GerryW
Remembering Sunbury on Thames during the heady days of the 1960s.
When I close my eyes and think of childhood, it is Sunbury-on-Thames that comes first to mind. Not the Sunbury of today, with its busy roads and rows of new houses, but the Sunbury of the 1960s - smaller, gentler, and more like a village than a suburb. It was a place where the Thames curved lazily past meadows and willows, where church bells drifted across the rooftops on Sunday mornings, and where the whole world seemed contained within a few familiar streets.
Life was simpler then, though we didn't know it at the time. Neighbours leaned over fences to exchange gossip. Children dashed in and out of each other's houses as though every home were their own. The corner shop, with its rows of glass jars, seemed to contain more treasure than any palace. Summers stretched out in golden haze, the river glittering at the heart of it all. Winters were marked by frosted windows, steaming coats, and the smell of coal fires in the evening air.