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"Walking along the Golden Mile" |
along the Great West Rd towards Chiswick fly-over. The walk that I used to do forty-seven years
ago with my mum and dad. Every Sunday evening all through the summer we always had our
Sunday night walk along the Great West Road to watch the cars going around the Chiswick
round-a-bout. Those days it was something different to see so many cars because not many people
owned them around Brentford. As the traffic is now I can't help wondering what the joy was at
that time in the middle fifties for my family to want to go and watch the cars going around
the Chiswick roundabout. In my school holidays my friends and I used to sit on the wall in
Ealing Rd and take car numbers as they went by and the speed that they were going along you
had time to jot them down in your notebooks, which you can't do now, as the speed is much
more and there is so much traffic on the roads. Going back to our walk along the Great west
Rd it was so nice not having that horrible concrete jungle called the flyover instead the
air was much cleaner free from petrol fumes and there were trees that lined the road that
had blossom which looked so beautiful and the blooms smelt really lovely and on a windy day
the blossom would blow off the trees and it made a lovely coloured carpet on the pavement. It
was such a lovely sight to see also on a weekday when you walk along past the old Smith's
Crisps factory you would smell the chips being cooked which would start the old taste buds
going. The smell of the toothpaste being made at MacLeans at the corner of Boston Manor
Road this was all a great part that belong to Brentford. The Great West Road had such a
lot of important events happening along the road for example my sister Nora, dad and myself
used to go and stand with the other people in Brentford to watch the Queen, Prince Philip,
Princess Margaret, Queen Mother and the rest of the royal family who would be driven through
to the airport or Windsor it was a regular scene and it was such a lovely feeling being right
next to the big shiny car with a flag as the Queen Mother would always wave at us. It made it
so worthwhile after standing and waiting for so long. You would see all the famous people go
along that route. Also we would be able to see the marathon being run by the men running along
with their shorts and vest carrying a rolled up paper in their hand. The biggest excitement
was in1962 to see the American Astronaut [Neil Armstrong] who was the first man on the
moon going past in a open car he was wearing a smart looking uniform and waving to us all as
he passed by all the people that had come specially to see him. So now that the concrete
jungle has arrived the famous people now use the flyover so this unfortunately has stopped.
When I was about five years old I used to look over the road at the building that sold cars
which was at the corner of Windmill Road on the top of the Fairford Garages Ltd building.
There was a model of a little white windmill that the sail's went around and round in the wind.
It was the first windmill I had seen as I lived in a town. The graceful model of a diver in
a swimming costume on the front of the Jantzen Knitting Mills factory, at the junction of
Boston Manor Road and the Great West Road, that made swimming costumes. The
Christmas time was something to look forward to because all the factories in the
golden mile made such an effect with decorating their premises with colourful lights
on their Christmas trees and models of Father Christmases on their sledges with reindeers
and a snowman would appear it was wonderland to walk along on a cold dark evening wrapped
up warm just to see all those nice brightly coloured lighted decorations glowing in the
dark of the night. The good old days have long gone by but the happy memories still linger
on inside of me and I will never forget them.
otherwise known as "The Golden Mile"
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