Retired teacher. Lives in North West London. Grew up in Thurrock in the 1950's and 60's and consequently spent the first 18 years of his life breathing air that was 60% cement. Active member of the National Education Union (formerly NUT) and Labour Party.
Or perhaps not. Today’s busker in the High Street is a woman playing an accordion. Slightly jazzy, fragments of a recognisable tune, skidded away from and improvised around, so the echoes are hard to identify. I’m half way down George Street before I realise its Zippety Doo Dah.
On the way back I give her a coin and said that her music makes you want to get out some spoons, clack along and dance; and asked if the buskers who are now pretty regular on that spot have to book it. It turns out that, apart from Central London pitches and a few suburbs, busking is unregulated. People just turn up. She said it can be a bit awkward if several come at once. She covers a lot of local centres, likes doing Corringham.
I ask, rather shyly, if she could play Captain Pugwash, which might spread a little happiness, but she says something at the same time and plays something else as I walk off. I’m halfway to the War Memorial before I realised its Thoroughly Modern Milly.
In the 1960s the New Statesman used to have a short column of clips from right wing papers that illustrated the absurdity of their view of the world called “This England” (from John of Gaunt’s dying speech in Richard II; you know “This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars…This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England”, the sort of pompous pontification that cued his nephew the King to remark, on hearing that he was dying, “Come, gentlemen, let’s all go visit him: Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!”
I was reminded of that in recent weeks by several parts of articles in the Guardian that I had to read twice to make sure that the point that I was reading really did say what it did; usually dropped in and passed on without comment; as though it were perfectly sensible, nothing to be bothered about.
Housing
The extra money (for affordable housing in the Spending Review) will help housing associations to buy up thousands of new units which have already been built by private developers as part of their affordable housing commitments, but which are sitting empty because they cannot afford them. My emphasis.
Housing projects that protect natural habitats, include public transport and divert wastewater from running ino local watercourses are deemed too expensive (by the government, as Labour’s message in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is that the developer knows best and other considerations can take a back seat).
Prevent
Asked about the government’s counter extremism programme, Prevent, Cooper said she was “very concerned” by evidence of increasing extremism among young people. “We are seeing the counter terrorism caseload trebling in three years involving teenagers”, she said. She said there had also been a doubling of the numbers of young people being referred to Prevent since last summer. And yet…“I continue to be concerned about the threshold ending up being too high and not enough Islamist extremist cases being referred to Prevent and the need to make sure more of those cases were being referred…”
Trubble at pit
These are not a quotes, simply retelling of comments from Any Answers on Radio 4 on 14/6/25. Any Answers can usually be relied upon for a rich vein of emotionally charged comments, more often than not unhinged from any knowledge of the subject being discussed. Nigel Farage’s proposal to reopen coal mines in South Wales that have been long flooded, and Blast Furnaces that have cooled solid, sparked several of these. One person thought it was a good idea in principle, but because no one local would want to do it they’d “have to import immigrants” to work in them – and that would never do. Another, in response to the same problem, argued that prisoners should be sent down the mines “like they do in America”. That’d learn ’em because, as we know, the problem with prisons is that they are “too soft”. Salt mines, unfortunately, are not available.
Legally illegal
“Britain’s decision to allow the export of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel, despite accepting they could be used in breach on international law in Gaza, was lawful, London’s High Court has ruled.”
56 percent of Ukrainians would agree to a compromise peace involving giving up land in exchange for the end of the conflict.
16.6 percent would agree to a freeze along the current front lines.
Only 12.8 percent want Kyiv to fight until it wins back the 1991 borders.
This continues the shift in opinion shown in Gallup polls between 2022 and 2024, which showed that
the number of people agreeing that Ukraine should seek a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible rose from 22% in 2022 to 27% in 2023 and almost doubled to 52% in 2024.
the number agreeing that Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war fell from 73% in 2022 to 63% in 2023 and sharply down to 38% in 2024.
The attempt by the Ukrainian oligarchy and NATO to keep fighting now only has minority support in the Ukrainian population.
Those who claim to be in solidarity with “Ukraine” should ask themselves, in this context, who they are in soldarity with – the majority of the Ukrianian people, who want a negoitiated peace as soon as possible, or the oligarchy, and NATO, who, in the absence of any serious prospect of winning, want to drag the war on as long as possible for fear of the consequences of accepting defeat?
