Alongside people who grew up in Sudbury, migrants form elsewhere in the UK and overseas moved to the area and to nearby Wembley for various reasons (relatives living in the area, its affordability, the attractiveness of Wembley’s shopping hub, the excellent transport links…). People found a space among the existent community and came together socially in and around Sudbury and beyond. Not without challenges though, as some people experienced discrimination in the early days. Since the 1950s, the neighbourhood has changed and nowadays it well reflect the diversity of the area.
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Come back regularly to check the new memories that will be added to this page.
Coming together
We moved in Harrow Road… I think we were the only foreigners here… I think early ’74, end of ’73 and for a year and a half we’ve been here (…). Good neighbours we had, very nice (…). (Then we moved to Sudbury Court Estate) in ’75, March. I loved that area, it was very nice and, as I said, we were the third or fourth Asian family in that estate. Now, I remember my next-door neighbour (…), he came, knocked on the door and introduced himself and who we are… Neighbours were really good actually, very nice.
Sushil
We came around many places at Sudbury, but then we chose [undisclosed address] because there were quite a lot of bungalows there, and I wondered why bungalows at that area, and the agent told us that the bungalows were initially built for retired Civil Servants after the war. So (the estate agent) showed us the property. (…) It was quite a reasonable price (…), so we said ‘OK’. I I think I was the only black person when we got there.
Florence
I moved out of my parents’ house in 1987. Those original neighbours had kind of moved on, and my Indian neighbours had actually moved there. (…) I remember my mother and father were a little bit sort of intrepid about introducing themselves at first. Then I remember that my neighbour had had a baby, so I said ‘Well, you’ve got to introduce yourself now’. My mother was quite a little bit of a wary person, and my father wasn’t the best most confident either. But, anyway, they got there in the end. They are still there now, that lady is still there now that her family is grown up. So, unusually, now I’ve got neighbours who have been there over 25 years on both sides. It’s quite unusual these days.
Francis
I had a very interesting job at the end of the sixties. At that time I was living in Hayles. I had a job at the primary school, which was actually in Hillingdon, but they were taking in children from Southall. There was a huge influx of Asian people, largely from India, then Bangladesh, and the children were bus drown around the boroughs to different schools, so that was a really interesting time in teaching. That’s when I saw lot of people from the Far East, Middle East.
Patricia
First of all immigrants were West Indians coming from Jamaica, Barbados etc., and we did get quite few West Indians coming playing cricket, and the next flow of immigrants if you like were people kicked out from Uganda, Kenya, and places like that (…). They gradually started to appear in the 1960s and when I was at secondary school we did get started getting few Asians coming along but with initially only two or three. We treated them pretty much the same as anybody else… there were certainly few racist comments going around, because people made fun of them sometimes, you know, they were different, anybody was different. (…) Certainly they’d join our cricket club so I have always felt very comfortable. I would say sport certainly helped integration, certainly for the Asian population itself, they were pretty keen on cricket, so they have really taken over the cricket club. (…) Now probably 85% of our senior members are Asian, 15% white, maybe and one or two West Indians. The juniors almost 100% Asians.
John
At that time I was teaching in Barnet, at a school called the Bishop Douglas, and my wife was teaching at a school now called St Marks in Hounslow, so we got a map of London, we made a mark for Hounslow if you look at… there, and Barnet there, and we drew a line in between equidistant to both. We started at Chelsea, couldn’t buy a property in Chelsea and we moved out slowly, slowly, slowly until we got to the Wembley area and found this house. It was the first one we seriously looked at and we bought it and it turned out quite convenient for all our other moves after that. That’s why we chose Wembley because it was equidistant from the two schools we were in and we’ve been there ever since.
Mike
I think the reason (to move to Sudbury) was simply location, location location, as they say. The other factors that probably affected us – I never thought of it – we were 400 yards from the Catholic church and we were 400 yards from the Welsh rugby ground. Now, those were the two things in my life that mattered – the church and the rugby, and here we were, right bang in the middle of the two – a 5 min walk to both. WASPS have now gone off to Coventry, which is a damn nuisance, but the church is still there. So that was another factor – we’d been looking for a house close to a catholic church. So it worked out very well.
Mike
When we first moved we were very dependant on the people from next door, who were very kind and looked after us very well when we joined in, so the neighbours on the other side but, I don’t know… the neighbourhood has changed a bit, it… its become very multi cultural and I think it’s that. The racial and the colour of the people in the street has changed dramatically. I say it’s now, it’s probably 50:50 maybe, but it was originally… when we moved in, I don’t think anybody I can’t think at that time was… I don’t think anyone was coloured.
