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My father was John William Jerrom known as Bill from a long line of John Williams ( six generations) and was born in 1897 at St Lukes, Old St, London and my mother was Ivy Georgina Constance Jerrom born 1904 in Hackney. My dad was a carpenter and joiner and was the foreman at the Veronese Stone and Concrete Co. under Putney Bridge on the Fulham side where they did a lot of precast stone work. My dad would make the mould inside out in wood and then he and a Taffy Jones (pictured below right) would fill it with concrete or what ever and leave it to set before turning it out and finishing it off. (Left to Right) My mum Ivy Jerrom is pictured with neighbour Beat Cook during the Queen's 1953 Coronation celebrations in Edenvale Street. Mum is on the right, My dad Bill Jerrom and with Taffy Jones (right). Well one day my dad was called to the office where he was introduced to a lady architect who was working on the New Coventry Cathedral. She was having problems with how to make the windows in the Chapel of Unity. What she wanted was rough granite with lumps of rough glass imbeded in it and they had to be 39 feet high. The long and the short of it was that they were to be made in 13ft sections for transport reasons and my dad got the job. They were precast made with granite chippings and the glass was set in. While it was still all wet they were turned out of the moulds then the cement was rubbed out with wire brushes and abracadabra she had what she wanted. They were then sent up to Coventry and there they are. We went up to Coventry to see them, the Chapel of Unity is where they have the Font for Baptisms. Our house at 44a Edenvale Street wasn't very big. We had a front room, a double bedroom, a single bedroom a living room, a scullery and a bathroom. Just a toilet and a bath with running cold water. We were well off as lots of people had only a outside loo. When we had a bath we had to boil the water in a copper and carry the water in buckets to the bathroom but we didn't feel deprived. We didn't know any different. Besides many houses didn't have bathrooms and people went to the Fulham Baths for a bath when they wanted to. it was quite normal and we had a small back yard with a big brick air raid shelter in it where we went when the warnings went off. Our arrival in Fulham was due to a very dramatic incident. On April 17th 1941 my dad was on fire watch near our house in Westminster and I was with my mum in a coal cellar in the bottom drawer of a chest of drawers for protection from the bombs when we were hit and the house came down on top of us. The cellar we were in was under the pavement with access for coal through a manhole in the pavement. When the bomb hit my dad was blown up the road and ended up with two broken ankles and we were eventually dug out by the fire brigade, home all gone and with what we had on We then moved out of Central London to Fulham. First to Moore Park Rd near Walham Green which is now Fulham Broadway and after that to Edenvale where my brother was born on the kitchen floor on Nov. 2 1942 in the middle of another air raid because the ambulance couldn't get through. He was named Peter John and lived till he was 47 when he got up to go to work and dropped dead with a heart attack. I was quite young during the War but I do remember the planes going over and the air raid warnings and the barrage balloons strung along the Thames. There was one at the foot of Wandsworth Bridge and another by the Shell Depot. I remember Shell being hit and all in flames and the men who could drive going in and bringing out the tankers. I also remember the Convoy's warehouse going up and all the fat and grease running in the gutters down Townmead Rd, I also remember the Street party for VE day. We had a street party and a big bonfire burning in the road and I remember my dad pushing our upright piano out on the pavement and him. and mum playing it so the neighbours could sing and dance the night away. Funny what stops in your mind. Life was less complicated then. Nobody had anything. We were all in the same boat and when I try to tell my grandaughter how it was with no tele, no plastic, no washing machines, many houses with no bathrooms and just a toilet out back I'm sure she thinks I'm making it all up, We used to go cokeing to earn our pocket money getting up very early in the morning and going with our "bunzer's" made out of old pram wheels and wooden boxes all the way to Imperial Road to the Gas Works to buy coke in 28 pound sacks for the neighbours to keep warm in winter because coal was scarce, and in summer we used to go around the streets knocking on doors asking for waste paper to take all the way to Wandsworth over the bridge to sell for 2 pence a pound. You couldn't let kids do that these days but then there was no danger. I recently re-established contact with my old friend Bridget McDonough from Townmead Road. We haven't seen one another for around fifty years and are catching up on our history. We used to live with our back gardens joining so you can imagine we were very good friends all our childhood. Also know Mike O'Donnell, Pat Blake and Geoffrey Baker. Below are pictures of the Edenvale Street Coronation party in 1953.  
 
 
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Where We Lived 
