Jack Whitehead (1) (1916–2014)

A modest book with manageable aims - Muswell Hill has charm but no great antiquity, so much of the story can be unpicked either from print records or from memories. The author is prone to digressions, but what elevates this book is the intricately detailed memoir of his own youth, 80 years ago, having moved in to the new council houses of the Coppets Road Estate in 1925. His curiosity takes in the roofers and scaffolders' techniques, the old-style butchers and ironmongery as well as Coppets Farm, a surviving relic living on into the '30s. And the evocative description of the pre-insecticide days of bugs aplenty - you couldn't walk the pavements in certain seasons "without treading on looping caterpillars". During the War, he claims, such was their threat to homegrown produce, there was a bounty on caterpillars, "a hundred for fourpence".… (mere)