Patrick William Kelly (Pat Kelly)

Here I am three years old, at the Four Feathers Club

My mum, Anne Kelly

Photograph taken at my Farewell party in November 1957, Twenty years old. My Grand Father Kelly on the left Grand Mother Nora Harper center and my dad Bill Kelly on the right

Here I am today, 75 years old.

Church Street Memories

By Patrick Kelly

Hello, my name is Patrick William Kelly, (Pat Kelly)

   First, I would like to thank Alison and Georgina the ladies who created and support the site, and Trish Fallon at the City of Westminster Archives Centre.

 I‘m going to try adding to my pages as the memories come along.
   I was born in Saint Mary’s Hospital, August 19, 1937. My sister Sylvia was born three years later. During the war, while my dad was in the army. We lived for a while in a basement flat on Davenrty street across the street and down a little from the Phoenix Pub, then we moved to 171 Miles Buildings on Penfold Place. We had a coal fireplace and for light, gas lamps, a toilet but no bathroom. My dad would take a bath in a large tub that my mum filled with hot water and then us kids would take a bath after. Soon after my two brothers John and Danny arrived, we moved to four Wytham House in the Estate flats on Church Street.
   I worked as a paperboy for Brokers on Church Street in the middle of the flats, first for Mr. Broker and then later for his son, Johnny Broker. One of my routes was Penfold Street, Miles Buildings. I remember the stone steps there and one scary and foggy early morning in 1953. The mass murderer Christie was on the loose in London, and his evil face was plastered all over the Daily Mirror, the newspaper I was delivering. I expected that any moment he would appear around the corner of those cold, narrow and twisting stone steps!

   In 1957, I immigrated to Canada. Then in 1964 immigrated to the United States. I now live in the Morongo Valley, a small town in the high desert a 30-minute drive north of Palm Springs, California. I have been back to visit Church Street many times since.