My sister lives in Benfleet . My Nan , who lived next door to us in Walthamstow and basically brought me up , had a bungalow in Pitsea . Most summer weekends the majority of the family would decamp there and I spent most of my summer school holidays there . It was the most basic of basic places but I loved it .No Walt, we moved to South Hanningfield, which was basically a strung out series of houses a big reservoir and a two room infants and junior school....big change from Wood Street!...had to bike a mile and a half to school which had two teachers, one for the infants and one for all years of juniors....one of the best times of my life...our teacher/headmistress had a Triumph Mayflower car which had an aluminium body...maybe one of the first cars in the UK to use aluminium I think.
Passed the 11 plus there and then had to take a bus to Chelmsford and change to one to take us to the school...I was “adopted” by a group of senior girls but sadly we moved again to Southend before the end of my first year there. During my itinerant youth I lived in Southend, back to Walthamstow, back to Southend then to Basildon and finally up North.
It was down the end of a grass track with ditches both sides and about eight bungalows stretched along it . No electricity , no running water , no connected sewerage . We got warmth from the open log fire , light from gas mantles , Washing water from rain collecting tanks in the garden , drinking water from a standpipe a twenty minute walk away , and the toilet was a chemical one that got tipped into a pit dug behind the shed at the end of a huge garden . The garden was big enough for Dad to mark out a tennis court on it , with whitewash paint and a brush .
it was heaven to us . Farms all around . Next door was a poultry farmer . We chose our own chicken for Sunday dinner .
I could kill , pluck , gut and clean a chicken when I was eight .
It was heaven .,
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