Mike
I moved to Sudbury in 1989. I was living in London proper, in Fulham, and there you… I was renting, and after two years I’d been kicked out, you see, and I realised there was no point in making a big issue of it, so the second time it happened I told to myself I would look for somewhere and I’ve been saving hard to buy a property for my own, so anyway, anyway, the reason I came to Sudbury was because I could afford to live in Brewery Close. It was a small flat, it was a little bigger than a studio but not much, but I could afford it, both my parents were alive at that time, you see, so I could afford to live in Brewery Close, so I came to Sudbury because I could afford to live in Brewery Close. That was as simple as that.
Janet
Well, we moved here in 1985, from Notting Hill. We previously lived in Finchley, in Crouch End, and then Notting Hill… and then we came to this area because it was more affordable than living in central London.
Eva
Well, actually, my sister used to live in Harrow and we used to go visiting her a lot, you know, and as I’d be driving up East Lane in the car, I’d say to my husband “Beautiful houses there – love to live in one of those”. But eventually one came on the market and we managed to get it.
Johanna
Somebody said that it would be better if… Sudbury was just developing, so it would be better if we found a place around there. But we went around so many places – Kilburn and… but my parents did not want a place around Kilburn, because it was so noisy. So finally we came to Sudbury… and an agent at Cricklewood… we went to see him, and then he said there was a property going at Sudbury Town. I had never heard about Sudbury!
Florence
My earliest memory of Sudbury was just after we got engaged in 1964. We were looking for somewhere to live, we had seen an ad in the paper and we came on the 18 bus to an estate agents whose office was just off the roundabout. I liked it, it was almost village-like I suppose. I lived before that in Willesden Green, which was a much older and run down area, so Sudbury was a very pleasant experience.
Kathleen
My earliest memories of Sudbury must have been before I was four years old. Now, my mother never worked out as she was married, she disapproved of working wives and certainly working mothers, but before I went to school we used to visit a little girl who lived up in Maybank Avenue, and every week either she would come bringing her little daughter, Alison, to our house, or mother and I would go up to Maybank Avenue and we’d always go up on the 662 Trolleybus, walk from the Swan and… and I remember if we were playing out in the garden, we used to wait until the master cattle passed around, and that was time to go home.
Robert
My sister moved to Sudbury because she was working in Wembley. She used to work for Marks & Spencer. (…) I moved to Sudbury mainly because my sister was there and a house became available, but also because Sudbury was well connected, and people could come from miles around to go to Wembley. Wembley was a wonderful high street and had some fantastic shops.
Viv
One of the reasons my father decided that we would move – this was sort in the mid-sixties, immigration was starting – it was starting in the area where we then lived and… it was far more acceptable in those days to say ‘England for the English’ in public, and he decided we really wanted to live in a complete English community so of course we moved up to Sudbury and the road where I lived at that time I think it was 100% English. Gradually it’s changed over the years and I think out of about just over 40 houses, probably about half a dozen are now own by English families and I think pretty well all of us are what you may call grandparents generation.
Robert
When I was seventeen my father, who was a pharmacist, he got a bit more money behind him and we moved from a terraced house in Wembley and we got a detached house with garage in Sudbury, reflecting his increased status in the world. He got… by this time he decided he liked to have a car, something to put it in. It was a bigger house, much bigger garden, which has always been one of my pleasures, owning the garden.
Robert
I was in Sudbury on and off. When I came down from the hospital from Ashford, Middlesex, I used to come at my sister. She was living there then and she had her children. She was living there, got married and was living there, and I was staying with her. And… so, she had the children, and, yeah, I was there. That was the only place I had, because I was living in the hospital nursing home. And then, once I finished with that hospital, and was working at Hammersmith, I was living at her constantly. So, I was permanently then in Sudbury.
Peggy
Well, my mother was here. I think she came long before I came here (from Jamaica). She went back home. I came in ’61, she went back home in ’62. She was living in Birmingham, and there’s where I came to stay, but I didn’t like up there, so I’ve got cousins that lived in London, and then I came down here and there’s where I’ve been living since when I came to London, Wembley. I just couldn’t settle down (in Birmingham), I think because my mum went back home and I didn’t know much people up there. I had about seven cousins down here. After my mum went home, I felt a bit lonely, so that’s why I came to live down in London. Living in Wembley was just what I wanted. We fit in with one another, because I had lots of relatives here, I was ok. (There were other communities like) Indian, Chinese, different nations, we helped each other a lot, to settle down.
Norma
In a way I was excited… a little worried… hesitant, ‘Will I be able to understand, what people are saying, or not?’ You know, ‘What is going to happen?’ I said, ‘Never mind, if I don’t understand… I’ll push my husband ahead, if I don’t know what he’s talking about’. So… a little nervous… a little excited. Anyway as my father had been to England and he used to talk about England quite a lot… and people thought that we had been… his children, Dad’s, that we had been to England: the way we would behave and the way we would talk and the way we… then they all said, ‘Have you been abroad? Have you been to England?’ ‘No! We haven’t been to England.’ ‘Oh!’ You know, so … my sister and me, both of us, people asked that: ‘have you been abroad?’ Funny question! ‘No, we haven’t.’ So … because father had given us a little bit of introduction, you know, snippets, from time to time, so we held on to that or it soaked into our system, that’s what England was like and… we had a good time and all that sort of a thing. So we came.
