Back Down Forget Me Not Lane - The Story of a Londoner

Back Down Forget Me Not Lane - The Story of a Londoner - Part 7: Dog Fights and Pigs

2012-03-04T20:32:00.000Z

Dog fights over St. Paul's

The house in Basingstoke was called Rose Cottage, in an area called Tadley, and when we all arrived it was obvious the owner, Mrs Stroud, had had no prior warning we were coming. Oh, she was pleased to see Annie and my Nan, but I' m not sure what she felt about the rest of us.

But it's a testament to the goodness of people at that difficult time that Mrs Stroud gave Mum, me and my sister a small bedroom. There was only one bed so the three of us had to share it. The room had a little cottage window and I used to look out and marvel at the fields and trees that went up a hill to a forest. I'd never seen anything like that before.

And the smells, good and bad, especially of the pigs that were kept nearby. I loved those pigs and their smell, and they seemed so friendly. They'd run over to me for something to eat. I'd pick apples off the ground to feed them.

After a while we heard that Mrs Chester and her son Georgie - they lived in the same flats as Nan - had, on the advice of my Nan, come to stay close to us in a cottage with a Mrs Cox, who had a son who was a bit older than us. She had another son in the army by then.

Mr Cox was a Farmer, who had fields of strawberries, so Mum and Ivy were able to earn a bit of money picking in the season. There were fruit trees everywhere and me and Georgie would stuff ourselves with plums, damsons, apples and pears. Stomach ache usually followed.

In the Cox's garden they had a deep well, and although the water was good it had lots of insects in it. Georgie and me loved winding the bucket up.

All the family would come to the front parlour in the evenings and sit round the log fire playing cards. The air-raid sirens would go off now and again, but no bombing. I suppose the aircraft were just passing over on their way somewhere else, probably Bethnal Green.

Life went on pretty well.

Our family got well known at the local pub too. All the locals seemed to like us. We spent many late nights in the pub. I would sit under the piano so as not to be seen if the local policeman came in. The pub was called The Pelican, and the landlord was a jovial man named Jack Benham who really got on well with my Nan. One day Nan went home to get the Budgie which saw it's life out on the bar saying 'pretty boy' to all the customers.

Nan said Grandad had had a narrow escape one day. Apparently a bomb had dropped on the houses opposite the flats which sent him flying, as well as blowing in all the windows of the flat again. Grandad still refused to move and never went near a shelter.

My aunts, Annie and Dolly, got work in a local hospital called Park Pruitt, and told us stories about the many fighter pilots who were there, badly burnt.

Soon after I caught a skin infection called impetigo: spots everywhere, which turned into horrible blisters. I had to have a dark blue ointment smeared all over me, dreadful stuff. It was quite a common childrens' war time infection.

Other than that I actually enjoyed Basingstoke, but it was not to last.

Whether Mrs Stroud got fed up with us, or Mum just wanted to go home - which was more likely – we all headed back to London and the blitz. My aunts, Annie and Dolly, stayed at the hospital because they were doing important war work.

It was good being home, even with the air-raid warnings going off every night. It was still a adventure. I would be called in around nine every night and put to bed, but I knew the warnings would go off later so me and Ronnie Close would creep out and meet up and play in and around the shelter. We sometimes watched the dog fights in the sky, trails of white vapour from the aircraft as the pilots fought for their lives.

September 15th, my birthday, is now a date that is now known as Battle of Britain Day, the day we won the air fight against the Germans.

After that the invasion we'd all expected never happened.

" Thanks Gerald."

To Be Continued...

Back Down Forget Me Not Lane - The Story of a Londoner - Part 6: It Wasn't Long Before The Bombing Started Again...

2012-02-26T10:02:00.001Z

Kids in the rubble after a raid in the East End

There were some good cinemas in Bethnal Green in those days at the start of the war, and I would go at least twice a week. I saw most of the Walt Disney stuff, sometimes with my mum, but usually with friends. Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo, we loved them all. I almost forgot there was a war on.

