Sandy Lane and the surrounding area – by VG

There would be some houses in Sandy Lane that people had just moved in, for instance our immediate neighbours at number 18 he was the Borough Treasurer and his wife and son and they’d moved in earlier that year, it was  September 1956 when we moved in, I think they’d moved in at the beginning of the year and were sort of well established and there were some other houses, a few other houses that were occupied  and, let me see, of those how many of the people are still there? I can only think of two other households now because they’ve probably moved and died but there are two other households that came in at the beginning that are still there and I think that’s number 32 and number 58 (laughter)

The hedge in Sandy Lane was there between the houses on this side and the road and the bank long before the pavement was put down so it was quite muddy.

The library was there when we came but only just and I have a bit to say about the library actually.  There were a few shops, not the same shops that are there now but there were a few shops, interesting shops, and behind of course there was the council houses, the other side of Ashburnham Rd but behind this side as it were there were the wonderful prefabs.  It was beautiful. There were these lovely gardens and I walked past there and it was very, very sad when they went.

The difficulty of staying this side of Sandy Lane, ah yes, at that time we had what were called covenants that the people building the houses had to abide by.  They weren’t allowed to do this and they weren’t allowed to do that.  It was very rigid what you could and couldn’t do in the planning sense absolutely rigid and no house must be for dual occupation which of course this was.