Rekha
(The Irish community in Sudbury) it’s almost non-existent now, there’s hardly any left. The younger ones who are around – there are still some Irish young families – they’re now educated and professional, whereas when our generation came, they hadn’t had an opportunity for a good education and they were given the menial jobs to do, and many of them studied and got qualifications here, particularly as tradesmen. They were plumbers, electricians and things at night school to build up a life for themselves but the people who come now come from choice, and they are equal to anybody here, you know, the standard of education in Ireland now is high and they come with degrees and qualifications and, you know, they can hold their heads high, so it is a massive difference. Well there was lots of them around that did evening classes, most of the secondary schools actually did evening classes. The college that we used to call Willesden Tech, over in Willesden on Dollis Hill Lane, used to do lots of the sorts of the courses, the plumbing the electrician and things that people went for. There were opportunities.
Kathleen
There were a lot of people who, like us… I think the Indian government had sent them to wherever they were; some were going to Holland; some were going to… Brussels; some were going to other places in Europe, you know, so, they were there. And, I think maybe at Karachi one or two, I met one or two who, who came aboard and they were immigrants. But I never saw any immigrants on the (ship)… they were all mostly white people and they were enjoying the sun and it was so hot. And all day long they were in the swimming pool and drinking and I just wondered ‘Argh, it’s so hot, what are they doing?’ Couldn’t understand… ‘This is their enjoyment? This is just a wonder. Oh, I can’t stand the sun. And look at this.’ I didn’t know what was happening in front of my eyes. And after years I realised ‘Ooh… now I know why they are sun-worshippers.’ I didn’t know before.
Rekha
Well, my father being in the Merchant Navy, working into the London Docks where he used to come and get the ships serviced… it was easy for him to get from here to Lon… to the Docks in those days. That’s why they came here, you would get into the ship fairly easily from here.
Patricia M
And from there after finishing of my A’ Levels, er my father saw the opportunities for further education was, not enough in Kenya. And there were some er emigration problems developing, and my father thought that this is the best time for me to leave Kenya and come to England for my further studies. No. My elder sister was here. She got married. And er … they [RJ’s sister and brother-in-law] also didn’t see a future in er Uganda. So, once she got married a few months later she came over to England. And er, they settled down, er through a lot of difficulties. In those days jobs were very difficult. And er my sister is a teacher, so she got a job fairly quickly. They settled down. They had children. And er three years later we joined them, my sister and I flew out together in nineteen sixty-eight [1968]. We came straight to London. And er my sister had settled down in Finchley in north London. And er we stayed with her, till I finished my, my … I did accountancy when I came here. And er, finished my accountancy, then I got married. And then we started our own life.
Rajni
Yeah. When I came here, I had no idea you know. I mean one night I am in Kisumu, then my father … decided overnight, that er this is the right time for us to, travel out to England. So, literally overnight we had to pack up. My, my sister was older than I am. We two were not married er and er we had to take the flight, next night and travel out of, Kenya. So it was er, it was a shock and a cultural shock as well. But er, we were comforted by the presence of my sister who already had a house here. And er I had no idea, what the culture is, what the tradition is.
Rajni
Social outing
The first time I had a curry in my life was when I was over to Ireland to my brother and his wife, he lived in […] and he took me out one night, he was quite a successful man, a very clever man and, very clever, and he took me out one night and we went to, at the time was […], a curry place in […], probably the first one ever, and I didn’t know what to have, and he told me a curry, which I think was lamb or beef and rice, whatever, but I think he treat me, it must got a really hot one because it blew my head off, it was too, too hot! But then, I like now curry, but not then, I think he played a joke of me.
Tony
When we took it over it was known as the ‘Alpine Horn’ * at that time. It’s now a big block of flats. We moved in there in 1984. (…) There were three bars in the pub. There was an upper level, a lower level, and a top level. It’s amazing how everyone just got along with everyone. The top level… they were mostly Irish customers. The lower level were mostly Indian and West Indian customers, and the top level was a dance floor, where we used to have… we organised Irish, Indian, whichever type of music night. And it was mostly Irish right up the top as well.
*Rajni and her husband managed the ‘Alpine Horn’ pub – previously known as ‘Schooner Inn’, in Ealing Road, from 1984 to 1991
Rajni
We used to go parties at night and things like that. In houses. Not clubs or things like that, no. We never brought up back home to go to clubs, so when we came here, we just continued doing that. Friends loved parties and invited us, so we’d go there, but not clubbing, that for the younger generations. (The music we listened to was) Reggae. That’s was West Indies music.
