I have called this page my Oyster because I intend to place my pearls here.
He llamado a esta página mi ostra porque tengo la intención de colocar mis perlas aquí.
J’ai appelé cette page mon huître parce que j’ai l’intention de placer mes perles ici.
The following is a series of short stories.
Childhood’s End.
Prologue to some short stories.
This collection of short stories is about a boy and his friends. It is a collection of memoirs and collected anecdotes that a reader may find interesting, perhaps even sometimes amusing as well as entertaining. It is a collection of true accounts of a selection from events in a life and of people who one has met or worked with during a long, interesting and sometimes chaotic life.That reader will meet real people and true events but from which names have been changed here and there for the sake of confidentiality.
I was born in the March before WW2. I say loudly here that a child has to grow up quickly during wartime. I was going to and from school alone or with other childhood friends at the age of five years, from day two of my school career. That was a four times a day journey because I did not want to stay for school lunches. These journeys were sometimes completed to the sound of an Air Raid Siren. My Mum’s instructions to me under those circumstances were to run home or back to school whichever was the closer. That was in 1944 when conventional air raids by a dying and largely defeated Luftwaffe were a thing of the past but by when there were daily attacks on London by rocket and doodlebug. It could be both frightening and, as a child, truly exciting.
I lived a Huckleberry Finn type of life much of the time when I was young. Children and young people had a much wider permitted personal, spatial and temporal horizon when I was a young child than they are permitted these days. I hope that this will become clear from these reminiscences. These horizons have, unfortunately, narrowed along with the passing years.
Tony Kreit 29th March 2017
Chapter [1] My First Days at School
November 1944. Edmonton. North London.
“All things bright and beautiful.
All creatures, great and small.
All things wise and wonderful.
The Lord God made them all”.
The day was dark, gloomy England in November. In the overcast late afternoon of that autumn of 1944 the flickering gas lamps gave but a poor yellow light in the high classroom. It was a very high room, far too high for economy of heating in the single story Victorian building of the school. The white washed or, rather, yellow washed walls were at least fifteen feet high with two tiers of windows set into them. These windows could be opened, with difficulty, by using a long pole which had a horizontal ‘S’ hook fixed at the end of it. This hook had a downward curve for opening and an upward curve for closing. The contraption required both effort and practice to be able to use it with any semblance of ease and grace. The appropriate part of the hook had to be juggled into a ring fixed to the upper part of the wooden window frames which pivoted along their horizontal axes.
Opening or closing these windows was often a vexatious undertaking particularly when attempted by a short person to one of the upper windows, up to which the pole would then only just reach. It was tippy toe brinkmanship in wet, sticky, weather when the wooden frames had swelled and made the operation next to impossible. The poor teacher was often left, swinging, in vain and undignified rage at the end of the useless pole. It has to be said that the operation of those windows provided much innocent pleasure to pupils in the empty days before classroom television. Windows, once open could be fixed at the required angle by tying a dangling cord to a hook on the wall. The reverse operation, to close the window, had to be done equally expertly with a sharp downward tug on the cord or it would not shut quite completely some teachers actually had the trick of this cord tugging lark. Others never quite made it! This left the wind to whistle through the resulting gaps which made disconcerting noises and created cold draughts to discomfort already chilly necks. Those were the days in which chilblains were the epidemic of winter for boys who always wore short trousers due to a national shortage of cloth and were expected to endure the rigours of an English winter with global fortitude. Chilblains attacked any vulnerable extremity such as ears or knees or toes and were very painful, the, then, famous ‘Wintergreen’ ointment being the only remedy readily and odourously available.
There were two other openings to the outside elements, the skylights, which were set on either side of the high apex of the ceiling and were almost flush with it. The skylights were opened and closed by means of a long ‘Heath Robinson’ rod and ratchet arrangement which started at the frame of the ‘light’ proceeded down the wall and was operated from below by square key and handle which turned one of the rods through a universal joint. The upward moment of this was transmitted to the window through the series of joints and rods. It should have worked in theory but the fact was that the windows could never be shut quite tightly. A combination of age, wear and sheer distance between the operator and the device on the frame meant that the small six inch key could not generate enough leverage to bring the frame back fully into position. It was not surprising, therefore, that whenever it rained water would seep under the ‘light’, down the rod and ratchet combination to the socket on the wall, down the wall and then make a puddle on the floor, like a distant and invisible ghostly cat. A patch of green mould at that point bore silent testimony to the years of repeated soakings to which the parquet tiles had been subjected. As the apex of the roof ran almost the whole length of the room there was a row of desks on either side of the central aisle which had to be moved every time it rained hard otherwise the permanent occupants of those desks might have been rendered mouldy too. Strangely, it never occurred to anyone to re-arrange the desks on a once-and-for-all basis.
The gas lamps hung from the ceiling down to a height of about seven feet. Rings on chains on either side of the lights were the means by which they were turned on and off, pull one side for on and the other for off, provided the pilot light had not gone out and also that the mantle was in good order or that the police or air raid warden had not been round to issue orders not to use gas appliances or that Hitler had not been about his erstwhile daily business of dropping bombs or sending rockets or doodlebugs. When that had happened during the recent years everyone had had to file out to the air raid shelter in the playground, where the lesson usually continued in stoic British manner, often in near darkness but with that rugged determination not to be outdone by the ‘filthy Hun’.
I had real cause to remember one particular afternoon in that classroom, in the autumn of 1944 for the rest of my life; for it was in that room on that certain afternoon that I was made to stand by my desk. I remember that I was nervous and looked about me, in vain, for some comfort from just one of my classmates. I looked up at the lamps; it was so dark outside that I could not see into the black void above them. As I stood there I prayed for inspiration. The long chains hung down and I prayed longingly for inspiration into the deep shadows beyond them. I had no time to search the shadows with my panicky, racing eyes. What could she mean, that teacher? She already knew my name.
“What is your name boy? This was followed by another long, desperate silence until I, convinced that the world had suddenly gone mad, felt that I had to break the silence, I replied;
“Tony Miss err, Miss Brown.” I felt it prudent to be as polite as possible. I knew that I would remember that woman’s face for as long as I lived, like a scar.
“Tony, what? Stupid boy! Not your Christian name, we all know that.” She seemed to smirk around the class to the, by now, sniggering audience. I felt myself licking my lips, my mouth had gone very dry, and I was only five. She was a new teacher to the school, having arrived only two weeks before, just after the beginning of term. She was a new teacher but was at least a thousand years old which lent her a much more imposing aspect to my very tender years. She had picked on me ever since she had arrived but this was the worst. I remember that I did not even understand what she was driving at.
“Please Miss you’ve got it in the register.” Her grip tightened on the blackboard duster and I hastily decided that this was not what she wanted or expected.
“Kreit Miss, Tony Kreit.” I smiled at her then, sheepishly, naively, more out of hope than belief that I was now off the hook, that the ordeal was over. I looked around the class, searching, again in vain, for the oasis of a friendly face amid the suddenly hostile sea staring back at me. Giggles and smirks there were, at my discomfort but no succour was there, in my distress. She paused and in that pause lay such hidden menace. Her shoulders twitched and she continued the attack, for that was what the impromptu inquisition had become.
“Kreit, Kreit.” She rolled my name in her mouth like an unpleasant sweet, in a tone I had never heard before, like a bad word. She was speaking to me in a way no adult had ever spoken to me before, hard and spiteful.
“That’s a strange name, Kreit, for an English classroom, um, Kreit” My name was repeated by that woman and I did not understand why, why strange? Why was my name so strange?
“Where on earth did you get a name like that boy?” My knees trembled and nearly gave way under me. My body shook with fright. Why did she keep going on about my name? I could no longer answer her; I had become numb, numb and dumb.
“Well? I’m waiting.”
The exchange had gone far beyond my understanding. I remember that I was answering by instinct alone, and not very well at that. I prayed for the lesson to end or for a bomb to drop. Neither blessed event occurred. The inquisition continued.
