Rainham History - History of Rainham Kent, Old Photos and Life in Bygone Times
The Iron Lady - Newspaper Headlines from the First Election Victory
Although these newspapers are not directly related to Rainham they give a good idea of history of the past 30 years or so and as a historical record of government during that time. They also show the effect of inflation, in 1979 the Guardian newspaper was 15p, rising to 23p in 1983!
These are a selection of newspaper front page headlines from just before Margaret Thatcher's first election victory in 1979 through becoming known as The Iron Lady and the elections of 1983 and 1987 showing the mood at the time. The newspapers also cover Jeffery Archer leaving the cabinet over payments to a prostitute and his subsequent libel victory in 1987 winning £500,000 from the Daily Star. This was followed by his conviction for perjury when it was shown that he had fabricated statements in relation to the trial.
Growing up in Rainham in the 1940s
My family lived in Rainham from 1946 until about 1976. I was 8 when we arrived and remember the place vividly as it was until I drifted away at the age of 13, first to go to school in Rochester, then university, then overseas. My sister Mary was 1 when we moved in, and my other sister Susan was born during the severe winter of 1947 which got Rainham in its grip as everywhere else. We lived first in 93 Broadview Avenue near the Church Path, then 73 Orchard Street opposite the boys’ school. My family were not therefore ‘natives’ of Rainham. We came there because my father was in the Royal Marines and spent his last 5 years of service in Chatham. It is worth recalling that at this time the Medway area was dominated by the navy, the dockyard and the industries and firms which supported it. The place was full of sailors, marines and dockyard ‘mateys’, the arrival of some of whom in search of a more pleasant rural life-style accounted for Rainham’s growth in the pre- and post-war periods.
As other people have noted on this website, Rainham was then still essentially a village surrounded to the east and south by orchards, hop gardens, fields and woods. The beginnings of suburbanisation had begun on the Gillingham side with the development of two ‘new’ (actually pre-war) areas, one bounded by the A2, Hamilton Road, Nursery Road and Maidstone Road, the other – on the other side of Maidstone Road – made up of Tudor Grove, Broadview Avenue, Herbert Road and (the incomplete) Arthur Road. The war had stopped all this in its tracks, but it was, of course to start up again with a vengeance in the 1960s.
At the beginning our lives were focussed on the village. At first, I went to St Margaret’s C of E Primary School at the top of Station Road. This was a substantial two-storey building of brick and flint with a tree in the grounds and concrete steps outside leading to the upper floor where the senior pupils were taught by the headmaster. Mr Turner. Below, the infants and juniors were taught, first by the wonderful Miss List (who used to send someone out on Friday afternoons to buy the latest edition of Enid Blyton’s ‘Sunny Stories’ from which, to our delight, she then read stories about elves and fairies. As we progressed, we were entrusted to the more formidable but still likeable Miss ‘Fanny’ Evans. One thing I remember vividly was the daily arrival of crates of free, very cold milk in tiny bottled with fascinating metal tops, which we drank through straws. I went to the Sunday School too, and was taught by Mr Denis, an admirable and devout man, heavily tanned and with a broad accent who was said to be the captain of a Medway barge. He provided the music for the hymns with his squeeze box. I think he was the brother of the Mr Denis who ran the butcher’s shop just down Station Road. The vicar, Mr Jordan, turned up occasionally. I don’t remember him that well: but I remember vividly his tiny grey coloured, Austin seven car.
Thinking of the butcher raises another matter. The immediate post-war period was a time of real austerity. No-one had any money, we all looked shabby and everything was rationed. Every Saturday morning, I remember, Mr Denis’s butcher’s boy would arrive on his bike with a basket on the front containing the tiny roll of beef (called hilariously ‘the Sunday joint’) that we were allowed, and which had to last for ages. A result of this was that every back garden was devoted to growing vegetables or soft fruits, and had chicken runs or rabbit hutches to supplement the food supply. We had six Rhode Island Reds which gave us eggs and the occasional Xmas dinner. Chicken in those days was a rare luxury – not the cheap common-a-garden meat it is today. My memories of the local sweet shops (notably for me, Parker’s - just round from the bottom of Orchard Street) were coloured by this. They may have been full of delights, but in my day what we could buy was rationed and when, to our delight, sweet rationing was abolished (1950 odd) the demand was so great that they had to put it on again! There was no central heating either. Even when you could get enough coal or wood to keep the fire going, I regularly used to wake up of a winter’s morning with ice on the inside of my bedroom window! Rainham was also the site of my first real disappointment in life. During the war bananas had been impossible to get and the news that they were to be available again produced joy and enthusiasm. I remember standing in Orchard Street when a friend suddenly produced this strange looking yellow thing – so unattractive and different from the exotic and succulent delicacy of our imaginations. We didn’t know what to do with it. Eventually we realised we had to peel it: but even them we were unimpressed and couldn’t work out what all the fuss had been about.