We got through the Christmas of 1939 okay, the warnings did sound quite often but there wasn't much happening, which created a kind of false security, and we stopped going down the shelter.

Me and all my friends were making scooters. You made them from a plank of wood and a thick block of wood with two big race wheels. The front of the scooter, with the handle on it, was bolted to the block of wood. The problem was that the plank, with the wheels on, would pull out while you were belting along. A lot of knees got badly grazed as a result; mind you we never complained, and never used bandages or ointment, consequently dirt got into the wounds, but nobody seemed to bother. There were a lot of very scabby knees about.

It wasn't long before the bombing started again.

We found that when the warning sounded it took about five minutes before you could hear the planes. Our anti-aircraft guns, which were in Victoria Park, on the close by the railway, would start blazing away.

Now, me and Ronnie got an idea we thought was fun. My Gran's flats covered a big area. The front ran along Claredale Street, the side went up Temple Street, then you had to go along Hackney Road, then turn into Teesdale Street, then down the other side of the flats back into Claredale Street where we all used to play. Our idea was - when the warning started - to ride our scooters around the block and get back before the bombing started. It all went well until my mum found out what we were doing.

I remember one day the warning sounded and off we went. Halfway round, in Hackney Road, my scooter broke in two. I came running round the corner carrying the two parts of the scooter, and there was a very worried Mum running up the street to find me. Bombs were falling in nearby streets. Mum just threw the two bits of my scooter on the floor and dragged me down the shelter steps. I have to say I was more frightened of her than I was of the Germans.

It was sometime in May 1940 when a serious incident happened.

Nan's flat was the last ground floor flat on the corner of Temple Street. Just across the road there was a three storeyed Factory, a cabinet makers called Lee Brothers. The whistle would blow at eight o'clock in the morning, with the staff waiting outside to go in. I remember we were in Nan's flat having breakfast when, without the warning sounding, there was a loud whistling.

Grandad shouted, “It's bombs!”

We all ran into the passage and huddled together. I was on the floor with my arms round Mum's legs, most of the family were there. Then, suddenly, there was an almighty bang and all the windows blew in. We staggered into the front room. The Lee Brothers factory had taken a direct hit. Mum told me not to look, but I couldn't help looking. The factory was in ruins and in the road and on the pavement opposite were bodies.

My Gran and Mrs Lee, who lived in the flat above us, tore up bed sheets and hurried over the road to help the wounded.

Somebody shouted out, “Charlie's arrived.”

'Charlie' was my Dad, who, at that time, before joining the army, was in the ARP Heavy Rescue. Nan's front room was in a terrible state, dust, torn curtains, glass everywhere.

Nan's poor budgie was still alive in his cage on the floor upside down in the corner of the room. Nan had taught it to say 'pretty boy', but he wasn't talking much that morning. He didn't like what he'd been through, nor did we.

The family had a discussion. Annie, Dolly, Ivy, Ronnie and Nan were all for going to a friends house in Basingstoke. Tom was just about to go into the army, but Grandad was all for staying, which he did. My Mum, my sister Pam, and me were asked to join them. I loved the idea, because it seemed like an exciting adventure. My Dad had his ARP job to do of course, and was needed in the area.

By midday  we were all on our way to Basingstoke by bus. It took hours.

To Be Continued...

Back Down Forget Me Not Lane - The Story of a Londoner - Part 5: A Phoney War

2012-02-19T18:49:00.000Z

Mum & Dad Before The War

I made six friends that lived in my Grans block of flats.

The one I got on with really well was Reggie Kelly. He was the only child of Arthur and Violet Kelly, who   had the flat next to my Gran's. They seemed to like me more than the other kids. Perhaps they thought          I was a bit posh, a bit  more like Reggie in their eyes? 

Being Reggie's close friend meant I was treated well by his relations, one of whom, a Mr Simpson, had an   oil shop in Bethnal Green Road.

Reggie also seemed to have more  sweets than the other kids, and some really good toys. Mind, I never       told him about throwing my other friend's train engine out of the window.