Norma
I know there was one (social club) in Southall where all the people coming from India, won’t speak English, or barely, they used to meet somewhere in the Southall part, but we never went, but nowadays of course there’s lot of groups, yoga, exercise and coffee mornings…
Sushil
I enjoyed going to Jackson Centre, which is on London Road. I spent very happy times there because we used to play bridge, it used to be a bridge centre. I didn’t know how to play, but the director there… she just put me on a bridge table and said ‘Go on! Get on with it!’ So I played, and we used to play with money… and I really enjoyed that. That was the time when there were a lot of people who used to come there, a lot of Indians. They used to come there, the English people as well. That was a very nice place, but suddenly it closed down.
Rekha
There were a lot of pubs open in the Sudbury area at that time. There was one at the end of my road which, ironically, I only went to once before it closed. And there were one or two at Sudbury Town and across towards Greenford as well. On one particular occasion, very memorable, I went to a pub called ‘The Ballot Box’ which is over near Horsenden Hill, which is not that far away, and I arrived there and there was some Morris Dancing going on outside the pub, so this would have been about the mid 1970s. It would be very unusual to see anything like that now.
Francis
Well it’s always hard moving to a new area. I tended to gravitate back to all the friends and clubs that I’d gone to in West London, because being on the 18 bus route, it was quick and easy. But yes, slowly I joined various groups. My boys went to St Joseph’s School in Wembley, so I got involved in the PTA, the Youth Club and so. I always get involved in doing things, because that’s the way you get to meet people.
Eva
I first got to start to know people when my daughter was born and in fact, for the first three months, first time new mum, I was very nervous and very lonely, I didn’t know anybody around here. I got to know one or two people very casually through the Clinic, which is something else that’s gone over the years. In those days you used to take a baby to a Clinic in the early months, on a weekly basis, to be weighed and checked over and then before injections and checks. I got to know one or two people casually through that, and then somebody in the church, when my daughter was six months old, started a young wives group and that really was my salvation, it opened the door to all sorts of other contacts and activities, so that I would say that was a major point in my life. The Clinic was in Perrin Road, which is just up the road by the school, but it’s been knocked down, there’s a block of flats now on the site.
Kathleen
Oh, the old Chequers pub down… that used to be down Ealing Road, Stanley Avenue, opposite Stanley… medical centre, which being demolished, and that’s flats now, which is a shame.
Eva
Yes, we used to, some Saturday nights we used to go to the club. We used to go to St Joseph’s in Wembley, a club which I think is no more. Sometimes we went to Stonebridge – what was called Father Murphy’s. He was the parish priest there then – they had a really good club on a Saturday night. Or if there was anything on at St George’s on a New Years Eve, there used to be a great dance at St George’s, you know when Father Tim was there.
Johanna
That was 1990, and until it closed in 2004 that was my pub. (…) A huge Irish contingent used to go down there, was very friendly, and lot of music, karaoke was the thing at that time, (…) then you’d have a couple of bands on the weekends, you know, and it was a great nucleus for the Irish people to go there but, like I said, in 2004 I think he sold and moved down. It’s hard to stay, you know, everything comes to an end. I was sad when it closed, but it was time… now other people took it on, but it was never the same. You’d lost a bit of Irish there, and so we relocated to the Swan here, near the centre, but that pub was mine, was a great time, I met lot of friends, I met friends in that pub in, say, around 1999. (…) The pub brought us together, we didn’t know each other, you know.
Seamus
I can probably remember having an Asian… Chinese food. My brother might have brought it back because he might have been on the way back from the pub or something. I thought, “Well”, it was alright but there was certain taste to it that I didn’t really like that much. (It was) probably (in) the ‘70s. I think the Chinese takeaways were here before anybody else. I remember going to have some Indian meals with one of my friends. We used to go to a place in Wembley Park, and it was basically hot, and if you drank, the more you drank, the more hotter it seemed to get for some reason. I don’t know why. Somebody said it’s not a good idea to drink a lot of alcohol with rice but yeah, I remember that and one of my friends, he was very keen on having a curry and it used to start becoming a regular thing for a while, and after a while it just sort of died away.
David
She had a lease on the pub, and she run it for thirteen years, until… that was last year. The Swan is where lot of Irish came, right? That’s the first thing, that’s how gonna attract you in there, and she loved music, so she had bands on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and so if you wanted to watch an Irish game, she had it for you. So there’s no other pubs in the area who could do that, so there you go, you got a big clientele come in and she was a decent woman, looked after everybody. (…) In the summer months, when the Irish came around, Saturdays, especially Sundays, the Swan would be packed, because people, the Irish are coming in, to watch the big games of the year, and she would put on cocktails and makes sure everyone’s happy .
