Working at the Polo stables – by EB

They both went to Meadlands and then they both went to Grey Court and when they left school they didn’t want to go to university but on their Saturdays they’d been working at Mr Walsh’s polo stables, helping to look after the horses, and they said that Mr Walsh said that we could work there after we leave school if we want to.  So they did.

Perfect place to live for riding – by JM

We used to like riding, so we came to Ham because we used to ride with Billy Walsh who had these wonderful polo stables on the Common which are now part of the estate of, I can’t remember his name even, an Arab prince, right by Ham Gate.  This was the stable and we used to drive down from London, we lived right at Marble Arch in a lovely flat […]

Splitting up of the Dysart Estate – by LGT

Those huge houses in that part of Petersham had all been part of the Dysart estate and it was split up, I think at the end of the 1950s.  They were all Dysart estate anyway and the Manor House… they were let off I think, because we were the first freehold owners of it. All those houses had been part of the Dysart estate, well finally it was broken up […]

Mods and Rockers in Ham – by KM

Let me again relate this to a Ham story and the part of the era. I grew up so my youth was mid ‘60s into the ‘70s and there were distinctly 2 types of youth cultures then: one was either a Mod and rode round on a motor scooter and they were Lambrettas and Vespa scooters or one was a Rocker or Greaser and they were on motor bikes. Most […]

Dances at Ham Hall – by KM

The large building which is now a youth club, I believe, on Ham Close – that started out just called Ham Hall. That was a hall for the use of the community in general. It wasn’t particularly just a youth club. It was quite a nice place when it started. It had a staging area. There was local guy, I guess he would have been in his twenties or so, […]

Friends and growing up in Lawrence Road – by SJ

Growing up in Lawrence Rd did you have, you know, friends in the road?  Oh yes, lots.  I mean, where these children you went to school with as well?  Yes, some of them but a lot of them were Catholic and so didn’t go to the same school but there was always playtime in the evening or afternoon and we were lucky we had a grassed area in Lawrence Rd […]

Cimemas, Richmond Ice Rink, Swimming and Kew Gardens – by TH

There was the Gaumont which I.., it’s all changed now.  That was  great, and of course, the Richmond Odeon and, of course, you had the Kingston Odeon which turned into the Bingo Hall which is now shut and getting developed into something else, I don’t know what  and, of course, you had the ice rink, you know Twickenham Ice Rink or Richmond Ice Rink as it was known, which I […]