Shackleton Hall

In the mid to late 1950s, when rock and roll arrived in Britain and David Jacobs, brylcream and all, was huge on black and white TV at 6PM on Saturdays, some of the real action locally was to be found in the Shackleton Hall, at the junction of Greenford Avenue and Shackleton Road. There were dances there where the strains of the Everly Brothers and Elvis could be heard way down the street. I was a bit young to actually get in, but some of us would hang round the outside of the Hall and listen and watch. This was a time when six inch turnups, winkle-pickers, purple mohair sweaters and haircuts such as the 'Tony Curtis' held sway.

The Hall itself was also used for other functions. I attended family weddings there and things like children's parties. It was a strange industrial-Tudor confection of a place really, a giant prefab, with wooden struts and probable white asbestos panels on the outside, windows very high up, so there was no view in or out and a vaulted roof about the height of a house, with bare metal strutwork on the inside. From time to time political meetings, bingo and so on were also held there. Why a road in Southall came to named after an Irish explorer would make an interesting story, none of the other roadds in the area are like named.