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Brentford Memories

From here you can access some graphic accounts of life in Brentford during the 20th century. They are arranged in roughly chronological order.

Please get in touch to contribute your Brentford memories.

• Quentin Pickard's grandfather, Arthur James Hockaday, remembered an especially cold winter in Brentford in the late 1800s
• Dee Tickner has recorded memories of her father and grandfather Tickner who lived in Brentford from the early C20; their memories include ox roasting on the frozen Thames and a Royal Bargeman
• Lorraine Winson has provided her memories of her Turner great grandfather and grandfather dating back to the early 1900s, both worked on barges in Brentford
• Stanley Goddard was part of the famous Goddard High Street furniture business; his memories were recorded in the Middlesex Chronicle in the 1980s; thank you to Len Cox for forwarding the cutting; Stan's memories are wide-ranging, covering the early 1920s onwards: eg "Mr. Huxley, who sold rabbits from his barrow at sixpence and gave a rebate if he kept the skin"
• Former Ealing Central schoolboy, Philip Bixley, remembers Brentford in the period 1918 to the mid 1930s, including the Ealing Central School Old Boy's Club and the tragic loss of a Whitestile Road family in a WWI bombing
• Harry Langley grew up in Brentford during the 1920s and 1930s and remembers schooldays at The Half Acre and The Ham, working in the tannery and the British & Argentine Meat Company - and much more
• Len Cox remembers Horton, Lewis, Seares, Iletts, Holderness and other Old Brentford people and shops in the 1930 - 1960 era
• Keith Clinch has provided a lively account of memories of his father Kenneth Clinch (mothers maiden name Brown) and mother Patrica Clinch (nee Hopson) from the 1930s to 1962, including a find in Osterley House grounds and what it was like to be a schoolchild during WW2 (June 2010)
• Maurice Lockyer has memories from the 1930s onwards, including references to Freddie Mariner, the butchers, Howards the barbers and other High Street shops.
• Arthur Peters writes (Feb 2010) about 1940s Brentford including how a well in his home's garden contained penny farthing bicycles!
• George Forgan shares memories of his 1940s Brentford childhood including a V1 rocket hit which affected his home in Ealing Road
• John Welsh, old Brentonian, remembers Brentford in the 1950s and 60s, including Young & Martins, Wilshers, Rattenburys and other High Street shops
• Andy Webb lived at 153 High Street, Webb's Cafe, in the mid 1950s-mid 1960s; he remembers visits from Saveen the ventriloquist and also the 'water gypsies'
• Sarah Champion remembers Stone's Menswear, which was caught in the High Street gas explosion in early 1977
• Local historian, Eddie Menday, writes about war time Brentford; he mentions Italian prisoners of war and Band's, makers of drum skins and vellum

Published 2006; last updated July 2010