Other ideas’
Who Cares?
Fostering
Adoption
Bob’s story
Malcolm Revis
Gatland Group
Rob Wilks
[1] Gatland House chapter[1]
[2] Gatland House chapter [2]
[3] Gatland House chapter [3]
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[4 The Schnorrer. [ a short story]
[5] The Fieldgate Street Fire Crew [ a short story]
[6] Bob’s Story [Scroll Down]
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Gatland House [Maidstone]
Chapter [1]
{How I came to work at Gatland House}
Malcom Revis Does me a favour.
My early days at Gatland House were definitely a shock to the system. It seemed to me to be a place with a quite violent atmosphere that bubbled away, much of the time close to the surface. That tension seemed to be stirred more by some staff attitudes rather than by the children. More of that later… I call them children although they were all, with very few exceptions, 15 and 16 year olds who would definitely have resented being called children. I had however reached the grand old age of 45 and so everyone under 20 registered as a child in my mind.
I had come to work at Gatland via a series episodes of pure chance bordering on good fortune. It was early September 1985. I had had to close my failing clothing business sometime in June of that year. In the intervening few months I had been very busy looking for work that might bring in some much needed money. I was only able to claim one week of state help because I was seen to have put myself out of work.
Since leaving the RAF and then Lloyds Bank seven years later, I had joined my dad in his clothing business; I had had no experience of applying for jobs. In one way I was enjoying the role of job applicant although my financial situation lent some urgency to the moment. During the period from June to September I wrote 104 job applications. I could fill them in in my sleep! The questions asked were so monotonously the same. I had had no luck from this route at all by the end of August. I had, though, been able to do some temporary work for two elements of the Probation Service.
The first of these was with the Sittingbourne office as a part-time Community Service supervisor. It was on a temporary basis and not wildly interesting. It did however bring in some wages. It did also offer me an insight into the arena of this type of public service work as did the temporary post that Joyce had obtained at a local social work Children’s Home.
Joyce’s post at Greenporch was also obtained through a piece of pure serendipity. Our daughter had been working at the same Children’s Home in Sittingbourne for two summers as temporary work experience prior to attending college. During the following four years she obtained a degree and a very good social work qualification. Meera had heard that some more permanent work might be on offer. She came home one day with the statement…“Mum I think that I might have found a really good job for you”. From that simple sentence Joy began a second career that gave her satisfaction, an opportunity to obtain a social work qualification followed by several different management positions in which she was universally respected.
As I say I did not actually enjoy supervising offenders doing their court imposed community service but it helped with the impoverished finances as did the prospect of Joy being in work as that was about to bring in one wage at least. I have to admit though that I did feel some pressure from the situation in that my work was purely part-time and temporary. Then came another break. The SPO (Senior Probation Officer) at the Sittingbourne office put me in touch with the officer-in-charge of the Probation Hostel (Fleming House) in Maidstone who, she assured me was looking for part-time workers. She felt that the work would fit in well with the work I was doing for her, and so it proved to be…
Malcolm Revis was one of the most helpful men I have ever met and was the officer-in-charge of the Probation Hostel, at Maidstone. I cannot remember the exact date but it was sometime around the end of July to the beginning of August 1985 when I first met Malcolm at the hostel following a phone conversation promoted by the Sittingbourne SPO. She had been pleased at my reaction to a group of probationers who had been sentenced to community service as a condition of their probation orders. They were supposed to be engaged in painting doors, window frames railings and the like in a school in Gillingham. It was my job to supervise that the work was being carried out well and with due diligence. Elements of the work were situated in various parts of the school of course and so I needed to proceed from one to the other in order to perform my duties.
We had been in place at the school for an hour or so during which time I had seen them all set-up and beginning to work. It was at that point I began my perambulatory function. Shortly after this I began to notice gaps in the work-force. As I proceeded on my rounds it was quite apparent the gaps were too frequent and long-lasting to be accounted for by loo-breaks. On further investigation I discovered that my missing ‘Heroes’ were busy sun bathing on the flat roof of a one story extension at the far end of the school from where they were supposed to be working. As far as I was concerned they were “taking the piss” up with which I would not put! I called them down from the roof and announced that we were going back to Sittingbourne and that the session, for them’ was cancelled.
When we got back to the Sittingbourne office I filled in the blanks for them. For the ones I had discovered on the roof I advised them that the penalty for illicit sunbathing ‘on duty’ was to lose time-served credit for the whole session. All resultant protestations I referred to the SPO who backed me up very firmly when she came down to see what the commotion was all about in the foyer of the office building in Roman Square. As a contrast for bad behaviour I took it upon myself to award the full four hours, time-served, to those who had continued with their work and who had been forced to return early to Sittingbourne with the others. Again, against all protestations by the ‘guilty parties’ she saw the justice of this and again backed me up. I came to believe that I had earned some ‘brownie points’ from the SPO for my handling of that particular situation. That had not been my intention nonetheless the referral to the Officer in Charge of Fleming House by the SPO turned out to be most helpful for me in the long run.