War now seemed inevitable, and the talk in the papers was all about the 'the war effort', so Reggie and         me thought we'd do our bit by collecting lots of cigarette boxes and, sitting on his balcony, turn them into      pellets  for our catapults to fire at the Germans if they invaded.

All our gang – there were about ten of us - were acting like soldiers too, marching round the square waving a Union Jack flag. Which we were doing on the morning of Sunday September 3^rd, 1939, when Reggie's        dad shouted down to us to stop because  he'd just heard the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, tell the    nation on the wireless that we were at war with Germany, and reckoned  our flag might put us in danger if     the Germans were to see it from the air.

“ They might mistake the flats for a military establishment,” he called out.

We all thought he was being funny, but no, he was deadly serious.

“ Poor old Kelly,” said Grandad.

We all laughed.

A minute or two later the air-raid sirens started to wail. None of us thought it was so funny then as we          hurried for the air-raid shelter.

That wasn't a real raid. Afterwards everyone realised it was just a try out. But there were some nervous smiles nonetheless.

Life had changed.

Oh, we still went to the pictures, but were told to come out when they informed us on the screen that a raid was imminent.

My Grandfather, a good old soldier type, said you wouldn't get him down a shelter.

“ If your name's on it there's nothing you can do about it,” he'd say. I'm not sure he ever did go down a shelter?

Just as the war started they finished building the brick shelter outside our house, which was handy, although the entrance was round the other side, which meant we had to go round in a hurry when the bombing started.

But before the bombing really got started (after the so called 'Phoney War') nothing much happened, with life going on almost as normal.

My friend, Ronnie Close, lived at number four, two doors from us, and his family had hired a radio from Redifusion, which, once the air raids had started in earnest, gave information about when German aircraft were crossing the coast so you could prepare yourself. Once he had the information Ronnie walked along the back of the houses to our yard and shouted through our kitchen window to Mum. We'd then decide whether to run round to Nan's to be with the family, or go to our own shelter.

“It's better to die with the family if we have to,” Mum would say.

One day Ronnie came very near to being badly injured.

Workmen had left an oil drum and a plank of wood in the street. Ronnie's brother, Teddy, who was much older than Ronnie, put the plank over the oil drum and told Ronnie to stand on the plank. Teddy then climbed onto the shelter roof and jumped onto the end of the plank. Well, Ronnie shot up into the air almost as high as the houses. Teddy tried to catch him, and did manage to break Ronnie's fall. But Reggie still hit the ground with quite a wallop, just like the bombs the Germans were dropping on us!

Teddy was worried to death and emptied his pockets of all sorts of stuff to give to his brother, in the hope   he wouldn't tell their mum. Which he didn't of course.

We all got a good laugh over that, except Ronnie.

Gerald: The Pellet Maker




To Be Continued...

Back Down Forget Me Not Lane - The Story of a Londoner - Part 4: In The Wars

2012-02-12T16:18:00.000Z

With Dad unemployed unhappiness filled the house.

Which wasn't as bad as the thought of having some of my teeth out. It was my first time, and as I sat in the   chair facing a big window, the nurse placed a black rubber mask over my nose. I remember struggling a bit, which made the nurse hold me down by my arms. Slowly the bright sunlit window went black. I opened my eyes to find myself lying on a bed in another room. As I tried to sit up I was violently sick.

I still don't like going to the dentist.

Soon after I had a nightmare which brought Mum running into my bedroom. 

“What's happened?” Mum screamed.

I used to have a toy deep sea diver on the window sill. All I could do was point at the diver.

“ He keeps coming towards me,” I  said.

Mum laughed and stroked my head till I went back to sleep. 

Dad was soon back at work, and with his first week's wages he bought me a toy tool set.

I soon nailed together every piece of wood I could find.

I was very happy in our new house until.

“ We're Going back to Bethnal Green,” declared Mum one day.

