Friends reunited: Facebook group fly back to the place they call home – Islington

Published: 14th January, 2011
by PETER GRUNER

FORMER Islington residents are returning to the borough for a reunion tomorrow (Saturday), with many flying in from Europe to meet for the first time in more than 40 years.

More than 100 members of the social website Facebook will wallow in nostalgia when they gather at Brown’s Restaurant on Islington Green from 4pm, to talk about the “good old days”.

The group communicate via a Facebook web page – “I grew up in Islington” – launched three years ago. It now boasts 5,100 members, with 3,500 old photos of Islington posted on the website.

Sue Jones, 57, one of the founder members, who lives with her husband Rick in Northampton, said there is a growing community of ­people who look back fondly to their life growing up in Islington.

“We have people flying in from France and Germany who haven’t been back for 40 years,” she said. “Myself and Rick were forced to move out of the borough after getting married in 1972. We just couldn’t afford to live here. It’s the same with a lot of people in our group.”

Sue was born and brought up at Sutton Dwellings, opposite Islington town hall in Upper Street, where her father was a caretaker. She attended Laycock Junior School and later the former Barnsbury School for Girls. 

Rick, from Laycock Mansions, worked at the former butchers Harry Atkins in Laycock Street after leaving school.

Sue said: “I was just 18 when we had to move out of Islington. It was a terrible upheaval. We were leaving family and friends and having to start again in a town where we knew no one and felt like strangers.”

Although Sue, a legal secretary and mother of two, has lived in the East Midlands for almost 40 years, she admits that Islington, only about 70 miles away, is:  “Where I call home.”

“I have such happy memories of growing up in the borough. We lived in flats but there were such wonderful neighbours and a fantastic sense of community. We knew everyone. If you went out in the morning your mum wouldn’t worry. She knew if you fell over, someone from one of the flats would bring you in, bathe your knee, give you a sweet, and send you home.”

Sue met Eileen Chambers, 44, through the Facebook group. Eileen grew up off Essex Road, and attended Charles Lamb School before going on to the former Islington Green School. 

“I only live down the road in Enfield,” said Eileen, who moved out of the borough in 1992. “But I have such strong positive childhood memories of Chapel Market and Camden Passage and swimming at the old baths in Greenman Street.

“People have fond memories of Chapel Market. They remember the one-legged man who sold peanuts and the man with the monkey on his shoulder who took your photo.”

Ronnie Cooper, 55, a clerical worker at Eastman’s dental hospital in King’s Cross, is one of the few members who still lives in the borough, in Pentonville Road. A former pupil at Winton junior and the former Sir Phillip Magnus School, he said: “Some people are quite envious of me still living here. It’s so vibrant and diverse with lots of great restaurants and shops. I couldn’t live anywhere else.”

• To join “I grew up in Islington”, visit www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4565003531