“It’s a strange name, boy, for an English classroom” She repeated herself. “It’s a German name isn’t it?” I suddenly felt the colour drain from my face, I could not answer her, I could not say anything, and I am certain that I would not have been able to move at that moment. I had no idea where Germany was but I knew well enough that all Germans were evil, everyone said so. How do you get to be a German, or have a German name? Did I have a German name? The evil witch had just said so. My previously secure world had just been shattered, it lay smashed about me, reflected in the blank stares of my classmates and the look of hate from this teacher, this wizened harridan. A tear began to edge towards the corner of my eye. I fought to control the tear by blinking hard, but it welled out of control and I was forced to cuff it aside and hope the no-one had noticed it.
“Dunno miss, I don’t think so?”
“Yes it is.” She almost screamed at me. “It’s a German name.” Red faced, she paused for breath.
“We’ve been at war with the Germans.” She spoke as if to the whole class for continued support but the atmosphere had got too far out of control even for their taste. They had lost interest, using the opportunity of her pre-occupation to make faces among themselves. They all knew there had been a war on. None of us could remember anything but the war. Peace might be with us soon, everyone hoped so, but it was just a word at that time, war had been the only reality for any of us. We had all fought Germans too, in the playground with makeshift Tommy guns and sparking fingers pointing at the sky, at any plane, friend or foe, for we knew no difference.
I have returned mentally and frequently to look back on that afternoon in later life and my blood has always run cold. That woman had been beside herself with rage and hatred, directed at me, a boy of not yet six years of age.
I stared at her; I had reached that age with almost no experience of anger from my own adults. My dad, when I saw him, was a calm quiet man who obtained respect and obedience without recourse to anger. With dad away in the army my mum, and gran; plus a whole basketful of aunts had woven a quiet, protective, female cocoon around me which shielded me from a world tearing itself apart in a multitude of terrible conflicts.
I stared at the teacher; she had a sudden splash of angry spittle on her chin. I knew nothing about names. How did you get to be a German? I kept asking myself the same question but could not even guess at the answer. What was a German name? How could you know if you’d got one?
I sat down without permission and before I realised what I’d done. I gasped at my own folly, looked up quickly, half expecting her to explode into another tirade. I was so surprised and relieved when nothing happened that I risked giving my desk-mate a playful nudge. In those days we were still using double desks. I got the cold shoulder though from my desk-mate; a scaly boy with red skin, red hair and a dribbling nose, John, his name was John. I had started out by sharing the desk with my first ever girlfriend, the lovely Rose but Miss Brown had stopped all that when she arrived. She did not approve of boys and girls sharing. She had done her damage yet again, for my desk mate was now giving me the silent treatment.
I didn’t like John much but could have used some support at that moment. It was as if a silent shiver went around the room. I had only ever had one or two class friends anyway. My real friends were the ones I had been brought up with in my own road, the road where many of us had been born and where most of us were to grow up. There were none of those friends in that classroom, no friendly faces, not even the lovely Rose. My eyes searched the room hopefully as I fingered the metal catch on my desk. My tormentor had evidently burned herself out, finally. She glanced around the room as if daring criticism but, in reality, I no longer cared what she was doing. I was engaged in an intense study of my desk top, for a quiet, stubborn, teardrop had nestled in the corner of my right eye. I was yet again in the throes of a mighty effort to rid myself of it without moving a muscle lest I should attract attention to myself. This silent battle seemed to take ages. Deep breaths and sniffs and gentle movements of the eyelids all combined in a mammoth battle to disperse the tear without resort to cuffing it.
“Slates and chalks children!”.
The strain was suddenly and unexpectedly lifted. Amid the general clatter and bustle of desk lids opening and closing to the teacher’s command I managed to knuckle the tear and rid my nose of the shameful and imminent danger of the miniature water fall.
I could not concentrate on the word task set by the teacher, however. My ABCs were lost for the moment behind the bitter taste of tears and the newly acquired worry over my name. I stared and stared at the big map on the wall. It was the Empire map, brightly it shone as it stood boldly and uncompromisingly red, over huge areas of the world. I searched in vain for Germany. I had been shown where it was but I had forgotten and my reading ability was not up to the struggle at that distance. I turned my attention to Miss Brown. I glared at her, praying very hard to shrivel her with that glare. The Gods were not hearing me however. I dug my finger nails into the chalk, the hard stick of chalk in my still sweating hands.
I felt true hatred for this woman but what was worse, I feared her. For the first time in my life I was afraid of an adult, so afraid that my stomach was sick at the thought of what she had said. How could it be that I had a German name? I had never been afraid before, not like this, not even when the stick of bombs had fallen, only a few houses away, and the blast had shattered all the windows and had blown the back door off. Granddad had been in the shelter with me and had pretended to put a drop of whisky into my night time drink of hot milk. I had not been afraid when my dad had gone off into the army. Everyone’s dad had done the same, besides, your own dad couldn’t get hurt! I had not even been afraid on that bad, hazily remembered morning, when I woke up to hear the noises of my granddad dying. My granddad and friend of those cosy nights in the garden bomb-shelter, in our little ‘Andersen’ was dying and the world just carried on as if nothing was happening that morning, in the small middle bedroom. He must have been in very bad pain. They tried to make me leave, to go downstairs. I understood their quiet lies, I knew in my innocent heart, and I refused to leave. They did not force me to go. Granddad died in great pain without ever kissing me again. I was not afraid though, because I knew that Granddad would go to heaven. My Nan said so. I did not know where heaven was but it could not be a bad place. My Nan spoke about it so softly.
I could not myself remember much about granddad now. They would tell me, but I could not remember for myself that, after a long day at work my granddad would often sit me on his lap and share his dinner with me, his little boy. It was just the two of us in the cramped shelter. As a boy, however, I could remember the smell of the shelter, the Granddad smell of it. The oil and sweat from the heat of the iron works, the smell of his pipe and the pint he would sometimes have on his way home. They filled the little hole in the ground and became a permanent memory of him. I missed him desperately.
I dug my penknife into the chalk and gently began to carve at it as I contemplated the floor and the terrible and so sudden, prospect of being somehow different. A rug had been pulled from under my feet and no power on earth would ever be able to put it back the way it had been.
“Please Miss”. From behind me a voice I knew well brought me back to reality for a moment. I looked around. David Brownlow’s hand was up in the air, his fingers twitching in the timeless manner of a boy who has left it just a bit too late before asking to be excused. Girls do not seem to be subject to this condition to the same level of immediacy that overcomes boys. They are either too sensible to leave it to the last moment or they are able to ‘bottle’ it better than boys if they do. Miss Brown was in no mood to bring relief to anyone that afternoon.
“No boy, wait ’till the end of the lesson. You can wait that long surely”? She began to make her way down the aisle between the desks, checking the work done by each boy or girl in turn. There was a nod here or a scowl and a cuff there. She came alongside my desk and her rage flared anew as she saw my blank slate.
“What have you been doing all this time”? She snapped the question at me.
“Where’s your chalk? What on earth have you been doing with your chalk boy?” The pitch of her voice rose with each question. She stared down at me and the tell-tale scattering of chalk dust at my feet and on my clothing.
“What have you done to that chalk?” She repeated the question, this time pointing at my hands, chalky with semi-unconscious carving. I looked down at last and opened my left hand. I closed it quickly. My heart jumped to my gullet and froze there. There in my left hand was the result of my five minutes of industry. I opened my hand again as if to check the evidence of my own eyes. Lying there, carved in perfect white miniature was a fine, hand worked, erect and circumcised penis. I was never sure how she recognised it so quickly for what it was but it was certain that she did. She leaned over me, rigid with awful menace. She picked it up, finger and thumb, like a dead mouse or the real thing, from my un-resisting hand.
“You dirty, filthy, little boy!” It was all she said and all she had time to say for, as she turned with her trophy, a second catastrophe was about to fall. It was enough, anyway, to distract her attention from me and the chalky dick.
