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RECOLLECTIONS
RITA AMOS
I`ve lived in Hullbridge since 1940 when I was ten. The bungalow where we lived was plain, black and wooden. It had a front room, a small kitchen and we stepped down into the scullery where Granny
did the washing and boiling in the copper. There was only one bedroom. My mum, her mum, my two brothers and I, all lived in that place.
Every one knew my mum. She sold eggs and flowers, she worked on the farm, she did all sorts. During the war, there was a prisoner-of-war camp in Rawreth Lane. My mum worked with the POWs on a farm called
Hursts. She would stand on the cart with her pitchfork and they would throw up the hay and she would stack it while the horses were moving along. She was a slim, tiny lady but she was very strong.
Mr. Moss ran the Anchor pub. The river frontage was called the Green. Mum had a gas stove in a little building on the Green where she cooked hot dinners for the customers. The Anchor was a lovely place.
Everybody knew everybody. There was a wooden partition inside. When the parents went into the pub, the children used to stand behind the partition and peep around the corner.
The policeman was my grandmother`s friend. He was a tall, fat man. He would ride his bicycle from the Anchor to Coventry Corner. That was his beat. He would say "There`s no crime in Hullbridge!".
Later we moved to the end of Grasmere Avenue, to a place called The Lindens. Mum used to walk through the hedge to the farm where she worked. The roads were so muddy. The dustbins had to be brought
down to the end of the road for the dustcart to empty. The milkman and coalman had to get up the road as best they could. Bread was delivered by horse and cart to the Palmers at the Post Office.
For all that, it was lovely here then and people were so nice.
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