I used to park up the ramp, but when it started getting too expensive I moved down below
to the little one on Sclater Street. An old geezer and his son ran it.
And it wasn’t as far to walk to G & T’s cafe and the Green Gate. 
Supper at that Cypriot’s kebab shop or Bruce Lee’s chinese.
The beagle shop on Brick Lane where you could get tomorrows Sun.
Who remembers Mucky Mick’s chippy over the road?
axletramp, I think you meant to say the BAGEL shop on Brick Lane, not the BEAGLE shop, there was enough old dogs around Bethnal Green without buying any more !
kickstarter:
axletramp, I think you meant to say the BAGEL shop on Brick Lane, not the BEAGLE shop, there was enough old dogs around Bethnal Green without buying any more !
Spot on there kickstarter ha ha ha.
regards dave
dafdave:
kickstarter:
axletramp, I think you meant to say the BAGEL shop on Brick Lane, not the BEAGLE shop, there was enough old dogs around Bethnal Green without buying any more !Spot on there kickstarter ha ha ha.
regards dave
Well spotted! 
Didn’t realise what I did there!
Most of those “pubs with entertainment” we used to frequent are sadly no more. 
Ironically, the White Horse which never had strippers is still trading and is known as
Blush table dancing venue. Just type in White Horse Shoreditch and have a look! 
mushroomman:
WOW, I had forgotton half of those, Silvertown, Vauxhall Bridge, The Ramp having a cup of tea in the old railway carriage on Shepherds Bush lorry park, although I never ate in there. I prefered to walk through to the Shepherds Bush pub taking the short cut past those indoor tennis courts or were they squash courts ?. The toilets in that porta cabin that were always flooded or the bogs that were always blocked up any time after five o’clock.
I used to like Valance Road in the early seventies, after a wash in the Salvation Army doss house for 10p it was a pint in the Blind Begger on Whitechaple Road and then does anybody remember going over to the Montague Arms at New Cross on the tube to see the comedians Jimmy Jones ect. Or how many can remember going to see the exotic Swedish stripper in the Red Lion at Aldgate ?. Swedish? the nearest she had ever been to Sweden was lying on the bunk of a Volvo F88.
I drove for Silentnight Mid 60s through the 70s, in the early days stayed many times at Vallance Rd, Because we carried beds in the back of the pantechnicon we would sleep in there overnight, ( no sleeper cabs ) This was illegal and some nights Plod would come in and turf out drivers sleeping in their cabs ( a board across the engine, peice of foam and a couple of blankets )…but because we we out of sight they never bothered us… I remember seeing a very young Jim Davidson in the Greengate Pub on Bethnal Green Rd, years later saw him on TV, wife wouldnt believe me when I said I’d seen him aged approx 17 years old when he was just starting out in showbusiness…his act was very blue even then !! Also remember loads of us going to The Montague Arms at New Cross Gate, they had a resident entertainer called Peter London , a blind organist/singer at the time… Happy days …
Hi ExSilentnight, I had many a cuppa and a pint with some of your lads down in London in the seventies wasn’t your depot in Barnoldswick and are they still going. I was working for Vitafoam back then and we would often end up with the lads from Kayfoam, Calliganfoam, Drakafoam, Harrison and Jones and Dunlopillow. On a number of occasions a driver who I had never met before would ask if he could sleep in the back of the van usually an artic driver or a tanker driver. I didn’t mind as you usually ended up going with him to the nearest café or a pub for an evening meal.
Now you have got me thinking, was the Silentnight factory in an old building where they used to make aeroplanes during the war. 
It’s just that I can remember tipping somewhere in Barnoldswick once where the building was cut into the hillside with a triangular panelled glass roof. In fact it was so close to the hill that one of the old guys who was off loading me told me that at one time a cow had actually fallen through the roof.
Regards Steve.
Hiya…remember when the lorry park was more Wood lane than when we got shunted under the rail bridge
into Sheperds Bush.the lorries was parked as close as possible, they was also timed when you left so the early
birds(7.30am) could get out first. the security fence was 6 inch reinforcing mesh,the fence was like they used
on the building site stores fencing. the gate was the same , a wooden frame no hinges just rope round the
gate frame and the gate post. with a large lock and chain to fasten the gates together, well it did sat secure parking.
John
Hi John, I seem to remember that you turned in just past the tube station near enough opposite The B.B.C. Television Centre. Across the yard facing you was the car park café which was in an old railway carriage, in fact there were still some railway lines on the far side so I am not sure if it was a shunting yard at one time or another or if it was just a railway sidings with a couple of tower block flats in the background. If you turned right when you came in, in the far corner was where the Portacabin toilets were and if you turned left where you came in there were mounds of rubbish where somebody had probably been fly tipping. Somebody had told me not to park on that side as they had seen a couple of what looked like unexploded bombs but they had not informed the police. The next time that I was down there curiosity got the better of me and I went to have a nosey. The only thing that I could find were a couple of those sausage shaped iron weights that they used to use in the side of those old sash windows. 
