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The following memories of Charter Day (16th September 1937) were kindly provided by Fred Barnes, who worked for the council at the time:
In 1937 Romford applied for and was granted its Charter of Incorporation as a Borough. A local Inquiry was first held on behalf of the Privy Council, and as a result of a favourable report by the Inspector, His Majesty King George VI was "graciously pleased" to approve the grant of a Charter.
On the great day the Lord Mayor of London and procession duly arrived from Gallows Corner outside the Town Hall, where many other important guests were already assembled. So far, everything had gone according to plan, but the first unrehearsed incident arose when the Lord Mayor approached the main doors with the symbolic golden key in his hand, officially to open the new building. These doors, being newly installed, had a tendency to jam, so Ted Long, who was one of the Town Hall porters, had been thoughtfully stationed inside. His instructions were perfectly simple - "When you hear the key inserted in the lock, gently ease the doors open and then quietly disappear our of sight." But Ted, who was somewhat highly strung, completely missed his cue. At the first sound of footsteps outside the doors, he flung them wide open, to the astonishment of the Lord Mayor, who hadn't even got the key in the lock, stood for a moment like the Demon King, bellowed "Sorry mate" in good Cockney at the Lord Mayor, and slammed the door shut in his face. Here Ted did get back to his script, for he disappeared from his post, leaving the Lord Mayor, when he had recovered from his shock, belatedly to insert the magic key and, with a struggle, to open the doors, which had stuck again!
This was not a good start, but worse was to come. With my love for detail, I had evolved a chain of events to ensure that the procession of cars, which were parked in the Car Park in Church Lane, arrived outside the Town Hall at the appropriate moment to transport all the guests to the Havana Cinema. When the opening ceremony had finished, the new Borough flag was to be run up the flagpole, observing which a Boy Scout stationed at the rear of the Town Hall was to gallop to the Car Park and give the word to "go" to the cars. Unfortunately, the flag stuck half-way up the pole, out of sight of the faithful Boy Scout, and no cars came. This was eventually sorted out and the procession finally moved off. (A few walkie-talkie sets, alas not then invented, would have saved much trouble!)
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