(2 of 2) The first journey through our community

The journey now continues up the High Road

Having crossed the A127 we can continue our journey leaving the Fortune Service Station on our right. As we move up the High Road we come across another building with a history on our right.

The Sofa & Sofa Bed Co (Click on picture to reveal more)

The next building covering up part of the history is Carpet Warehouse also on our right

Carpet Warehouse (Click on picture to reveal more)

The next of our buildings of interest is on our Left and is a pair of semidetached houses that have been part of the High Rd for many years

The Villas (Click on picture to reveal more)

Moving on from the Villa’s we switch over to the over side of the road again and we would have come across the British Legion Hall next to Laindon High Road School. The War Memorial stood in a prominent position in front of the Hall facing the High Road. The Hall itself was built in the early 1920s until it was sold and demolished in 1975. The Memorial then languished in a store house near Pitsea tip, until it was rescued and relocated to its current position in front of Laindon Shopping centre. Journey will continue in the near future.

War Memorial in front of the British Legion Hall

Next we come to the newest addition to the changing landscape of the High Road and still very controversial.

Radford Way Estate (Click on picture to reveal more)

as soon as I can find out where to put the ignition key!

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  • Further along the High Road, towards the station was The Variety Stores, which did as it said and sold a bit of everything- not food etc, but clothing, elastic etc., here was also a rag shop, where you could get so much per bag of rags, near to Parkinsons, which was there for many years.

    Across the road from them was a hairdressers called Katherine’s and there was also one called Doris. The library was along there somewhere, I believe (memory being jogged slowly!)

    By Sue Tripp (Nee Moore) (29/01/2015)
  • Sorry but do we mean St.Nicholas Lane (in the title)? rather than road.

    Editor: It is nice to know that somebody is at last looking at the site as this article has been for 15 months.

    By Ann Rugg (04/05/2012)
  • Really looking forward to more of this, especially as you get closer to my part of the High Road around Lloyds Bank.

    Editor: I am trying to get back to this but I am having difficulty in getting all the photographs to fill the gaps and time to put it together.

    By Daphne Rowbotham (née Churms) (15/01/2012)
  • Fascinating site. Really interesting. Looking forward to reading more of the journey.

    By Helen Painter (15/08/2011)
  • Hi Ken lovely to hear all your names again I have been trying to find Eddie and Josie for a while, as I looked after their son Paul for a while. I would love to know how he is as I had to put him on a plane to Australia when he was just a small boy, appox 1965.  I now live in Lowestoft and have a Facebook page.

    By Gloria Sewell (27/07/2011)
  • Hi Gloria, I knew Dave and Fred [Brian] Rand, they lived on the Berry Park estate not that far from us in the 50s. I was in touch with Fred on the Basildon history site until his untimely death a year or so ago. I sort of remember you as well, we were at the High Rd school at the same time I’m sure. Hows Dave going, he must be about 70 something now? I’m out in Australia and in touch with Eddy Morris and Josie Bowen and have met Brian Howard up in Sydney back in 2009. Eddy and me go on motor bike rides together now, we are both in the Ulysses Club, motto, Grow old Disgracefully. I’m in regular contact with Mike Pratt, Dave and Chris younger brother, good old younger days, best memories ever.

    By Ken Page (26/07/2011)
  • Hello Ken and Peter I too came off a 350 BSA Gold Star on the Fortune Rounderbout in1961 when my husband David Rand leaned it over to far. I was wearing high hills at the time and one snapped off this proberly saved my foot. We used to use the cafe in the petrol station a bit further up opposite the Laindon Service Station (I worked in there 1959-60) he carried on and carried me in there but I was ok just a bit bruised. There were quite a lot of us motor bike riders then Brian Reynoulds, David Flashman, Ronnie Herbert, Eddie Murphy, Freddy Rand, (later bought an old hearse we used to go out in) to name but a few. The other cafes we used were Dirty Bill at the side of the garage on the London side of the 127, the Blinking Owl going towards Southend and of course Enefers where I had my first job at 13 washing up and listening to my first Cliff Richard record Guitar Man. I think the boys bikes were mostly all British there was one boy I can’t recall his name, he gave a BSA Bantam a makeover and it looked like a mini racer we were known all over Essex as “The Laindon Boys” (before equality of course) hope this brings back some more memories of this great time for the young in Laindon because we really rocked. x Gloria

    By Gloria Sewell (14/06/2011)
  • What a fantastic trip down memory lane. As a young boy growing up in Laindon in the 50’s it brought back lots of found memories of that time. Hats of to you Ken made my day.

    I will be continuing the journey as soon as I can collate the photographs in the order they occur on the journey. There are still a considerable number of the old buildings that we have yet to obtain photographs. 

    Ian Mott Editor.

    By Peter Boatwright (28/05/2011)
  • Love the phots and the jouney Ian, look forward to the rest of it. The old service station [more garage] on the corner of High Rd and A127 was where I used to fill my 500 BSA up, the girls there said I would crash on that roundabout one day, they were right, I came a cropper there in 1963, stll have the broken bones in my right hand to remind me.

    By Ken Page (27/05/2011)
  • Just a point of clarification, please, aren’t the Bed and Carpet shops on the RIGHT as you come south from the A127?

    Thanks Tony – I must have fallen asleep! Now corrected

    By Tony Thompson (26/05/2011)

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