Memories of London in the early Sixties

When I started my job at George Wimpey in 1963, the company had sorted out digs where we could stay n that first year. They even paid for a retainer for when we went to college in Brighton.  My digs were in Riverview Gardens in Barnes, just the other side of Hammersmith Bridge, so easy walking distance from the head office on Hammersmith Grove.

I have already written about concerts at the Odeon Hammersmith  and the one minute past midnight showing there of Thunderball. And about the tape recorder: 

As well as my record player, I soon saved enough to buy a portable Grundig tape recorder. I shared a room with Derek Anderson, another Wimpey trainee. There were also two older girls sharing another room. One had the Dionnne Warwick record, and I recorded them singing along to it playing in the background. If I remember, Derek married Marie, the younger of the girls. I just had the tape, now long gone.

But I cannot find if I gad written about those two guitarists. I remember one of my friends from work knew these young musicians and we went to see them one day. They played acoustic guitars with amazing dexterity, who they were I will never know.

I also wrote about the George Wimpey Dinner and Dance:

Our first digs in Brighton were in Silverdale Road, that is actually in Hove. There must have been six of us in the house, those were happy, carefree days. We always had time for last orders at the nearby pub. See postings February 2010.

The first January we were in Brighton coincided with the Central Estimating Dinner and Dance. This was a huge event paid for by the company and our presence was required. We did have to hire dinner suits for the occasion, and I found mine in Brighton. Some of the others had hired theirs in London so these had to be brought down by the training manager, Mike Godber. Having left them at our digs, some wag decided to mix then up which caused a big  ruckus and much laughter.

When we arrived at the venue (possibly the massive room above Derry and Toms on Kensington High Street), we were struck by the organisation. A large dance band played on the stage, playing quicksteps, waltzes etc. So we just watched, enjoyed the food and free bar! But half way through the most amazing thing happened. Now you have to remember this is January 1964, and the vast majority were mature people. But low and behold, a rock group took to the stage. How someone had persuaded the organisers to let one in, I shall never know. But there we were, just the trainees bopping alone on the dance floor to the music of The Beatles, Cliff, Gerry and the Pacemakers and The Searchers. I guess the more adventuress of the older staff might have joined in. Absolutely amazing.

Then there was my visit to the writer Alun Owen where I noted: 

 The writer of A Hard Days Night was Alun Owen who was nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay. He and his family lived a couple of doors down from where we lived on Napier Road in West London in the mid 1950's, and he and his wife were good friends of Mum and Dad. When I left our home in Braintree in 1963 to work in London, they asked me to call in to see Alun and Mary his wife who were then living in Bayswater. If I had known a year later that he had written the screenplay, I might have been able to engineer an invite to the studio.

It was in 1965 that I moved to the attic flat at 7 Airedale Avenue, Chiswick (very like that on the right of the above photo, but actually in the roof) that Bob Owen and I shared from to September 1966. Two rooms either side of the top landing, each with a tiny window. The kitchen was hardly that. It did have a sink and a cupboard. Plus a small Formica table but no fridge. The other room was a bedroom with two single beds and a cupboard at the end where we sat that pathetic TV. We shared a bathroom on the first floor with other tenants. The ceilings sloped steeply, so there was not a lot of room where you could stand up straight.

 It was very handy for work. A short bus ride down Chiswick High Road to the Hammersmith offices of George Wimpey. And it was my first flat share after digs and a bedsit, so it seemed the height of luxury at the time. London in the swinging sixties. I left in the September to go to Leeds and my first proper site based job. I believe Bob stayed on for a while.

One memory I cannot quite place. I'm sure that around the corner from our flat was an Italian restaurant where I feel that I ate my first spaghetti bolognese.  That must have been special in 1965.

Other postings on this blog include my time at Brighton College of Technology, going to the football with Ray, and my working life.