Hilda
Transcript
Interviewer: Thank you for participating in this project, the Platinum Jubilee Portraits. Can you tell me your name?
Hilda: HIlda Silcock.
Interviewer: Your age?
Hilda: I’m 74.
Interviewer: How long have you been a resident of Newham?
Hilda: We moved into Newham in 1972. It must be 50 years, something like that.
Interviewer: How was it when you first moved here? What was it like?
Hilda: When we first moved into Manor Park, there were quite a few large shops. There was a Woolworth’s on the corner, opposite where we lived. And there were bakers and green grocers, and all sorts of shops along Romford Road and where we lived. But as the years have gone by, all the big shops have closed, and the shops that are there now are either phone shops or pound shops. I wouldn’t say that it’s a shopping center anymore, but then you’ve got Ilford at one end and Stratford at the other, so there’s no problem, really. We quite like being there, because it’s so near to all the buses, the trains. So, you can’t lose.
Interviewer: Sounds like there was quite a change.
Hilda: I suppose the biggest change was the parking situation. There’s so many people with cars now. It’s a bit difficult to find anywhere to park, even if you’ve got a permit, it’s hard to find the space.
Interviewer: So, what can you tell me about how it is now, and how it compares to before?
Hilda: I still like it. I mean, occasionally we think about moving for one reason or another. There’s never been a good enough reason for us to actually do it. We just quite like the area, really. It’s quite near to Wanstead Flats, a 5-minute walk, I suppose. And you’ve got the shops at Stratford and Ilford nearby. And of course, all the communications at stratford as well. I don’t think we would consider moving. And the people are nice as well. There’s a real mix of people down our road. They did a survey once of the number of nationalities just on our road, and I think there were 50 or more different nationalities. And everyone gets on, as far as I know. Touch wood, we’ve never had any trouble with anyone down our road. So, it’s nice, we like it there.
Interviewer: You mentioned Wanstead Flats. Is that a green area?
Hilda: It is. It’s part of Epping Forest. Further out you’ve got actual Epping Forest where you’ve got forest, but Wanstead Flats is an open area with grass. It’s quite near the City of London Cemetery. There’s football pitches, there’s a little pond. It stretches from Manor Park right down to Forest Gate, and right up to… Sort of outside of Newham. The Newham bit only goes as far as the City of London Cemetery. Beyond that it becomes… I can’t think of the name of the borough, but it’s not Newham. It’s still nice though, because it’s 5 minutes down the road.
Interviewer: What would you like to see for the future of Newham?
Hilda: I don’t know, really. I suppose if there was one thing that would be nice, it would be if nobody dumped their rubbish anywhere. That is the one thing that I think is a bit of a problem. People think it’s okay to dump their rubbish so long as it’s not outside their door, that it’s alright to put it outside somebody else’s. That’s the only thing, really. I can’t think of anything else. On the whole, Newham caters for just about everybody, every group. It’s pretty good in that way. But because it’s such a transient borough, it may be that people that are not living there for any length of time perhaps don’t care how it looks. Who knows who it is who dumps the rubbish, but some people do. And it’s not very nice sometimes. I think that’s the only thing I would change, everything else is pretty good.
Interviewer: Any special memories of Newham that you can tell us?
Hilda: I haven’t really got any special memories of Newham because I didn’t actually grow up here. I only came to Newham after I got married. So, I haven’t got childhood memories or anything like that. Memory-wise, I don’t think I can help you there, because it’s usually when you’re growing up that you remember things. I could tell you things about where I grew up, but not so much for Newham.
Interviewer: So, you mentioned you moved here after you were married. What about your children? Were they born here?
Hilda: Yeah. I’ve got two children, and they went to the local school. My daughter lives just up the road, near the ferry, near that community center I was telling you about. And my son, he lives in Brighton. But they’ve done alright. They’re not in big business or anything, but they’re getting on okay. They’ve got their own places. And they’re happy enough. I’ve got another daughter who lives in America, but that was from a previous… she didn’t come from this part of London at all, she was in a different… it’s a bit of a long story, but she didn’t grow up with me. There would be no memories of her in Newham at all.
Interviewer: What does Newham mean to you?
Hilda: I don’t know, really. I’m not very good at this, am I? I don’t know how to answer that, really. It’s home. I can’t imagine living somewhere else, unless I move somewhere to retire. But to be honest, although when you retire you imagine going somewhere all nice and quiet, but that also means you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere. But in Newham, you’re right in the center of things, because you’ve got loads going on just in Newham, and you can jump on trains or buses to get to Romford, Stratford, Central London. It’s so easy to get anywhere from Newham.
Interviewer: It’s very well located, to go about all the places.
