Barbara's Barking

My maternal grandfather Edward Charles Hewett, a brush-maker by trade, had originally bought the newsagent at 97 East Street, Barking (now 15 Station Parade) in the early 1930’s, when he moved his family there from Tottenham.

I was born Barbara Ann Key in 1952, in the flat above the shop, to Albert and Claire Key (née Hewett) who had married at St Margaret’s Church in the grounds of Barking Abbey during the war, in 1944. I lived there till I was 7, when we moved to Ilford, in 1959.

We didn’t have a garden, just a small backyard, where we could play hopscotch and skipping and we walked to Barking Park to feed the ducks and play in the playground – I always wished I could go on the grand-looking paddle steamer on the beautiful lake, or take a rowing boat out!

I had a doll’s pram with a large white doll and a large black doll, these were my main toys, as I remember, plus playing cards, jigsaws, marbles and five-stones.

Other fond memories include our occasional trips to J.T. Worricker’s, the toy shop, three stores along from us (103 East Street, 21 Station Parade).

I read about the Barking Heritage Project and that they recently discovered the hidden old glass sign from their other shop in Barking! I have more vivid memories of wrapping one of my own toys every Christmas Eve, to take to the service at St Margaret’s Church, to give away - it always seemed so painful at the time, because I treasured and played with all my toys and we didn’t have many.

I spent a lot of time with my Mum learning spelling & times tables, which I loved! I couldn’t wait to go to school and join my brother who I had missed at home, he was nearly 4 years older than me.

My first school was Northbury Primary School (built in 1895), in North Street – I hated it! I was so disappointed that I wasn’t with my brother at all!

The highlight of my week was going to Woolworths (close to where McDonalds is now) with my Nan on a Friday afternoon. She bought my brother and I a pack of sweets to share, usually Spangles or Refreshers.

Another nice shopping experience was going to Sainsbury, at 54 East Street – before the days of supermarkets, it was a large hall beautifully tiled inside and with an unmistakable constant aroma of the hams, bacon, and cheeses that they sold. The butter counter usually had a long queue - butter wasn’t pre-packed – it was served by women expert in using butter paddles!

Once or twice Dad took me to John’s café next-door to our shop. Dad also allowed us to choose a comic once a week, from the shop, which he managed after my grandfather retired – I usually chose Bunty, a girl’s comic, but I secretly preferred my brother’s Beezer – I was always a bit of a tomboy! One disadvantage of the newsagent’s business was that my Dad was up at 5am for the paper delivery and the shop remained open until 7pm, so we didn’t see too much of him. The store was in a good position en route to Barking Station so there was plenty of trade. I remember Dad worrying about competition from W.H. Smith in nearby Ilford, which developed at a faster rate than Barking.

Now and then Mum would take my brother and me to the Odeon Cinema to see the old black and white Norman Wisdom films or some of the ‘Carry On’ series, but we often arrived half-way through... I can’t remember ever watching a film from the beginning because everything depended on fitting around the demands of the shop. “This is where we came in”, Mum would say, and then we’d have to leave…

A favourite lunchtime treat was eels and mash in liquor with parsley, my grandmother’s speciality – bought from the wet fish shop in Ripple Road (beyond the Police Station, the library and Barking Football Club ground, at the real Vicarage Field) where the fishmonger would chop up the live eels in front of you, necessary, I was told, to prove how fresh the eels were – learning to cut eel segments when they were still twitching was an acquired skill!

The highlight of the year was the annual Barking Carnival – there was a wonderful procession which ended in Barking Park, and passed right by our shop.

Everyone used to crowd in the streets but we had a super vantage point from our upstairs flat! We leaned out of the sash windows (not allowed now?!) with our streamers, waving to the Carnival Queen and all the floats. This was always followed by a fair in Barking Park which stayed for a week – we used to go on Friday evening and invariably came home with a token prize of a goldfish in a bag of water!

I often saw and played with my cousins who lived in Salisbury Avenue and my second cousins lived in Fanshawe Avenue. On very special occasions, like Mum and Dad’s Silver Wedding Anniversary, we would have a celebration dinner at the T-Bone Steak House, run by two Greek guys, in Longbridge Road.

Although we moved to Ilford in 1959, after passing my 11+ I was delighted to follow in the footsteps of my mother, by returning to Barking Abbey Grammar School, in Longbridge Road. This experience I thoroughly enjoyed especially once I reached the sixth form!

I still spent quite a bit of time in Barking – on very hot days we’d go swimming in the open-air Lido pool in Barking Park, and I was doing a lot of running – on the track, on the road and cross-country. I was racing most Saturdays for Ilford Athletic Club – the local newspaper Barking Advertiser had regular articles about our team, especially in 1966 at the height of our success. I fondly recall the headline, ”Key to Success”, and Ilford Pictorial ran a feature “Meet the unbeaten athletic quartet – Ilford Girls, Top for Two Years”.

During the school holidays I loved helping Dad do the stock-taking and choosing the lovely greeting cards for which Hewett’s was renowned in Barking. We selected them from huge photo-album style books that the commercial travellers would leave with us to peruse – I especially liked the ones from Hallmark and Gibson. Once I was old enough, I was allowed to serve in the greeting cards and stationery section, which was good for my mental arithmetic skills, especially when everything was priced in pounds, shillings and pence, before decimalisation, which made things a lot easier, in 1971!

The most joyful time with customers was during University Christmas holidays – especially on Christmas Eve when so many guys would come into the shop in a very merry mood, looking for the biggest, plushest, boxed cards to give their wives and girlfriends. By this time, we also had a kiosk at the front of Blake's Market (destroyed by fire in 1971, I heard, when I was away at University).

Dad retired in the 1980s and the business was sold, but we’ve kept the property in the family ever since – every now and then I still wonder whether I should have taken over the business myself instead of training to become a biologist…

Thank you for the kind permission of Barbara to publish her story and photographs and to the LBBD Archives for the other historical photographs above.