Part 4 explores the clubs, sports and home-grown entertainment that gave old Laindon a strong social life long before modern leisure complexes.
Residents of old Laindon often recalled that people had to make their own entertainment. Before television became common, clubs, dances, sport, picture shows, carnivals and pub events brought neighbours together.
The Winston Club became one of Laindon's best-known social buildings. Earlier references identify it as the Carlton Club Hall, and memories describe singing, piano playing, cards, dominoes, children's Christmas parties and savings or loan clubs.
Before the Radion cinema opened, picture shows were also remembered as taking place in the building. The Winston survived while much of the surrounding High Road was demolished, making it an unusually tangible link with pre-New Town social life.
Early twentieth-century residents formed a Laindon Sports Club with a nine-hole golf course. The course began around the area near the later Winston Club and extended towards the old water tower by the railway. The club also had tennis courts and offered croquet.
Laindon's cycle polo team was formed around 1935 by Sid Hayden of AMA Building Supplies. Matches were played away at the league ground, while summer practice and demonstrations took place locally.
The team achieved a high standard and reached the national finals at Hurlingham Polo Club in 1937, where it was narrowly defeated by Norwood Paragon. The club ceased operating with the outbreak of the Second World War.
The Berry Boys Club was founded in 1946 by Fred Nunn of Berry Lane and became associated with boxing and football. It provided organised sport for local boys and took part in public events and fundraising activities.
Football teams were a regular feature of local life, and many pitches were prepared on whatever open land was available. Recreation in plotland Laindon was often improvised rather than dependent on purpose-built sports centres.
Evidence survives for greyhound activity in Laindon in the early 1930s. An advertisement from October 1932 confirms meetings, while later memories place the track or training ground near Tavistock Road in the area later associated with Millhouse School playing field.
The exact layout is not completely certain. Some recollections describe a straight training track rather than a conventional oval stadium, so the surviving evidence should be treated with care rather than presenting one later memory as absolute fact.
The annual carnival was one of the largest community occasions. Clubs, youth organisations and businesses decorated vehicles and created floats, while carnival events gave residents a chance to raise money and promote local organisations.
A particularly colourful local tradition was the publicans' race, remembered as running from the Prince of Wales, calling at pubs including the Fortune of War and Laindon Hotel, and ending at the Crown. Publicans were carried or pushed in makeshift wheelchairs while teams completed challenges at stops along the route.