Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

From the Francis Frith Website:

I was born in Hornsey in 1923, and spent the first 10 years of my life living with my parents in the top flat at 257 Wightman Road. The ground floor was occupied by Mr and Mrs Dan Costigan. Mr Costigan was a bus driver, and they had one child, a daughter, who was greatly prized. In 1928, I was enrolled at the school which occupies the space between Mattison and Pemberton roads. Very happy memories of that school, including one year being chosen to be Father Christmas in the school play! My best friend, at the same school, was Norman Parsons, who lived at 108 Wightman Road. 257 Wightman Rd was at the bottom of a hill down which horse-drawn bakers' and milkmens' carts used to come, with a steel 'shoe' under the rear wheels to stop the cart overtaking the horse!
At the bottom of our garden there was (is) a steep bank at the top of which runs the New River. As a small boy, my father would take me up that bank (I was not allowed to go there on my own in case I fell in!), to watch men fishing for pike. I was told that there was one pike in that stretch of the river which was so big that it would pull a fisherman in if it were to be hooked. At that age, of course, I believed them!
Other memories include walking to and from school in thick London pea-souper fogs; watching my mother light the gas mantles in our flat; watching the lamp lighter walk down Wightman Road with his long pole; walking along Green Lanes with my parents on winter evenings looking at the stalls selling all manner of goods, from meat, fish and vegetables to china and sweets; seeing a dancing bear on the corner of Fairfax Road and Green Lanes, with a man collecting pennies for its 'performance'; seeing wounded soldiers (and amputees) from the 1914-18 war busking for pennies along Green Lanes; being taken to Harringey motorcycle speedway stadium by my father (I can still smell the cinders and the burnt oil!); going to Finsbury Park to fly kites made by my father; going to Clissold Park to sail my boats; going to a sweet shop (at the Turnpike Lane end of Wightman Road) to spend my Saturday penny; and seeing one of the local roads thickly lined with straw, to reduce noise because someone was dangerously ill in one of the houses.
In 1933, my father moved us to a new house just built in Surrey, and my association with Hornsey effectively ceased. But its memories are still extremely powerful. In Surrey, a year later, I sat for a scholarship to a grammar school, and got one, the credit for which must go entirely to the teachers at Mattison Rd/Pemberton Rd school.
If what I have written rings a bell with anyone who lived (or still lives) in Hornsey, I would welcome contact. My e-mail address is artastrop@tiscali.co.uk.
Posted by Arthur Astrop at
http://www.francisfrith.com/pageloader.asp?page=/search/memories/vi...

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