As everyone will tell you, we had to make a lot of our own amusements. There was no TV (a few sets only appeared in the middle 1950s) but we made the most of the wireless, listening mostly to comedy programme’s like ‘ITMA’ and ‘Much Binding in the Marsh’ and Wilfred Pickles’ popular quiz show: ‘Give ‘em the Money Barney’ he would say as he dished out the equivalent of 10p to the lucky winner. Not like now. Working the radio wasn’t that easy. Our set was powered by rows of big square glass containers of chemicals called ‘accumulators’ which presumably produced electricity and were linked to the set by complex wiring. We weren’t submerged in 24 hour sport and entertainment like today and things such as the Boat Race, the Grand National, the Test Match, the Boat Race and the Cup Final were significant national events which we all looked forward to.. Apart from the Coronation, the only time I saw TV was to watch the Boat Race and the Blackpool-Bolton Wanderers Cup Final when Stanley Matthews finally won his cup winners’ medal. By contrast to Wayne Rooney, Matthews probably earned about £10 a week.
For us children, there was plenty to enjoy. We used to go down to the Chalk Pit in Berengrave Lane to find newts and come back with sticklebacks and tadpoles in jam jars. There were the wonderful Rainham Woods to play cowboys and Robin Hood in: they seemed huge and started just south of the fields near Arthur Road and filled the space between Wigmore and Jack Clark’s farm and hop gardens in Meirscourt Road. For entertainment, there was Saturday morning pictures for kids at the Royal Rainham – the famous Bughutch – where, when not charging about the aisles and yelling our heads off to the despair of the manager, we enjoyed a diet of westerns, cartoons and historical epics like ‘The Sea Wolf’ and ‘The Four Feathers’. In the summer and autumn there were the delights of scrumping for apples, cherries and plums. At that time there was nothing but orchards, fields, fruit trees and sheep east of the Church Path, which ran from the eastern end of the churchyard up past the end of Tudor Grove, Broadview Avenue and Herbert Road then across a scruffy bit of waste land with damson bushes to the Woods. Summer Sundays brought idyllic afternoons watching Rainham Cricket team in their spectacular tree-surrounded pitch in Berengrave Lane. Then, in the evenings we had the pleasure of lining the A2 opposite the Cricketer’s to jeer at the Londoners in cars and coaches who were crawling back through the village bumper to bumper after a day trip to Margate. Autumn brought the conker season (the best ones were obtained by throwing sticks into the horse chestnut trees in front of the church) and Guy Fawkes day. Always misty, we used to let off bangers, squibs, roman candles and rockets in our back garden then go to the huge ‘formal’ bonfire which had been built on nearby waste ground. Ours was in the space where Arthur Road ended. There were also the attractions of the 20th Medway (Rainham) Scout troop. I joined for the glamour of the uniform and the ten gallon hat which I wore in the style of cowboy idle, Roy Rogers. The scout hut was near the gate of the cricket ground. I don’t remember doing much but learnt how to do lots of useful things with rope and string.
Class at Camp School 1953
A significant event occurred in 1947-8. The population of Rainham must have been growing, so the powers that be decided to open a new primary school in Maidstone Road (on a rise just opposite Highfield Road). I and, I imagine all the children who lived in the area south of the main road in the ‘pre-war’ developments, were moved from the C of E Primary School to the new one. It was called the ‘Camp School’ because it occupied the timber huts and facilities of an old army camp which was on the site. Its playground was a bit of rough pasture close to Rainham Woods. The first Headmaster was nice Mr Rivers who had been involved with military music in the war and had managed to get hold of a battered set of brass instruments – so we had a complete school band. We gave concerts – one of which I and my fellow cornetist, John Norris, messed up by playing ‘John Peel’ so fast that the others could not keep up. Another of Mr Rivers’ obsessions was Gilbert and Sullivan. One concert was devoted to excerpts from ‘HMS Pinafore’ with myself singing Sir Joseph Porter. Other memorable teachers were Mr Burroughs (smart in tie, green jacket, beige cavalry twill trousers and shiny brown boots), Mr Palmer, and Mr Smith – a sardonic type whose teaching technique had been learnt when he was a Physical Training Instructor in the navy and hadn't changed. He always referred to the ground as ‘the deck’ and called us ‘Boy!’
