My parents moved to Staines in 1940 as a consequence of dad's employer, the insurance broker Norman Frizzell & Partners being evacuated there for the duration of the war. In the event, this was ironic since the Staines premises suffered an inciendiary attack in which all their customer records were destroyed, whereas the City of London offices survived unscathed. In the 1970s my father and his contemporary colleagues recorded their memories of working in the Staines office during the early war years......
My formative years were spent at Staines, in the 1950s. Here are some memories of our house (in Fenton Avenue), the life and the town at that time........(last updated Sept 2017 - new picture page 14)
Henry Strode's school in Egham, Surrey was founded in 1704, and the present main building (now part of Strode's College) is 100 years old in 2019. It became a boys grammar school in 1950 and a mixed sixth-form college in 1975, since greatly expanded. I was inspired to write about the history of the school and recollections of our time there by several school contemporaries, and since starting this have made contact with many more, all with their own memories. Here is our story to date, and I hope that others reading this may be encouraged to contact us with their further recollections, corrections etc! The recent "rediscovery" of the Staff Register Book at Egham Museum has enabled completion of the staff "mini-biographies" section of our account......(last updated January 2023)
The staff register has also enabled compilation of an account of all the teaching staff from re-opening of the school in 1919, who had left before the Autumn term of 1959, in the same format as our story above......
and here is a summary spreadsheet of all known staff at the school from 1919 to 1970.....
During my recent research session in Staines & Egham I also found a trade directory for Staines dated 1937. I was really looking for one dated in the mid-1950s but this is the closest found so far. Here is a transcription of the 1937 version, with separate pages for a name index, trades index, and several individual street-by -street listings. While quite a few of those listed did not survive the Second World War, there are many names which will be familiar to older residents, and indeed some survive to this day........
Staines was served by two railway lines, the oldest being that from Waterloo to Windsor opened in 1848 by the Windsor, Staines & South Western Junction Railway, later London & South Western Railway, the Southern Railway and Southern Region of British Railways. In 1856 Staines station became a junction when the branch to Ascot was opened, and later through trains ran to Reading, Guildford and Weybridge by that route.
It was not until 1885 that the Staines & West Drayton Railway opened their branch line between those places, operated and later owned by the Great Western Railway. Short of money, they purchased a fine Georgian house in Moor Lane, Staines and converted it to serve as their terminus station. This useful but quiet alternative route to London was closed in 1965, though parts remained open for freight traffic for many years afterwards, and the unique station at Staines survives in use as offices.
My edited accounts of the two lines were published in "Steam World" magazine, the SR line in the Oct-Dec 1999 issues, and the WR in July-Sept 2000, together with a selection of pictures other than my own. Back-numbers of these magazines may be available from the present publishers, Bauer Media Ltd at Peterborough, or can often easily be found at preservation sales stands and railwayana collector's gatherings. Here is my full story of the SR line through Staines Central, and the journey up to London Waterloo.....
and of the WR branch line into Staines West, with the journey up to Paddington........
With the current availability of the Victorian censuses, it is interesting to look at the railwaymen living in Staines from 1851 to 1921, their ages, birthplaces and job names......
Another strong interest around 1960, shared by a select group of school friends, was in the local bus services, which we used frequently, and where many of the long familiar older vehicles were beginning to disappear. Here is a history with reminiscences of the bus routes serving Staines and its neighbourhood, also the numerous coach services which passed through the town on summer weekends.......
As part of the research for these articles, I also looked in some detail at two local bus operators which seem to have been very little recorded at the time, namely Beach's Coaches of Staines, and Smith's of Reading........
Our school "gang" also spent many Saturdays travelling around London on "Rover" tickets, terrorising the locals, invading bus and trolleybus depots and generally causing havoc. We also encountered lots of different provincial bus operations and vehicles on our summer holidays, mainly in the west country and the Isle of Wight. Here is our story of those times...........
