"We Used To Play Tag In The British Museum?!" (Growing Up In Old London)

Maria, thank you very much for sitting down with us.

Let's start with where were you born?

I was born in Drury Lane in Betterton Street, which is a street, not really, you know, like any of the streets around there, but blocks of flats, residential flats.

And I was born at home in 1951.

Wow.

What was it like around there then?

Oh, what was it like around there? It was amazing.

It was, well, there were bomb sites.

but it was lovely as a child growing up there it was magnificent because everybody looked out for you you knew everybody and you were frightened if you did something wrong someone would tell your parents or whatever so you'd be given up straight away but it was idyllic because I went to the local primary school which was a Catholic primary school which my mum went to and subsequently my children went to and my husband went to so it's like the whole area knew each other And he was kind of related to more or less everyone there.

Not in a weird way, but it was, everybody knew it.

So it was good.

It was really good.

I can remember it being like always sunny in the summer.

We would go, there was about six or seven of us that would meet up in Bettison Street in our swimming costumes, literally, and those rubber shoes that you could wear and a towel and a bag of sandwiches.

And we'd go to the Oasis swimming pool, which was just one pool.

Was that still there? It was always there, one pool outside.

Yeah.

Very different to what you see today when you go there, yeah.

Was it

heated then?

No. no it's no such thing as heated there was like a diving board and a few chairs a bit of an area for children to playing we used to meet up there we used to stay all day you stay all day our parents know couldn't contact you could you because there's no phones and things um and we loved it and then we'd come out still in our swimming costumes go to the fish and chip shop on the corner of ender street which is still there under a different gaze it was called fenners at that point and get a bag of chips with the scraps on top.

And then we'd all walk round to Drury Lane.

And there was, I think it's an electrical power station in Shorts Gardens.

And in the front of Drury Lane, there was a big area with a grate, and we all used to call it the warmers.

So we all used to say, see you at the warmers.

Maria, thank you very much for sitting down with us.

Let's start with where were you born?

I was born in Drury Lane in Betterton Street, which is a street, not really, you know, like any of the streets around there, but blocks of flats, residential flats.

And I was born at home in 1951.

Wow.

What was it like around there then?

Oh, what was it like around there? It was amazing.

It was, well, there were bomb sites.

but it was lovely as a child growing up there it was magnificent because everybody looked out for you you knew everybody and you were frightened if you did something wrong someone would tell your parents or whatever so you'd be given up straight away but it was idyllic because I went to the local primary school which was a Catholic primary school which my mum went to and subsequently my children went to and my husband went to so it's like the whole area knew each other And he was kind of related to more or less everyone there.

Not in a weird way, but it was, everybody knew it.

So it was good.

It was really good.

I can remember it being like always sunny in the summer.

We would go, there was about six or seven of us that would meet up in Bettison Street in our swimming costumes, literally, and those rubber shoes that you could wear and a towel and a bag of sandwiches.

And we'd go to the Oasis swimming pool, which was just one pool.

Was that still there? It was always there, one pool outside.

Yeah.

Very different to what you see today when you go there, yeah.

Was it

heated then?

No. no it's no such thing as heated there was like a diving board and a few chairs a bit of an area for children to playing we used to meet up there we used to stay all day you stay all day our parents know couldn't contact you could you because there's no phones and things um and we loved it and then we'd come out still in our swimming costumes go to the fish and chip shop on the corner of ender street which is still there under a different gaze it was called fenners at that point and get a bag of chips with the scraps on top.

And then we'd all walk round to Drury Lane.

And there was, I think it's an electrical power station in Shorts Gardens.

And in the front of Drury Lane, there was a big area with a grate, and we all used to call it the warmers.

So we all used to say, see you at the warmers.