Mum said she wanted to be near her family when the war started. I don't know if dad wanted to move, but Mum always seemed to get her way with anything she wanted. So, on a Saturday morning a Pickford's van   took all our stuff back to Bethnal Green, pulling up outside number 6 Sheldon Place - a row of terraced          houses in a close. They were really old Victorian houses which used to be called Sheldon Cottages.

We knew straight away that the war wasn't far off because there were men building a brick shelter close by.

My Nan lived in some flats a couple of streets away. There was Tommy, Alice, Dolly, Ivy and Ronnie,

Mum's brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, living there too. Grandfather Tom ( see photo above of    my Nan & Grandad) was a First World War man and didn't worry about the coming war.


He'd say, “We beat 'em once, we'll beat 'em again.” 

Nan would then say, “ Germany is so far away they'll never bomb us from that distance.” 

To which Ronnie would add: “ Why are they building shelters then?” 

No one had an answer to that.

I was enrolled in Teesdale Street School, which had a playground on the school roof. I could see Mum        hanging out the washing on the line from there. Life for me was pretty good. I didn't have any worries, and    found all the talk about war exciting. I was about seven then and quickly made quite a few friends of my       own age. We'd  play out in the grimy old streets, which were our playground, where we'd play Cowboys    and  Indians, soldiers, or hide and seek.

There were two ways to get out of the close. One was by a short road that led into Mansford Street, the     other was an alleyway that went into Teesdale Street. 

Ronnie Close was a boy who lived in number four. Our first meeting was strange to say the least. 

As you came out of the alley into Teesdale Street men were building a brick air-raid shelter. Just up the        road from this there were two shops: Mr Crump's green grocery, then Mr Mack, the general grocer, and     a small pub called The Shakespeare Arms.  This particular day Mum told me to go to Mr Mack's                and buy a couple of  cream slices. As I turned the corner from the alley - wham! - something hit me.

Ronnie had been on the top of the shelter, and as I walked by he jumped on me. He helped me up, grinning all over his face. We soon became  great friends, and had a wonderful time playing in those half built

air-raid shelters.


I remember, on the Wednesday before my Mum's sister - my aunt Dolly - was to be married (I was to be

a page boy), I was playing with my friends in the square by my nan's flats. Men were building two

underground air-raid shelters in the square, and there was this big hole that wasn't roped off.


Anyway, we'd made this hand-cart out of an old orange box and there I was pulling little Johnny Hook        around the square walking backwards. Naturally enough I stepped straight back and into the hole. I went    plummeting down, banging my head as I went. At the bottom a carpenter was sawing a long plank of           wood. I landed on one end of the plank, making the other end come up, hitting the carpenter hard in the       face. There we were, both of us, moaning, my head pouring with blood, his nose bleeding heavily. As my     Nan might have said, we both looked as if we'd been in the wars.


My uncle Tom (he worked at Ingram's, a record shop on Bethnal Green Road in those days) was having his lunch at the time and rescued me, taking me to hospital in his small van. 

The worry now was, would my head still be bandaged-up for the wedding on Saturday?

My mum had been up the West End with Dolly, shopping for a wedding dress, when the accident                happened. When they got home they seemed more worried about my head being bandaged for the              wedding than about me. I was taken to hospital again on the Friday. Mum asked the doctor if the bandages  could be taken off  for Saturday? He agreed, and they were. There were only a few stitches so they            wouldn't really show and spoil the big day.


Sadly, no one asked about the unfortunate carpenter.

To Be Continued...

Back Down Forget Me Not Lane - The Story of a Londoner - Part 3: Forbidden Fruit

2012-02-05T16:22:00.000Z

Suddenly mum looked fat. There was something going on I didn't understand. Then one day she told me I was going to have a brother or sister. I couldn't understand why she said it with such glee.

“I don't want a brother, don't want a sister,” I told her.

“Why not?” asked mum.

“I might get less custard for afters?” I replied.

“Don't be greedy,” she answered.

I didn't really know what she meant, but somehow I knew it wasn't good by the look on her face.

Well - for me at least - the worst happened. "It's a girl!" everybody shouted joyfully.