It began unnoticed, as a mild rustle .Almost a whisper at the back of the mind as the brain fought to identify it before the ears had heard it. Then it became the sound of a hose directed at the side of a bucket as if to hide the noise. It was a trickle, then it was a flow which rapidly became a torrent as the dam burst and the waters poured forth in uncontrolled and uncontrollable bliss. It was the teacher’s turn to freeze as the dreadful truth was made to dawn in the form of a bawdy and unidentified shriek from the back of the class.
“Brownlow’s pissing on the floor!”
The whole back row disintegrated in exaggerated reaction as the boy-made river ran down to meet them. Evacuation was rapid and complete. Miss Brown fled.
The breakup of the lesson brought temporary relief. The inquisition and its knock on effects were, however, destined to remain to haunt me through the years.
Two important things happened the next day; the first being that my Mum and maternal Nan went to the school the next day to interview Miss Brown. It would have been great to have been a fly on that particular wall that day!
The second, and more important, was that they took me into the front room and began to talk to me. They began to relate the story of my family which opened some remarkable windows for me. I certainly did not understand it all at that time. Much of the meaning and implications needed to fall into place gradually over the years. The young ‘me’ though was most grateful for the explanations. When I began to understand them, moreover, it seemed that my father, when he had to go into the army, had left instructions that those left behind should try to hide the fact that he was just one element of a large Jewish family. That was his unrealistic attempt at an insurance policy in case the Nazis managed to cross the channel. What he had not taken into account though was that, in north London at that time, it was a bloody sight easier to be a Jew than for people to think you might be a German!
I repeat though that It remains one of the great sadnesses of my life that I was not a fly on the wall to hear…
I had not meant to begin this collection with a story about myself but it is about me and so I changed my initial idea which was to represent me as someone else. I do in fact meet two strangers here; Firstly the harridan schoolmarm and secondly, myself. I had suddenly become a stranger to myself in many ways. What was a Jew? How could I be Jewish? Why didn’t I know about it? And so it began, the story of discovery about the stranger within me.
About a Boy
[1945 – 1949]
I remember that someone once said that “if a person can remember their own childhood they have the basis for a good story”. To make an ending is to open up a beginning. That is why I have entitled this collection of stories “Living It Forwards.” Life was fun during our childhood despite the shortages. We lived the vast majority of it outdoors and we truly did live it forwards. I knew at the age of 4 years that the way to look was optimistically towards the future. My uncle Bert, a member of the ARP had just given me a really cool imitation Tommy gun that he had made himself. He promoted me at once to chief of the defence of the realm. The ARP [air raid protection] was an organisation in the United Kingdom set up in some time before WW2 and was dedicated to efforts aimed at the protection of civilians from the danger of air raids. Uncle Bert was in the ARP he had a uniform and he had made me that wooden Tommy gun. It became my pride and joy in my daily battles with the Luftwaffe. The gun made a magnificent noise, just like the real thing as far as I was concerned. It had a handle that turned a large wooden cog against a strip of wood. This combination made a very convincing rat-a-tat-tat noise as the handle was turned and as far as I was concerned. I say that my battle was with the Luftwaffe but I was four so the year must have been 1943. Most of the planes in the sky at that time would have been British or American. At the age of four I had never done an airplane recognition course and so most of my ‘victims’ must have been Allied planes. Sorry Chaps! Anyone can make a mistake. Hey ho!
This is not to be just my story though. It is a compilation of boys’ stories rolled into one story. It is about me and my friends and just how I remember them, and how they remind me of stories as concerning how we played and lived and survived during and after WW2. It is set on and around Edmonton Green, north London. The times were, and had been, hard for many years but we were not aware of it being so because that was just the way it was and always had been for all of us. I did sometimes go to bed hungry because I had eaten the last of the bread and dripping for my tea. That, however, was the measure of it for me. I was a young boy, the sole member of my generation to be born before the war. I lived in a house occupied by my mum, my nan, my aunt Joan my Aunt Rose and frequented, off and on, by many other members of the family mostly aunts sometimes uncles. There was no way on this earth that I was going to be allowed to suffer real hunger!
Houses were not warm; they were not built for warmth then, as they are these days. We had all coal fires, one in each room in our house, except for the kitchen and the scullery. In the kitchen was a kitchen range and in the scullery we had a brick-built copper, constructed as a quarter circle into the immediate right hand corner of the room as you entered from the kitchen. Into the top of the copper was a large bucket which held the clothing whilst it was being boiled. The water in the bucket was heated by coal fire from below. I do not actually remember this myself but there were family tales that young children had been known to have their bathes in that copper. On reflection it occurs to me that the necessary judgement of the equilibrium between adequate heat and boiling alive could have proven very tricky indeed. I can testify that I was never boiled alive!!
It just occurs to me that I have not yet mentioned the loo. That may have been a Freudian slip, I’m not sure. The fact is that I would rather not have to mention that toilet at all. The memory of it has played such havoc with my ‘loo psychology’ over the years. It was an outside toilet as favoured it is said by the Victorians as being the healthier option. All I would say to that is NUTS!! I remember only that it was bloody cold in winter. The door had a six inch gap top and bottom. We used to have very cold, often snowy winters in those days. You could be sitting on the loo in January with snow blowing in on you from above and below. If there happened to be any moisture on the seat when you sat down then your bum would freeze to the seat whilst you did what you had to do. I got into the habit of always wiping round the loo seat with a sheet of newspaper before I sat down for fear of having the seat stuck to me when I went to get up. I have only just got out of the inclination to do that. Newspaper was not my tool of choice by the way. Newspaper was the tool of necessity for all loo needs in those days. Manufactured toilet paper came into general use only fairly slowly after the war.
Paper collection was in fact a public duty during and for years after the war. In fact paper collection became an opening for me to earn some money after the war. There was a paper collection centre at the Edmonton Green end of Balham Road that paid out money for waste paper against a tariff of charges according to weight. One only had to construct a suitable means of carrying reasonable amounts of the stuff. It became quite socially acceptable for young boys and girls to knock on doors to ask the householder if they had any waste paper that you could take off their hands. That meant, of course, that you could be in business with a bit of get-up-and-go and an old set of pram wheels allied to whatever construction you had the patience to make. My own preference was always a steerable wagon because that meant that, after business; fun could be had by using the wagon as a racing car in which to tear down Bury Street Hill. I managed to de-construct several promising wagons in that way.
During the war and right up to 1954 many foodstuffs were on strict ration. This certainly included sugar. During the summer months, though, when summer fruits were ripening, families were allocated extra sugar rations so that ‘women’ [almost 100% women]could bottle the fruit for use throughout the year. The essential reason for mentioning that now though is that glass jars were in high demand for those women who were engaged in fruit preservation. The preferred jar for this was the Kilner Jar. This is a jar with a rubber-sealed, screw-top, and is used for preserving (bottling) food. It was invented by the Kilner family and produced by the factory in Yorkshire that had been established there by John Kilner in the 19th century. Hot fruit is put into the jar for preservation and the jar sealed. As the fruit cools and contracts inside the rubber seal tightens and a partial vacuum prevents the fruit from deterioration. Collection of unwanted glass jars was a profitable business for young boys for many years. The same collection point as for paper was then a further popular venue for young boys and their pram wheel wagons.
Water and Sun…
I was not ever a boy for staying indoors, and one of my very favourite occupations centred upon playing about in water, all forms of the stuff that were available to me in those days. I played in Salmons brook because that was on my way to school and I had been told not to play there when on the way to, or from the place for that matter. Once home your eagle eyed mum would sometimes challenge you; “have you been playing in that brook?” “No Mum.” Was the automatic response and you would then remember to look down at your feet to see the incriminating evidence of wet socks staring up at you.
I learned to swim on my own in the sea at Folkestone when I was on holiday there with my parents. I was eight. I remember that because it was the first summer after my sister was born. It had been a long hard winter. The snow began to fall just after Christmas and seemed to continue without pause until well into March. Denise was born in March just three days before my birthday. Mum had had a difficult confinement. As was usual in those days she had her new baby at home.
