Now that my Nan is in residential care, we had to begin clearing out our home in order to return it the the council. It’s odd to think that I will probably never go there again, unless anything more needs doing to help with the move, especially as it is a place I spent much of my childhood. A house as familiar to me as my own home for many years. And an area that became more familiar as I got older, with my first job at the BBC being based in White City as well.
White City was farmland until the beginning of the 20th Century. In 1908 the stadium was built and it was used as the site of the Franco-British Exhibition (and subsequently other exhibitions) and then for the 1908 Summer Olympics – the last time before 2012 that London hosted the games. When I was young the olympic stadium was a greyhound racing track and also used for athletics. It even hosted one match in the 1966 world cup. In 1985 the stadium was demolished and is now the site of a BBC building – not the one I worked in, which was just the other side of the Westway.
The housing estate was built in the late 1930’s and finished in the early ’50’s and both my parents grew up there. The streets were all named after the countries that had featured in the great exhibitions and my Mum was born on the White City, overlooking the football ground of Queens Park Rangers. I’m not much of an active football supporter these days, but given that my Nan lives/lived about 500 yards from Loftus Road (the home of QPR) the superhoops have always been in the blood, and during the 70’s when I was a child I would regularly go to matches with my Dad. More often than not with a colouring book and pens, a treat of a Bovril and a pie at half time, then back to Nan and Grandad’s for dinner and Doctor Who. There was a match on while we were there working in the house, and with the noise and the floodlights it took me back instantly, evoking lots of memories.
