were only occasional glimmers of light shining down from the holes in a few manhole covers in the road above. Progress was fairly slow, and thoughts of turning back kept recurring as we had no idea whether we would eventually find an end to the tunnel. After a while we arrived at a small weir, and, after much deliberation, decided to climb down as it looked to be quite difficult to get back up again without getting totally soaked. The decision to go forward rather than back may have been encouraged by the appearance of two enormous rats behind us, who didn't seem affected by our crying and shouting to try to frighten them off. We continued on for what seemed like ages, but finally began to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. With great relief, we found ourselves in the allotments behind the indoor swimming pools at the rear of the Town Hall, and felt that in exploring this very long subterranean river we had achieved an exploration in the spirit of Captain Scott!
When I was not roaming abroad somewhere, I would join in games played in our street, kicking a ball about or defending the base of a lamppost which was serving as a wicket in a game of cricket. We also played marbles, using one of the telephone connection inspection covers that conveniently had the crossbar in one of its lifting recesses missing. Girls would have their own, less active games, such as Queenie, where participants had to avoid being caught actually moving when a girl standing in front with her back to the others suddenly turned round. We boys sometimes enjoyed tibby-cat, which was played using a stick and a short piece of square wood - the cat - which had it ends tapered to points. A home base area about a foot square would be marked out at the edge of the road - using chalk or by rubbing the road surface with leaves from one of the privet hedges in adjacent front gardens - and the cat positioned half way across the edge of the kerb above. Each boy would have a turn at hitting the protruding end of the cat with the stick to make it jump up, and whilst it was airborne, hit it again so it went as far as possible from the home base. If the cat was caught by one of the others lads, or the cat dropped into the home base square, the player would be out. Otherwise, the distance could be increased by repeating the jump and whack process three times, using the stick to hit one of the tapered ends of the cat on each occasion. The player's score would be noted as the number of paces measured from the cat's final position to the home base, and the next boy would then start his innings. What our tender modern society would make of a game where youngsters would be attempting to catch a wooden projectile with pointed ends hurtling at great speed through the air, I cannot imagine.
Another street activity was roller skating, and games of hockey, which were played with a tennis ball, and sticks to which another piece of wood had been nailed at an angle. Goals were defined by coats laid on the road, and the occasional skinned knees and elbows endured by the players were often covered with temporary dressings created by grubby handkerchiefs. As the steel wheels on skates, which had probably been Christmas presents, gradually wore out, boys would start to think about making a go-cart. Visits would be made to the rubbish processing plant (The Dump) in Montague Road - which ran from the southward end of Nightingale Road - located a little way past the Cart Over Throne pub. The name of this establishment always puzzled me, but it was not until some years after the war ended when it reappeared, that I saw that its sign depicted, and was actually labelled, The Cart Overthrown. Trips would be made to The Dump on a Sunday, when it was closed, but we would get in from its rear to avoid being spotted trespassing. We would walk over the railway bridge beside the pub, and turn right, towards Tottenham, then carry on until we came to a large metal pipe that crossed the Black Dyke, which was wider and deeper here than back near Ponders End station. With arms outstretched for balance we would cross the brook on the pipe, and climb through fences on each side of the railway to get to the rear of the potential source of our needs. These would be wheels and axles from old prams and pushchairs, and we might have to bash things about a bit to separate what we wanted from the bodies. The return journey would be hampered slightly as we carried our ill-gotten gains homeward, where cart construction could begin using crates and discarded wooden boards. One vital item that had to be obtained - possibly at The Dump - was a large bolt with preferably, two nuts, which would act as the pivot for the front axle board. This board could be fitted over or under the board of the main body - there being pros and cons for each position - with a loop of string attached at each side to assist with steering or pulling the cart. When completed the cart would be subjected to a test run, followed by a session where any problems were resolved, before it would be displayed in the street to great acclaim. Unfortunately there were no hills nearby, so any races between carts had to be run with human pushers.
Our street would often be visited by a Wall's ice cream van, and I discovered that the lad who drove it shared my interest in crystal set radio receivers. I had one that I had made, and also another manufactured by Ivalek. Both used cat's whisker crystal detectors, which employed pieces of galena which could be probed by a wire mounted on a spring-loaded handle, to try to find a spot which would allow a radio signal to be detected. The problem with this arrangement was that sounds could only be heard if the set was already tuned to a station - a chicken-and-egg sort of situation as tuning was only effective if the detector was already detecting! I was amazed when my friendly ice cream vendor presented me with a germanium diode, a tiny glass bead on a wire, which he assured me could replace the crystal detector, and so do away with the time consuming and fiddly probing/tuning procedure. This little device awoke in me a life-long interest in electronics which guided my working career.
