Living in Goodmayes
During the 1960s, I lived for a while at Goodmayes.
Unless you live in the area, you have probably not heard of Goodmayes. It is a suburb of Ilford, in the part of Greater London that was formerly Essex.
I moved here with my first wife Judy and baby daughter Theresa, to be closer to work.
At the time, I was working in cinema management. I had just been appointed House Manager (that’s the most important sort of Assistant Manager) of the Odeon Gants Hill, the cinema where I had in 1963 started my cinema career as a Trainee Manager.
I didn’t stay at Gants Hill for long, as in 1966 I was appointed to my first cinema as the Manager. This was at the Odeon Whalebone Lane, at Becontree Heath in nearby Dagenham.
We lived in Eastwood Avenue, a residential street off the High Road, the major highway running through Ilford and Romford. This road was part of what was for centuries known simply as “The Great Road”, being the Roman highway leading from London through Essex to Colchester.
It was not only convenient for work. It was easy to get, by bus or train, to good shopping centres at both Ilford and Romford. Not only that – it was also pretty easy to get into Central London.
If anybody reading this has any connections with Goodmayes or the Ilford area in general (Born? Lived? Worked? Ancestors? Relatives?), I’d be very pleased to hear from them.
Posted by colin on Saturday 4th February, 2006 at 7:54am