Janet Hicks
Janet talks about moving to Sheerwater

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My father was a caretaker at school so we moved quite a bit. And we lived in Merton Park and then we moved from Merton Park to Raynes Park and then we did a transfer to move to Sheerwater because there were new houses - I think my parents saw a sign. Somebody wanted to move to Raynes Park and do a transfer. So we literally did a transfer. Because it was a new estate and they just wanted, probably, a new beginning.

We came on the removal van - I remember that! We did! And we actually stopped at Shannon’s Corner - I remember that to this day. All of us in the removal van and we stopped at Shannon’s Corner to have something to eat. There must have been some in the back, there must have been!

We thought it was wonderful. Because in them days your parents didn’t have cars. My father never had a car so we went everywhere - we either walked or we went on the bus. And the bus was really only when Mum could afford it ’cause they weren’t that well off. Thought it was wonderful, especially when we stopped where all these other vans were and we looked like - what would you call it? - a roadside caff these days, and it was wonderful.

And we used to have a ‘penny man’, who used to come round in a charabanc. It was a little shop in it. It was wonderful. I mean, you used to go in a little door there and it’d be -  he’d be behind the little counter there and he had everything. It was like a little groceries on wheels. We used to have a vegetable man as well. He used to do all the vegetables, potatoes and all that. And the bleach man used to - I mean, we used to have a lot of deliveries in them days. The bleach man used to come and my mum used to buy bleach and, after so many bottles, she got a free tea towel, I’ll always remember that. He was, literally, just called ‘the bleach man.’ But the penny man was wonderful. Used to go and buy like four chews for a penny. I don’t know why he was called the penny man. Probably, because you could buy something for a penny off him but that’s how he was called, the penny man. But the fish man was lovely because my mum always used to buy fresh fish and we always had fish on Fridays. And she did it herself, in batter, and it was lovely.

We weren’t unhappy. We never – we never would say to someone, “Oh, we haven’t got any money.”  Because that’s thought… that was the way you accepted it.