Trigger warning. This blog contains sycophancy in high places.
Those on the pro European Right like Timothy Garton Ash, and most other opinion columnists in the Guardian, even George Monbiot, who have argued that “Europe” should increase military spending to break with the US, and those on the Left who are arguing that there is now a fundamental rift between the US and its subordinate allies, should consider the following three quotes addressed to Donald Trump from former Dutch Prime Minsiter and NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte at the end of the NATO Summit.
“You are flying into another big success”
“Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran. That was truly extraordinary, and something no on else dared to do.”
“It was not easy, but we’ve got them all signed on to 5%! You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way , as they should, and it will be your win. Safe travels, and see you at his Majesty’s dinner.”
“Daddy sometimes has to use strong language.”
And these from Trump describing the 5% target as “something that no one thought possible. And they said ‘you did it, sir, you did it’. Well I don’t know if I did it…but I think I did“and “a monumental win for the United States” and “a big win for Europe and for actually Western Civilisation” because Europe would be “stepping up to take more responsibility.”
So, there you have it.
Increasing military spending is giving Trump exactly what he wants.
European NATO governmnets will now seek to impoverish their populations and stunt their own development to find the resources to double militray spending.
Europe tooling up for a future continent wide confrontation with Russia gives him a free hand, with his now $1 trillion”defence” budget to prepare for military confrontation with China.
And not only does none of this undermine Trump’s push to domestic authoritarianism; it requires it at home. Proscribing Palestine Action in the UK is part of a drive to a more militarised society in which our children are dragooned into cadet corps, non violent direct action is elided with “terrorism” and Yvette Cooper’s desire to “lower the threshold” for Prevent referrals to catch more “Islamists” is aimed clearly at the mass pro Palestinian movement in an attempt to define dissent of foreign policy as “pre terrorist ideology” that can be legally harassed and crushed even more than it already is.
In 2023 – 24 the UK spent £53.9 billion on “defence”. That was 2.3% of GDP.
Keir Starmer today bent the knee even further to the United States by pledging to more than double that to 5% by 2035. An additional 2.7% of GDP.
That amounts to an additonal £63.3 billion, to make a grand total of £117.2 billion.
Assuming some GDP growth that will be even more in 2035 money.
The obvious question here is, who, and what, is going to pay for this morbid exchange of tissue in our economy if it is not resisted? £63.4 billion every year.
The word “defence” is in inverted commas throughout this blog because, as the “Defence Review” points out “you can’t do defence on the goal line”. In other words, “defence” for the Uk means fighting wars in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or, with a certain amount of plausible deniability, Ukraine and Gaza.
A standard schtick of films and children’s TV dramas in the sixties was the moment that a previously anonymous villain was revealed to be a former middle ranking Nazi official, seeking to act as a seed for the regeneration of the movement; and thenceforth filmed looking Aryan while standing on yachts in front of mountains with a 1,000 Year Reich stare accompanied almost invariably by the crescendo from Wagner’s Tanhauser overture. (1)
This coincided with a lot of Nazi hunting stories sparked by the Eichmann trial in 1961, and the fact that no one had caught up with the Auschwitz “Angel of Death” Dr Josef Mengele, which gave the impression that the only surviving fragments of the old order – with the exception of Werner Von Braun, who was leading the US moon mission at the time and was therefore given a free pass – were leading lives of exiled obscurity in Argentina or Paraguay which, to be fair, some were. Mengele himself died when he drowned after suffering a stroke while swimming in Sao Paulo in 1979; having been given a passport in his own name by the West German Embassy in 1956 and actually visiting Europe using it in the late fifties.
This is a fairly extreme example of the way that former Nazis were reabsorbed into West German society in a wave of amnesia and omerta as the Cold War dug in. Von Braun, it turns out, was more the norm than Mengele or Eichemann. Though the Nuremburg Trials in 1945 -6 pronounced death sentences against 12 leading Nazis including Herman Goering and Joachim Von Ribbentrop, the number of former Nazis convicted of war crimes in the post war years up to 1958 was just 6,093. In the same period 729,176 had been amnestied. That looks like this.