Malcolm explained that he could not offer permanent work. He added that he had a bank of casual shift workers to cover the night duties and that he would only be able to offer me work as and when it could be distributed among them and me. It appeared that he had a shift available for the next night, A Friday night, beginning at 6pm and that he would be staying with me on that occasion so that he could observe how well or otherwise I was able to perform my duties. I thanked him and returned home to think about the two pieces of good luck that had fallen my way.
There were places for about ten ‘clients’ at Fleming House. They were all offenders of course. They would have been either ex-prisoners who had been released on condition to live ‘as directed’ for a certain period of time. Others might have been offenders whom the court had placed on probation with a condition of residence in a bail hostel. It was also possible that one or two might have been on bail from court hearings with a condition of residence.
The night shift at Fleming House was a sleeping night shift. There was a curfew on residents and a bedtime when they had to be in their rooms. As far as I remember these were 9pm and 10pm respectively. The residents were required to be in their rooms from 10pm to 6am. The basic rule of the establishment was simple… You obey the rules or you are liable for re-call back to prison or to court whichever is appropriate in your case.
And so I arrived at Fleming House at 6pm on that warm Friday evening in August 1985. Malcolm was there to greet me and to show me round. The place contained some ten rooms or so. The residents each had a key to his/her room and the staff had a master key that fitted all residents’ rooms. There was also a very decently equipped kitchen, a dining room, a games room and a lounge cum t.v. room. A door separated the games room and the t.v. room. That Door had a large central panel of glass so that one could see from one room to the other.
The residents were in the process of preparing their evening meal and offered to cook something for us after which we all sat together in the dining room to eat. The evening passed well enough with some people going out for a walk or, perhaps, a beer. Some watched the tele and a few played pool or darts in the games room. I politely refused an opportunity to join the games players, partly on Malcom’s advice and partly following my own instinct and experience from the community service sessions. ‘Friendly but not friends’, was to be my modus operandi whilst working for the probation service.
All went well until about 9.45 just before bedtime or, at least, the time when they all had to be in their rooms for the night. A sudden angry noise erupted from the direction of the games room. A short shouting match followed by a bang and the sound of breaking glass. Both Malcolm and I hurried in the direction of the hubbub only to find two men apparently facing each other off. One of the men, the shorter and stockier of the two was holding his right arm hanging by his side. It was apparent even from our distance by the entrance door that the arm was bleeding fairly freely.
The explanations that ensued yielded the information that the two had had an argument over the calculation of a darts score. The shorter man had taken umbrage and had punched the plate glass panel in the door separating the games room from the t.v. room. Not surprisingly the breaking of the glass with his arm right through the panel had the effect of cutting the man’s arm quite badly. It was though a self-inflicted injury which produced little sympathy from me on that occasion, especially when Malcolm suggested that we might have to call an ambulance.
I saw the man smile… He now saw an opportunity to be out of the house during curfew hours and I did not fancy the possibly long and very boring wait with him in A&E through the small hours of the morning.
“Here, let me look at that arm.” I said to him somewhat sharply. I inspected the arm as if I were an expert in the trade of assessing the severity of arms that had been through the mill in the manner of that arm. After several long moments of scrutiny I looked at my new boss and then at the ‘wounded soldier’ I shook my head wisely and slowly. “Well,” I said “If I were on duty on my own I would not be calling an ambulance out for this idiot and for this cut.” The man glared at me in disbelief. I actually remember myself saying. “Malcolm , if we call an ambulance we may be diverting it from something serious like a motorway accident and all for a fool who needs to learn that punching plate glass windows is stupid.”
The other man grinned and I’m certain that Malcom began to look at me in a new light. I had made my short speech whilst looking directly at the ‘wounded one’. He was trying to scowl his displeasure at me. It didn’t work. “I have had a good look at the cut. It is a bad one and probably needs a few stiches. It is clean though and seems to be a simple flesh wound. I propose that I should disinfect it now and bandage it to keep it clean until morning. When I go off shift I can give our friend here a lift to A&E. They can deal with him more thoroughly and send him on his way. He can walk back and ponder the error of his ways. It’s all downhill from Barming to here; straight down the London road!”
And that’s how we dealt with the matter. I’m certain that the incident dealt with any qualms Malcolm may have had about me doing night shifts on my own. I did, in fact, find myself scheduled for quite a few more but it became quite clear that there was no permanent job for me there.
