The long line…

After 37 years its time to leave Manor Park. It has been the place of my family home for as long as I can remember and I have so many memories from the day we moved in. I was only 3 years old at the time but I remember meeting my first friend and neighbor Samantha. We are still friends now and I remember playing in the street as you could in those days. Piggy in the middle, hop scotch and riding our bikes up and down. However, my strongest memory was playing in each others houses and in the garden. Most of the time I ended up getting hurt and my mum was forced to collect what was left of me from whatever accident had befallen me, which was normally something to do with Samantha’s swing and spinning me way too fast.

I remember all the Christmas dinners with my parents and grand parents and even a Great Grand father. We had my mum’s special recipe stuffing, roast potato’s and turkey. However, things have now changed and now it’s just my mum and I left.

I remember the parties we held for my birthday. Jelly and Ice cream as a schoolboy and a Fancy dress party for my 21st with my friends and neighbours in some amazing costumes. The community came together in 1977 for the Queens silver jubilee…

I remember the long summers playing in the garden with toys and water fights with my dad. I remember him running away from my water pistol and falling over on the wet grass and straight through a giant flowerpot. We had a giant pool in the summer and my mates would come over for a splash around. As I got older I would spend the summers in the garden sunbathing and getting very burnt. Not to forget all the pets that I had such as a Goldfish, a rabbit, a few dogs, some mice and a duck…

As an only child my bedroom was my world. From a young age I had a big black and white television at the end of the bed and remember watching ‘The Sweeny’ before going to school the next day. I played my various computers in that room and even turned it into a home cinema room. It had various beds and numerous colours to suit my changing life and increase in age.

Above all of this, it was a home to my family and I for 37 years. It has so much history and I have so many memories of happy and sad times. The rooms of the house have been filled with so many conversations and so much laughter its almost too much to remember. The sense that I’m left with beyond everything else is that it was a happy home surrounded by love.

The area has changed for the worse with the dregs of society replacing the doctors, lawyers and teachers that had once made the street their home too. A once clean and leafy street has been replaced with old TV’s and Couches being dumped on the roadside and noises and smells that have more in keeping with the slums of the world than an East London residential street. I know that my mum moving away from these disgusting people is the right thing to do.

My family is part of a long line of people that have taken residence since the house was built at the turn of the century starting with…

1896 William Lyon – Bought the land.

1897 William Fish, a Butterer & Cheese Monger from Upton Park

1922 – A.A Caton
1922 – Annie Till
1938 – R.B Meldon
1953 – Grace Page & Henry Page
1962 – John Sayer & Frank McGovern
1963 – John Foody
1964 – David Robinson (2500)
1971 – David Law (£5000)
1975 – The Oliver Family ( £10,000)

Now it has come to pass the home on to a new family and for them to have their own adventures. I hope that they have as much life and love as I did there and I will never forget it.

M