Seamus
Well, it was a big double fronted place, I remember it was painted in a deep maroon, it had Terry’s written in gold lettering and it was a place where you went if you wanted to have your coffee and I think in the evening, in the evening meal, but it was a place you booked if you wanted a wedding reception, or you booking few more having a week, any sort of celebration, that’s where you went, to Terry’s, and on Monday morning, when we were doing our Tupperware, we had a meeting room there, and all the girls in the area used to come at Terry’s ,and upstairs we had a room to talk, down below they paid for lovely toy, and the children loved going, so I remember taking Michale at three and Katie at about five to school, and we did that every Monday morning… and it was a focal point, really, Terry’s, you know, you could stay forever and ever, I don’t think it’s there now but it seemed to be forever and ever, it was a stable point in the area.
Shirley
I think it was called Terry’s, err, I think it was mainly for functions so if you’re celebrating an anniversary or, err, a birthday party, you’d probably book tables in there for a different… xxx places you’d go, a cross between a café and… it wasn’t very posh, err (laughs) but it was quite nice, a mid-way between a café and err a West End… (laughs). Oh, pretty basic then, err, it would be roast lamb, roast beef, roast chicken, fish, err… Yes, traditional British meal.
John
Yes, then it would be, probably not so much but we uses to go probably at a Fish ‘n Chips then, my grandmother was still alive until mid-seventies, there was a Fish ‘n Chips shop in Wembley High Road she liked, had tables, we used to go there quite regularly, err, but yes, we didn’t, we didn’t eat out an awful lot probably in the sixties and seventies, just been busy to Fish ‘n Chips shops, yes.
John
Yes, there used a few that I went to, well, there’s the main in the main road in Sudbury, but that one there’s one I’ve never been to really. It used to be working class pub and it could be quite intimidating… one two characters… you don’t want to be there, surely you don’t want to be around them. The pub the Mitre further up the road towards Harrow… we used to go there. The Blackhorse is the one I have probably been the most, quite nice pub.
John
Well, mind you, I didn’t go there when it was a ballroom because it was… it probably stopped to be that when I was fourteen, fifteen, when I was a bit young, and then I’ve only been there when it became a Snooker. What inside? Well, (…) I think it was reasonably cheap rate place to go… I used to play snooker but I used to play with one or two friends on wet, miserable days.
John
There was the Majestic Cinema in Wembley High Street, and there was another one, The Regal, down Ealing Road, and there was another one called The Capital in, run by two ladies I believe in Wembley High Street also, oh yes. We used to go to the cinema as children (…) some ridiculous amount! (…) Whenever I had any money! When I had enough pocket money to go, we didn’t get very much pocket money I’m afraid in those days.
Patricia M
Yes, there’s a club near where I live, just by the station in Wembley, a club, that’s a very old fashioned club, it’s still there now, and it’s now quite open, but I do remember going there when I was a member, I remember going there in the seventies when I think women were not allowed (…). They were very white. Fairview, and that’s just by the Police Station in Wembley High Road.
John
I’ve always been quite fond of… always listening to bands, actually one of we used to go to is in Sudbury Hill, err, The Rising Sun, they used to have music every Saturday and Sunday and I used to go there quite often, especially in the winter, when we won’t play cricket, we’d go there during the winter.
John
Well, I suppose it was quite exciting to get something out… err, probably Chinese preceded curry’s I think, Chinese restaurants probably became more popular first, err, so, yes, Chinese restaurants were quite exotic really, err, I think they were quite exciting and then the curry houses followed probably few years later, err, and obviously when they first came we didn’t really know what to do so err you’d probably try to start with a fairly mild flavours and gradually your palate would build up and err we used to make fun of some people sometimes because we had, we always had Australian cricketers coming over and we’d take them to curry houses and we would tell they should try such and such dish we knew was quite strong and spicy, and see how they could cope with it!
John
Vale Farm and sports
(Sport facilities were) very minimal, really. I mean, the swimming pool (Vale Farm) was very popular. We used to queue up to try and get the first season ticket on the first of May, because we had a season ticket that was much cheaper to go in. I think something like 5 shillings we paid then, 25 pence, but you weren’t allowed to swim until the temperature reached 52-degree Fahrenheit, which is pretty cold. The pools were usually very well supported, everybody went. A bit packed, you know. On a June day, even like today, there would have been dozens of people there, lots of children in the paddling pool.
Patricia
My main connection with Sudbury in my school days used to be going… and I absolutely hated it, being taken in the summer term to the open air swimming bath at Vale Farm. I am phobic of the total immersion, I absolutely have this fear of having my head under water and we used to… I think it was… If the temperature was below 54 of 55 degree Fahrenheit, we didn’t have to go in. Oh… and I used to ask God to get that temperature on a Thursday or whenever it was we went to Sudbury Vale Farm swimming bath!
Robert
Yes, they used to bus us to Vale Farm once a week, err… Yes, but also during the winter as well, I think, maybe… It was open-air so we didn’t go in the middle of winter but I think I’ve been there when the temperature of the water was 52 degree Fahrenheit and… it was freezing cold! It was horrible (laughs). That put me off swimming for life (laughs). But, yes, it was quite good fun I think, if it was reasonable, if it was about sixty degrees it was OK but when it goes down to the fifties it was… not very nice.