Regards Steve.
mushroomman:
Hi ExSilentnight, I had many a cuppa and a pint with some of your lads down in London in the seventies wasn’t your depot in Barnoldswick and are they still going. I was working for Vitafoam back then and we would often end up with the lads from Kayfoam, Calliganfoam, Drakafoam, Harrison and Jones and Dunlopillow. On a number of occasions a driver who I had never met before would ask if he could sleep in the back of the van usually an artic driver or a tanker driver. I didn’t mind as you usually ended up going with him to the nearest café or a pub for an evening meal.
Now you have got me thinking,Regards Steve.
Hi Steve, Yes the Silentnight factory was and still is in Barnoldswick,still going strong…Although I dont recall the building you mention… Silentnight started in an old textile mill in Barlick then after a few suspicious fires moved to present building at Wellhouse Mill ,all on the level by the canal… Rolls Royce are in Barlick so thats maybe what is confusing you with the aeroplane theme… I remember Vitafoam etc, After parking at Vallance Rd we walked across the road to the cafe for a meal then some times caught the underground to Soho… Walked it back after ogling all the girls LOL…We then started parking up the Ramp , it was then nearer to The Greengate, Green Man , and the other pubs on Bethnal Green Rd… In between 3 separate stints at Silentnight I also worked at Earby Haulage ( general haulage, flats, ropeing & sheeting ) also parked regularly at Vallance Rd. I remember a few of us piled into the back of a Zoflora van, hadnt a clue where we were going but the driver did, ended up at a bloody good night club in Wandsworth… Good days!!
You foam men reminded me of when i did a lot of the Bed manufacturers with mattress bags sometimes when in London if I did`nt park Tooley Str or Vauxhall Bridge I used to park nr Myers just the back of the railway line end of Vauxhall bridge, poxy drop handball bags on a roll through a hole in the wall. Somebody mentioned the pubs in the area earlier on
Hiya…Mushroomman when i started parking up in Wood lane, where you turn left across from the BBC the lorry park was there
next to the pavement. there was no where to scrub up or anything, we used digs in those days, the lorries was so close you couldn’t
get in one until the front lorries moved. if you was a late starter you parked by the side of the road and waited for the compound to
fill up then park up last.the lorry park moved at a later date under the rail bridge where the porta cabin wash room was. the cafe
was close to the rail bridge wasn’t it.that come later.
John
I found a couple of pics here. One shows the right turn before the railway bridge leading into what was Ariel Way. The lorry park was off to right of the pic about a couple of hundred yards. There was a much smaller lorry park with everything really jammed in on Wood Lane itself closer to Shepherds Bush Green.
Note the old brick building on the corner; this was Wood Lane Underground Station which closed in 1947.
It was built for the Franco English Exhibition in 1908, the site of which was where the TV studios now are - see the second pic.
3300 John the 2nd pic of the map shows what was used as the lorry park when I 1st used it around 1975 it was aprox the bit shown up with that red loop , from where you turned in to right down to the Buildings a private Tennis club or something simular you could walk through more or less straight onto the Bush
greek:
3300 John the 2nd pic of the map shows what was used as the lorry park when I 1st used it around 1975 it was aprox the bit shown up with that red loop , from where you turned in to right down to the Buildings a private Tennis club or something simular you could walk through more or less straight onto the Bush
Hiya yes i stayed on the one marked. their was another before that one opened that,s where the lorries was crammed in that close
you couldn’t open the door to get in the cab.that would be 1970 …71… 72…the digs was in Abdale road i think, maybe the Shangrelar
Another park that i used was across from Albany road on the Old Kent rd…another one gone.
John
i’m shocked at all the goings on on this thread . when i did london in the 70s i always found nice digs , and stayed in and watched the telly . none of this going to dodgy pubs and fast women . you ask the wife , she will tell you it’s true .close call some years later when there was a program about south london pubs and they showed some old film of mike read at the lord montague with the strippers and i was sat at the front table . changed channels very quick so she didn’t spot me . cheers , dave
As somebody mentioned The Ramp and Tooley Street can any of you remember making your way to this place on Bishops Gate.
I can remember going there with a bunch of drivers a couple of times and it was nothing like it is now. It was full of dead cats, yes dead cats. Some where in glass cases, some were cats skeletons and one was on the bar with a string attached to it and whenever a good looking girl was stood next to it the barman would secretly pull the string and make it jump and every so often so would the girl.
If it wasn’t for all the nurses and all those Japanese female tourists that packed the place out I really can’t understand why the other drivers used to go there so often.
Regards Steve.
Hiya…i remember a pub near Shepherds bush, in the bog was a painting of a ■■■■ woman, there was a flap think
covering her ■■■■■, if you lifted the flap a bell went off in the bar, when people who had lifted the flap come
back into the bar the punters would give a cheer…i got warned not to touch the flap, so what was under there
i never got to find out, maybe not what people thought they would see.in this pub the bog was just behind a screen
in a small area just outside the bar only enough room for 2 blokes.so if you went in the only way out was back into
the bar… good old days
John
Any one ever see the Krays when you was in the east end,keith
The Richardsons used to be around New Cross & Peckham quite a bit in the 60s & early 70s.