Memories of Wood Green
I walked up to Bruce Castle Museum from Bruce Grove station early this afternoon. It was not a difficult walk and there are some buildings worth looking at on the way.
Luke Howard, Namer of Clouds Lived Here
This rather derelict building being refurbished was the home of Luke Howard. He seems to have been an amazing man with a wide degree of scientific interests, who should be remembered for a lot more than his classification of clouds. He must also have been the only pharmacist praised in a poem by Goethe.
But Howard gives us with his clear mindThe gain of lessons new to all mankind;That which no hand can reach, no hand can claspHe first has gained, first held with mental grasp.
I suspect too, that he might have been the Howard after whom the local telephone exchange in Enfield was named. Enfield Rolling Mills, who were my father’s biggest customer and where I worked for a couple of summers, had a phone number of Howard 1255. There is a list of all the old London exchange names here.
I enjoyed the museum, as it brought back some happy memories for me. I will be back.
- C’s godmother and her sister had worked at the Gestetner factory in Tottenham Hale and had a flat which would have been in the middle of the riots, although it looked like no damage was done. They were a lovely pair of sisters, who’d had a hard life, but who always remained cheerful to the end. They both lived into their eighties and still had all their marbles when they died. But I think, if they’d had the sort of healthcare that we get now, they might have had a few more years. Both seemed to keep falling over and breaking thighs and other bones.
- One memory the museum brought back was a tale from my grandmother about the Belgian refugees, who were put up in Alexandra Palace after the First World War.
- I can also remember the Monday evening crowds swarming past my father’s printworks on Station Road to the racecourse. Someone used to setup a Crown and Anchor board to fleece punters before they even got to the races, outside the works on Station Road. If the police turned up he allowed them to duck inside, provided they put a couple of notes in the charity box my father had on the counter.
- I also saw the inside of a pub for the first time at about eight, when my father used to take me for lunch on Saturdays to the Jolly Anglers in Station Road, when we both worked in the works.
- When we were at school, we often drive to Ally Pally to have a drink, as no-one seemed to bother how old you were in the bar there. You would then take your drinks out and sit on the grass to admire one of the best views in London.
- In the museum was a display, which had some stationery from Ward’s Stores at Seven Sisters. In the early 1960s, I used to work in a paper shop, who delivered them to Mr. Ward. Rumours had it, that he was dying of something and was getting a bottle of Scotch a day on the NHS.
Next time I visit, I’ll have a serious look at the archives.
Bruce Castle Park and Tottenham Cemetery
At this point in my walk, I met a very helpful Harringey Council official checking how many litter bins they’d lost and after asking the way I walked under the railway to Bruce Castle Park.
Sadly, the museum doesn’t open until one and I was too early. As Sir Rowland Hill once owned the house, the museum also features a history of the Royal Mail.
I will return to see if there is anything my father printed. It does have the archive of Wood Green Empire and my father certainly did their posters and programs in his works in Station Road, Wood Green.
It was a very surprising area, especially as you consider it was only a coiuple of hundred metres from the riots in the High Street.
Stewed! For Lunch
For lunch today, I had a Chorizo, Chickpea and Pork Stew from a company called Stewed! in one of my old haunts, Wood Green. They don’t give an address, but it looks like it’s somewhere behind the old Haringey Town Hall and also the Barclays Bank, where my father used to have an account. He once told me that he was also involved in the training of a race horse somewhere in that area. Rumour has it, he was warned off for painting on the blaze of the horse with Meltonian. But then racing at Alexandra Palace was very dodgy between the wars.
The Stewed! was very good with some large pieces of sausage and meat and I’ll certainly buy some more. It was labelled gluten-free and now a couple of hours later, I’ve no reason to doubt their assertions on the packet.
I also liked the cooking method, which for someone with a slightly gammy left hand was easy, as the lid was simple to remove.
So good luck to them!
I bought mine from Waitrose, but I think Sainsburys stock them.
A Walk Down Memory Lane
Or more correctly between Turnpike Lane and Wood Green stations on the Piccadilly Line.
I’d taken a 141 bus to Turnpike Lane from the end of my road and alighted opposite the station.
Turnpike Lane Tube Station
Or should I put the local name underneath which sounded like Turnpicky Larny. I wonder if it’s still used.
I walked down the west side of Wood Green High Road and the first place I remembered was the Marks and Spencer on the other side.
Marks and Spencer at Wood Green
I didn’t go in, but it certainly looked to be in a worse state than how I remember it from the 1960s, when it was one of their flagship stores. I visited it many times, as a bag carrier for my mother, when she used to do the food shopping, when she was working with my father in Wood Green.
Further up you can still see the remains of the old Wood Green Empire above the Halifax.
The Remains of the Wood Green Empire
I can remember going there once to see the pantomime. It may have been Babes in the Wood, with Ted Ray, but even if I hadn’t had the stroke, I wouldn’t be sure.
My father also claimed that he’d appeared on the stage there in a variety show. But at one time, I know he did print the programs and posters for the theatre, so perhaps he did a deal. Knowing him, that could have been possible.
The centre of Wood Green High Road used to be crossed by a railway bridge that carried the Palace Gates railway line to Palace Gates from Seven Sisters. At one time there was a station in the area called Noel Park and Wood Green, but although I can remember the bridge and trains running on the line, I can’t remember the station. To the south of the bridge there used to be a pub called the Alexandra, which was pulled down in the 1960s or just before to build Wood Green’s first supermarket. Now the whole area has been redeveloped as Wood Green Shopping City.
Wood Green Shopping City
Moving along towards Wood Green tube station, I passed what some refer to correctly as the Broadway, but I just remember it as the place where you caught the trolley buses. On the left there used to be a restaurant called the QS for Quick Service and one of the first burger bars. I can remember visiting both quite a few times with my mother. I can still remember and smell, the chef, Ally, turning the greasy burgers as he fried them.
On the corner opposite the tube station, there is a pub which is now called the Goose.
The Goose, Wood Green
I think the pub used to be called the Nag’s Head and it is part of a family tale. My father used to live with his mother over the print works in Station Road, which is just around the corner. One Sunday morning her dog, who was a renowned thief, arrived back with a large cooked joint of beef in his jaws. My grandmother, immediately washed such a prize present off and that was the family’s Sunday lunch. My father surmised that the chef in the Nag’s Head had put the cooked joint on the window sill of the kitchen at the back of the pub to cool down a bit and the dog just couldn’t resist.
I then crossed the road by the tube station to catch a 141 bus back home from where the trolley buses stopped.
Wood Green Tube Station
All of these stations from Cockfosters to Turnpike Lane are very much part of my childhood and I remember them all with affection.
Memories of Childhood
I’ve said before that I spent a lot of time as a child in my father’s print works in Wood Green. I used to set all of the handbills for the Dunlop tennis tournaments held all round the UK. But my father did other jobs for Dunlop including their industrial gloves catalogues. These were uprated and reprinted each year and as I got more older and more literate, he sometimes asked me to proof read them. They had gloves for all different purposes.
Last night as I was cooking, I felt that an appropriate glove on my left hand might help. It would offer protection from say a knife, when you were cutting something, a sure grip when you picked something up and as I cook using an AGA, which has lots of hot bits, perhaps it would be insulated.
I can’t be sure, but I think Dunlop had a lightweight industrial glove all those years ago!
But something like that would certainly help!
The Anonymous Widower 