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Then we had to walk a long way to friends of my father who owned the next door grocers shop. That shop had to be sold as it as it did not make a profit and was loosing money.

At Christmas time there was a Father Christmas selling dips in the street, but Dorothy cannot recall any real celebrations. Her mother wouldn’t give her money for Father Christmas as she thought the dips were worthless rubbish. Her father always seemed to be in a dream. We would walk to a pub at the top of Horsington Hill, where we would have a drink of lemonade and a Brighton Biscuit. Then there was One Tree Hill where we would play. The Headmaster of Sudbury Hill School in Wembley had saved a many places such as these from being developed and built on. She remembers sitting in the house with my mother watching so many children would go by, They were from the East End of London, travelling in the open topped trams. They had their arms were full of buttercups. These children would go to Sudbury as a day out. All these things were happening before Dorothy was seven yers old, since those days the fields have all been built on, it was all happened very quickly.

A change had taken place from renting to buying your own house. It was very good for business, too busy for James, Dorothy’s father. In fact business was so good that his father made a great deal of lot of money as the family found out when he died

Dorothy went to Bricket Wood for her Sunday school outings. A friend of hers from Waltham told her she only attended Sunday school for the outing! Brickett Wood was like a large fair ground, with woods. There were flowers there you could buy and take home for your mother. When she was very young she would go to Mr. Brahma’s in Barham Park.

Mr. Brahma would let the Sunday school use his field and he probably supplied the tea? He owned the Express Dairy and when he died he left Barham Park to the people of Wembley.

Wembley had just been made a Borough and he had been elected Mayor but died just before he took office. The house was pulled down but they still have Barham Park. There used to be a museum there with lots of lovely things but that all went as well. Mrs. Barham moved out leaving the place to the council.

She returned some years later and found the house had been pulled down. She went to James Pass who everyone used to call Jim (Dorothy’s brother saying, “I’ve just seem the house is gone!” and burst into tears. She was so very disappointed and very sad. The borough had just destroyed the gift; it could have been used for so many things, perhaps a youth club, or a social centre.

Like so many of these councillors they have no real personnel interest in such things, a quick profit is all they are interested in

In those days the children played all sorts of games: skipping, hopscotch, flying around making a nuisance of ourselves. They played, ‘Knocking down Ginger’, with the boys. This involved knocking on a door then running away or hiding. They were not allowed to play in the streets but Dorothy used to sneak out! Traffic was building up even then in the main road, so she used to go down the steps at the side of the shop, we called this ‘down the back’.

She met some wonderful children down there, wicked children her mother called them! She said her daughter shouldn’t really mix with them. But they were great fun!

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