Share your memories of the park

I used to live at 25 Bryony Road. We moved there in 1940 from East Acton. Our house in Crocus Walk (Just off DuCane Road but no longer there now) was completely destroyed by enemy bombing – Luckily no one in at the time – My Father was a London PC and always on night duty. I was coming up to 4 yrs old and was visiting my 2 brothers who were evacuated to Cookham, My 2 elder sisters were in Maidenhead, and North Devon (Womans Land Army). On hearing our house had gone – We had to stay in Cookham. Berkshire. My Father got another house allocated just off the Westway near the Library. He took it over, and it too was completely destroyed along with St Catherine Colmans Church the next night. So we waited while a third house was allocated. That was 25 Bryony Rd. We stayed there throughout the War. Slept on Chancery Lane Tube Station in 1940/41. Then we had an Anderson Shelter put in the garden. All was well until Feb 1945 when a V2 landed on the Flats killing a lot of people including the young girl who shared a double desk with me at Wormholt Park School. It was about 9.00 pm I was in bed, and all the windows in the front of the house were blown in, and the roof damaged.There were lots of large shelters in the Park opposite the School.

If you went up Wormholt Rd and crossed the Uxbridge Rd, there was a pub on the corner , and almost opposite on a bombed site, was a small Army Camp with Italian POW;s living in it. They wore battledress and had Large Diamond Shaped Brown Patches on their backs and one knee. They were amazingly let out, and would date the young girls.

Earlier probably in 1944 a VI (Doodlebug Flying Bomb) hit Blaxland House White City. Lots of casualties. There were other houses bombed by traditional bombing. Hemlock Rd on the corner, and in Thorpebank and Galloway Road, and counless others all over London. I left Bryony when i joined the Army in 1954. Spent 38 years in the Army and now live in Wiltshire. I did go back to Wormholt Park once in the 80’s. It seemed remarkably unchanged. In the 60’s my Mother and Father were allocated a one bedroom Old peoples Flat in Hammersmith. Not such a nice area as the Hammersmith Borough Council Estate that included Bryony Rd. All the Streets are named after Plants and Flowers. There were also LCC Houses in Gravesend Rd and elsewhere. They were a different colour,and not so nice !

Sadly I note the Savoy Cinema has gone – My Golly I’ve spent some time in there, as well ast the Gaumont and Odeon in Acton. I think all the cinemas have gone, Of course there was no TV in those days.

Changed schools about 1948 to St Clement Danes in DuCane Road, next to the hospital. That’s gone now as well ! Hammersmith Hospital is still there, even bigger now, and Wormwood Scrubs Prison is unchanged. Burlington Girls School has gone I think. I was attached to 10 Parachute Bn (TA) in 1958 for a year ,and we used to Parachute from a Barrage Balloon on the Scrubs. You had a fine view of the inside of the Prison from 800 ft !

My apologies for rambling on. As you can deduce from my rambling I have fond memories
of my early life in the Bush. As a serviceman my duties took me all over the world, The Middle East, Persian Gulf, Cyprus, Oman, and the Far east and Europe. But The “Bush” is still the best, mind Wiltshire not so bad either !

Best Wishes – “Pegasus”