ST. JOHN’S WOOD MEMORIES
Vilma Mitchell nee Bayley
Vilma on her 80th birthday
I was born in 1932 and I began living in SJW from 1936, when Mum and Dad built one of the first houses here. We had an easy-going childhood and social relationship with our neighbours. We didn’t go inside a lot of the homes, but we knew everyone. The Hodges, two doors along at 52 Grand Parade were our relatives and their place was like my second home. The Peake’s in Piddington Street were friends. Mrs. Peake played the piano and our family would go there on a Sunday evening and sing around the piano. I'm still friends with Joan Peake. As it turned out, we both married ministers of religion.
When we arrived home from school, we would have something to eat, perhaps bread and dripping which we loved and change out of our school clothes and say, “Mum can we go out and play?” and off we would go. ‘Hide and Seek’ or ‘Hopscotch’ on Grand Parade were favourites.
There was no traffic then.
We would catch tadpoles in the gutters. Then we would put them in bottles and watch them grow into frogs. We would make balls out of the clay. I remember that soft squishy feeling of the clay in my hands. We’d bake them in the sun and throw them at each other.
Mum and Dad would go to dances in the hall behind Granite House and we just played nearby.
Judith Ralston was in my class. Her parents owned the shop. I remember her running with her red setter dog along the creek and picking mulberries.
There was an air-raid shelter on the left, going down the steep part of Grand Parade, next to the gully. Mr. “Pop” Johnstone was the air raid warden.
We went to a youth group one night a week at the Methodist church at the top of the hill. During the war years when the army was based in St John's Wood, we'd walk home through the paddock next to the Huxley's place on the corner of Gresham Street and Royal Parade. There would always be a sentry there at night and he's say "Who goes there?" We always felt safe in the Woods.
When we arrived home from school, we would have something to eat, perhaps bread and dripping which we loved and change out of our school clothes and say, “Mum can we go out and play?” and off we would go. ‘Hide and Seek’ or ‘Hopscotch’ on Grand Parade were favourites.
There was no traffic then.
We would catch tadpoles in the gutters. Then we would put them in bottles and watch them grow into frogs. We would make balls out of the clay. I remember that soft squishy feeling of the clay in my hands. We’d bake them in the sun and throw them at each other.
Mum and Dad would go to dances in the hall behind Granite House and we just played nearby.
Judith Ralston was in my class. Her parents owned the shop. I remember her running with her red setter dog along the creek and picking mulberries.
There was an air-raid shelter on the left, going down the steep part of Grand Parade, next to the gully. Mr. “Pop” Johnstone was the air raid warden.
We went to a youth group one night a week at the Methodist church at the top of the hill. During the war years when the army was based in St John's Wood, we'd walk home through the paddock next to the Huxley's place on the corner of Gresham Street and Royal Parade. There would always be a sentry there at night and he's say "Who goes there?" We always felt safe in the Woods.