Yes the winter had been hard. There had been power cuts due to poor fuel supplies to power stations. There were also greater demands on power as industry tooled up and powered up after the War and they had priority. I had had to go with Dad to try to scrape up some coal from the ground of an old wartime fuel dump at the corner of Church Street and Haselbury Road. That was a miserable adventure It was the winter of 1947, one of the worst on record I believe. Dad and I were both on our bikes and hoping to carry back as much fuel as we could manage, each with two shopping bags held dangling from the handlebars. I was eight and my hands were so cold, even inside my woolly gloves, that I remember being in tears from half-way home. Still we had managed to scrape together some much needed fuel
All in all Dad had decided that we needed a good holiday that summer, and so he booked us into a hotel on the front in Folkestone. The weather was kind for us that summer. Mum and Dad had a new baby and so were not too mobile but I was quite happy to go off on my own to explore the town. I remember clearly my first visit to the large outdoor pool near the rotunda. I was only eight years old but was allowed in on my own. Regulations were not so tightly guided by health and safety considerations in those days. It was a hot day and after a good play in the water. [I could not swim yet] I settled down to rest for a while in a corner formed by two walls. It was warm and I fell asleep. When I woke up I felt a bit groggy and quite dizzy. A kind lady helped me get back to the hotel. I seem to remember a lot of steps to climb to get back to the level of the hotel. I would not have made it without her help. I was ill with a dose of sunstroke for nearly two days. That was a lesson learned the hard way.
After my experiences in the swimming pool though, I decided that I needed to be able to swim if I was going to enjoy my holiday properly. We had a family room at the hotel with, yet, a sea view! On the third morning after my losing battle with the sun and after breakfast, I began to stare wistfully out at the sea. My mum knew that I was thinking about going down to the beach to try my hand at swimming in the sea. I had been talking about it on and off during the time since my experience in the swimming pool. It had cropped up at breakfast that morning. I just wanted so desperately to become, not just a swimmer but a competent one. To my surprise Mum had my swimming things in her hand as she approached me. “Go on boy get yourself down there.” She pointed towards a section of the beach that we could see from the window. “We know you won’t be satisfied until you’ve swum your first few strokes.” She paused for a few moments. As I remember it I gave her little chance to change her mind or to impose any rules for this sudden and unexpected period of release after my too close encounter with the sun. I grabbed my swimming trunks and towel and made a quick exit with a simple “Thanks Mum”. “Back for lunch, and don’t be late!” were all the instructions she managed to impart before I disappeared through the door and down the stairs to the street.
I changed into my trunks on the beach just using a towel. One becomes quite skilled at that particular method on British beaches. I made it slowly into the water. It’s usually a cold entry into the sea from a beach anywhere on these islands. As I have grown older I have come to realise that the ‘quick dash entry system’ is by far the best. On that occasion, though, I could not take the chance that I would end up in water that was too deep for me. Slow entry, however, has its drawbacks. The slow entry is fine up to the knees; once past there however the cold waves begin to hit the parts that you don’t want the cold shock waves to reach. The only way to avoid the drip, drip of slow entry after that is to quickly bend your knees and so dip your tender nether regions into British waters. In this way you avoid the ‘depth’ considerations as mentioned above you also get the thing over without the slow torture of the persistently slow entry system.
I had a swimming acclimatisation plan that had begun to ferment, the previous year, during the second of two annual holidays at Ramsgate with my Nan. I had noticed that as the waves approach you they lift you off your feet. I had concluded, in my eight year old wisdom, that once off your feet you could take advantage of those few seconds to swim a few strokes. I realised that, for me, the most difficult part of learning to swim was to keep your feet from touching the floor. In the sea the incoming waves did that part for you. I had reasoned that, once you had achieved that, you could say that you could swim, just not very far, not yet anyway!
Once I had persuaded my private parts safely into the water I proceeded to put my swimming acquaintance and familiarisation plan into practice. It went far better than I could have hoped. Swimming parallel to the beach and making a gamut of noises not usually associated with the gentle art of swimming I was able to swim about 16 strokes on one breath before I decided to quit whilst I was ahead and leave the beach. Even as I went back to the hotel to give my parents the proud news I realised that any future progress would depend on my learning how to breathe and swim at the same time. There were practical limits to what I would ever be able to achieve on one breath.
I returned to the hotel and made my parents aware of both my morning’s success and the limitations to my ‘glory’. Dad was very pleased at my news and said that he would help me with the next stage. He agreed with me, with a huge smile on his face, that in the swimming world sixteen strokes would never cut the mustard! Nonetheless he said that I had done really well to work out my own self-teach swimmers guide. Dad turned out to be quite a good swimmer and teacher. It turned out that he had learned to swim in a local in-door swimming pool in the East End while still at school. I do still have some of his school swimming certificates at home. By the end of the next day I could both breathe and swim at the same time. It was much more fun to be able to do both!
Together with my friends I later fished and swam, whilst dodging horses pulling barges along the towpath in either direction, on the River Lee near Ponders End lock and near Pickets Lock too, as well as along the reach between the two. Adults had long been hesitant about allowing us to swim in the Lee because it was not deemed clean enough. They didn’t seem worried about the notion that we might get steamrollered by a barge! Our counter arguments to the swimming objections were twofold. Firstly we didn’t plan to drink it. Secondly there were fish actually living in it so a mere swim could do us no harm. There was a third argument that we didn’t care to voice out loud; it was; “How then are you going to stop us?”
We played and fished for anything including, beneficially, daphnia in the ‘blue lakes’ where the Olympic site became a famous tourist attraction, in long to be experienced time, as in many decade to come. In those days access was gained to the lakes and the surrounding marshland via a ‘road’ that sloped upwards, next to the Cart Overthrown Pub in Montagu Road before descending towards that treasured land of “Who knows where?”
Live daphnia were a specialty income for yours truly. My parents had bought me a tropical fish aquarium for my 8th birthday. Those fish really enjoyed catching and eating live daphnia when I was able to find somewhere to buy them. It so happened though that I made two discoveries at almost the same time that ‘sorted’ two problems for me in one go. A few weeks after my birthday I discovered that a small pet shop on Edmonton Green, almost opposite Woolworths, actually sold live daphnia when they could get it. Later that spring my friends and I discovered the Blue Lakes behind the Cart Overthrown pub. What did I spy there in those lakes that meant nothing to my friends? Live red daphnia were there in abundance and swimming around as if they had few natural enemies. Well they were about to learn that those days were over. They were just about to acquire one more, me! At the first opportunity I went back to that little shop on the Green and struck a financial deal with the owner. It was not the deal of the Century but it suited me well enough.
We played in the brook in the long culvert below the green. We eyed and stared and giggled through the ‘eye’ of the manhole cover, at the underwear, those who had any on and those who didn’t, of the ladies on Fridays, queuing for vegetables at the end of the Green near the Railway crossing, just by the War Memorial there. Fridays were good days for that particular entertainment because Fridays were food shopping days and the queues were longer and more often reached well past the manhole cover. We lived in times when the Cole Porter song ‘Anything Goes’ from the 1932 Broadway Show ‘Anything Goes’ was popular. “In olden days a glimpse of stocking was thought of as something shocking”…Well then our activity at our some-time eye-hole caught more than a glimpse of stocking and certainly would not have been popular had we ever been caught; and so no regrets! The full lyrics of the song are apposite to this sentiment and can be obtained via the simple act of ‘Googling’.
We also swam in the local Lidos when parents could afford the money, and when they were not closed due to a declaration of a polio epidemic, most often during the summer holidays when the lidos were at their most popular. The big open-air public swimming pools were a feature of London that no longer exists, more’s the pity! They were major havens away from the comparative utilitarian boredom of the Town Hall indoor baths. On a warm day one could have a swim then bathe in the sunshine for a while, have a pic-nick then rest a while before having another swim, then perhaps another while in the sun and a chin-wag with friends before going home. If the weather were good enough one could spend the whole day at the local lido. The indoor baths served a purpose, i.e. as a place for swimming but not, in realty, for socialising.
