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Memories of Laindon/Lt Burstead
My memories of Laindon are of having to catch a City bus from my village Lt. Burstead early in the morning to Laindon station so that I could travel by the old sooty trains to Fenchurch St to the office where I worked in 1952.
The trains had separate carriages which were always packed as they started off at Southend and usually we were standing between the two rows of seats, hot, stuffy and smokey and if the windows were down, sooty smuts blown in to stick to your clothes. In winter, the trains were cold, often late, due to ice or fog and when I arrived home from work, there were no buses to go to the village and I had to wait in a little wooden shed at the station that sold cups of tea etc.
Then I caught the bus which took me home via Noak Hill Rd. and they more or less stopped where you wanted to get off. My journey then continued by crossing the stile into the first of two fields which in winter I crossed in the dark and wet, over the stile by the stream, over the bridge and then up the footpath through the wood, all up hill and which in my youth I RAN because I was so afraid of the dark trees on either side!!
The only other memory of Laindon is of occasionally going to the cinema, which we referred to the "flea pit" as we thought the cinema in Billericay was far superior!!
By Margaret Lowery Nee Marshall
Hi Margaret and Kit, I write this on behalf of Pat, She was the Cooper girl with the long ginger hair and the brother Ron Cooper. She used to catch the train to get to her job in the Eveready Factory in Dagenham and her memories are similar. She also remembers always running past the entry to the big house opposite Little Butsted school because the two Fell boys who lived in there used to tease them.
She used to go to the Cinema in Laindon with her brother Ron, the cinema was called "The Radion" we have an old photo that shows it clearly. They used to bunk in the side entrance. I will scan the picture on to the computer and send it in another comment. Pat asks if you remember Dangerfields the shop in Laindon High Street she used to work there when she was fourteen in 1946. Regards Pat and Sid
By Pat Banks Nee Cooper (23/08/2013)
My memories of travel to Fenchurch Street are somewhat different. Crowded? Absolutely. However, if one was lucky enough to find a seat there was always the option of standing and offering it to a member of the fair sex. Particularly if she was young and attractive. This was often an appreciated opening gambit which sometimes led to conversation and who knew where that might lead! Smoke and soot? Absolutely but somehow they combined to give a not unpleasant smell. Short of asking there seemed to be no way of knowing whether a Billericay bound bus would go via Great Burstead or Little Burstead. Three quarters of the time it seemed to be Great Burstead but one had to wait until it reached the old Fortune to see which way it turned. Going via Little Burstead I always wondered about the very large brick house which sat back from the the road, on the left, as the road joined the main road to Billericay. There was never any sign of life there. Was it an old convent, hospital,or the home of some erstwhile lord of the manor? I never did find out. We young lads, with our great sense of humour, referred to the two Bursteads as little bastard and big bastard.
Hi Margaret nice to see your write up about Broomhills, I am Kit Whiskin nee Hoskins, we went to school together when we were younger. Did you see the article pat cooper wrote about Broomhills? it is very interesting, in it she explained that she is now living in Australia, I think between us we could make some interesting tales about Broomhills.
By Les Whiskin (18/08/2013)
Little Burstead
Bomb Disposal on Laindon Common
Little Burstead Church
Little Burstead Coach Outing
My school days at Little Bursted
The Wheatsheaf, Little Burstead