SNIPPET: A reader contributed a memoir to the 'Yesterday Remembered' Column of the "Best of British" magazine (Dec. 1998) and his story of growing up in London in the 1920s gives us a peek into those days. He also mentions an Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924, with a pavilion for each country in the British Empire. Per Dennis - "My mother was blind when I was born and father had lost an eye in the Great War, so it was a family joke that we only had three eyes between us. We lived in Clapham, London, in a ground floor flat of a terraced house with no bathroom. My parents bathed in the kitchen in a large zinc bath, which hung on a nail in the yard when not in use. I was bathed standing up in the scullery sink. Across the paved yard at the back of the house the water closet had wall-to-wall wooden seating. The door had a gap at both top and bottom, so the wind whistled through and it was perishing in winter. The brickwork was whitewashed, and a constant watch had to be kept for spiders, especially if they were dangling over your head! It was gas lighting and a Yorkshire range for cooking and hot water. The laundry was in an outhouse in the back yard and a coal fire had to be lit under the copper to heat the water. I remember once, when my aunt was doing the laundry for mother, wh! en she squeezed what she thought was a Reckitt's Blue and it turned out to be a dead mouse! She was shattered - I thought it was great fun! There was only one bedroom, luckily a large one, and I slept in a bed in the corner facing the door, which could be left ajar for me in the early days. In the hall there were steps into the cellar with a locked door at the top, the coal being tipped into the cellar through a manhole in the pavement outside. The window at the end of the hall always fascinated me. The panes were of coloured glass - red, green, blue, and yellow - and when the sun shone through them it was like a stained glass window in church. Various tradesmen made deliveries, including the milkman with his three-wheeled push cart, who measured the milk into our jug from a half-pint ladle. The muffin man, with his tray balanced on his head, ringing a handbell as he walked along, was always eagerly awaited. At the end of the road was the usual corner shop. I start! ed shopping for mother at a very early age, with a penny for sweets fo r myself. There was no motor traffic in our street then. The streets were safe in every way and my grandfather, who lived opposite, was a policeman! In 1922 I attended Hazelrigg Elementary school, walking there in the company of older boys. One of the school's Old Boys was Herbert MORRISON, Minister of Transport 1929/31 and leader of The House in the 1945 Government. Father encouraged me to read. I knew the alphabet before I started school, which was a great help to me there. Later I used to read regularly to mother - mostly the 'Just William' series - creating an interest in books which remains to this day. We had to cross the Bedford Road to reach the school and there were many horses and carts. We lads used to hang on the back of a cart for a free ride until the other lads yelled to the driver: 'Whip behind guv'nor! He would flick his whip back at us, catching our knuckles if we weren't quick enough dropping off. On summer Sundays my parents would walk and I w! ould ride a fairy cycle to Clapham Common, where there was a pond with self-propelled paddle boats. I always loved those, trying to ignore the 'Come in number nine' call that ended it. Sometimes I went out along with dad. I remember the Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924, with a pavilion for each country in the British Empire, an amusement park and sideshows. On Saturday mornings, when allowed, I went with some older boys to the cinema in Clapham High Street. Admission was fourpence and the programme included Westerns, Charlie CHAPLIN and the inevitable cliff-hanging serial. For home entertainment we played a wind-up portable gramophone and listened to Station 2L0, which had started in 1922, on the 'cat's-whisker' wireless set. It was quite an achievement to hear anything at all! Christmas included a magic lantern show. Fantastic! There were smuts everywhere - like a railway station. For some time we had deplored the lack of facilities at Clapham and father had! been seeking other accommodation. At last, in the spring of 1925, th e big day came and we moved to a brand new semi-detached house - costing 425 pounds - at Greenford, with not only a bathroom and a garden, but a separate bedroom for me, would you believe!: Dennis STRANGE