As we have seen, water featured quite strongly in the menu of activities that my friends and I enjoyed. Salmon’s brook was one natural and local stretch of water that was relished by the whole crowd of us. Access was easy and familiarity was a given, because we all passed by one access point at least twice a day on their way to and fro from school. On the way to school I walked, often with one or more of my friends, along Winchester Road to Glastonbury Road and into Chichester Road from where we would turn right along Chichester Road as far as the culvert over that section of Salmon’s brook. From here we had to turn left along and on that culvert towards the Iron Bridge over the railway. In those days, because of war needs for food, there were allotments alongside the railway. There was also easy access to the brook at that point because the culvert opened up briefly for ten yards or so before the brook disappeared again under the arches supporting the railway.
The brook ran eastwards and opened to the air for a short distance once through the railway arches it then turned right to run parallel to Balham Road for well over 200 yards until it disappeared under the Green, next to the Cross Keys Pub. I remember clearly, that the next covered section was a very long one because the brook did not reappear until it emerged just a few feet or so past Plevna Road. There was then a long open section that ran down to Montagu Road alongside, on the right, the Jewish Cemetery that I now know to be a cemetery for the Federation of Synagogues.
We were quite young when we began to explore the brook which we did, over time and often, from just past Montagu Road in the east to Church Street in the west. The flow of the water runs roughly west to east between these points. These trips always included culverted sections because that was more than half the fun, exploring in the dark with the aid of the poor quality torches that were available to us in those days. The longest culverted section was, as I say, the one from the Green, with its very educational manhole cover, to where it opened out again at Plevna Road.
Most of the other culverted sections either showed a light continually from the other end of the tunnel, as it were, or very quickly did so once the first bend was negotiated. This was not the case with the section from the Green to Plevna Road. It was a longer section with several twists and turns. There were long sections where there was no light other than that from whatever torches we could scrounge to take with us on our underground adventures. Candles were of no use because the culverts behaved like wind tunnels and blew them out as soon as they were lit. There were, of course, rats scurrying about in the dark. It’s strange though, they do not seem to bother you at eight or nine years of age as much as they do when you are older and more civilised.
There were dangers too that were possible from playing in the brook. These arose almost entirely from playing in and investigating the culverts. They were dark and mysterious places and very interesting when you are young and your imagination is whirring away in your head and competing with those of a group of like-minded adventurers. There were rats, of course, but as already stated they did not really bother us when all is said and done. Sometimes a dead dog or cat would float downstream, particularly after a flood and more particularly after a flash flood. That then brings me to the greatest danger for young ‘watermen’ investigating a long culvert where you have no knowledge of what the weather is doing in the real world, for you are still in the world of “Who knows where!”
Trevor and I were in the Green to Plevna Road culvert, one Saturday morning after kids’ cinema. We had both been warned heavily about not playing in the culverts because they were dangerous places according to some. We also needed to be home in time for dinner although we had each just bought a penny baked potato, with vinegar, from the old chap who plied his trade at the end of the Green near the level crossing. Dinner to us in those days was what is called lunch today. Anyway, we were in the culvert and it must have started to rain fast and furious on the outside because we quickly began to feel the rising force of the water against our wellies. I should have been more careful because I did not usually go to the ‘pictures’ in my wellies but Mum had warned me that rain was expected. She said that she “felt it in her water”. Well then, her ‘water’ was often wrong but, this time she had apparently heard it on the radio, the BBC weather man. His ‘water’ was often more reliable than Mum’s! Luckily Trevor often wore his wellies.
Anyway the water was rising fast. We tried desperately to get back to the Green but the water flow was really slowing us down and was moreover in grave danger of filling those poor old wellies. We quickly realised that we were in a bit of a pickle. There is no doubt about it we were both becoming very nervous. We grabbed each other’s wrists to gain some mutual support against the brook that, in the confines of the culvert was taking on the proportions of a fast flowing river. Then Trevor, who had the torch, had noticed that the water seemed to be flowing less fiercely close to the culvert wall. We edged over to the wall and did gain some support from that, on the downside, however, we had to let go each other’s wrist so losing that element of personal support.
Then, after some more worrying minutes the doom and gloom lifted just a bit, as we neared a bend the atmosphere seemed to become slightly lighter. As we rounded the bend we were able to see light at the end of the culvert where it opened up next to the Cross Keys Pub. It was still about 50 feet or more away but psychologically it gave us a big lift. We were also very well aware on the other hand that, even when we got as far as the pub we still had a way to go before we would come to somewhere where we could get ourselves easily out of the water.
Reaching the end of the tunnel at the entrance to the culvert helped more than psychologically moreover because the water seemed to flow just a little easier once out of the confines of the culvert. Maybe it was simply the noise reduction but the apparent lessening of the flow gave us heart to move more easily to the point past the railway bridge where we could make an easy exit from the water and begin to breath more easily. Our next and perhaps more fearsome challenge was to face our parents. There were several issues that would present themselves during that conversation; wet clothing, being late for lunch, playing in the brook when we had been told repeatedly not to do so. Sure enough, as we approached my house we could see Trevor’s mum leaning on our front garden gate in animated conversation with my mum. That, in itself, did not bode well for us, and so it proved…
Land based entertainment.
The forest too was fun, Epping Forest, where you could still catch sight of deer, in dappled glimpses in the sun in the forest, close to Chingford where the buses stopped and you could see the forest and walk to it easily, from the bus stop there. We could pretend to get lost in the magic of that place but no, in reality we knew it far too well. The magic, however, never let us down, it far outlasted our interest in the place. We did though, one Bank Holiday Monday lose Billie Jameson’s young sister Doris in the forest and the crowd for a long, long and worrisome while. We shouted for her and searched as hard as we could. Billy didn’t dare go home without his little sister. He began to cry, afraid of losing his sister and having to explain the whys and wherefores to his mum and dad. He knew that his mum would have fair ‘killed’ him if he were to arrive home without young Doris. He shouted at her and made her cry though when they finally saw her in the distance, deep in the holiday crowd; with the lady with the dogs. The girl sublimely unaware of the trouble she was causing. Strolling and chatting with the lady and petting the dogs she was walking, all the way up the slope towards the bus stop and her fuming brother. We had all stayed later than we should but only because we had been so worried at the thought of explaining to Doris’s mum that we had lost her little girl.
By the time that the dawdling girl finally arrived close to the bus stop Billie had worked himself up into a frenzy of frustration and plain anger at her apparent carefree and totally unconcerned attitude. Three of us, his true friends had to insert ourselves into to the very speedily closing gap between brother and sister. Billie was so angry that we had seen warnings of imminent danger for Doris. We all felt quite strongly that Mrs Jameson would not have been much better pleased if Billie had arrived home with a sister damaged by his own hand, rather than no sister at all. Billie calmed down quickly when the situation was explained to him in that way. And so, both brother and sister arrived home safe and sound and softly singing the praises of a quiet and happy day spent in the beautiful setting of London’s own forest!
Apart from some evening favourites on the ‘wireless’ the Saturday morning film show for kids was the entertainment highlight of our week. Serial heroes like Hoppalong Cassidy, the Cisco Kid, Roy Rogers as well as the Lone Ranger and Tonto all held us spellbound from weekend to weekend. There would also be a very popular session of cartoon characters from the ‘Looney Tunes’ stable.
The ancient Empire cinema on Empire Hill Edmonton was not the only game in town but it was the closest. There was also the Regal cinema in ‘Upper’ Edmonton, actually in Silver Street and was said to be the largest cinema building in Europe. It also held a kids’ show on Saturday mornings, and in nicer surroundings than the Empire but the walk was longer and that argument usually won the day. In any case the Regal was more secure than the Empire cinema against ‘free-entry’ initiatives.