John
I remember going there swimming when I was at school and secondary school and we used to come by bus from Alperton to Vale Farm, and when you’d get there there’s an open air swimming pool and the temperature was chalked up on this board. You’d look in the windows and you’d see 58 degrees, and nobody wanted to go in the water as it’s so cold and that would be in June! You know, it was very nice when it was hot, but when it was cold, you didn’t want to go in because it wasn’t heated. It was only heat by sunlight so if there was no sun, it was damn cold and no one wanted to go in.
David
The building was basically a room in the front where they’d serve teas because you’d have teas when you played cricket, sandwiches and cup of tea, throughout the day, and behind that there was the bar, so you could go in the bar which was open in the evenings, err, and the changing rooms on either side, and that’s why the club was set up, and that’s was I think until 1984 when this quite major fire… and then the building was rebuilt but still on a similar sort of lines.
John
Well, yeah, we would occasionally have discos and club which would go on until quite late in the evening, or early morning probably, and sometimes, when we got a bit older, we would go on from there and go to pubs in London or in Harrow somewhere. Something like that it was basically a social activity.
John
It used to be done by the players’ wives usually, so it used all to be done voluntarily, so my mother was always involved in helping to make teas, sometimes I’d be helping in cut sandwiches or cut bread and warm things before the game, err, as years went on volunteers became less and less so women weren’t so keen to volunteer for things like making teas and nowadays we have to pay someone to do it! (laughs).
John
After I left school I’d play football so that was to me, that was my main social outlet at that time. I didn’t really do anything else. Work? You know, I had a job and I used to play football at the weekend and then after the football match, we used to have a place, depending on where you were. If you played away, well you might come back. We used to have part of what was the Wasps Rugby Club. They used to have a big room there, where they did, you know, like a bar etc., so we ran five teams, and so they’d all come back, so you are talking about 55 people plus maybe a few others, and we’d come back there after the match on the Saturday evening. You know, Saturday afternoon, early evening, and they used to sometimes have other social events but round the corner from me when I was a bit older, when I was around about 20 or 21, there’s a tennis club and they have a squash court or two squash courts. I used to go there.
David
I was playing football from 1973-74, right through until about 1983, in the local level and like I say, the tennis court was round the corner from me and I joined that really, I only played tennis there once. They had floodlit, you know, they’d got floodlights and it’s very hard to play under floodlights ‘cause it’s a bit sort of like… everything’s a little bit distorted, but it was a social club, they used to have social events there that we used to go to. We used to have a drink and it was only, you know, literally about 300 yards from my house so that was quite handy.
David
The main thing for round here really was Wasps Rugby Club, which was at the top of Repton Avenue. But Wasps was a… you know… we used to have our social events… football after the football and of course, it’s gone now so I don’t know where those people go now. Obviously, Wasps ended up pulling out. I think they play in High Wycombe but Wembley Football Club is still there. Yes there’s been… there’s housing developments because also Hoovers, which is at the top of Sudbury Avenue and the corner of East Lane, used to have a little sports club there. I remember playing tennis with my brother there in the ‘70s, and what he used to do is to stay there and have, you know, have a drink afterwards, and then come home.
David
Well, England winning the World Cup 1966, I remember that. My brother and my father went to the semi-final and final, and I was at home with one of my friend and I remember walking down the road afterwards just shouting “England!” So sporting-wise that was probably… ‘cause the England football team used to train over at Vale Farm, you know. In the 1960s for the World Cup, you know. They trained at Wembley, Vale Farm, ‘cause it was the nearest pitch.
David
We always used to hear the football fans chanting. I think that’s probably because the stadium now has a different shape. It’s higher, you know, but I was a bit sad when they took down the two towers at Wembley ‘cause it’s always been the symbol of Wembley. These lions and these and these two towers that were made of the wood.