In the summer months, I would usually be found at the Lido, the swimming pool beside the Henry Barrass Sports Ground near Houndsfield Road School. From the first visits there I loved that pool, which was only three feet deep at its shallow end, so I could stand in it by myself, unlike the indoor pools at the rear of Edmonton Town Hall which had minimum depths of three feet six inches, so I had to cling to the side rails before I learned to swim. I did become quite a good swimmer, and spent many happy days at the Lido, becoming friends with members of Edmonton Swimming Cub, including the daughters of the Baths Superintendent who lived in a house beside the pool. As I later avidly watched TV programs about the undersea activities of Jacques Cousteau, or episodes of Sea Hunt starring Lloyd Bridges, I became obsessed with sub aqua, and got myself some flippers, a mask and a snorkel. I would be the object of some curiosity in those days as I flapped along at the side the Lido pool wearing these strange accoutrements before I jumped in to sweep around the depths looking for dropped objects. Another chapter of this epic - Diving - is an account of my later involvement in this sport.
On one visit to the Town hall pools, wearing my diving gear, I found a brass ring in the shape of a buckled belt, with glass inserts representing the belt holes, and proudly showed this to Mum when I got home. She realised that the ring was actually gold, decorated with diamonds rather than glass, and insisted that I take it back to the pool immediately - which I did with rather poor grace I must admit. One evening some days later there was a knock at our front door, to which I was called by Dad, saying the visitor wanted me. He had called to thank me for returning his ring, which was of great sentimental value as well as being quite valuable, and presented me with a one pound note in gratitude. I also received a letter from the Baths Superintendent, saying it was the first time in his career that such an expensive object had been returned as lost property. Some time later he caught me canoodling with his elder daughter on the grass behind the bank at the shallow end of the Lido, but I did not think mentioning his letter to me would help the situation, and got banned for a while. Another event involving young ladies at the Lido occurred some years later, when my first wife and I were sunbathing in one of the areas which had originally been toddlers' shallow pools. Laying half asleep on my towel with my eyes closed, I heard someone talking to June, and when I opened my eyes I found that I was looking up at the legs of a girl who had not realised her flounced skirt extended over my head. The sight of the suspenders, stocking tops, and bare thighs within a frame of pretty petticoats was so unexpected that I instinctively (stupidly ?) closed my eyes and moved away to a less voyeurish position! To this day I do not understand my reaction to a situation which I might have tried anything to manoeuvre myself into at any other time in my randy 'teens.
In the final year at the new Cuckoo Hall Lane School, I somehow learned that one of the girls liked me - probably from one of her friends, which I believe was normal way such information was relayed. She was Maureen Greenway, a nice-enough lass, but who was rather small, wore white rimmed NHS glasses, and had a sort of unstylish pudding basin haircut. I remember that we did talk, but I explained that I was trying to get to know another girl at the school, Joyce Hearndene, so thanked her for her interest in me, which I was sadly unable to reciprocate. In reality I was madly in love with Joyce, and although I did attend one of her birthday parties, she chose another boy in preference to me. Perhaps her decision was influenced by the fact that, like a dope, I initially went to her party one week too early. Somehow, on the way there and back from her home in Warren Close on that day, I lost the rather pretty pearl necklace that I had bought for her. On the correct day, when I frantically realised that the pearls were missing, my mother found an old necklace of my grandmother's that I could give her instead. Although I was placated, the bright mauve glass of this offering was really unsuitable for an eleven-year-old girl and by offering it I did nothing to improve my chances with her. I remained besotted with Joyce for some years, although to no avail whatsoever. Even when she also came to Latymer school a year after me, she ignored me and any attempts at conversation. The sting in the tail of this sad story is that some years later, when I was living in Ponders End, I would sometimes go back to the Cuckoo Hall Lane estate to attend film nights that were run in a hall there. On one of these evenings, I spotted this gorgeous long-haired blonde beauty at the show, and when I moved to get a closer view, saw that she had that attractive slightly odd look to her eyes, rather like Marilyn Monroe. I asked some one if he knew the name of the lovely girl, and he replied - Oh! That's Maureen Greenway! I didn't think there was any point in making myself known to her!