CHESHAM, Bucks

LONDON

FLEET, Hants
(Church Crookham)

SWINDON, Wilts

WITNEY, Oxon
(Long Hanborough)

LONDON

Learnt to drive a car in my father’s mini but didn’t pass my test until 30! Favourite groups were The Beatles (who else?) and Simon and Garfunkel Favourite singers were Cliff; Bob Dylan; Tom Paxton and Bobby Vee. Met friends at The Kwela Coffee Bar where I tasted my first Silk Cut and bought egg and chips for 1s 9p. The cafe was run by a family who had left (what was then) Southern Rhodesia and was decorated with exotic masks around the walls and had a juke box in the corner. Favourite food was Spaghetti Bolognese, hot curries and steak and chips. Favourite drink: a pint of brown ale. Heard the Beatles for the first time when someone in the class brought in “Love Me Do” to be played as an end of term treat at school. In the mid 60’s I went to The Trapdoor Folk Club each week and sang most weeks with another friend. The Club - in it’s early days had acts such as Paul Simon; Julie Felix; Tom Paxton and Jeremy Taylor (who wrote the musical “Wait a Minim”) had a reunion in 1970 and it was, I believe the last time they met. My first job was as a dental nurse in Little Chalfont. I earnt £9 per week. I left home in 1968 to share a flat in Amersham, over a dress shop which I rented for £5 a week. Met up with two friends from the 60’s a few weeks ago. First time we had met for nearly 40 years and one of the friends was over from Australia !!

Tricia Murphy

Lived in London. No car, travelled safely on the underground or walked. Obviously we screamed at the Beatles and Cliff Richard. Actually saw the Beatles live in 1964 at the State, Kilburn. Didn’t go to restaurants - just coffee bars and a bag of chips on the way home! In the later 60’s we started going to the Spaghetti House near Tottenham Court Road. Started smoking at 14 - we could buy a “Tuppenny loose” at a shope near the school, just off the Edgware Road, W2. Carried on smoking on and off for 30 years !!!  Met my husband-to-be at a teenage club - no alcohol - he was 16, I was 14. We married just over 4 years later in 1964. Of course it wasn’t going to last, but here we are 45 years later, two children and two grandchildren !!! Still see a couple of people I went to school with - having been friends for over 50 years. Good Luck with the Project.

Janet Harris.

Actually lived in a small village called Church Crookham where my parents still live. Married my girlfriend from 1969 but now divorced and re:married. Favourite food was Spam Fritter. Went swimming at Aldershot Lido and loved listening to Pirate Radio. Little dreamt I would visit Radio Caroline at sea over 10 years later! Went to the Top Rank in Reading for a night out and drank Brown Ale. Rode a Lambretta and listened to Tamla Motown. Favourite group was The Who though. Smoked No.6 cigarettes from the age of 14 for two years and then gave up. My family didn’t have a car so until I had a scooter we walked everywhere or used buses.


Dave

In the sixties my parents moved house and the whole family then lived not far from the famous red bricked Town Hall building in Swindon. One Saturday, I walked up Regent Street and saw a Teddy Boy dressed in a flamboyant banana coloured jacket. His hair, greased with long sideburns and on top of his head his black hair swept into piles of interesting waves. I loved Elvis, Rock and Roll. Now here in front of me was the ultimate devotee dressed in drain pipes, the jacket and at least an inch thick crepe soles. I noticed how the fellow bounced along. He was followed by his wife and behind her was me. I watched with interest as she walked those few paces behind, although they were out shopping together. I thought the scene amusing though clearly to them it was normal. The wife turned and caught my eye. She smiled and that smile told me a lot. She wasn’t embarrassed by what he wore of the way he walked. Shoppers looked at them as they walked up the town. I guess they remembered when they’d put away their jackets or even their black leathers. We walked on and then were joined by a gang of Teds. Each one dressed in rainbow colours. The street looked a riot of colours. As we walked on, it became clear the Teds were off to the annual dance at the Town Hall. I was new to the area so then didn’t know that each year they had a dance for fellow Teddy Boys. Rock and roll was their chosen music of the night. At the Town Hall they all went inside and I continued on home. I heard the electric guitars start up and the music dominated. Later on the Beatles emerged and music tastes changed but the Teds still kept meeting up. Of course that was years ago and it makes me wonder what happened to those “Birds of Paradise” jackets and all the nostalgia linked to them. People take things down to a charity shop these days. Now what a find that would be!


Cleveland Gibson

Mini Skirts (no more than 6” above the knee) or midi skirts as my school uniform length. Everything purple with “flower-power” prints on my bedroom walls, mirrors, school books and anything else that stood still long enough. Bubble writing. Sykodillic (I think I spelt it right) prints; my dress to the school disco was in orange/yellow/red/green with a zip up the front and a large ring in the pulley bit at the top with a mandarin collar. It had to be Wranglers for cord trousers and Levi for jeans and my first pair cost £4 15s 6p, which I saved hard for. Girls learnt Domestic Science at school whilst the boys did woodwork. We were taught how to cook real food from scratch taking into class a tin of ingredients for the dish-of-the-day. We could leave school at 15 having taken CSE’s or stay on for a further year to take your O’levels. Most of us girls went into secretarial jobs. We weren’t allowed to wear make-up at school but at home and going out I would draw black liner into the socket of my eyes and along the lash edge top and bottom. False eye lashes on the top lid and drawn lashes along the bottom. Finished with frosted pink lip-stick. Twiggy was my role model and Mary Quant for clothes and make-up. Loved Clint Eastwood in Rawhide (TV) Richard Chamberlain in Dr Kildare, first 45 rpm single record was “Dancing in the Street” cannot remember the singer though. “Tears of a Clown” another favourite, which I played on my record player with an arm which came across the record and the needle would drop into the record’s groove. Went to the Woodstock Town Hall and Spotlight at RAF Brize Norton each Saturday night to dance the night away. Favourite singer was T-Rex who later died in a car crash. Summer holidays were in Westward Ho, Devon, staying in a mobile home on a large site. Weekends we would go for a ride in our Ford Cortina stopping for a picnic on the side of the road if the weather was fine. My mother would shop at the International for her groceries.


Sallie

Hi I'm Bridget and just come across your interesting web site and thought I would tell you a few of my memories of the Sixty's. I attended school at the Sloane Square end of the famous Kings Road of London. Most of my memories are lovely ones like sitting listening to records in record booths with my boyfriend (House of the Rising Sun by the Animals) A gang of us always going to watch Chelsea play football at Standford Bridge and having fun.!! The rich and famous paraded the Kings Rd, it was the place to be and if you shopped at Peter Jones you were really special. Memories of school life were good, we knew where we stood, with the teachers wearing their gowns and mortar boards!!! Being given a book by Sir John Mills on prize-giving day. I was always a Hayley Mills fan! Also the cream popping out of a frozen 1/3 bottle of milk!! Not so good were the fights in the playground with the lads and their knuckle-dusters - that would not happen today. Also laugh now at the mini skirts I wore! Times were harder then and I think we appreciated things more.

Bridget