Total Nazi Party membership in 1945 was 8 million, so most of them had no process at all.
Many others, not members of the Party, who committed war crimes were never held to account and simply melted back into their pre war roles. The unit of Hamburg policemen who formed an Einsatzgruppen execution squad (2) following on behind the Wehrmacht to march Jews, and sometimes Poles, out into the woods and shoot them in the back of the head, simply went back to Hamburg to direct traffic, follow up on petty crime and do all the usual things the police do. Only their commanding officer was held to account, executed after being extradited to Poland because of a massacre of Polish villagers. Their interviews in the early sixties were for historical purposes, and they were never held to account. Similarly, lower level former army, and even SS, officersprovided the backbone of the Bundeswehr when it was reformed in 1955.
1 A belting piece of music which is well worth a listen if you’ve never heard it.
2 Documented in Ordinary Men. As grim a piece of reading as you’ll ever do. Its front cover illustration is of a squad of these men looking relaxed and grinning with local Jewish civilians kneeling in front of them with their hands up, was so abhorent that I couldn’t leave the book face up while I was reading it. It is chillingly echoed by some of the gloating social media posts by IDF soldiers in Gaza that show that fascism can infect anyone in the wrong circumstances.
This is a tin of beans that slipped through quality control somehow. Aiming to make some beans on toast, as you do, J noticed that the lid on this can seemed a bit swollen, checked the sell by date to find that it was ok until 2027, and pulled on the ring, much as you would a hand grenade.
The resulting eruption splatted all over her glasses, clothes and across the room. The kitchen units, ceiling, floor and windows had an orange explosion pattern reminiscent of the Chemistry Lab ceiling at Grays Tech- a montage of multicoloured stains accumulated over many years of over enthusiastic experiments – with one particularly far flung splat making it as far as the washing machine four yards away.
And that, as you can see form the picture, was just from the top half a centimetre of beany effervescence; a different kind of bang from the one you normally get from Heinz.
There was an item on the World at One on 5th June that talked about the two Israeli hostages whose dead bodies were recovered by an IDF operation in Gaza the previous night.
They were named and some of their story, and that of another hostage from the same Kibbutz were told.
This introduced and framed a following item on the chaotic and lethal Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution sites, in the same way that Israel’s attack on Gaza is invariably framed with October 7th, as an innoculation against the full horror of it; in an illustration of the way that Stalin’s remark that ” a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic” is routinely applied by the news media.
Altogether, the item lasted about 3 minutes.
So, one minute for each hostage.
Were the World at One to give the same respect and time to each of the 62, 614 Palestinian dead in Gaza – name them, tell a little of their story, round them out as human beings in the way they do for the Israelis – that would be 62,614 minutes.
Thats 1,043 hours.
Or 43 and a half days.
If they were to clear the airwaves of Radio 4 to run this continuously, 24 hours a day, starting with their broadcast at lunchtime in June 5th, it would take them until July 18th to get to the end of it.
Speaking today, the Prime Minster stated that the UK has to get into a position to fight a war with Russia. It is a premise of the “Defence” Review that such a threat exists.
However, last week’s Observer published a graphic that shows the actual balance of forces now in Europe, between the European NATO powers and Russia. This reflects a level of spending that is three and half times the Russian level.
This is it. Have a look at this and ask yourself, who is threatening who here?
Then consider that the proposed 10 fold increase in lethality of the UK armed forces is part of a Europe wide drive to get the imbalance of spending between Euro NATO and Russia up to 10 or 11 to 1. So, this is not about “defence”. It is about being in a position to launch a war. Our current crop of lightweight leaders don’t seem to have studied much History. Invasions of Russia do not go well. As Charles XII, or Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler found out.
Given that Russia is a nuclear power with a nuclear war doctrine that would use nuclear weapons in the face of an existential threat to the country, the suicidal futlity of this drive boggles the mind. Needless to say, NONE of the interveiwers on the Radio or TV today have posed any questions of this sort. In fact, the Veterans Minister told the BBC Interviewer on PM this evening that it would be part of his job to “tell the truth”, which he interpreted as telling a story that projects “the national interest”. So, don’t ask the awkward questions. Close them down. Like we have now, but more so.
Four short points.