David
Yes, our social life was the tennis club, um we didn’t we weren’t really great party goers in fact getting my husband to go to a party was like drawing his wisdom teeth. But um the tennis club was wonderful, we discovered it was only walking distance, just 10 minutes away and um when we got there it was an extremely friendly little club. It was all part of the Vale Farm sports set up, which had the football pitch and the Wasps trained there, the rugby team, they had an open air swimming park err pool and this delightful little tennis club, called Parkside. And we had err 2 grass courts and 3 hard ones, we played in the league, we played in the Brent league so we had matches with teams all over the place. Every Saturday and Sunday afternoon we did teas, we had a rota, and um a different lady, ladies um, men didn’t do the teas, they did do some of the suppers to give them credit and ladies did the teas. We usually took a load of stuff, a loaf of bread round there and hard boiled eggs and cress and made up teas and had delightful teas sitting out watching the tennis. And um, that was lovely and when the children were little they’d go in the pool on a sunny day and one of us would go in and then the other would play tennis and then we’d swap over. So we’d have the whole afternoon really round the pool and and the car. And we did shows, and we had the most hilarious shows where you were so ill laughing you nearly fell off your seat they were so funny. And um we thoroughly enjoyed these, we dressed up, did it properly and um really made it very good, doing it to packed audiences every time. So they were really great social, we’d have social evenings when we’d go, and have a little dance, a little square dance or whatever. The clubhouse was just big enough to accommodate about 40 people. And of course if we won any honours our names went up on the honours board. And it was altogether really lovely. Had a finals day, finals day was nearly always a barbecue and err people would line the courts and they’d sit there having their burgers and salad and barbecued burgers while the rest of us in the matches got on with the playing that would last all afternoon and then we’d have a splendid tea, strawberries and what have you and special occasions like Jubilee we were all dressed up in red, white and blue and a great celebration, and you know just a very, very good social social club. And we were sorry to leave, but umm eventually my husband thought moving was probably the right thing and we moved out to Northwood, said goodbye to Sudbury. And I remember standing in the garden at Northwood and shouting and my husband came running into the garden. He said “what’s the matter, what are you shouting for?” I said, “I’ve just seen a human being go up the street” (laughs) I felt so bereft, moving to Northwood after living in friendly Sudbury where people popped in to your house without warning, so that was really, we loved living there, my daughter cried her eyes out when we moved, she was 18 by then.
Shirley
Wembley Football Club… I used to go and watch them quite a lot, and they used to have quite good crowds, good team, so I used to go at one with my dad to watch them in the winter, and that was in Vale Farm as well, (…) if you towards Vale Farm Sports Centre, the Wembley Football is just on the right, yes, and they were quite senior club in the sixties , they used to get about three hundred people watching them, quite good, quite good crowd, and yes for ten-fifteen years I did follow them around.
John
Barham Park and Barham Library
Barham Park was a place where we came all the time, with the old library as well. It was a little outing for the boys, you know. We’d would down Harrowdene, go to the library, choose some books and then have a run around the park, in the summer have a little picnic, so… so a lovely place to have on your doorstep.
Eva
In part of the library, if you imagine yourself standing at the door, the section to the right way where you’re standing to the entrance – I mean, call it a museum, there was no sort of person with curatorial experience there, but there were various exhibits, I think some of them were originally Titus Barham’s personal collection that hadn’t been disposed, there were things there on exhibition from the Wembley History Society’s collection, and another thing that used to be there I remember, there was a scroll, that the local home guard… They used to have a reunion each year and every year of the reunion they used to sign their name on the scroll and sometimes, you know, each year you’d see the signatures and sometimes you’d see ‘passed away’ or ‘lost trace’ and gradually… I don’t know how long that scroll lasted… I think… I honestly don’t know when it disappeared but it was quite interesting seeing how the camaraderie with the local home guarding in Wembley were sufficient for them to have an annual reunion and that was something that was public executed.
Robert
It was fairly well attended but the thing was the one down Ealing Road was larger and much better attended. I’d say that the three biggest ones in Wembley were the one at Wembley Town Hall – Brent Town Hall as it became – was easily the biggest, I never liked working there, followed by Ealing Road and then the one in Preston Road and Barham Park I think definitely came further down the list.
Robert
I used to go to the park, and it was lovely. They had a very nice man at the Council who used to upkeep the park and there was a little pond in the park, and the kids used to love and go fishing and things. We spent lot of time going to the park.
Viv
The park! When I had my own children, I used to take them to Barham Park, and it was… they had more… you know, it was well kept. And, they had ponds there that the children used to like. Ponds, well when I say ponds, what were they? Just little water, streams mostly, really…
Peggy
I think it would be probably walking through Barham Park, so going around there, to the cafe there which… we used to go to, and there was a pond with a little bridge over, which is nice little place there, and we used to play in the park quite a lot, because my house has a gate which backs up onto Barham Park, so I could walk through the gate, walk into Sudbury.
John
Yes, the building is still there, it’s the wooden building that’s nearest the big roundabout, so it backs onto the library if you like. (It was) just an ordinary cafe at that time, which sold ice creams and a cup of tea, never seen it being particularly busy but it just seemed a nice quite, really.
John
Well, I used to play in the park with my dad, so… all sort of cricket and football in the park, and then when I was bit older my friends from school would come over and play sport in the park and again just walking through the back garden and going to Barham Park.
John
You know, when I came to Sudbury I did knock around there, of course it was a proper library at the time, you see, before the library was disbanded by the Council, and it was a proper Library, and I used to… One of the reasons why… I got into computer science quite early, and there were computers, you see? I used to go there, and struggle away with the computers.
