My married name is Gregory but my maiden name was Morris, and my name by my first marriage (1966 to 1971) was Campbell. I lived and grew up at 22 Bagleys Lane from 1952/3 until 1979 - with two breaks when I went to abroad (1967 to 1970 - then 1976 to 1978).

When my mother, grandmother and I first moved to Bagleys Lane the bath was rusty. My uncle managed to get us a good bath and fit it before too long, thank goodness. The family who had lived upstairs moved down to the ground floor until they were rehoused a few streets away. We three then moved down (my father and mother were divorced when I was very young) and mum let the three upstairs rooms so she could pay the mortgage. The back of the house was always very damp though the front was sound and there was a crack in the loft due to bomb damage.

The house next door was the local School Clinic and there was a gas works building with sandy cladding opposite until it was demolished in the late 1970s. There were several of us children and we all played together both in the street and in our gardens. running along the back walls to get to each other. The only one who had to play at home was a boy called Ronnie Hugget who lived in the flats in Cresford Road. We used to visit him.

I can remember the bomb damage in Bagleys Lane. At the New King's Road end was an enormous bomb crater which eventually was filled and built on during the 50s. There were also  prefabs on the first block on the left coming down Bagleys Lane from New Kings Road as a bomb had demolished the houses there early in WW2. There was another bomb site further down Bagleys Lane towards the Sandilands road on which flats were built later.

Prefabs. Picture Hammersmith & Fulham Archives

Below are two pictures of the Coronation Tea Party in 1953. It was held in Acfold Road as it was a safer place, and all the local children came along. I went as the Tea Party which was great fun but it was hard to eat in that outfit! Long trestle tables filled Acfold road and were loaded with goodies for us all. I don't know who organised it though. I was only six!

 

The picture of me alone in the garden in 1964 (below) is really more of interest because of the high rise flats in the background which replaced an earlier bomb site. The New Year's Day snow scene in 1964 was memorable as we always had a New Year's Eve Party and that year the snow fell before midnight so no one who lived further away than walking distance could get home so we had a full house of strangely dressed young people to stay.  It was a very heavy snowfall that year.

(Below) We had space for a small bonfire in the garden in 1971. My mother Emily Morris may be recognised by someone and my son Luke (Campbell) by my first marriage is along side my first mother-in-law Flo.

 

The 1977 colour shot shows my present husband with our son Fergus and my oldest, Luke in the more normal type of snowfall for Fulham.

I spent about six years in Australia teaching small children and worked for the Land Registry in the UK. I am now retired and live in Cornwall. I have three children and two grandchildren.