Hilda: And it’s more so now. I’ve not been on this new train.
Interviewer: The new line?
Hilda: Yeah, it’s opening tomorrow. I don’t know whether I’ll ever be on that, but even if i’m not, there’s so many other… Even if something goes wrong with whatever mode of travel you’re on, there’s always an alternative, because you’ve got buses and trains all criss-crossing, and it’s reasonably easy to find an alternative mode of transport to get you anywhere, really.
Interviewer: So, going back to before, is there anything you might recall, any stories or something like that, while you were living here?
Hilda: I can’t think of anything. Nothing comes to mind.
Interviewer: That’s fine. How are you celebrating the Platinum Jubilee?
Hilda: Well, the community center that I go to, they’re doing a few things. On the 1tst they’re having a little tea party in a little park next to the community center. So, that’ll be celebrating with all sorts of things and the different groups. There’s also something going on at Tate & Lyle on the 3rd. I don’t know whether it’s just for the pensioners in the area or whether it’s open to all. The music will be with… do you know Brick Lane Music Hall? It’s not far from Canning Town.
Interviewer: I know Brick Lane.
Hilda: It’s a church, and they put on musicals and shows. The people from there will be putting on music and songs at Tate & Lyle’s, which is in Factory Road. It’s usually pretty good. Brick Lane are good entertainers. They actually send out people as well to the community centers. Somebody plays music, others do singing, and they have a dance. We might even do a bit of line dancing, depends on whether they ask us to bring some music along. Sometimes they ask, but it depends on whether you’ve been prepared.
Interviewer: That sounds great. Would you do that with your group, do a performance?
Hilda: We do sometimes. Not in a big way, because we’re all a bunch of ladies that just enjoy our dancing. But if there’s anything going on at the community center, if we’re there, they just ask us if we wanna do a bit of line dancing. So we get up and do a few dances. We actually ask people if they wanna get up and dance, but most people don’t because I think they’re a little bit worried they won’t know the steps. I just tell people to make sure they go in the same direction as everybody else, not to bump into anyone, and to enjoy themselves. That’s all that matters, really. And you gradually get to know the steps after a while.
Interviewer: And you mentioned Tate & Lyle, is that the factory? And is that in [14:41 inaudible]?
Hilda: Yes. You know where I just said- you’ve got City Airport at the end, and at the other end you’ve got the ferry that goes over the river. Well, in between you’ve got a road called Albert Road, and both the community center and Tate and Lyle’s are along Albert Road. The river runs behind it. Tate & Lyle sponsor quite a lot of things in the area. They do things at the factory, and they sponsor outside things as well.
Interviewer: Are they closed down as a factory, or are they still functioning?
Hilda: No, it’s still going. I think they did have other factories at Canning Town which have closed, but the main factory is right between Albert Road and the river. Do you watch EastEnders? I was gonna use that as an example, because you’ve got a bend in the river where Canning Town is, and behind the river you’ve got all the docks, and Albert Road is in between the two. It’s a bit difficult to explain it without actually having a map in front of you. I never used to know where I was going in Docklands, but I know it like the back of my hand now. My daughter has lived there since 2006. I can’t remember when the airport opened. In the 90’s, maybe earlier.
Interviewer: And before the airport, was it…
Hilda: It was just a dock. That whole area, it was just docks. And then they built ExCel, and they did a lot of development around the docks, so they became a nice place to go, whereas at one time it was just where they used to unload all the ships. Now they’ve opened up new docks further down the river where they do it more mechanically. In the past it was all manpower. They used people to unload the ships. Now they’ve got all those containers down at Canterbury, I think. My geography is not really good.
Interviewer: Do you remember, when you were living here, were the docks still functioning?
Hilda: I never lived around this area, but in the time that I’ve been coming here, it was long after the docks finished. They finished probably in the 50s or the 60s, and we didn’t move into the area before 1972. I think the earliest time that I came over this way was probably 1972 or 1973. There wasn’t anything there, no buildings. It was just all open land then, and probably soggy marshes. But it’s all been built up since. There are housing estates there. And down by the docks it’s quite commercialized now. You’ve got lots of bars and hotels.and you’ve got Catherine’s Dock further down towards Tower Bridge, and that’s very commercialized now as well. It’s where all the tourists go. I don’t know if you have so many tourists coming to this part of the world, but it’s nice. I’ve been there with my daughter, and in the summer you can go down by the docks, and there are nice cafes over there. There are even some boats moored in the dock that don’t go anywhere, they just serve coffee, tean and drinks. It’s nice. It’s a bit like being on holiday. You feel like you’re on a beach somewhere. Sometimes, during the summer, they actually make a little beach there by the dock up at Canning Town end. They actually fill it full of sand, and it’s just like a beach. All the kids are there building their sandcastles. And there’s a little bit cordoned off from the dock so they can go and have a paddle. Not the main dock, because that gets quite big, but they’ve done a little bit so that children can just go and have a little paddle. That’s nice as well.