The Review states that “you can’t defend on the goal line”. What they mean by this is that the UK armed forces would be fighting wars in other countries – as they have done regularly and consistently since WW2. Nothing new there. But there is a particular emphasis on Russia. How they envisage fighting even a conventional war with Russia without utter devastation for any country unfortunate enough to be on the front line, or within reach of even conventional missiles, isn’t elaborated on. We just get the old chestnut that to defend peace we have to be able to fight and win a war. That’s what everyone said in the run up to 1914, and look how well that turned out.
The Review envisages mobilising the whole population for war readiness. That means a huge propaganda effort directed at civil society and through the school curriculum, presumably boosting cadets corps as part of the process, and weeding out dissent, either through Prevent or something more bespoke. A robust resistance to this from educators in defence of peace and sanity will be essential. As the Minister on PM said, this will be what we did “in the Cold War”. Similar conscientious objection will be needed, as it was then, to attempts to impose a stifling conformity, and any of the rituals deployed to shore that up.
Complaints have been made in the press that the Armed Forces are losing people faster than they can recruit them, “even though the government has pledged to provide peacekeepers for Ukraine”. Has it not occured to them that this might be one of the reasons why more peopple are leaving than joining?
The government is keen to talk about “military Keynesianism” rebuilding the economy, and some unions will go along with that on a “British Bombs for British Workers” line. This is nonsense. Military investment is, hopefully, wasted. The weaponry produced doesn’t build anything. Quite the reverse if used. This is unlike investment in, say, Health or Green transition, both of which produce much greater returns in value added and job creation. Explored in depth here. So, this is a dead end, in both respects.
The bottom line is that this is a political and military posture of choice. Impoverishing our society to ramp up arms spending, some of which will be exported to allies like Israel or Saudi Arabia to pursue genocidal attacks on Gaza or Yemen, in pursuit of a confrontation with Russia that will kill all of us if it follows its own impetus to full scale war, is not inevitable, not an imperative. Seeking a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine war and an ongoing modus vivendi with Russia that cools off military confrontation across the whole of Eurasia is an alternative that the whole Left should fight for. Some of the framework for this is explored in the Alternative Defence Review produced by CND and the RMT.
Please note. My Blogs are banned of Facebook because they say they “look like spam”. This has somewhat reduced their reach. If you think the arguments are worth passing on, and want to help break the ideological blockade embodied in this sort of action, please pass it on to anyone who you think might find it interesting or useful.
This is the story of my Dad’s life written and told by me and my brother at his funeral on 27/5/2025.
CHRIS
Welcome everyone and thank you for coming to this commemoration and celebration of the life of Ronald Henry Atkin.
A chance to say goodbye to our Dad.
As you may have worked out, Dad was in many ways an unconventional man and in accordance with his wishes this is a non-religious ceremony, but there will be a moments later for reflection, contemplation and prayer if you so wish.
PAUL
The heavy rain today reminds me a bit of a joke Dad used to have when we went on weekend family outings in the old Morris Minor in the sixties, and the weather refused to cooperate. He would say we were out on “Atkin Sunday”, guaranteed to be the one day in the year in which the rain came down sideways.
To begin at the end… as part of the essence of living a life is that we have to leave it.
A few weeks before he died Dad asked “What am I for now?” It struck me that this was a very characteristic thing to say. Dad always wanted to be useful, helpful, always wanted to make sure that everyone else was alright. Whenever he was in hospital, his first question was always “is Mum alright?” It also struck me how being cared for is a useful role in itself. It enables people to come together in being kind and to find redemptive qualities in each other; solidarity not solitude.
CHRIS
Any brief autobiographical account like this one of Dad’s life may give an impression of a solid-straight line. Born in Grays, lived in Grays, died in Grays. Married for 72 years, 2 boys -us- not quite 2.5 children, but close, a long working life at the same factory and a long retirement. His story however was much richer than this and although his work-ethic was born of a loyalty, love and need to provide and care for his family, he was a man of very wide interests and tastes. With an open curious mind, interested in culture, politics and art and in people.
