We left our 'rooms' in London when I was a year old to live on a new council estate built by the GLC on the outskirts of Slough, one of three estates built in that area. It was a modern home with all the facilities you could want. I'm not sure how many houses made up that estate, several thousand, it was roughly a square mile in area and adjoined the original village. As well as the houses, there were 2 Churches, 2 doctors surgeries, a parade of shops, 4 schools and a library, not something you'll come across in todays developments.
I always felt sorry visiting a cousin who still lived in London, it was a flat opposite Chelsea Barracks, a stones throw from Chelsea Bridge, they had a toilet but no bathroom so my cousin would have a weekly trip to the public baths, although occasionally he'd go to his Grans new council flat to use her bath. She had a 4 bedroom flat with a balcony on the Embankment, directly opposite the decaying factories that made up Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station. As a kid I thought it was a hideous view but I can still picture it as clearly as I did over 60 years ago.
My bucket list includes a trip to those old haunts, the buildings are still there but the view will be very different, then a trip across Chelsea Bridge to Battersea where we and many other relatives lived, then lastly the house where I was born, the one the Germans were always bombing because of it's proximity to the railway, *******s.
