Mention the name Perceval to anyone in the context of Ealing and the responses are varied: the Council offices on the Uxbridge Road? an assassination lost in time? All Saints’ Church on Ealing Common? Pitzhanger Manor?
All of these answers are partly correct, and 2009 is now perhaps an opportune time to consider the relevance of Spencer Perceval, the only British prime minister to have lived in Ealing.
Mrs Pat Bailey wrote with some memories of her childhood.
"We all grew up in Murray Road - I was born in May 1939, when the war started I was just a couple of months old. My brother was 7 years older than me and went to Little Ealing School. We were evacuated with our mother down to the West Country to get away from the bombings but my mother didn't like it so we returned. My brother and another boy went to Derby and I joined them when I was about three and returned when I was six. I started school in Derby and then went to Little Ealing for a year when I returned, until a place could be found for me at St.Anne's Convent in Little Ealing Lane. I was there from age 7/8 years until I was 15."
Following the publication of "Little Ealing a walk through history" we received letters from several former residents of the area describing their recollections when growing-up in Little Ealing. On these pages we show extracts from some of the letters.
Mrs Cantwell, now living in Dublin, grew up in the Little Ealing area. When she saw a copy of our book she wrote with some memories of her childhood.
"I grew up in Murray Road, born in 1936 in Clayponds Hospital near the Great West Road. My grandparents Mr and Mrs Charles Collis had moved to no. 75 Murray Road in 1912 and so my mother grew up in Murray Road also."
Being able to advertise the book on the Ealing Fields Residents Association website yielded many interesting enquiries including people researching their family history. Most astonishing was a lady from Ottawa in Canada, Sue Bellefeuille, who contacted us on behalf of her mother, Joan, to tell us that Joan had lived in Little Boston as a child.