Each Saturday morning a more or less orderly queue would form alongside the outer wall of the cinema from the youngsters all awaiting the opening for the regular dose of ‘B’ picture serialisation of popular film characters, mostly American, the like of those indicated above. The site of the queue was unfortunate as far as the cinema management was concerned because the only place possible ran alongside the building and right past the doors to two fire exits. It was possible for the first few boys to enter the building to run round to the fire doors and open them from the inside. In this way it was possible to gain free entry for a few friends and thereby share a cheap Saturday morning’s entertainment.
The cinema staff were of course aware of this possibility but there were two fire exits along the wall some ten yards or so apart. The sole commissionaire whose job it was to keep an eye on them was a slow tubby guy who simply could not keep an eye on both doors at once. His technique was to walk up and down between them and, thereby, to make people wary and disinclined to take the risk of attempting to use the ‘free’ route into his picture house. And so he imagined but, in the real world, his attempts were not 100% successful! A system of coded knocks between those inside and outside the doors, gained from a long diet of war based escape films, easily allowed clandestine entry of one or two people each time the ‘guard’s’ attention was elsewhere. I hereby have to admit to having both used and enabled the use of this criminal network a number of times. It was at least as entertaining as many of the films we turned up to watch.
After the show, there came a very popular end to the morning. For a penny it was possible to purchase a hot potato, baked in its jacket, from the old chap who had established his trade at the end of the Green near the level crossing. For a penny you got a beautiful hot potato, with vinegar, wrapped in a piece of salvaged newspaper. It was so good that you didn’t care about the newspaper. Germs were at no extra cost and our stomachs’ enzymes had long since learned to behave themselves, and mind their own business!
The Good Fight.
Circa 1948
“Whoever tries to bring you down is already below you.”
This story is about an eight year old schoolboy, John Pearson, and what I learned from him and what he learned about himself.
For an adult it is easy to accept the concept that all bullies are cowards. When you are only eight years old, as John was at the time, and have only just entered into junior school a few months ago, that thought is not one that even crosses your mind. John was being bullied. He could not tell his parents because his father was an ex regular soldier, who preached a maxim that his son should be prepared to stick up for himself, and not act like a ‘cry baby’. John was, thereby, being bullied both home and away. John lived in Rugby Avenue, Edmonton, in North London just around the corner from Winchester Road, where several of his friends lived.
The times were very different, in many ways, from what we see today. The term Political Correctness would not enter the common vocabulary for decades. John had red hair and wore glasses. He suffered daily persecution by ribald remark, with regard to both of these aspects of his appearance. “Ginger nut”, “strawberry bonce” and “carrot top” were common epithets that John had to endure on the first count. “Four eyes”, “specky” and “window face” were just a few of the insults, sometimes delivered as ponderous jokes, related to the second. Thus John was an easy target for verbal character assassination on a number of fronts. He was, moreover, a medium size boy who had never seemed inclined to assert himself in the jungle that opened up for him once within the school bounds.
The situation would not have been so bad had John not also had two dedicated persecutors who, it seemed, had decided to make it their personal business to make John’s life a misery. Their names were Leonard ‘Len’ Pearson and Brian Hall. These two were the bullies of the junior school. They lost no opportunity to persecute John whenever they could catch him on his own. This was not as frequent as it might otherwise have been because John had many friends to mix with, to and from school, as well as for most of the time at school. His one major downfall, as far as these two sleaze balls were concerned, was that he was in the same school class as those two caitiffs. None of his immediate friends happened to have been grouped with him in that class and so they had free reign to make hay with their bullying tactics during class time. That included out of school experiences like weekly trips to the local indoor swimming pool at the Town Hall where the opportunities for a pair of cowards were almost endless.
The trip to the swimming pool usually took place for John’s class group at the beginning of the afternoon on Fridays. The walking crocodile left the school dead on time at the end of the lunch break: there was a short walk along Croyland Road to Balham Road, down Balham Road for a few minutes took you to the old Green. The crocodile usually turned right to pass the Cross keys pub and past Salmons Brook as it entered the long culvert under the Green and as far over to Plevna Road where the culvert ended and the brook came back into the open air, where it ran alongside the Jewish Cemetery, the Edmonton Federation Cemetery. A further short section took the group to Edmonton Broadway and the Town Hall where the baths were located. The whole journey might take about twenty minutes of uninterrupted walking time.
It was late November in the winter of 1948. The previous winter had been the worst that anyone could remember. The tar soaked wooden blocks forming the base structure of the road; the Broadway to the beginning of the ‘Fore Street’ Edmonton, had swollen and erupted so that the road itself was unusable. The blocks however were very usable, they disappeared in short shift into many of the fireplaces of the town. Coal was in short supply and rationed, those blocks made a useful addition, albeit a smoky and smelly one, to the warmth of the citizenry.
The boys of junior school, form 2C, were on their way to the Town Hall swimming baths. Some of these boys had, indeed, been active in the wooden blocks ‘evacuation’ movement the previous winter. Among the group were John, Len Pearson and Brian Hall. The two bullies had already been active on the persecution front all the way down Balham Road. They were, of course, clever enough to make their moves unseen by the two accompanying teachers. The usual teasing chants were accompanied by the occasional ‘chicka’; a swift upward, slicing, movement by the flat of a hand to the back of the head of a vulnerable or unsuspecting victim, not dangerous but very unpleasant.
John tried desperately to keep within the sight of one or other of the teachers but they, as usual, had their hands full from keeping control of the group as a whole. Form 2C was not an easy group! It was early afternoon but the day was gloomy and inclined to be foggy. Visibility was poor. The two young tormentors aimed to take full advantage of the opportunity that this gave them. Tension had been building for John all the way down Balham Road. The swimming group had just turned the corner into the Green. Just as they passed frontage of the Cross Keys pub Len gave John a nasty ‘Heely’: that is he brought his foot down the back of John’s left leg with sufficient force to take his shoe off at the heel. John was forced to stop in order to replace the shoe.
As John bent down Brian snatched his rolled up swimming towel and bathing trunks and, in one swift movement, threw the whole bundle over the railings into Salmons Brook, just where it disappeared into the culvert. John could not tell either of the teachers what had happened for fear of even greater reprisals. In tears of worry and frustration by the time they reached the baths he was forced to stutter a feeble excuse that he had ‘lost’ his bundle on the way to the Town Hall. He could not remember, he mumbled, where this had come to pass. A report of John’s ‘poor’ behaviour was sent home to his parents. His father gave him ‘the belt’ when he read the report. This was both for the report and for John’s attempt to explain the truth of what had occurred, for, in his eyes John was a ‘cry baby’ coward who would not stand up for himself, ‘like a man’. This was just one example of the school of hard knocks that John had been enduring in the class group, 2C, since the beginning of that autumn term.
Croyland Road School Edmonton was neither a warm nor an inviting school. In the 1940s it still had gas lighting. It was, in fact, three schools on one site. The playground was a large hard uncompromising rectangular slab of tarmac behind the school building, or one should say buildings. As one looked at them from the road the central building was the infants’ school, to the left was the senior school and to the right the junior school was situated.
Each school had its own playground and children were not permitted to enter into any playground other than their own, although there was no actual physical barrier between them. The walls between the three playgrounds gave way to gaps of several feet before they reached the buildings themselves. These gaps allowed staff and other permitted persons to pass from playground to playground as necessary.
The junior school was positioned on the right as you look at the schools from Croyland Road. The children’s toilets were outside toilets and positioned in the far left hand corner of the playground. They were cold and draughty, particularly in the winter. The girls’ and boys’ toilets had been constructed as part of the same brick building but separated by a further brick wall across the middle of the building. The boys’ and the girls’ amenity each contained a number of cabins constructed along the back wall, which also doubled as the wall separating the junior from the infants’ playground. The boys’ toilet block had the additional facility of a urinal trough that ran the whole length of the wall opposite the cabins. This trough disappeared mysteriously into the depths, just as it reached the central wall separating the two sets of toilets. Entrance to the two facilities consisted of a simple gap in the wall at opposite ends of the whole construction. The cabins had rooves but the rest of the whole construction was ‘en plein air’ so to speak.