I enjoyed the Camp School but I don’t think it did much for the social cohesion of Rainham. At that time every British community seemed to be filled with petty snobberies and imaginary or real social gradations: most streets contained people who thought they were better and posher than those in the next. Early soaps (like Coronation Street and East Enders – before broadcasters developed the idea that neighbourliness was about crime and confrontation – were all based on these tensions.. Thus we who lived in the largely semi-detached prewar developments south of the Main Road tended to look down on the more working class inhabitants who lived in the terraces and housing estates between the Main Road and the railway; while looking up with awe at the middle class office workers who lived in the detached residences and bungalows up Maidstone Road and around Wigmore. Now Rainham had three primary schools catering separately for each group! The Camp School obviously benefitted from this more privileged clientele and there were some very bright little girls like Sheila Marriot and Laura Something who were mad on ‘Swallows and Amazons’ and insisted on being called ‘Susan; and ‘Titty’ after the heroines of that work. Not knowing - in those days of innocence - what these words actually meant, we obliged. We boys were more interested in ‘Ripping Yarns’ of British pluck against shifty foreigners written by people like Percy F Waterman.
There were also a number of squatters still living in the more remote bits of the old camp. These were people who had been bombed out in London or the Medway towns during the war and had moved into the first empty property they could find. At the Camp School gate lived one such family called Pickering who had a boy who was a fellow pupil. His grandfather lived with him and we were thrilled (having just seen ‘The Four Feathers’ at the Bughutch) to learn that this old man had actually been in the thin red line at the Battle of Omdurman outside Khartoum in 1898 when Kitchener had defeated the Sudanese and avenged General Gordon!
It was at the Camp School that they discovered I was short sighed. I have worn glasses ever since, and my first pair was supplied by Patrick Duff who had just opened a practice on the rise past the Post Office and Ivy Street. Mr Duff was youngish and pleasant with a grey suit and a little moustache. In fact he looked and dressed very much like the Reed brothers who ran the barber’s shop next to Cremer’s and Rainham Radio and opposite the Bughutch. The brothers wore suits and had little moustaches and hair gleaming with Bryllcreme. They bore a strong resemblance to Private Walker in Dad’s Army (though without the spivery.) Both had been captured outside Dunkirk and had spent the whole of the war in German prison camps. I remember that, between the snip-snips, they regaled us with stories of crossing Germany in cattle trucks and being told by confident guards what they intended to do to Mr Churchill when they successfully invaded Britain!
The different social circumstances of the three Rainham primary schools however were not reflected in the results. Strangely, hardly any boys from the area passed the 11 plus examination and we all found ourselves at the Secondary Modern School in Orchard Street. In those days, of course, the state education system was divided into three parts – the Grammar schools which took the academically gifted who were destined for ‘professional’ jobs at the age of 11; the Technical Schools (filled by another selection process at 13) which prepared for middle grade engineering and technical careers; and the Moderns which the rest attended, the majority destined for ordinary working class jobs.
I must admit that to have ‘failed’ the 11 plus examination was a source of some shame – especially when we met those who had passed wearing their smart Grammar School uniforms. Theoretically therefore, the Orchard Street Secondary Modern should have been ‘bog standard’ and bottom of the educational heap. But I can say most emphatically that it was not. Obviously it taught non-academic subjects like woodwork, metalwork, mechanical drawing, book binding, pottery and gardening – indeed I have been grateful for the grounding it gave me in these practical skills ever since – but academically (in the A streams at any rate) what was taught and the way it was taught was little different to what took place in (for example) the Mathematical School in Rochester. (I know this because I was transferred to it at the age of 13) The only real difference was that at Rainham we did not do languages. Likewise the whole tone of the school was disciplined and purposeful. The Headmaster, Mr RAF Bacon MSc, ran it like any ‘normal’ secondary school, was treated with enormous respect by all, and set the tone by walking the corridors dressed in his academic gown. He was strict and there was always the cane in reserve for delinquents. Not that there were many of those: I have little recollection of bullying or rowdiness.
