When sugar was a real treat
THIS photograph of the junction of Loose Road with Cripple Street brought back memories for one reader. Carol Lockwood said: “I know the area pretty well because I lived in Loose most of my life.” Her grandparents owned two houses in Pickering Street. Initially they lived in number 4 and rented out number 10. In September 1942, when Mrs Lockwood was just eight weeks old, her mother was widowed, when her husband’s aircraft was lost off the coast of Iceland. Flt Lt Alfred “Ginge” Culver was recorded as missing, presumed dead. Mother and daughter moved back in with the grandparents, and the whole family transferred to the larger number 10 property. Mrs Lockwood said: “I lived there until I married in 1961, and then after I inherited the house I moved back there in 1992.” “I well remember when I was about four-years-old , Mum pushing me to the grocers named Blackfords, where the Lloyds TSB bank is today. “I especially remember going to get everything for the Christmas cake and puddings. “All the dried fruits came in big hessian sacks and the serving assistants (all men) would scoop out the required amount into thick blue card packets, thoroughly tamping down the contents and the expertly folding the top down. “The dark brown sugar would (hopefully) have big blobs of sugar in it. If I was lucky, I would be offered one of these delicacies from the end of the scoop. Bliss! Sugar was such a treat just after the war! “Opposite the grocers, where the Boughton Lane parade of shops is now, was a large house where one of the Dr Warrens lived. I think he was called Harry. “A Dr Allen Warren lived opposite the bottom of Pickering Street and the elder brother lived in Tonbridge Road. The house was surrounded by damson and plum orchards. “We would walk home up Boughton Lane, past the barns behind the Swan pub, which a little later became the site for a riding school, and through the cherry, plum and damson orchards to the top of Pickering Street - it’s now all houses of course. “It brought back sweet memories of a more gentle time.” Mr Lockwood left Pickering Street in 2007 and now lives in Adbert Drive, East Farleigh.