Alongside the toilet block and separated by about four feet from it was another, larger, brick building. This had been constructed to serve as an air raid shelter and had been used all through the recent world war [11]. Many of the children in the junior school at Croyland Road School had, in fact, had had lessons in that shelter towards the end of the war when the Germans had been directing rockets at London. All the children in John’s class were very familiar with the shelter. The entrance to the shelter had been placed in the side wall that ran alongside the toilet block. It was, in fact, almost opposite the entrance to the boys’ toilet section. The entrance itself consisted of a short corridor about four feet long into the building. The door into the building was set into the far end of the right hand wall, thus reducing any blast impact that might have occurred from a nearby explosion. At the point of time in question the door was always locked. There was some talk of the shelter being converted into a workshop.
It is a sad fact, that boys of John’s age could not simple go into the toilet to do their business quietly and leave. At that age a boy knows that his penis is useful for other things than simply peeing. His problem is that he has not yet quite worked out what those other things might. He frequently puts his equipment to other uses whilst in an inviting loo like the one at Croyland Road School.
The main attraction for boys there was the wall by the urinal itself. It was at a decent height to provide a competition site. Boys would compete with each other to see who could pee the highest. This was not an intellectual game, it has to be admitted, but it provided many moments of fun, much more interesting than simply doing the business in the urinal. There were even some stalwarts, who could reach the top of the wall and, better, over the wall. Boys of that distinction sometimes transferred their attention to the wall between the girls’ and boys’ blocks. Orders to desist the practice were issued after very reasonable complaints by the girls. The order was, though, difficult to police. Like any order that cannot be supervised properly, that one fell into a level of disrepute; so much so that many of the girls refused to use the cabin closest to the dividing wall. It was a simple solution but not an ideal one.
On the afternoon in question John was in the toilet block, with a few other boys, for the simple purpose of having a ‘Jimmy’. To his horror he suddenly felt his feet becoming very warm ant wet. He turned to see his two nemeses and the grinning face of Brian who had just peed on his feet. Boys present stated afterwards that they thought at first that John was finally going to burst into tears at the continued abuse from those two bullies. His face reddened but it was in pent up and previously controlled anger. Just as Brian stepped towards him, with the intention of goading him further, John turned and swung a terrible punch. The combined effects of John turning and Brian stepping forward gave the punch the kinetic impact that professional boxers dream about. John’s fist connected with Brian’s face just at the point between nose and mouth. The nose was crushed and front teeth were shattered. Brian apparently rallied quickly in shocked anger.
John ran out of the Loo with the two bullies hard on his heels. To everyone’s surprise however he ran straight into the entrance to the old air raid shelter. Other boys thought that he had gone mad. They fully expected him to rush out into the playground where he might attract the attention of a concerned teacher. None of that though, John had other plans. The two erstwhile tormentors followed him, gleefully at first, into the entrance. Their glee very quickly turned to concern, however, because they quickly discovered that they were getting in each other’s way in the confined space of the entrance. John, on the other hand, could strike out at anything that he saw moving. He took full advantage of his sudden and welcome advantage. He punched and kicked everything and anything that he could reach. The fight lasted only a minute or so but it must have seemed much longer to John’s battered former tormentors. It all really ended finally when John had become so exhausted by his efforts that he stopped to lean against the wall so that he could rest and taste the victory that he had just experienced. He told friends afterwards that, even if the two had rallied sufficiently to finally win the battle, he would have regarded the time well spent. He had shown them that he could and would fight back. In his own mind, and mine, ‘he had fought the good fight’.
The Great Smog
The Great Smog of 1952
It was a fog so thick and polluted it left thousands dead, as it wreaked havoc on London in 1952. The smoke-like pollution was so toxic it was even reported to have choked cows to death in the fields. It was so thick it brought road, air and rail transport to a virtual standstill. This was certainly an event to remember, but not the first smog of its kind to hit the capital; nor sadly the last.
Smog had become a frequent part of London life, but nothing quite compared to the smoke-laden fog that shrouded the capital from Friday 5 December to Tuesday 9 December 1952. While it heavily affected the population of London, causing a huge death toll and inconveniencing millions of people, the people it affected were also partly to blame for the smog.
Up until 1956 the main source of heating was to burn coal in fire places in domestic homes as well as by many industrial concerns for both heating and power. The Clean Air Act 1956 was enacted in the UK Parliament and was passed in response to London‘s Great Smog of 1952. The Act was in effect until 1964. It was sponsored by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in England as well as the Department of Health for Scotland.
The Act introduced a variety of important measures aimed at reducing the very serious air pollution of the time. In particular it introduced “smoke control areas” in some larger conurbations, in which only smokeless fuels could be burned. By shifting the main culprits’ sources of heat towards cleaner coals, electricity, and gas, it reduced the amount of smoke pollution and Sulphur dioxide from household fires. In order to reinforce these changes, the Act also included measures to relocate power stations away from cities, and for the height of some chimneys to be increased. The 1956 Act was an important milestone in the development of a legal framework to protect the environment.
During the day on 5 December, the fog was not especially dense and generally possessed a dry, smoky character. When nightfall came, however, the fog thickened. Visibility dropped to a few metres. The following day, the sun was too low in the sky to burn the fog away and, more importantly, there was very little wind. That night and on the Sunday and Monday nights, the fog again thickened. In many parts of London, it was impossible at night for pedestrians to find their way, even in familiar districts. In The Isle of Dogs area, the fog there was so thick people could not see their feet!
In those days I was going to school, a private school, in Hampstead. I had, in fact only begun to attend Burgess Hill School at the beginning of that term. The distance of about nine miles did not worry me at all. I was very used to making my way around London on my own, with friends and, sometimes, with my little sister Denise. Her favourite visit at that age, five years, was the London Zoo. We had tried one of the Kensington Museums but they were not very child-friendly in those days, plain and boring boxed and stale exhibits in fact, and not interactive like nowadays.
I say that I was used to travelling around London but I have to define that to meaning North London. South London was another country! I did not venture there until much later, until I was in my twenties and in the RAF, in fact. Still, North London was quite big enough for me in 1952. I travelled by bus and tube for a short while then, as a huge surprise, Mum and Dad bought me an early Christmas present of new bike. It was actually a second hand bike but what a bike it was! It was a beautiful hand-built Claude Butler Special and was the envy of all my friends. The bike had a five gear rear derailleur as well as a front two gear derailleur. It had Drop handlebars too, I loved it.
The ride to school though was all uphill and hard work at the beginning, when I was getting used to it. Whitestone Pond is the highest point in London. Edmonton, in the Lee Valley, is one of the lowest. The pond itself had been a drinking stop for coach horses in the days before the motor car. It had a slope at each end so that the coach could enter and exit the refreshing pond with the minimum of delay to the company and the passengers. Mind you, many of these passengers might well have been intent at stopping for refreshment, or bed, or both, themselves at the nearby famous Spaniards Inn.
My school day effectively began at Whitestone pond because I usually had a rest there before completing the short two minute ride that was left of my journey to school. The ride to school was, as I say, a long uphill journey to where my mind now has me standing, by Whitestone pond. From that pond I could see the heath on either side of the pond. I was often puffing as I stood there. A large percentage of the uphill struggle, for me, began at the bottom of Bishop’s Avenue. I was all steeply uphill from there on up to Spaniard’s Avenue near Kenwood House where I learned the beauty of hearing concerts in ‘plein aire’. At Spaniard’s Avenue I needed to turn right, away from Kenwood and on up past the Spaniard’s Inn to the pond.
When I first began the ride to school I could only make it up Bishop’s to about halfway, before having to get off and walk myself back into breath. As the weeks went by, however, I completed a bit more each day, such are the determination and fitness potentials of youth until. Just a few days prior to the Friday in question, though, I had finally made it all the way up from the bottom of Bishop’s Avenue right as far as the pond. It was a goal that I was both happy and proud to achieve.