Mr Bacon was supported by a team of teachers, many of whom had just left the forces or had recently graduated. Mr Brown, the Games Master, had been in the navy in the Med and had a large metal tag on his key ring stamped ‘Commander’s Cabin’; the two teachers of metalwork (I forget their names) had both been RN Engine Room Artificers; Mr Castell had been in the RAF; Mr Springall had been in the Royal Marine Band. The last taught music and ran the school choir. He was a keen Salvationist and was Bandmaster to the Salvation Army Citadel in Gillingham. I remember him taking the choir there where we sang ‘All in the April Evening.’ Other memorable teachers were Ernie Rotherham, a short north countryman who taught pottery and book binding; the perpetually relaxed Bert Newall who did art; and Mr Patterson who taught us gardening. He was very devout and ran a bible reading group which I joined (shamefully in order to be able to wear the little green enamel badge with a silver lamp on it which all members were given). He later left to become a missionary in Uganda. On the more academic side, here was Percy Johns, red faced and tweedy, who introduced us to history; while English was the preserve of two University of Wales graduates and brothers, Rhys Williams and Haydn Williams, both of whom were tall and thin and rode huge ‘sit up and beg’ bicycles. There were class trips too – all by bicycle. One was to Sharp’s Toffee Factory in Maidstone (the sweet smell put us off confectionary for weeks) and another all the way to Canterbury. I returned with two old cavalry sabres which I had bought for the equivalent of 25p each tied to my crossbar.
When I went to school in Rochester I gradually lost touch with Rainham. I got home late and had to leave home early to catch the bus (either the green Maidstone and District number 26 - Faversham to Gravesend - which went past my new school but trailed all round Gillingham; or the Brown Chatham Traction Co. number 2 which went down Chatham Hill but only went as far as the Town Hall). And at the weekend I was obsessed with homework. In the holidays however I was still around and, like many people in Rainham and district spent the summer working on local farms (in my case Jack Clarks’). There were cherries, apples and plums to be picked and hops to be gathered. Local families went together to the many hop gardens in the area and had a three week paid holiday in the fresh air picking them. This involved working their way slowly along rows of hop plants, standing as they pulled the bines down from the wires on which they grew, then sitting to pull off the hops and heap them in huge bins made of sacking. The quantity picked (and the amount earned) was checked, and the bins emptied regularly. My father and I worked as ‘Pole Pullers’, in charge of a dozen rows of hops (and the families who were picking them) and equipped with a twelve foot pole with a knife at the end. Our job was to make sure the pickers did not hide the smaller hops (payment was by volume) and to cut down any bines which got stuck at the top of the wire. Some of the women in the hop garden were a pretty rough lot and, as a young male teenager I came in for a lot of banter and lewd innuendo replete with suggestions about what I could do with my pole which had nothing to do with hops. Hops were waxy with a distinct smell which could not be easily removed. For weeks we just stank!
Brian Vale
Falklands War Daily Newspaper Headlines
Coming soon, daily newspaper headlines from the Falklands War 30 years ago this year. Copies of the newspaper front page headlines for each day will be posted on the site - although these are from The Guardian not the more dramatic headlines of The Sun such as the infamous "Gotcha" when the Argentine ship General Belgrano was sunk.
31 March 1982 - Ministers try to defuse Falklands crisis
5 April 1982 - We won't hesitate says Nott
9 April 1982 - Britain to blockade Falkland Islands
24 April 1982 - Fleet Poised to Attach as peace hopes fade
1 May 1982 - Exclusion Zone extended
4 May 1982 - HMS Sheffield and Harrier destroyed
Rainham Golden Jubilee Parade - June 2002
This is a video of the Rainham Golden Jubilee parade in 2002 showing iconic vehicles from the previous 50 years as well as local groups in procession. Unfortunately the video isn't fantastic quality - and certainly isn't HD!
Do you recognise yourself there?
