Pride and Prejudice

Pride, one thing I remember well growing up was the pride that most people had in new houses and gardens, of course like all places there were exceptions, (which those who resented the estate being created were quick to jump on and point out.) For most however it was spit and polish, for everything they could lay their hands on. I have never to this day understood the reasoning behind whitening and or polishing steps into the house, yet it was done, some even polished the number of the house. On washdays they knew that their washing would be given a critical once over by the neighbours and took great pride in it being as good as, if not better then the rest. They were so proud of their houses. After coming from one or two rented rooms, living with their parents, or worse yet like many, from slum tenements with no bathrooms, shared washing facilities and no inside lavatory. It was no wonder that for the most part, people were happy. I remember my first job was in Carshalton Beeches and we worked in some big and to us very posh houses. The plumber I worked for was very anti the Estate, referring to us as common and how he thought we were responsible for all the crime etc ,you couldn’t say much in those days and I wanted to keep my job, but we went into one big house and the woman had just finished washing up and there was food left sticking to the pot even though it had been dried, plus her washing on the line, would have drawn some caustic comments from the women on our street.  One of my mums favourite sayings was soap and water cost nothing. I got great pleasure pointing those facts out to my prejudiced Plumber.

A particularly unpleasant maths teacher at my secondary school once said, quite irrelevantly, that she always used a milk jug but she expected that our mothers put the milk on the table in the bottle. I was conscious that all our teachers were from owner-occupied areas, and felt that there was class distinction.

I remember the fence Bill. A police constable was stationed there to start with to stop the locals from pulling it down. He couldn't stay there for ever so after a while a few palings went "missing" allowing us to walk through into Sutton. It was then named "the hole in the wall". I disagree that it remained there to the second year of the war as before that we as kids used to take our billy carts along to ride down the hill of Prince of Wales Road. We also used to walk to Sutton on a Saturday morning to go to the Sutton Plaza Cinema. My mother used to give me sixpence. Threepence to get in, a penny bus ride from Rose Hill and a penny bus ride back and a penny for sweets. Forget the bus rides!! We used to walk, through where the fence used to be, and have threepence to spend on sweets! Just along from the the Plaza Cinema there was a high class sweet shop and we used to get 3d worth of "window sweets". Sweets that had been on display in the window for a while and couldn't be sold. They used to taste wonderful to us! Ah! the memories come flooding back.

I have a dear friend who used to live in the private houses and I used to live on the estate. This was over 50 years ago and we are both now in our 70s. I knew in those early days that her family thought they were different to the people on the council estate. Just recently she made reference to "those people on the estate" - some things never change!

Yes Gordon, I remember the fence or what remained of it in 1937/8 the reason so being that my brother was born in March 1937 and I vividly recall my mother pushing the pram round the back doubles route to Sutton from Welbeck Rd, no problem by this time.

In the 60's when Winchcombe Girls secondary school on the estate was merged with Carshalton West (now Carshalton High School for Girls) there was outrage from the Carshalton West parents who feared their girls would be contaminated.

I was a pupil at that school, which was great as I lived about 50 yards from the entrance and knowing the girls there we would have done the contaminating it was borderline St Trinians

Was amazed to see my late sister's photo alongside Jean Filches by ms Porter. Are either of them still living?