“Why don't you like girls?” asked mum, trying to show me a tiny thing wrapped in a white shawl.

“I don't like boys either,” I said tearfully.

I remember an incident a bit later that I've regretted ever since. I was so angry with mum for bringing someone else into our family that one day I threw an apple at her she'd given me. It hit her face and made her nose bleed and she cried. I felt terrible and cried too. That day made me the man I became.

There was an alleyway at the side of our flats that led to Bethnal Green Gardens. Half way down there was a sweet shop called 'Peters'. Dad thought it was time for me to grow up and go by myself with a note to buy two cakes. He must have stood at the end of the alleyway to watch my first journey into the big wide world. On the way there I fell over and grazed my knees. Dad was on the scene immediately as I knelt there crying.

It was now 1938, and trouble with Germany was looming, but life went on as though nothing was wrong.

On the landing below there was an Irish family who had a girl of about my age called Molly who was very forward for her age. I'd often play on the stairs and Molly always wanted to talk. I called her 'Irish Molly' and she was my first girl friend I suppose. I remember walking down the alleyway with her one day into the gardens. There was a tramp sitting on the park bench who beckoned us over, he was holding out a plum for us. Molly took it and we shared it.

Mother was appalled, “Never go near people like that,” she said.

One day Molly asked if I wanted to see her knickers, which frightened the life out of me.  I ran upstairs not knowing what to think. That ended our friendship.

When I think back I can see now it was a bit of a re-run of Adam and  Eve in the Garden of Eden.

A bit later Mum, looking very happy, said, “We're going to move. You're going to have a bedroom of your own.” It was a place I'd never heard of. “It's in the country,” she said. “It's called Becontree.”

Since the age of three I'd been going to a nursery school and I loved it, but soon  began to wonder what the new one would be like. I shouldn't have worried, it was great. 

The nice clean, tree lined street was called Stanton Road. Our's, No 14, was just round the corner from the    railway station. We settled in nicely, with Dad cycling to Fulham every day. Little did I know   just how far that was.

They called my sister Pamela. She was no trouble. Mum just seemed to cuddle her all the time. I just got on with my own life.

War was  looking more likely - I was about six - with the prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, waving bits  of paper above his head about peace in our time.

Then, one day, Dad came home from work looking very unhappy.

Now, Dad wasn't a smoker, although he would have a cigar now and again, usually at Christmas.     On this particular day a work friend gave him a cigarette. Dad put it in his mouth and went up the ladder and got on with his painting. The manager, in a suit and bowler hat, called him down and lit the cigarette for him.

Then sacked him for smoking.

Can you believe that?

To Be Continued...

Back Down Forget Me Not Lane - The Story of a Londoner - Part 2: They're Changing The Guard At Buckingham Palace

2012-01-29T23:11:00.000Z

On the 15th of September,1933,two people went hurrying along the back streets of Bethnal Green making their way to the London hospital at Whitechapel. They were my dad and my grandmother, my mum's mum.

I had come into this world at ten minutes past five on a Friday afternoon. A Friday baby, loving and giving. Mind you, it wasn't a very good time to be born, what with Hitler's rise to power, and then Oswald Moseley's Black Shirts causing a lot of trouble.

We were a poor family living in a flat in Globe Road, Bethnal Green. I remember we all shared a toilet at the end of our landing. One of our neighbours was a Mrs Lincoln, and her son Arthur. Mrs Lincoln was a kindly woman who seemed to really like me, although I was a bit of a pest running up and down the landing. She would often give me an orange, but I had to get mum to peel it for me. Later I would take the peel from the bin and put it through the letter box of Mrs Lincoln's door. The strange thing was she thought it was cute, and appeared to like me even more.

Her son Arthur was about six years older than me and would let me watch his train set go round and round. I don't know why, but I remember throwing the train engine out of the window one day; but strangely Mrs Lincoln still seemed to like me. After that Arthur guarded the train set with his life when I was there.