Rainham Jubilee Parade June 2002
Rainham Jubilee Parade June 2002
View from Rainham Church 2012
View from St Margarets Church Tower over Rainham 2012
Rainham church is in the centre of the town with impressive aerial views from the church tower across the Medway and towards Sittingbourne and Gillingham. On certain days through the year the tower is open to the public to climb to the top past the bellringers and take advantage of the views of the local area. These photos were taken in 2012 with some previous shots from 2004 as comparison.
Click on each image to display the next picture. This is a panoramic shot stitched together from 6 separate photos taken from the tower
Photo of Perks grocers Longley Road Rainham
I received this message today. Does anyone have any information to assist?
I wonder if you can help me....I am trying to find out when Perks a grocers situated on the corner of Longley Road Rainham closed and ceased trading.
Hope you can help
This photo of Perks Grocers was from the late 1950s - around 1957/58
My Childhood Memories of Rainham by Vernon Verrall
My Childhood Memories of Rainham
My first recollections of Rainham are when my family moved into a house on Danson Way, when I was about 4. After a short time we moved into a house in Quinnell Street, although we moved house again we stayed in Quinnell Street where we remained until I moved out, when I got married.
I started school at St Margaret’s at the top of Station Road where I chose to sit at the front next to a little girl. I lasted about 15 minutes then I ran home again to my Mum. Needless to say I was quickly taken back. We were taught our numbers and letters using a sand tray. Mrs Madden, our teacher wrote on the blackboard and we copied in our trays, once perfect you shook the tray and started on the next one. Mrs Madden suddenly died which was a shock to us all as she was very nice. I remember Mr Turner the Headmaster, Mr Davis the Deputy Head who also ran the school football team, and of course Fanny Evans who used to shout at everyone! There was a large tree in the playground and it was alongside this that a slide used to appear whenever there was any snow or ice around. Mr Davis used to slide down it alongside all the boys. What would happen today with all the ‘health & safety’ regs!
The school itself was very old, built using a lot of flint so you had to be careful if you rubbed up against the wall too hard. At that time the only other school was in Solomons Road on the corner of with Scott Avenue. Also in Scott Avenue, there was a row of prefabs as there also were at the end of Solomon Road. Later when they started to close Eastwoods brickfield, this was between the end of Scott’s Avenue and the Lower Rainham Road, they built a new school called Wakeley Road School. They also got rid of all the allotments at the end of Scott’s Avenue. Some of my memories are the same as other people have written, so if I repeat them, please forgive me! In those days a lot of people that lived in council houses were not very well off, quite poor in fact by today’s standards! I can remember having new shoes, they were all leather and I kicked the fronts out of them playing football with a tennis ball in the playground within a few days, which didn’t go down very well at home! The same as when I went through the sole sliding around. I put paper and card inside my shoes to cover the hole so my Dad wouldn’t see it! Many a day I went to school like this. Once I remember my Dad pulling the studs out of a pair of football boots, polishing them black for me to wear to school simply because, at that moment, they couldn’t afford to buy me another pair. I was the oldest of 6 children, so clothes etc., just went down the line from one to another.
Colin McGregor who has written in this forum is younger than me, and some things changed from my time to his. Mr Osbourne lived at the top of Quinnell Street and used to own the wholesale newspaper business that supplied all local shops. All the top of Quinnell Street where Hidsons now is there used to be a nice bungalow with a large garden. Just round the corner, next to the bank, there was a wooden hut that was the Police Station that was changed for a larger building prior to the new one being built at the top of Berengrave Lane. The local policeman was a huge man who used to visit the schools giving talks and putting the fear of God into us all as to what would happen if we were to do anything wrong! Opposite the Police Station were the Gas Showrooms and a garage with a Ladies Hairdressers, a sweet shop and butchers. One thing I forgot to mention, I am sure when I first moved to Rainham, there were still trams running that turned down Station Road. This point is up for discussion.
Going on to things we used to do. I remember that Quinnell, Brown & Holding Streets as well as the 2 road triangles, all had trees planted between the footpaths and the houses, which were very useful for kids to play around. That is except for the new houses built on one side of Quinnell Street. They had front gardens, they also had, what we called, the new path which is where we used to race a barrow down. Down the path, passed Richard Matthews house, also a contributor round the corner and down the alley that led to Berengrave Lane and Hunters Shop. Look out anyone coming up with their shopping bags! Going on to Berengrave Lane there was Nellie Hunters shop on the corner of the alleyway, turn right going down, there was Longley’s Farm which now is the estate where you find Northumberland Avenue, Devon Close and Tufton Road, then the railway line and to the left of this, Rainham Cricket ground, where you found Mr Eccles the Chairman from Brown Street and of course Sid Calloway known to us all as ‘Mr Rainham Cricket Club’ – a fairly well off man, that supported the club in a big way. He also played cricket to a very late age.