On a clear day, and standing at Whitestone Pond one can see magnificent views of the Heath and of London beyond the Heath. On that Friday morning, however, there was a mist everywhere. On the day in question, however, the 5th December, my bike was securely locked away in the school’s woodwork room. I had spent two nights sleeping at school which was something I really enjoyed when I could conjure up an argument strong enough to convince my parents. They were already paying more for my education than they could really afford. On this occasion, though, the school had allowed me to stay a couple of nights gratis, so that I could say a fond farewell to a French lad, Paul B who had been staying on an exchange scheme at the school. Paul had stayed over at our house one weekend during his visit. He left for the airport on the evening of the 4th December. When I roused myself on the 5th it was as if a shroud was descending over London. We all knew the signs, and what was likely to be coming our way.
For most of the years of my young life London had been synonymous with thick fogs. A person indeed has only to read the immortal works of one of this country’s most famous authors, Charles Dickens, to read of the city’s pea-soupers. The smoke-laden fog that polluted London and choked her streets and killed people in their beds from 5-9 December 1952 was the worst single incident of air pollution in the UK and was about to descend upon us. The school head had decided that I would not be allowed to cycle home that night. I pleaded with him but he had already phoned my parents to advise them of his decision. In the event he had made a good one.
I knew the way home like the back of my hand by road or by tube and bus and so there would be no bother getting home, or so I thought. School staff were continuously reminding me during the afternoon that I ought to be getting on my way. One even took me to the top of one of the three story houses to take a look over London. Hampstead was not so badly affected by the cloud of smog because of its height above the rest of London. For that reason, and my own renowned stubbornness, I kept delaying my departure even though I could clearly see the creeping veil of dark yellow that shrouded my beloved city. I remember that I was totally unreceptive to any idea that I might come to any harm on my way home.
The modus vivendi of the school was based on self-control and persuasion rather than any direct instruction by adults to children; until about 3.30 in the afternoon that is. Peter Vansittart, my illustrious English teacher for most of my four years at Burgess Hill School, suddenly became totally fed up with my intransigent disregard for sensible argument. He approached me very quietly in the hallway of the main house of the three, he put his face down to mine and glared at me; “Am I going to keep having trouble with you over this?” Peter had a craggy ‘lived in’ face that could glare very efficiently. I began to feel that the argument for going home had actually been well made. I departed down the hill on the ten minute walk to the tube station at Hampstead.
When I arrived at the station it became apparent that something was up. There was a much larger than usual crowd in the booking hall of the station. It seemed that one of the lifts was not working added to which people were attempting to do what I should have done much earlier in the afternoon, i.e. go home. Now Hampstead had the reputation of having the deepest platforms on the system, largely due, no doubt, to the fact that Hampstead was the highest part of London. There was a way down to the platforms via a spiral staircase. I decided, reluctantly on that occasion, to take that route. I was young after all and did not want to waste more time than I already had. I was beginning to feel a bit of a chump for my earlier stubbornness.
I puffed myself out by running down the long spiral staircase. Luckily there was a train coming in as I got to the platform. Six stations down to King’s Cross on the northern line change to the Piccadilly line and then six more stations up to turnpike Lane and so came the biggest surprise of my young life. I came out of the station into what looked like a wall of swirling yellow snow. There were buses but they were hardly moving. They were ghostly red spectres in the deep yellow gloom. There were bus conductors walking slowly in front of each bus. They were holding fiery torches or flares in order to see street signs – and so that drivers could see them. Most of the buses though, were making their way back to their respective depots. I realised that the only way home was to walk home. I realised that it would take a while because there was no visibility to speak of. The statistics of that night were incredible.
One heard tales of great good nature developing from the adversity caused by the weather. Inhabitants of the Isle of Dogs, it was said, could not see their feet. That adversity led to an almost forgotten camaraderie such as was experienced during the all too recent war. Those struggling to find their way joined together to make their way through clouded streets. One motorcyclist, on his way to hospital to watch his wife give birth, found his way by tapping his wheels against the curb – when the wheels hit empty air, he knew he’d come to an intersection. Glancing over his shoulder en route, he saw a string of cars following behind him through the gloom, each one taking advantage of the lights of the vehicle immediately ahead.
The air that night was not only dark, it was also tainted a sickly yellow, it stank moreover of rotten eggs. Apparently the fog had become a toxic mixture of the heavy smoke from millions of coal fires mixed with a poisonous combination of sulphur and other toxins. Those, like me, who were forced to venture out into the soot-choked air that night recall returning home with their faces and clothes – even petticoats – blackened. Some were bought to their knees, coughing uncontrollably. I remember well that, even when I eventually arrived home, there was no immediate relief of a welcome bath or shower to ease the filth from one’s body and clothing. We had no such luxuries in Winchester Road in those days.
I was not really concerned as I sauntered cockily away from Turnpike Lane station. I was very confident that I knew the way ‘like the back of my hand’. There was so little traffic that I was able to walk in the road following close to the kerb to make sure of my way. I began to pride myself that I was making really good progress by using this method. After twenty minutes or so, however, my pride in myself took a significant knock southwards. Through the gloom I saw the lights of what had to be a shopping centre and then, alas, the lights of Wood Green tube station. In some inexplicable way I had taken the directly opposite wrong direction from the moment that I had left Turnpike Lane.
There was nothing for it but to retrace my steps and to get myself back to Turnpike Lane station and start out again for home. I have to admit that I set about this task with much less of the cock-sure attitude and a great deal more care. I did keep to my original plan of walking in the road, when traffic permitted. This avoided the many obstacles that one can encounter on pavements. I did so, however, with much less bravado. I check each and every road name as I passed road intersections. I wanted no repetition of what had happened before. I have thought and pondered over that error many times over the years. Even now, and allowing for the brashness of youth, I cannot think how I came to miss my way the first time I arrived at Turnpike Lane. I had travelled that way so many times that I did, really, feel confident. That alone is a marker of just how disorientating the smog was that night.
We knew then and we know now that the Great Smog was due to freak weather conditions and a build-up of years of pollution. An unusually chilly November meant that to keep warm, Londoners burnt record amounts of coal, which added to the fumes belched out by factories, power stations and diesel buses. December had brought little wind and an inversion of an anticyclone, which combined to trap filthy air in a yellow grey blanket over the city.
Although soon the national habit and necessity to burn cheap, dirty coal for heating and it was a certainty that coal deliveries were to become a thing of the past; that change came far too late to save the thousands who fell prey to the poisonous ait. The smog of 1952 was thought to have killed at least 4,000 people – particularly the elderly and infirm – and the death rate remained above average up until Christmas
It was not, of course only human beings that fell prey to this disaster. Animals, too, suffered; both wild and domestic. Birds were recorded as having crash-landed after losing their way in the thick smog, and although cattle at Smithfield market were fitted with smog masks many were reported to have asphyxiated.
Unlike the polluted air dangers that lurk dangerously in the air of our great cities nowadays the pollutants that caused the catastrophe of the great smogs of the fifties and sixties were only too visible. The catastrophic smog of 1952 was the first that brought firm parliamentary action, action that was centuries overdue. It led directly to the Clean Air Act of 1956 which regulated what could be burned in houses and created smoke free zones.
But as the whole population both residents and industry needed time to take the necessary action to convert, choking fogs continued into the 1960s – 750 Londoners died as a result of a toxic fog in 1962.
In our great cities nowadays we have yet another toxic killer luring in the air. The particulates from diesel fuel in cars, buses, and lorries are silent and invisible killers and so the public can go about its daily business and hardly notice them while children fall ill and die and so less direct pressure is applied to successive governments to organise an immediate plan of action. This is the great scandal of the beginning of the 21st century.
While the air, seemingly, has cleared, the effect of past smog laden events can still be understood today. Landmarks cloaked in soot can be cleaned; children’s lungs cannot so easily be treated. The great populations of London, Birmingham Manchester Glasgow and many others, I cannot name them all here, will not forgive lazy, incompetent and downright disinterested politicians who swivel on their arses and do nothing whilst our children die from the colourless and silent killer that inhabits our streets today.
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