Recreation, Education, Disillusionment and Joy
Prejudice from the Rest of Romford
Few in the surrounding areas warmed to the new influx, with estate tenants complaining of being snubbed by bus drivers and of shop assistants refusing to accept cheques. Crime in Harold Hill was reported on weekly in the local papers, with local residents quickly becoming exasperated with the coverage they were receiving.
Here are some comments from a 1951 Romford Times edition – all from different Harold Hill residents - as printed in response:
‘I feel that as a resident of Harold Hill I must write to you about your vindictive and insinuating question mark on the front page of your hitherto-interesting and communicative paper. I realise, of course, that we are not wanted by the residents of this area; but it must be realised that for the most part, we ourselves were compelled by circumstances to reside in this district and, left alone, with a few exceptions, we hope to make this a strong, thriving and happy community.
I think that the people I have come into contact with since I have been here are all most helpful and obliging, to say the least, the neighbourly spirit being well to the fore.'
'I suggest that you leave those vicious thrusts and direct them towards those human animals who rush off the train at Gidea Park, knocking down and trampling all who are coming down to the platform – even young children.
Give me the humble people at Harold Hill who, for the most part, are happy in their own homes for the first time, and only wish to be left alone.’
‘The council is far too slow in providing recreation facilities here. Youths between the ages of 12 and 17 are too young to have enough money to go into Romford every night and too old to go to bed at 6 p.m. They are either forced to sit in with their parents or hang around on street corners.
Are many of the estates residents undesirables? No, all the undesirables live in Gidea Park.’
‘We have some very good people in professions here, good citizens all. In years to come, Essex and Romford will be proud to mention the Harold Hill estate.’
‘At present nothing is right with it, no schools for our children, which means that have to travel back and forth to Romford and no amusements. We are snubbed when travelling on buses and shops directly you mention you come from Harold Hill.’
‘We have all been placed badly and it’s all wrong. Our children have to go to schools in Romford and are classed as “The Kids on the Hill”.’
‘Owing to the absence of shops, we find the cost of living much too high, therefore encouraging crime.”
‘Growing pains, emphasised by the silly tittle-tattle of alarmists who without any factual knowledge of the extent of crime, see fit to write to their local papers and by doing so create a bad atmosphere.’
‘We need more shops. I have women staggering along roads on the estate looking like beasts of burden with shopping from Romford.’
‘They feel we are putting up their rates, spoiling the look of what was once countryside and getting houses when thousands of Romford people are homeless.’
‘More police are required; but how much crime is the natural result of the almost universal terrible financial position of most tenants? Rents, fares, hire-purchases and the iniquitous cost of living are blameworthy.’
To a meeting of the Gidea Park Ratepayers’ Association in October 1951 the Chairman of the London County Council Housing Committee said this in response to the ongoing criticism from Romford residents:
‘I want to give you a picture of London’s problems which are not appreciated.
London is a physical mistake, and it should have never happened. It is a wonderful place and I have done a lot of globetrotting, but it is an aggregation of buildings that were just allowed to happen.’
Citing figures of 200,000 people being on the waiting list, with 60,000 of those being urgent and another 60,000 being very urgent, he said that re-planning London would take 20 years, and in which time half-a-million new houses would be built.
‘We have a tremendous slum problem in London, and clearing the slums involved sending people ‘out-county’. Unless that is done the slums will go on, and there will be a wastage of wealth on traffic problems (!). We will do all we can in London but unless we still come ‘out-county’ the great LCC within three years will cease to exist.
The LCC has done its statuary duty, and that is to supply a number of houses, and we intend to do that at any cost.
The Harold Hill estate is one of which we are proud.’
There were many appeals by the local dignitaries and officials for tolerance towards the new Romford residents, but the association between crime and Harold Hill continues to this day. But Romford itself was hardly without fault with the market town being one of the major black market centres during the Second World War, and statistics from 1953 revealing higher levels of crime for the Romford district than for the City of Liverpool:
[‘More Crime Here Than in Liverpool’, Romford Times, July 29, 1953]
One resident remembers how she delighted in taking revenge against her complaining mother-in-law:
‘When we moved here there was much prejudice, especially from Gidea Park.
'I married a bloke from there, much to his mother’s disgust.
'The press was extremely biased and every little thing that happened on Harold Hill would make the front page. When I was twenty I worked for CID in Romford and my mother-in-law lived in Gidea Park and she was always going on about Harold Hill and what a terrible place it was and there were all these villains coming out of London. And I had great pleasure, because I hated her at the time, in going through the records at CID and finding out that there was more crime in Gidea Park and Romford than there was in Harold Hill and which was never publicised.’