Next to this was the Scout building housing the 22nd Medway Scout group then through the railway arch where you found Mr Longley’s Rose fields. Mr Longley was renowned throughout England for his process of rose growing. His rose garden on the right hand side of Berengrave Lane now is the estate incorporating Childscroft, Chalky Bank & others. All us kids used to walk down Berengrave Lane, past the chalk pit, now a nature reserve, to what we called the ‘tide’ or ‘the sea wall’, to go swimming. Most of us learnt to swim here, out at Motley Hill, in the streams as the tide came in. Some could swim well and they would show off by swimming across the dock! Opposite the dock was the old cement works where you found a building, as stated by others, as the house of many windows. On the way down Berengrave, people used to leave out on their walls, dropped apples, pears and plums for us! We also used to knock on doors for a drink of water, which they always took pity on us and gave us a drink! Nice people! During the summer we used to go down the tide to pick damsons and blackberries from which our Mum’s used to make jam. Talking of the Lower Rainham Road, I remember when we had floods! The Lower Road and the houses along it were flooded, this caused quite a sensation!
Once we reached 11 we took the 11 plus exam and of course, most of us failed, which was expected. So off to the Church of England Secondary School in Orchard Street we went. This school was half girls and half boys and never the twain shall meet! Mr Bacon, Head, Mr Thomas Assistant Head, Mr Newell, Clark, Sneath, Springate, Rotherham and Mr Richards were just some of our teachers and then, of course, to those that remember, there was ‘Bomber’ an ex naval English teacher, who delighted in giving people the slipper. All teachers ‘slippered’ in those days, but ‘Bomber’ thought he was the best! He used to say to us, if we found a better slipper than the one he was using, then bring it in! Of course, if you were the fool to do so, you were the first person he would try it on! It was all good fun and I am left with great memories of those days. Mr Springate or ‘Alfie’ was a Salvation Army Major, who taught us music, raised a lot of money for instruments for the school orchestra by arranging for pupils to collect old newspapers and magazines, storing them in the boiler room and was then sold by the ton to raise money. In those days, apart from English, Maths and Science, we were taught Metalwork, Woodwork, Gardening, Craft and so on, all the skills needed for life. The only difference was that if you were not in the ‘A’ stream, you were not taught subjects like Technical Drawing, Logarithms and so on. Only the ‘A’ stream took ‘O’ levels. If you were not ‘A’ stream, you were thick and didn’t warrant teaching subjects you didn’t understand. This I think was true, and it is a pity the same is not applied today. I will leave the Secondary School years for another time.
If we go back to Rainham High Street and to the shops and businesses, apart from those already mentioned, at the top we had the telephone exchange, the chemist and the electricity shop on the corner of Holding Street. On the other corner, we had the sweet shop owned by Barbara Kitchener and right outside her shop was the bus stop. Just down Holding Street on the right-hand side there was Wades lorry yard and on the other side of the road, there was the clinic where pregnant Mums and all other childhood problems were dealt with, things like Polio vaccinations etc., were administered. This is also where Nurse Legg was domiciled when she was not out visiting schools, checking us all over as well as looking in our heads for ‘nits’! Going on down the high street, next to the sweet shop, it was either a house or an accountants, Poulton’s was there, as it is now, but a lot smaller. There are a couple of others that I can’t remember; one I think was a wool shop. Then you had the farm where the shopping centre now is and next to this, I think it was called the Ford or Forge Garage, then a couple of houses and a small sweet shop, which you stepped down into, then a ladies hairdressers.
