Category: Wansteadium

Wanstead adverts, 1971-style

Earlier this month we looked at what was making the news in Wanstead in 1971, thanks to the random discovery in a skip of a newspaper of the time.

But everyone knows the most interesting stuff in old newspapers is invariably the adverts – often the bits on the back of the story which has been cut out and saved. So what were the good folk of Wanstead being sold by local traders 39 years ago?


A garden centre at number 50 Wanstead High Street (now the modern glass-bricked set-back building next door to Rio shoes and the former chocolate shop).

No, not a query about ‘can you bothered with the Central Line’, but more a question of whether you really want to be a flexowriter. Miss Bradford sounds like a sitcom character.

Freezer shops used to be a big thing – cold and a bit warehousy, Wansteadium seems to recall. Now the Blush Temples florists, next door to the Larder.

Make sure you’ve got your paraffin before Christmas, folks. Reasonably priced, too, though probably didn’t seem like it at the time.

The George – good to find some things stay the same.

And Cinderella too – tickets 30p. You could buy three gallons of paraffin for that.

Coming next… Wanstead house prices, 1971-style.

Wanstead news roundup, 24.11.10; After the sauna? Plus more UFO madness, and Christmas


• Wansteadium reader Jana writes:

Has it reopened? The ‘Wanstead Sauna‘ sign has recently been replaced by one that says something like ‘Men’s Grooming Centre’… Now, I might be reading too much into this.. but… hmmmm. Perhaps a male Wansteadium reader can pop along to see what’s on offer and report back!

• Internet apparently consumed by Wanstead UFO madness, which you read about here first (or possibly second).

• Chemical spill was sugar

• Photos from the Take Back Wanstead Flats event held on Sunday are on Flickr here.

• A shrewd move from Wanstead children’s clothes and shoe shop Knock Down Ginger – from the New Year it will be offering children’s haircutting too. Meanwhile, the Robins Pie and Mash shop has reopened after being attacked by arsonists.

• The Wanstead Christmas lights are being switched on this Friday evening at 4.30pm on George Green (outside Wanstead Tube). Children, a tree, the Salvation Army band, and even (according to current forecasts) the possibility of some snow.

Wansteadium Blitz Project, 23 Nov 1940, New Wanstead, High St

In one of the worst nights of bombing Wanstead faced during the Blitz, on this night in 1940, German planes dropped high explosives on

  • Number 73 and 89 New Wanstead, causing fire and the collapse of the side of a house
  • Spratt Hall Road, damaging water and gas mains and causing a fire
  • Wanstead High Street, injuring four people and breaking electric cables, and
  • Fitzgerald Road.

Write your own joke

It’s write-your-own-joke time. Submit them in the usual manner (Twitter, Facebook, or via Comments.)

The raw materials: A pile of white powder is discovered first thing one morning by a forest ranger by the side of a tree on Wanstead Flats. Once alerted, the authorities take it seriously. Three nearby roads are closed. The experts come in. Warnings of a chemical spill spread. Friday morning traffic is badly disrupted. Two hours later, the chemical tests show the substance was sugar.