He was a warm, intelligent man with a wry sense of humour. In many ways self-taught- his education interrupted by war and attending an all-age single class village school for three years. He loved such things as Shakespeare, Ballet concerts and Classical music as well as the Rolling Stones and Jazz, Ian Dury and Paul Simon. He was interested in anything we were interested in; culture, history and politics on the one hand and music, drama and football; Spurs in particular, on the other. The latter being solely down to me I’m afraid.
He liked fine things- single malt whiskey, books, bow ties and cuff links. He also loved owls and had a large collection of ceramic owls. There will be a little more on the significance of owls later.
PAUL
Dad was born in 1930, in “interesting times”– 6 months after the Wall St crash, two and a bit years before Hitler came to power- and when a revolution in aviation -which always fascinated him throughout his life- was developing as fast as things like new chocolate bars were being created.
At a time when the average family size was shrinking, he was the only child of his mother Ruth and father Cecil (known as Tom) and grew up on the Hathaway Road estate, where he lived for almost all of his 94 years – surrounded in childhood by aunties who looked like peas in a pod and cousins who were as close as siblings – particularly Ruth, who’s here today and, at 97, will probably outlast the lot of us. He also had a very tight link to his cousin Len, until Len emigrated to Australia as a ten pound pom in the 1950s.
As the tallest boy in his class at Quarry Hill school he was always being given things to carry and wave, including the banner that kept the children together as they were marched in a crocodile to the station to be evacuated in 1940.
CHRIS
Evacuation was a formative experience for Dad and in many ways a positive one; he was safe, he was surrounded by the countryside, living in a large Georgian farmhouse in Little Somerford in Wiltshire with plentiful food.
He spent three years in Wiltshire at a time when people from Little Somerford often referred to people from Great Somerford as “foreigners”, but he fitted in. He helped with the harvest, pumped the organ in the local church, perfected his ability to mimic accents, developed his love of nature – he made us all birdwatchers in a low key kind of way – But he was homesick and really missed his family. In the three years he was away, he had one visit from his Mum, and one visit from his Dad; and this also gave him his lifelong empathy with people displaced by war and other disasters.
PAUL
When his parents thought it was safe enough, he came home, only to be narrowly missed by a Doodlebug that wiped out the houses at the bottom of Cromwell Road, another that landed next to his Nan’s house on London Road and bombed them out, and an incendiary that hit his parents house in Ireton Place. Luckily this ended up on the concrete floor of the pantry, where it fizzled out. He also looked out of his bedroom window one morning and saw a Junkers 88 dive-bombing somewhere to the West, which turned out to be the railway line at Thames Board Mills. Dad said he was impressed by the skill of the pilot who hit the line smack in the middle, but also by the skill of whoever the slave labour saboteur was in the Nazi munitions factory, as it didn’t go off.
Towards the end of the war, Dad (and Len) joined the Air Training Corps, which used to meet in the hall at Grays Tech; where he also attended evening classes.- which were also attended by Pat Burford- our Mum.
In 1945 the election of the Attlee Labour government introduced the National Health Service, which Dad always felt was the bedrock of a humane post war society. It was also the year that Dad ran down Hathaway Road after evening classes to catch up with Mum, and started a conversation that lasted for the next 80 years, starting with the immortal words “Will you go to the pictures with me on Saturday night?”
CHRIS
He had left school at 14 -although, he sat the 11 plus in Wiltshire, all the Grammar school places were for “local children”, so he never found out if he’d passed or not- and had a variety of jobs – at Thames Board Mills, delivering milk, a painter and decorator with Osborne’s. At 18 he was called up for National Service with the RAF and as he’d always dreamed of being a pilot, they decided to make him a wireless operator, instead…
He told his grandson Joe -now a professional musician- that the secret to Morse Code was not to get too hung up on the individual letters, but to listen to the music of it.
Dad could find the music in most things.
Sadly, Dad also found that he was often airsick and did not pursue any sort of career involving aviation. In any case he had met Mum and was very keen to build a future life with her as soon as he could.
PAUL
Stationed at Gloucester, a long way away from Mum, he had a colleague send him the local weather forecast for wherever she was, so he had a connection with her. There is a blown up photograph from this time on display in the Clarence Road entrance to the Grays Shopping Precinct, that shows Mum and Dad crossing Orsett Road with their arms around each other in about 1949*. Dad home on leave looking impossibly tall in his RAF uniform; and risking a charge for not having his cap on.
