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My earliest memory is when they expanded the Oak Road end of the football ground. The only way into the ground
was at the top of Ivy Road and I can remember big cranes, lifting up concrete terracing over the top of the stand onto
the pitch and then they were wheeled to the end of the ground. We used to play football on the streets, and we used
to get chased away. So we used to play in one of the car parks at the end of Kenilworth Road, until we used to get
chased away by people who used to live there.

One of the famous Luton town football players, Jo Pane, who long since retired from playing, came out one day with a
carving knife, threatening to put the knife through our ball. I remember the butchers, the bakers, Cartwright dairy, where
they used to store the milk. New block of offices was built between Ivy Road and Kenilworth Road along Dunstable
Road. There was a shop on the ground floor called Leech and Haynes. When they opened, they offered a television for
1p. We bought a television for a penny; the TV didn’t work. The shop was opened by a pop group called The Hollies,
who were very famous at the time; we all went in there to get their autograph. That block is still standing, and it was
built in 1963. Everyone used to know everyone, you weren’t allowed to play on the streets, if you did you got told,
‘if you don’t move, I’ll tell your father’. There weren’t many green spaces in the area, the nearest was the moor, if we
wanted, we had to go there. I went to Dunstable Road School; I use to walk to school every day. At this day and age,
people would be driving you to school. Then I went to Luton grammar school that used to be 3 miles away, I used to
walk there too. Bury Park is a very lively area now, everything used to close at 5pm. Apart from the traffic going through,
Bury Park it was a ghost town. Now everything is open all hours.

If you wanted something at 10pm you could go to any of the shops. Back then, all the shops would close on Sundays
and shut early on Wednesdays. I am sure some of the shops used to open early, like the local news agents, because I
used to do the paper round as teenager. That was in the days when Luton News was a proper newspaper. It was proper
broad sheet as well, in two parts and it was heavy. So Thursdays, I used to break my back taking all those newspapers
around however the Sunday newspapers were not as big as they are now.

Some people ask why green grocers have all their goods out at the front of their shops, onto the pavement. The reason
is, when those houses on Dunstable Road were originally built, they had large front gardens. People own the houses;
they own the piece of land at the front as well, so they are allowed to come all the way to the edge of the road in
order to sell their stuff on the pavements.

We are digitising everything we own, pictures, news articles, memories. It’s a legacy for future generations, long after I
am gone. It goes back to the start of the FC in 1885. The club moved to Dunstable Road, where the Odeon Cinema was,
they moved to Kenilworth Road, in 1905, it was called the Ivy Road enclosure, because Ivy Road didn’t exist at that time.
The football ground has been around in the community since 1885, certainly in Bury Park since 1905.
Roger John Wash
Chairman of Hatters Heritage, which is a website, devoted to LTFC

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