Flashback: Sewerage row, boys ambushed and a shop bans girl in wheelchair

40-years-ago. Picture: Romford Library (Image: Romford Library)

1958: A sensational row between Romford Council and angry Havering village householders who objected to their share of the cost of a £40,000 village sewerage scheme approved by the Ministry of Health, was going to be publicly aired before local magistrates in the coming weeks.

The Recorder understood that costs which may have to be borne by Havering property owners towards to the cost of laying the sewer were likely to average around £100 and in the cases of exceptionally large frontages could have reached £300.

These sums, which were going to be paid in instalments, did not include additional costs of installing modern drainage in individual houses.

Chairman of Romford’s highways committee Ald. Pat Ridley said: “It is appalling that after so much effort has been put forward for so many years by Romford Council to bring civilised conditions to Havering, some of the villagers prefer to live in medieval squalor.”

1978: Two teenage boys were bundled into a car, beaten up and robbed, then dumped in the road in a late night attack.

The attackers, who claimed to be police officers, pounced in Suttons Avenue, Hornchurch, just after midnight on a Saturday night.

Detectives were keeping secret the ambush victims’ identities but said they were aged 16 and 17.

The attack happened as the two boys were walking back to their homes.

In Suttons Avenue, near the junction with Abbs Cross Lane, a red car drew up and two men got out.

They said they were policemen investigating a robbery and ordered the boys into the back of the car and said they would be taken in for questioning.

Once in the car, the youngsters were beaten raound the face and body and the older boy was robbed of £20.

1998: A brave eight-year-old girl who used a wheelchair because of a disabling spinal disease was refused entry to her local newsagents to buy sweets “because she would have blocked the aisles”.

The owner of Yosha News, Grange Road, Harold Hill, told the Recorder: “I didn’t let her in, because she would have blocked the door and aisles which would have caused a nuisance to my other customers.”

Natalie Salisbury, who had spinal muscular atrophy and had to wear a metal brace to secure her back, was nominated for a Havering Young Citizen Award for coping with her disability.

She said: “I think he is a horrible, unkind man.

“The only thing wrong with me is that I cannot walk but that shouldn’t stop me from buying sweets with my friends.”