Churches

Well within my lifetime, long before the landscape of Southall was altered by the topography of religion, as well as race, before there were temples, gurdwaras and mosques, but in real terms not that long ago, the various christian churches were intimately integrated into the life of the area, although one might not think so now, ill-used and stranded as they are, or just plain gone.

The big Church of England bases were St George's, at the top of Lancaster Road; Holy Trinity, across from Southall Park and the old church on the corner of King Street and Western Road. The Methodist centre was the impressive King's Hall on South Road and I remember Baptist, Congregationalist and other non-conformist churches, I think in Villiers Road. I also remember seeing people dressed up on Sundays to go to church. I used to go to Sunday school in the Ebeneezer Hall, which was off The Green, I think in Kingston Road. It smelt of polished wood, there was a trap-door beneath which was a bath for baptism and it had a harmonium. My religion at that time, like most of the children who went there on Sundays, was far from strict Baptist, but you could also get bars of chocolate for remembering scripture and there were girls.

My family, like most, was nominally C of E, which meant the vicars were called upon for marriages, christenings and deaths. I might have attended church once or twice with the cubs, school societies or harvest festivals, but that was it. I do remember there was quite a good choir in St George's with which I had a very brief acquaintance. There were active members of the church around us, but their beliefs did not impinge on daily life for most people.

Not so, for example, with the Salvation Army (which had a hall, The Kingdom Hall, on the Uxbridge Road, near Hamborough Road I think. They were out on the street with their band around Southall, holding meetings and giving out leaflets, or collecting for their work. One of the leading figures was Councillor Haigh, who was also active in the Labour Party. I went to school with members of the Haigh family, I remember him coming to our door with family members to canvas for re-election.

The Catholic church was St Anselm's, on The Green, which also had schools attached. This tended to separate Catholic children who went there from the rest of us, although not totally. In later years (the 1980s) nuns from St Anselm's, who worked with older people in the area, had a very good relationship with my grandfather, who was a convinced atheist. They didn't mind, he liked discussions and the Church of England, of which he was nominaly a member, was nowhere to be seen. St Anselm's always had a more scattered membership which was also more involved. I knew people of Irish, Scottish and Polish extraction who went there and on the odd occasion saw a priest or curate in school, (not all Catholic kids went there).

My memories of the Kings Hall are of using bits of it as temporary classrooms when I was in school and singing in massed choirs for Christmas there. It had a more circular structure than C of E churches and the roof was quite high.

The public rituals of christianity, such as christmas services, harvest festivals, easter and so on, as well as war remembrance services, were still part of growing up in Southall, I would say, well into the 1970s and perhaps later. There was a march on Remembrance Sunday, to the local cenotaph by the Manor House, with British Legion, scouts, Boy's Brigade and others taking part. Schools would collect food and other things for harvest festival and take them to old and 'needy' people via the churches. Christmas was an occasion for school plays and visits to carol services (how many people were Joseph, an angel or, perhaps, Mary?). These things linked my generation, the post-war baby boomers and the half-generation which followed us, to hundreds of years of tradition.

The 1960s saw changes and decline in Southall churches, like many other things. As we 'baby boomers' came onstream we had other priorities.