Other local area shops
     Another shop we used to use on occasion was in Berry Lane. It was called Homestead Stores and situated between Heathleigh Drive and Wellington Avenue. They sold grocerys and other foods. I don't remember who ran it, and as far as I can remember it closed sometime in the late 1960s. I think there was also a television repair man somewhere around that area of Berry Lane, and of course the shop I mentioned earlier on the corner with Bridge Road. I remember there was also a red telephone kiosk and post box outside it.

The Hiawatha and some Laindon shops
     From time to time it was necessary to go into Laindon. This wasn't too far away, and I knew all the routes from my High Road school days. Although there was a doctor's surgery in Langdon Hills High Road, my doctor was in a large house called Hiawatha, which stood on the corner with St. Nicholas Lane. Dr. Long was based there, and Dr. Garson, and also I believe in the 1960s, Dr. Millwood. In the late 1960s the Hiawatha surgery closed and was later demolished when a new surgery opened closeby in Danacre, adjacent to the site of the new Laindon shopping centre that was then being built to replace the High Road shops.

     The High Road in Laindon had a lot more shops than Langdon Hills stretching right down to the Fortune-of-War pub, but I mainly remember the ones closest to the railway station. Here on one side was Churchill Johnson's, which used to back onto the railway goods yard. I think it was later called Sankeys or Hadlands. Opposite the Winston social club on the corner of a side road, whose name escapes me, was a dry cleaners called Kentex. That was the start of a whole row of shops that included a small library. I can't remember the names of the others now, except of course the main Post Office, which was much further down, and Carey's builders yard where dad used to get his do-it-yourself goods. After that was a public convenience on the corner with Laindon Link.

     On the other side close to the station bend was a television and radio shop called Stanwood's. It was there that we bought our radio and later a television set, and behind their shop next to Denbigh Road was a small field where the fair used to set up. We could sometimes hear the music at home when the wind blew in our direction. Along the same stretch was T.E. Collings. They sold paint and ironmongery, and were also one of the first shops to move into the new shopping centre when it was built further down the High Road around the turn of the 1970s. A bit further on was a bit of waste ground where some shops had been knocked down. This was used by a second hand car dealer who worked from a small wooden sales office tacked onto the side of the next remaining shop, which I believe was Reed's newsagents. Lastly, on the end, and on the corner of Durham Road, was a food shop called Green's Stores, which became Parkinson motor spares when Mr. Parkinson's old shop on the corner of Somerset Road got demolished to make way for the Laindon Link roundabout.

Some more memories
     I remember in the summer how the carnival procession used to make its way along the High Road. All the different gaily decorated floats and a marching band. Local celebrity Billy Foyle would often be in the procession, riding a horse and shooting his guns off into the air. Another event I recall back in the 1960s and probably earlier was the publicans wheelchair race. It was held during Easter and began at the Prince of Wales in Wash Road, and finished at the Crown, stopping off on the way to refuel at the Fortune-of-War and the Laindon Hotel. The final push up to the Crown was the most comical with onlookers cheering them on all the way. They certainly needed a drink or two by then.

Compulsory Purchase Order
      Although I lived in Langdon Hills, I was aware of the new town having already worked on one of the new Basildon Development Corporation estates in Laindon, and knew it was going to develop this way in the end. A lot of people were talking about it locally, and the first signs of change had already begun when some of the shops in the High Road began closing, that, and the increasing number of demolitions and empty properties appearing at various locations around Langdon Hills. At home things had changed as well with my brothers and sisters now moved out, and when my father passed away in 1967 that just left myself and mum.

      Around May 1970 we got a letter from the Basildon Development Corporation informing us that our property stood on ground designated for a new school. The corporation, who were then building the new town, issued a compulsory purchase order for our property and we then had to negotiate a compensation deal with them. It was heartbreaking and I was very angry and upset that there was nothing we could do, though I was pleased that our bungalow was at least making way for a worthwhile project in the new school. As part of the the deal they offered us rented accommodation in one of their houses, so we decided to make a clean break from Langdon Hills and accepted a two bedroomed house in Basildon around June or July 1971. I can't remember what they paid us for it, but I know it was much less than what it was worth. Local removal firm Francis and Jagger carried out the house move.

     It was a very sad time when the day of the removal arrived. Most of our neighbours had already sold up and my mum was spending more and more time alone as I was out at work for much of the day. Despite the sadness she was looking forward to being amongst people again.

     Soon after we moved they knocked the house down and cleared the garden of all the trees and neighbouring woodland. Where our bungalow once stood is now part of the school field belonging to Lincewood primary school. Though we wern't the last to move out, all the other houses on our part of Alexander Road have since gone, as well as those in Lincewood Park Drive and beyond at Egerton Drive, Recreation Avenue, Mollys Drive, Woodlands Avenue and Wheaton Avenue, plus the bungalows that once stood in Roseberry Avenue.

Still like to visit
      I have been back to Langdon Hills many times since we moved. It is hard to recognise some areas, like those off Berry Lane, which itself has been altered near the shop that once stood on the corner with Beatrice Road and Bridge Road. The High Road has undergone a lot of change too, with a new roundabout at the foot of station hill, and a new left sided curve beyond the old school, and there is now a large housing estate bordering the road on the station side. What I do notice more than anything else is that there isn't a single trace of any of the old shops I remember so well. A lot of other buildings have gone to, like the telephone exchange, but there are still a few original houses and churches along the High Road.

     Despite our home no longer being there, whenever I visit, I often think back to our time living there, in the days before the new town changed Langdon Hills forever.

Title: Langdon Hills Memories 1943 - 1971 by Gilbert Ager
Source: Gilbert Ager. Copyright ©Gilbert Ager, May 2007.
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