CHRIS
After being demobbed, Dad got at job at Proctor and Gamble, and spent the rest of his working life making soap, washing powder, Fairy Liquid. Early on he said that some of the machinery seemed to have been designed to be operated by “a dwarf with three arms”. He worked shifts- Earlies, Lates and his least favourite Nights. As children, I remember Mum kept us very quiet around the house when he was on Nights; then we would help mum bring him tea in bed around 2 in the afternoon.
PAUL
Dad was full of stories garnered from his workmates- giving some names an almost legendary status at home – Charlie Broyd, Bernie Bonass and especially West Thurrock’s answer to Socrates, Joe Cloherty. After being retired for 35 years, in the last few months of his life, Dad started to have dreams about being back at work, having to take readings and start up the machinery – he’d ask us to have a look at what the dials said on that panel on the wall – the sort of workplace anxiety dreams, which you get if you are conscientious and care about what you do and the people you work with.
Some of his friends in the air force had been very much on the political left, and that influenced him – and by extension us. He read the Guardian – thoroughly – every day. Has been known to wear sandals, and sometoimes, eat Muesli. He always voted Labour and leaned towards the Lefter side of the Labour coalition. But this wasn’t unthinking tribalism. During the General Election last year there was a knock on the door. When I answered it there was a brisk and efficient Labour canvas team working its way down the road. I said “My Mum and Dad have voted Labour in every General Election since 1951, and I don’t suppose they atre going to chnage now”, then gave him an earful at the Party leadership’s move to the Right. When I treported this conversation back to Mum and Dad, Dad said “Hmmm. Would you disown me if I voted Green?”
He always took an interest, always listened to people and was prepared to rub along when views differed, usually finding humour in a situation, or a connection to the underlying humanity that he always looked for – and, because he was looking for it, found.
CHRIS
When Dad died I put a post on Facebook to inform family and friends and I was struck by how many of my old friends posted comments using very similar language; about how welcoming Dad was and how he made them feel welcome whenever they visited. It never occurred to me until then how true this was and what it meant- that it meant so much, how Dad made people feel.
He was a man who was comfortable with himself and with others and he enjoyed being with others. He was in touch with his emotions and they were positive and warm. We never knew anger growing up, not even when we nearly burnt the kitchen down, trying to surprise Mum and Dad by making them breakfast in bed one time. Anger was reserved for politics or disrespectful service in shops perhaps.
PAUL
He was not in any way a broad brush, slapdash sort of person; witness the back garden at 112 for the immaculate balance of colours, shapes and timing, or his DIY, or any of his paintings, or the model aircraft he made – where he wouldn’t just produce a generic World War 1 aircraft out of the box. He’d research a particular aircraft and paint the model to match it exactly and rig it with tiny bits of cotton to stand in for the wires that supported the struts on the wings. These were not supplied by Airfix.
This is his painting hat, which he wore for fun to help get in a creative frame of mind; because if you are going to do magic things with paintbrushes, it helps to have a magic hat. It has badges…aircraft museum, World Wildlife Fund and the National Trust, a CND peace badge, Homer Simpson, an Eddie Stobart spotters club – because when you’re driving long distances, games and rituals keep you sane – Tottenham Hotspur – because football, as we know, is about art…and suffering and, just occasionally, joy, and two red nose day badges from the late 90s when the kids were little and selling them; which I initially mistook for blood donor badges – as he gave many an armful over the years.
CHRIS
He built a wonderfully long and great life with Mum that was based on respect and love; from dinner dances with friends (we’ve forgotten to mention what a great dancer he was!) and holidays, concerts, and days out to memorable Christmases and Birthdays. He was at the centre of things. Not in any dominating way, but as the catalyst of good feelings. Effortless and understated.
Dad had no faith but I would describe him as a soulful man. On my Facebook post I described him as a beautiful man in every way. And he was. I could not imagine a better father, or role model; without trying -just by being him-he taught us how to be a respectful, kind and to aspire to be a decent human being in all we did.
He will be greatly missed by all who knew him and loved him.
* The photo at the precinct entrance is wrongly captioned as Orsett Road in 1955. As Dad was demobbed by 1950, this is wrong.
Urban ramblings 