History
A Worcester Park childhood
Miss Knight’s memories Many WPL readers will have been sorry to read in the local Guardian in October the announcement of the death at the age of 92, of Doris Lightowler, known to generations of local children as Miss Knight, Principal of The Studio School of Dance and Drama, which she ran for over 60 years Doris Muriel Knight was born in Woodford on 24th July 1921. Her father was a brewers’ sugar refiner and the family’s sugar and brewing interests went back at least to 1860. When Doris was about 6, the family moved to Worcester Park where she spent the rest of her life; this month I am featuring some childhood memories she shared with me about 15 years ago. The family settled in Green Lane at no. 7, which later became no. 40. ‘When I first lived in Worcester Park, Green Lane was unmade, it was just like a cart track. At the bottom of our garden, where Hazlemere Gardens is now, that was all fields, down to the main road. You used to get Gypsies there: I can remember two or three years when they came with a fair at a certain time of the year; they used to have the grease pole, and the local lads used to try to get up this thing because at the top was a nice big joint of beef. I remember it well, because my father used to take me and we used to stand and watch the lads – I think on one occasion I remember the fellow getting there. They used to put sand on their hands, do anything to get to the top. The actual fair was where the old post office is, that section.’ She also recalled Gypsies further along Green Lane, beyond the present school: ‘They used to come along with their horses and whatever, and on occasion if we were in the front garden they would stop and say “Can we have a bucket of water for the horse?” and Mother would get a bucket of water.’
‘You could play in the fields anywhere – I was out all day in the summer holidays. My mother would give us a packed lunch – “Off you go and amuse yourselves” – and we’d go off, a gang of three or four or whatever, and we were as happy as anything – climbing trees; we used to play ball, chase each other. The little brook [Beverley Brook] opposite was our playing ground: it was clean and lovely, and there used to be ducks – really you were in the depths of the country. In the wintertime if you had a lot of rain it used to overflow, and I remember my father having to take his shoes and socks off and walk through the water to get home.’ Doris accompanied her mother to the local shops, such as the butcher’s in Park Terrace. On the corner of Longfellow Road was John Morley’s bakery, and Doris recalled ‘cakes seven for sixpence in Mr Morley’s, and well-made cakes at that; and his bread was beautiful: if I remember rightly a large white loaf was fourpence, and it was really good quality food.’ On the opposite corner of Longfellow Road was Frost’s the grocer’s, with biscuits weighed out from tins.’ Later, as more shops appeared in Central Road, they shopped at David Greig’s and Cater’s. Close to Morleys’ was Barelli’s sweetshop: ‘Sweets fascinated all children, because we could get a whole handful of sweets for a farthing – jellies, or liquorice rolls like a piece of black elastic with a sweet in the middle, sherbet fountains – all sorts of things. If you had a farthing you could have a real treat – a ha’penny was wonderful. Jars of sweets at tuppence a quarter!’ Between the station and Green Lane was another sweetshop, The Chalet: ‘Dad used to give me a penny to go in and get a piece of Nestle chocolate – quite a big square for a penny.’ On moving to Worcester Park, Doris became a pupil at Cheam Common Infants’ School, in the ‘tin tab’ iron building near the corner of Balmoral Road, and was taught by Miss Stone: ‘She was an absolutely lovely lady, and gave us so much encouragement’. Later she went to schools in Cheam and Sutton and then, aged about 13, to Kingsley High School at 25 The Avenue, a Victorian villa opposite Woodlands Avenue (now the site of Kingsley Court). The school’s grounds included the land now occupied by Kingsley Drive, and this ‘was divided out in little plots, and each pupil had a little plot of their own, and we were taught to grow things, or if
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