Beckton Bus Station is pretty well part of the car park of a huge ASDA, a stone’s throw from the even more capacious Sainsbury’s where the 325 had dropped us. 
Well, it would have been a stone’s throw if walking were possible, but we had to get on a passing bus to negotiate the blocked off roads and business parks of the area. Still, by 11.35 Linda, Mary and I were onto the single decker, bound for East Ham.
We passed the spacious grounds of Cribbs the Funeral Director’s, and had time to admire the narcissi which had replaced the daffodils along the road before turning left into the Winsor Park estate. We were pleased to see that the varied houses and apartments were served by a small parade of shops, though they are not likely to thrive with all the giants round about. After nipping round part of the estate we got back onto the main road to Cyprus DLR station.
There is lots of green space around here, and we saw the Will Thorne Pavilion. Linda remembered my lecture from an earlier bus, so got a smiley face on her chart, and was spared a repeat history lesson about the gas workers. Will Thorne is here if you have forgotten and want to know. Then we came to the Newham City Farm before heading alongside and then over the A13 to reach Newham Hospital.
Brampton Manor School, or rather Academy has splendid looking raised vegetable beds in its grounds, though it’s clear that its priorities lie more with sports and performing than with horticulture. The route now brought us over the Greenway (or Northern sewer outfall). It is closed at the moment I post this because of the Olympics, but it is an excellent walk for the autumn Soon we were among terrace houses, some with lovely plaster work, and many extremely improved, with new windows and porches and roof extensions. This was the week when East London boroughs were in the news for shipping their poorer families off to Walsall or Stoke on Trent, so we were interested in the housing stock that we could see. 
Next, of course, is Upton Park, home of West Ham, and the Bobby Moore memorial (or perhaps we should say a Bobby Moore memorial as I am sure you know that there is another at Wembley. On past Upton Park Station, we were impressed by the number of beauty shops of various kinds, including one offering weave-on eye lashes, something we had not heard about before. 
More residential areas followed, and we liked Plashet School’s over-the road walkway before we found ourselves in East Ham. Passing East Ham Station, we pursued the 325 route round Ron Leighton Way (named for the long standing MP for the area) and Pilgrims Way before turning back towards the High Street to terminate at Newham’s amazing Town Hall, at 12.30. Very little of this route had been new to us, but it was all very enjoyable with the sun coming out between heavy showers. (And of course we were pleased about the showers because we had been warned of impending drought, which brings on a hollow laugh a few soggy months on)
Oh you took a pic of my former secondary school! I was in the same form class as the girl who won a competition to name it - Plashet Unity bridge. :)
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