Janet
I used to visit the local library at Barham Park quite a lot, I remember when I was young, you know. I used to quite enjoy that, going, you know, looking at the various books etc. around there. It’s quite nice. We didn’t really… I don’t really remember doing a lot else. I remember being times when I was bored, being bored because there wasn’t much to do. You know, I think young people now have so much choice of different things you could do. I mean it was football. Yeah, football, football was the main thing I was interested in when I was about 17 and 18. ‘Cause I worked in a bank for a while and I really loathed it because it was enclosed all day and I just couldn’t wait to get out.
David
Err, well, it was when there was a period where they were negotiating the lease on the library here, and there’d been a lot of work done on the library – the painting, the renovation – but it was still empty. So I just suggested that we start something just to, you know, just to begin with… so it just started with three of us, and then by word of mouth it grew, and now we’ve got on an average Wednesday 20 to 25 people, although I’ve got 40 people listed, but they don’t always come – you know, holidays and sickness and so forth.
Eva
Well I’ve also run a quilting group, for the last, gosh 23-4 years. We started off in Wembley at St John’s Church. Then they pulled it down so, while they were rebuilding it, with the promise that when it was built there, the rent would be very affordable for community groups. We moved temporarily to Perivale Community Centre, which is a very very well run centre, and we ended up staying there for a few years, and slowly, they kept on putting the rent up, and by the time the hall was built at St John’s, it wasn’t that affordable. So I had a chat with Paul, and Paul… between us we were able to come up with a solution where we would be able to move here, so we meet here a couple of times a month, and yes… I mean, it’s a much smaller group than it used to be at Perivale, because we had a huge hall there, and of course there we attracted a lot of people who lived in Ealing, and Hounslow, and Hayes, whereas here we tend to have more local ladies.
Eva
That’s my earliest memory… watching Esquire Barham walking down the road down the side of my house, exiting from my bedroom in the morning with his groom he was riding his white horse, he used to ride up and down the streets when he lived in Barham House, Barham Park.
Patricia M
I had a dog when I was younger and I used to walk in Barham Park and used to go and see the gardeners and talk to the gardeners, they were beautiful gardens, they really were, it’s such a pity they were gone, such a pity they’ve gone.
Patricia M
Yes, we had a lovely little cottage hospital in, in Wembley, in Sudbury it was in fact, just behind where the Fire Brigade is now, and every year they had the Hospital Fete, in Barham Park, because Barham then had a big parks, it was only destroyed… when I was living in Sudbury then pulled it down, but Barham Park was lovely, it was a very nice place to meet, and they had huge marquees, tents and so on, and it was always the first week in June, it always rained, I don’t ever remember going there on a fine day, and I used to say ‘Why don’t you change the weekend, it’s always raining!’ and they said ‘No, no, it will come good one of these years will come good’ (laughs), so I don’t remember it ever came good but of course eventually the Hospital no longer existed, they amalgamated with xxx General together and it didn’t happen anymore but that was an interesting memories, they had side shows, all sort of things.
Shirley
Well they would have roller pennies and rolling penny dough and dug bobbin and catching the ducks at the end of sticks, and also they had a Fun Fair so they get somebody, err, little circus to come in, and you had fast ride and so on, they made a big event of that, and of course it’d be crowded and when you’d go on it, even the rain didn’t bother, so it was a nice celebration. Sudbury definitely had its own identity, we were conscious it was on the outskirt of Wembley but you know we were just Sudbury and feel about it.
Shirley
The Park has, you know it used to be a beautiful place to walk in. And er, there used to be a lovely garden in the middle … and I know … a lot of people used to come to the garden space to get their wedding photographs done and all. Er, since the last four five years, it has … it you know the garden space is not looked at, looked after at all. You know there, there is a round walking area, inside the park, which is, quite uneven, and er … not a very pleasant place to walk around. And, there used to be so many gardeners around. In the morning as early as eight o’clock in the morning there would be gardeners there … doing the flowers, digging up the edges and all that … friendly … ‘Hello!’ ‘How are you?’ and er … ‘Good morning!’ So came to see the friendly faces as well. There are other, people walking … make friends with them, say ‘Hello!’ Nice atmosphere. Now, there are no gardeners. We hardly see any gardeners.
Rajni
Cricket Club… one thing we did start to do probably in the late seventies and in the early eighties it was start to go out for evening meal, in a curry house sort of chain restaurants, maybe in group of ten or a dozen and go to the local curry house. Yes, well there’s been two, one I think which was in the eighties, called ‘Sundabarn’, which is in Sudbury High Avenue, so I’ve been there for hundreds of times. There’s also another one in the main road in Sudbury, that may, I can’t really remember that may have been taken over the restaurant from Terry’s, it’s about, it’s about there so… So the food, the food we had it changed, it was a quite British traditional in the sixties and seventies, my dad foreign food it was all, really, my mum could eat mild curry, I think palate has changed…
John
