My involvement in local politics – by David Williams

I first got involved in local politics at the 1970 general election just over 3 years after we had moved here. Ham had no Liberal Association, it was one of the derelict wards, to use the standard term, and I was asked would I go round and collect a few memberships, which was a gentle way of getting involved, collecting five shillings off this person and five shillings off somebody […]

Petersham Hole 1978 – by David Williams

The one big drama we had at the end of the 70s was the Petersham Hole.  The sewer collapsed right in the middle of Petersham where there is no alternative route between Richmond and Kingston apart from Richmond Park and it was patched up in the Spring of 1978 and almost immediately collapsed again and the Council engineers and the transport people decided they had to replace both foul water […]

Choice of school in Ham – by FH

Well, St Richards School we had understood was getting ready for opening in the near future so we put their names down for that school but it wasn’t ready so Ian, our older boy, actually went first of all to St Andrews school which is now St Thomas Aquinas the catholic church.  That had been the old village school.  And when Andrew became ready to go to school that was […]

Meadlands memories from the ’60s – by KM

Meadlands School physically was a smaller place then but while I was there they did extend it and it has been extended still. In terms of the number of classrooms it was smaller. I think I went there for 3 years; a couple of years prior to that I was in the Oakfield Nursery School. I was there up until 1965 at Meadlands – physically a smaller place. It did […]

Working at Latchmere House – Memories by RP

I think it’s purely something that you have to accept for yourself, the people that lived in Ham, the majority of them that I knew that lived in the vicinity of the prison were quite happy about it.  I think that as it went on I don’t think the people in Ham had any problems with the prison being there, in fact I think they thought it was quite secure […]

Barclays Bank Raid 1976 – by GDS

There was the cashier in the bank, Barclays, on Ham Parade. There is a memorial seat to her outside the bank – Angela Woolliscroft, it was 1976 I think. There was bank robber who went into Barclays bank and demanded money. She gave it to him, as they were told to do, but he used a shot gun and killed her at point blank range. She was about 20 years […]

Ham Fair – by KM

Tell me about how Ham Fair has chamged.  Great memories and great change; A bit like Ham Pond really. It is very different compared with how it used to be – very, very up-market and civilised now. It was a much more local thing, the Ham Fairs and Ham events when I was growing up. We are probably talking maybe early 70’s. Certainly the Ham Fairs were much more local […]

Ham Lands, plant life and threats to its existance – by GH

Well, it was a builder’s rubbish dump in those days and the local population used to refer to it as the Wastelands.  It was a thoroughly unpleasant, untidy heap of old plaster, bricks, baths and general debris and only slowly did it start to get cleared. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the then newly appointed Liberal council, for the European Year of the Environment, cleared it completely and skimmed […]