Roses the grocers, I think greengrocers, and Green’s Cycle Shop that had moved up from Station Road. Further along you had Rouses Radio Shop, Smith’s Men’s Hairdressers, two brothers, and Creamers the Bakers. Then there was an alley, which led behind Creamers to a Dentist that not many people will remember. After this came, I think, the International Stores, which later was bought and turned into the first supermarket in Rainham. I believe it was called Vies, next to this was the carpet shop and the Bank on the corner of Station Road. On the other side of the road, there was nothing other than a few houses before you got to Orchard Street, where just up about 20 yards, there was of course the Blacksmiths, he would throw a hammer at the door that we lent over to give him a bit of mouth and take the ‘micky’! It was all good natured, I might add. Going back to the high street, there was another sweet shop, then a corn merchant then of course the famous ‘Bug Hutch’ Royal Cinema with Pat the usherette who knew all the kids, their names, their ages, which was a pain when you weren’t very big, when an X rated film was showing, she wouldn’t let you in. I say famous, for we had the only picture house with double seats and obviously couples came from miles around to ‘kiss and cuddle’ with the ever present Pat keeping an eye on them all, by shining her very bright torch on them, should she think things were getting out of hand! After that there was an estate agent, where I purchased my first house and then a furniture shop.
The Cricketers Pub came next, where we all, once we left school, used to meet up and this is where we all learnt to play darts. Wally and Madge were the landlord and landlady and it was Wally, that found in his cellar, the equipment ie: poles, bat, trap and balls for the game, now widely played called’ Bat and Trap’. This was in about 1962 and I believe it was Wally, having found the equipment and organising matches with other pubs that re-introduced this game back into pub life. A league was formed and off it went! A pint of mild or a brown and mild would have been around 1 shilling a pint then or 5p now.
This writing and reminiscing lark could go on forever so I will just mention a couple of places younger people may not know about. Just past the church there was a bakery opposite the Coop and Barden’s greengrocers.
In Ivy Street an off licence called, I think, the Brown Bottle or Jug and in Station Road, apart from Rules paper shop there was another paper shop called Whirlies, next to Coates the Chemist. Talking of Frank Rule, my Dad used to give me a roll up cigarette to smoke on the way down to the paper shop each morning to start my round. All those that had paper rounds will remember that Frank was never up! We used to get to the shop about 5.45am each morning and start to ring the bell to try to get him out of bed. This usually took around 20 minutes of ringing. Occasionally, we couldn’t get him up at all. When this happened we would cut the strings holding the papers together, and mark our rounds up outside the shop and go off and do our rounds, leaving any books and weeklies due out that day until the next day. Frank appeared outwardly quite a misery but in reality he was a good and fair man. Our pay was 11 shillings a week with an extra shilling for collecting money on Saturday’s, this pay of course was for 7 days a week. The one exception was the Upchurch round. You were paid 25 shillings a week for that one. It was a long way away and quite a large round.
You had to get a Council work permit which was a blue card stating that you could work between 7 & 8 am each day, but of course no-one took any notice of these times whatsoever! I had one other Saturday job, which was going out on the greengrocery round with Mr Broughton from Quinnell Street on his horse and cart. My job was to run up and down the street knocking on the doors, then all the Mums would come out and buy their veg. On the corner of Hothfield Road there was a greengrocers shop and next to this the coal yard and opposite was a car sales. The fire station was in Webster Road, where all the kids in Rainham used to run to, as soon as the siren went off. We would chase the fire engine to see whose chimney was on fire and then wait for the firemen’s brush to come out the top of the chimney pot, having put the fire out! Then in Longley Road, at the end next to the alley that led to Suffolk Avenue there was a wood yard where we used to get our sawdust to put on our bonfire on bonfire night. One last thought, there were a few prefabs just before the railway station on the right and on the other side of the crossing, where the car park is now, used to be allotments. Also, Huggins wood yard used to be in Wakely Road, backing onto Rainham Recreation ground.
Others may remember more so would be interested to read any corrections or additions to my recollections of these times in Rainham.
Vernon Verrall
Subcategories
Historical tales Article Count: 3
Historical tales
Rainham Life Article Count: 10
Rainham Life
Local Events Article Count: 48
Local Events
Photos Article Count: 143
Photos
Action Forum Article Count: 234
Action Forum is a free monthly magazine that is distributed to the Rainham area covering Wigmore, Parkwood and Hempstead as well. This archive covers old copies of the magazine dating back to its initial publication in 1969 and give a fascinating glimpse into life in Rainham over the last 50 years.
Link to Article Index - Action Forum Index - Photos and Articles from 1969 onwards