I was though, on a further Friday about two weeks away, working at home doing some long needed decorating when I received a call from Malcolm. He had spotted a job vacancy in a children’s home not far from Fleming House. It was advertised in the weekly internal social services/ probation jobs magazine. He thought that I would be eligible to apply however as I was doing temporary work for him. I phoned the number he gave me…
I spoke to a man called Bob Hawkins. He explained that he was the deputy manager but that his boss was there at the time and added that if I were to hurry I would be able to speak with both his boss and the area manager who happened to be there on that occasion.
This was the best potential break I had had since I closed the business; that was two long months ago. I had never been out of work and with no immediate prospects in my life before that time. In view of all that I did not bother to tidy myself up from my decorating I simply rushed to get in my car and make my way back to Maidstone to meet a man who might give me a job.
I had no trouble finding Gatland House. It was and still is, only about a minute’s drive from Fleming House. Gatland House is a large building at the end of Gatland Lane, which can be found just off the Tonbridge Road near the end of a long hill that reaches up from the nearby River Medway and its ‘V’ junction with the London Road.
Gatland House was an impressive building. I made my way through the double glass panelled doors into the large foyer entrance hall. Bob Hawkins was in the foyer to meet me warmly as I tried to apologise for my scruffy appearance. Bob was a big, cheerful looking man with a grip like a vice as we shook hands. He grinned and moved towards a door that seemed to be tucked into the far left hand corner of the foyer. He knocked on the door and I heard a deep voice from within what proved to be a quite small office.
“Well show him in, was the message from within…”
Gatland House Chapter [2]
{I finally meet Cyprian Lunga}
Cyprian’s office was situated in the corner of the far left of the foyer of what was a large building. It was quite close to the front door of the House but its door was tucked into a recess to the left of which was another door, that of the main administrative office of Gatland House. Mr. Lunga [Cyprian] was an impressive man. He was a Zulu who had risen to the rank of circuit judge in his home country of Zimbabwe prior to emigrating from that country to Great Britain sometime in the late 70s or early 80s. He had done this to further his education in social work and the social sciences.
At the time that I began to work in Cyprian’s staff team at Gatland he was studying for an MPhil qualification. I am ashamed to say that I do not remember the subject despite the fact that over the years he and I often chatted about our respective aspirations. His qualifications far exceeded mine at that stage of my life but he always made every effort to assist me both with advice and practical help.
Before I go any further I need to explain that although I am calling the man by his first name here, that is Cyprian , I never called him anything but Mr Lunga for all the time that I worked for him at Gatland House. Cyprian Lunga had a presence. He knew it and he played on it. He encouraged an atmosphere of friendliness but not of friendship from those with whom he worked. From the very moment that I moved away from actually working for him the Rubicon was crossed and we did become friends.
Cyprian Lunga rose from his chair as I entered the small office. He shook my hand warmly and cut me off with a slightly raised -hand as I began to apologise for the rough working clothes that I was wearing from my morning of decorating. He introduced another man who remained seated as Cyprian and I shook hands. I gathered that he was the area manager and, I came to know the term later, he was Cyprian’s ‘line manager’. I am not sure after all this time but I think that his name was Green, Mr. Green.
I was waived somewhat imperiously into a comfortable chair opposite Mr Green. We were all three at the same level. No power seating here I thought as I sat down. I did not feel at all nervous, somewhat surprisingly considering how desperately I needed a paying job. Closing my business three months earlier had meant that finances were very tight. I was feeling so dreadfully guilty because I hadn’t yet told Joyce just how close we were to losing our house.
The questions that I was asked were not too challenging. I guessed that that was because I was told from the start that that meeting was not to be a formal interview. He went on to advise me that the advert about which Malcolm Revis had taken the trouble to inform me just an hour earlier had set a date for applications on the Monday next. If I were to be offered a formal interview he would advise me by telephone. I came to understand later that this information came packaged as a bluff because job positions advertised in Children’s homes were never flooded with applications. This was possibly due to the fact that they had to be advertised initially in the internal social work jobs vacancy publication. It was an ‘unqualified’ position and would therefore not appeal to a qualified social worker. Other workers would usually be loath to apply due to the requirement to work unsocial hours.
Between them the two men asked me questions about my previous work experience; how it was that I had been working for the probation service. At that point Mr Green ruled that that made me eligible to apply through the internal advertisement route. I explained about my need to close my business which put me in need of a job. I also explained that our two sons were already at university and that out daughter was about to go to Plymouth to study for a social work qualification allied to a sociology degree. I purposely kept other personal information firmly at a need-to-know level at that stage. I felt that I could fill in more details if I were to be offered a position at Gatland House. I little knew at that point that the chance of not being offered a job there were very remote indeed.