I looked forward to the united dairies milkman coming each morning. The cart was a lovely red colour with thick rubber tyres, but the thing I liked most was the horse. The milkman got to like me and one day said, “If you sing me a song I'll sit you on the horse.” Without any hesitation I started singing It's A Sin To Tell A Lie. Mum had taught me that, although I could never understood why. I sang that song every time the milkman called,until it became obvious he was getting fed up with the same tune. So mum taught me Little Sir Echo How Do You Do?, which meant I got to sit on the horse for another few weeks till the milkman got fed up with that one too I suppose. Mind you, the milkman told mum I always said thank you and please, which pleased her.

Dad always seemed to have a job, he was a painter and decorator, and although we were working class, mum and dad always dressed well and seemed to be a bit more affluent than some, and often acted as if they were a cut above the rest. Mum never seemed to go to work either, so dad was probably earning good money as we seemed to live pretty well.

The flats we lived in were called Mendip House – we lived in 12a - and they were quite nice in their way, with respectable neighbours, all like Mrs Lincoln.

I remember once, when I was about four, we'd been out for the day and I'd seen the changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace. Well, as you might imagine, I wanted to be a soldier after that with a big bearskin hat. Well, I soon got into the habit of putting the tea cosy on my head and marching about. One particular day I went to put the tea cosy on my head and somehow managed to pour boiling hot tea down my neck and right arm. I was rushed straight to the children's hospital in Hackney Road. I don't remember much about it, but mum said I screamed the place down. I went home bandaged up like a parcel.

After a couple of weeks my arm started to smell pretty bad. Dad carried me to the hospital and the doctor told him it was badly infected. No wonder I'd kept them awake at night with my crying. After a time it began to heal, but the doctor told mum and dad my arm and neck would be scarred for life.

“Glad it wasn't his face.” my Gran said.

A few years later, when I was a soldier, I'd often remember when I was a kid and used to wear that tea cosy.

To Be Continued...

Back Down Forget Me Not Lane - The Story of a Londoner - Part 1: Rainy Days Don't Worry Me

2012-01-25T19:34:00.000Z

Rainy days don't worry me,

There's a rainbow that I can see,

And it's waiting for me,

Down Forget Me Not Lane...

September, 1940, and I was out with my mum shopping. It was a Saturday morning, and as usual we were shopping in Mare Street, Hackney, a short trolleybus ride from our home in Bethnal Green.

We always made for Woolworths and Marks & Spencers, and it was while we were in M&S that the air raid warning sounded. We all ran out to be shepherded by an Air Raid Warden to a brick shelter behind the Mare Street church.

Once inside we could hear bombs dropping very near us, with each bang shaking the walls and creating a lot of brick dust.

When the all clear sounded we made our way home as quickly as we could, but, as we passed a row of bombed-out terraced houses, we could hear a radio playing inside one of them. It was Flanagan and Allen singing Down Forget Me Not Lane.

I thought to myself: “You know, there is a future.”

A few years earlier, when I was about six weeks old, mum was pushing me along Green Street in Bethnal Green, in a nice looking pram, when she was accosted by a tramp.

He looked in at me and said, “That's a nice baby.” Mum tried to shove him away as he reached into the pram, but stopped as he put a silver threepenny piece in my hand, closing my fingers on it. “That'll bring him luck,” he said, looking at mum.

The coin is dated 1900 with Queen Victoria's face on it. I carry it to this day. I often think about that tramp and wonder if his gesture brought him some luck, brought him a future.

To Be Continued...

Introduction

2012-01-21T14:44:00.000Z

Gerald as a young sailor?

I first read Gerald's memoirs a couple of years ago, and knew then they were something special.

Then, back in November 2011 - on Armistice Day to be precise - we staged my visual radio play adaptation of the Korean War section of the memoirs (Fighting is a Soldier's Job) at the world famous Dirty Duck pub in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was very warmly received indeed, so much so that we shall be staging the play again, but this time in London.

It is now my intention to bring the whole of Gerald's wonderfully evocative autobiographical writings to the reading public as a weekly online serial, starting in a couple of day's time...

Steve Newman