I lived behind and above 'Gordon Burgess Hairdressers' at number 10 Chandos Street. The street was situated off the High Street opposite Park Street. Chandos Street became part of the Queensmere Shopping Centre in the 1970's and is now commemorated by Chandos Mall in the Centre.

There were several shops and premises on the East side of the street. Starting at the top of the street adjoining Wellington Street were two very attractive semi-detached Victorian (Villa's) houses, then a group of terraced cottages with very long front gardens. The dilapidated old corrugated iron Labour Hall [officially called the Slough Labour Memorial Hall] was next, frequently used by the MP's for Eton and Slough; Benn Wolfe Levy, the noted playright (married to the American-born actress Constance Cummings), and then Fenner Brockway -both Labour party MP's.

From memory there was an entrance to a car park which also had access from the High Street next to Ashley Russels the Ladies clothes store. The British Restaurant, which was very popular during the war serving basic meals closed and became John Perrings Furniture Store, in addition to their premises in the High Street. This changed hands again and was taken over by Denham Motors as a car showroom selling Volkswagen cars.

From memory the shops were as follows:-

Number 13- Wadlows/Fishers Butchers

Number 12- Dennis Harding Fishmonger managed by the late Fred Poulter

Number 11- Cafe [called Excelsior Restaurant] which was taken over by Mr Lau and became the very popular KumWah Chinese Restaurant.

Number 10- Gordon Burgess Hairdressers owned by Mrs Lilian Burgess, supported by Jean (Evered) Carrod, Hilda (Butler) Burns, Jessie Poole and Margaret Branch. Gents hairdressing was carried out by Len Doig, who rented a cubicle off my mother adjacent to the front door, to avoid embarrassing the male customers.

Number 9- Stennings Boot and Shoe Repairs, which subsequently became a lending bookshop [called Chandos Library] (like the Chain Library in the High Street) and then a Travel Bureau.

Number 8- Marshalls Junk shop with all sorts of interesting bric-a-brac, which was then taken over by Eric Stow as a Cycle shop.

Number 7- Pet shop owned by 'the intrepid traveller' Captain Farquhar Moody, who was quite a character and always claimed to have been on several safari's in Africa. Bill was assisted by Peter Aust, who with Reg Twigg won many prizes for their birds in the local Cagebird Society. During the summer months a white cockatoo called 'Cocky' had his cage on the pavement outside the pet shop, shouting 'Hello Cocky' to any passer-by. Cocky was reputed to be over fifty years old. [The shop was called Slough's Little Zoo].

Number 6 was vacant for a number of years, then was opened by Mr Barnet selling Cane Furniture and Oriental trinkets.

Chandos Street was also home on the west side of the street to the Slough General Post Office which handled all the outgoing mail and Telegrams, which on receipt were immediately delivered by the 'Telegraph boys' in uniform and pillbox hats, either on bicycle or small motorcycle.

Nearly opposite the Hairdressing shop was a bank of six bright red Telephone boxes. This area was also used by the Police to communicate with the 'beat bobby' at (I assume) scheduled reporting times.

The rest of this side of the street housed the premises of Elliman's Embrocation, now owned by Horlicks.

During the early 1950's horse drawn transport was still occasionally in use by the Railways and Lidstone corn merchants. I remember most lunchtimes a horse drawn dray was tied up to one of the gas street lamps with the horse happily feeding from the nosebag. The Drayman was probably enjoying his lunch somewhere in the High Street.

by Peter Burgess