The shop next to the house when we first lived in Wandsworth Bridge Road was a grocers shop owned by a family called Watson. I remember they had a daughter called Margaret. Each Christmas my parents lit a fire in the front room for the many guests we invited. Unfortunately the chimney breast was adjacent to the wall where their tins of food were kept. After one particularly good Christmas the Watson’s returned to find all the tins were nice and warm. Heaven knows what the food was like! Probably half cooked!

  

The Watson’s sold their shop to Dave Payne who ran a motorbike sale and repair business. He became a good friend of my family. Dave lost his leg during the war and was fitted with an artificial leg made from wood. Each time he had a new pair of shoes he nailed the shoe to the wooden leg. I remember my father telling me that on one occasion Dave was sitting on the work bench while my father hammered the nail into the shoe. At that untimely moment a little old lady came into the shop and was so horrified by what she thought was a barbaric assault on Mr Payne. She passed out.                                             

There use to be a scrap metal yard called the Iron Gate Yard. I remember seeing someone painting a slogan saying ‘End Eden’s War’ a reference to Anthony Eden. The slogan remained until the yard was demolished. I also remember the waste paper works at the end of Wandsworth Bridge. Every bonfire night after we had set off our fireworks we would go to the Bridge and watch the fire in the paper works because someone always set light to it. Many members of my family where christened and married at St Mathews including my brother and my sister.

Read more of Brenda's memories in Wandsworth Bridge Road South Shops section.

Brenda has been researching the history of the Fulham Refuge in Burlington Road as part of a thesis for her PH.D in Social & Economic History. Contact her for more information via this website.