Born in 1926, Betty Wright nee Walton lived in Southgate town hall. Her father was station officer at the fire station ajacent and also the mace bearer for the Council.
“One night in March 1941, the Dance Hall (held in the Princes Hall above Pitman’s College) in Green Lanes, Palmers Green was bombed. A German bomber ‘plane was overhead…and tragically his bomb carriage was blown off, so all the bombs came down together in Palmers Green.
Shortly after Broomfield Park was purchased by Southgate Urban Council in 1903 several sports facilities were set up within the park. There was a tennis court, a swimming lake, soccer pitches and a wonderful running track. The running track and football pitches were ideally situated on the old gravel pit. In 1854, Mr Philip Powys, the then owner of Broomfield Estate had been granted permission to excavate the gravel and when Southgate Council took over the running of the park they grassed over the gravel pit and developed it as a sports area. In 1922, the Southgate and Frien Barnet Athletics Association, re started an annual sports day in the park and advertised it as being similar to those ” held before 1914″. The borough also decided to employ men from the unemployment register to build the concrete steps down to the field.
Grouts was a wonderful institution and beloved by everyone in Palmers Green. You could buy anything to do with haberdashery, from buttons to elastic to table cloths. It also had a wonderful supply of underwear which you could try on. People were often perplexed by the offer from the sales assistant, thinking to themselves, where on earth will I be able to try the item on without exposing myself to the rest of the shop. However this was organised beautifully. You stood in a designated circle and a curtain would be swished around you and you were then removed from everyone else’s gaze while you tried on any new underwear.
Filmed and recorded tales from Palmers Green
Palmers Green history, people and community