Interviewer: And you used to go there as well?
Hilda: No, I didn’t, because I didn’t grow up in the area. To be honest, I’ve only been coming over to this area since about 2006, because that’s when my daughter moved over to the area. So, I started coming over first because of my daughter, and later when I started line dancing at the community center. And little by little, I’ve been doing more and more things. I do Zumba now as well. You get to know people in the community center. You might not know everybody’s names, but you know everybody to say hello to, and they say hello to you. That’s what community centers are all about, I suppose.
Interviewer: How have you celebrated any previous Jubilees or royal events?
Hilda: The previous ones, I think people organized street parties. I wasn’t really part of the organizing. The children were younger then. They had street parties. There was one for the Silver Jubilee, I can’t remember which year it was. There was one in 1977, that might have been the silver one, but there was also one for Prince Charles and Di, when they were getting married, whatever year that was. I can never remember the dates. But that was good. They still occasionally do street parties for this and that, but there doesn’t seem to have been anyone come around to do anything this time around. I’m not sure why, but it hasn’t happened. Maybe there’s no money for it. Sometimes the government sponsors things like that, but at the moment there doesn’t seem to be anything happening down our road. There’s probably something elsewhere, because especially around this area, I think they’ve very community minded, and they do tend to have street parties.
Interviewer: And that would be Manor Park?
Hilda: Yeah. There might be parties on other streets, but nobody’s organizing anything on our road that I know about. The shops are full of flags and bunting.
Interviewer: Did you always live in Manor Park?
Hilda: We’ve lived there since 1972, when I got married. I moved over to North London where my husband lived. And prior to that I lived in South London.
Interviewer: Can you recall any celebrations around Manor Park? You mentioned the wedding.
Hilda: Yeah, it was the wedding, and I think the Silver Jubilee. The other things that come to mind, they’re not exactly a celebration, but down the end of our road there’s the British Legion, the organization that does things for veterans. I’m not sure if it’s still there, but they used to do a march once a year… it might be towards November 11th. They used to come out of where they were, and they’d come down our road. So, you’d have bagpipes and drums, and it was very nice. I wasn’t a child, but we’d get a sense of excitement when a band comes down your road. And once we had children, it was so exciting for them. And it was just for that fleeting 5-10 minutes, just the length of our road, and then it sort of went off from there to the local church to do whatever service they were going to do. To be honest, if there’s any celebrations going on in the area, a lot of it is religion-based. The Sikh Festival of Light, I can’t remember the actual name of it. And they sometimes used to have marches around Manor Park, and also on High Street North and other places, wherever their churches were. And that was good as well, it’s fun. Even if it’s not your religion, it still makes you feel good to see people enjoying themselves.
Interviewer: Do you have any memories of the queen and the royal family?
Hilda: Not especially. The one memory that I have got was when I was about four. You can’t really remember properly when you’re four, but I seem to remember being taken somewhere near Buckingham Palace. I think it was her coronation. And the coach went by. I remember being scooped up, because everybody rushed forward. But I can’t really think of any other memories to do with the royal family. I suppose there are quite a lot, but I’m not really what you’d call a royalist, so I haven’t really gotten involved that much.
Interviewer: What does it mean to you to be celebrating the first Platinum Jubilee?
Hilda: It doesn’t really mean that much to me. I’m not really what you’d call a royalist. But it’s a long time. The queen’s been our queen for… how many is it? 70 years. I can remember the coronation, and various events in between. And yeah, I suppose it’s quite good that she’s been on the throne all this time. She’s not really in good health now, but she still comes out when she can. She went to the Chelsea Flower Show in a little vehicle. I suppose she especially wanted to go. She’s in her 90s now, so I suppose the next one will be Prince Charles. I haven’t really got much more to say about that, really.
Interviewer: Is there anything else that I didn’t ask that you might want to say something about?
Hilda: I can’t think of anything extra, really. Newham is not everybody’s cup of tea, but I like it, for all the reasons that I’ve already said. On the whole, all the people that I’ve met in Newham have been nice. They do things for each other. You can only speak as you find, and I suppose I’m just very lucky that I haven’t had any bad experiences over the years. I moved to Newham back in 1972, I’ve brought my family up over that period. Most of the memories, I wouldn’t say they’re fantastic, and there’s nothing that you can say it was fantastic, but it’s been nice. I’ve found that everybody is nice, and they get on. I know that other people probably do have bad times, but that hasn’t happened to me.
