My knowledge of Feltham now comes entirely from the Internet, because I've been away too long, but, from what I've read, since I left in 1948 there have been many changes, which is only to be expected, but few of these changes, if any, seem to have been for the better.

Many things that I remember have gone forever - "Grosvenor Park" has replaced the allotments, from where, every Sunday morning, as I lay in bed, I could hear the comforting clink of spade and fork. Beyond the allotments, and over the railway line, the cornfields, golden in August from the ripening wheat, are now built on. Gone with them, are the ditches that bordered the fields and drained the land; in those ditches grew reed mace, bull rushes, hornwort, and duckweed - and there were frogs and all sorts of water beetles, but they've gone too.

The pond is still there, by the side of the High Street, but its huge willow tree, that grew on the island in the pond, has been, it would seem by a very small version of the same - it was, after all, over fifty years ago that I last saw it.

The pond was where, in summer, kids used to build rafts out of anything that would float (and, often things that didn't, in which case they went swimming, instead!). In winter, with the pond frozen over, ice-skaters, wearing real ice skates (where, in those days, did they get these from?), would perform for the benefit of anyone wanting to watch, while others would risk a fall and broken bones by wearing ordinary shoes and running and sliding as far as they could across the hard, cold surface. i don't remember anyone goi9ng throught the ice.

The church, whose spire used to be the tallest object on the skyline, is now dwarfed by square, concrete, tower blocks. When I saw these, back in the 1960s, I couldn't believe how anyone could design, let alone build, anything so ugly.

Anyway, I was born, in Feltham, where my family lived, which I thought was a good arrangement, and, then, at the age of nine, moved to Madeley, in Shropshire, taking them with me. For my adventures in this part of the Midlands, just go back, and then, click on, "Madeley, Shropshire". That wasn't difficult was it?

For my reminiscenses of Feltham, however, please click HERE