I arrived home feeling that the afternoon had been well spent and so I was much more positive than I had been for many weeks. The next morning my positive feelings were raised to a new high level because I received a letter offering me an interview for a position at a children’s home not far from Gatland House; it was at an establishment called Howard House in Frant Lane quite close to Gatland Lane. I had seen that position advertised in the local press. It did not occur to me at that time that the job advert must have passed through the internal system with no internal takers. How slowly we sometimes absorb the concept of ‘the wheels within wheels’! My interview was to be on the morning of the next Thursday. On the Tuesday I received a phone call from Mr. Lunga offering me an interview on the Friday afternoon. I suddenly felt myself to be among riches. After months of applying for jobs to no avail I suddenly had two job interviews! What sudden wealth!
Howard House was situated in Lower Frant Road, Maidstone, so again I had no trouble in finding it. Lower Frant Road is only a couple of streets away from Gatland House. I arrived for my interview in good time. Unlike Gatland House the front door of Howard House was locked and so I rang the doorbell. It was a few minutes and several rings before the door was opened and I gained entrance. The house was much smaller than Gatland House. It had all the appearance of a former residential house now converted to its present use of being a children’s home. The aspect of the place was darker than that of Gatland but was certainly not so dark as to be oppressive.
I had already been advised by staff at Gatland House that Howard House was run by a husband and wife team and it was the man who came to greet me in the hallway. He introduced himself and led me into a room that obviously served as the office. It became apparent immediately that I was to be interviewed by the complete husband and wife team. I’m afraid that in the fullness of time I have forgotten the names of that husband and wife team however. I intend to now refer to them as Mr. and Mrs. Mann.
Mr Mann began by explaining a few details about the establishment. “This is an eight bedded unit for young adolescents.” He coughed, took a sip from a glass of water and continued but not before I realised that he was the only one who actually had a glass of water in front of him. Nothing apparently for me or Mrs. Mann! “If you get a job here you would be required to work shift work; that would be a mixture of day shifts and night shifts.” He paused; “Do you have any questions? Are you able to work night shifts?” He proceeded to ask me a series of questions that had all the ring of being a pre-prepared series from which there was to be no spontaneity, no diversion. Mrs Mann sat quietly. She was not apparently required to speak. I left Howard House with the distinct feeling that it was not a happy place. I had no evidence of this. I had only seen a couple of the kids and had been whisked away before I could speak to them. Future experience confirmed that this was not a good sign. I intend to give examples of this as my story about Gatland House develops. Mr Mann informed me that I would hear the decision in the post very soon. I realised at once that a positive outcome would put me in a dilemma.
I did not sleep so well that night. I really needed a job so that Joy and I could begin to pay our way out of the financial hole that we were in. She already had a job at Greenporch in Sittingbourne but, at that point it was a casual non-permanent position .That was the second time in our marriage when Joy had been the only one of us working and bringing home the bacon, so to speak. It was not for a lengthy period. Nonetheless I didn’t like to be in that position.
My appointment at Gatland was scheduled for 4pm on that Friday and I was on hot bricks all day, wanting to get back to Maidstone and Gatland House. I think that I was already beginning to fall in love with the place. Its atmosphere was so much better than I had found at Howard House. I realised much later that I had put a lot of emotional energy into making that day and that interview a success. The day and the time had arrived at last although I managed to arrive over a half hour early. By chance a lady who I had met very briefly the previous Friday was walking into foyer as I arrived through the front doors. Her name was J*** and she offered to give me a quick tour of the place when she heard why I was there and that I was early.
During the tour of what was a large building J*** managed not only to show me around but also gave me an insight into what she saw as the definitive view of child care as per a residential children’s home. She was a kindly woman and we ended up as good friends. She was clearly in favour though of a tidy and well-ordered regime from and for the teenagers under her management. I felt strongly that there might be stormy waters ahead because in my experience well-ordered regimes and teenagers were not a good fit. This point was emphasised when we climbed the stairs to the first floor and the living quarters. I remarked that there seemed to be none of the young people up there. She then advised me that the children’s bedrooms were locked during the day. “For security reasons”. I could not get my head around this concept. Joyce and I hardly saw our own children during those teen years. They spent a lot of time upstairs playing their music loudly and only reluctantly coming down for food.
I could not understand the idea that young adults should be banned from their own rooms. Even the inmates of Fleming House Probation Hostel had keys to their rooms and access to them at all times. When I mentioned my concerns to J*** she looked at me as if I had just stepped down from Mars. She muttered something along the lines of “well we find it better that way”. I left it alone. I didn’t want to get involved in an open disagreement with one member of staff just before my interview. After all was said and done I hadn’t even got a job yet. Just at that moment the tour ended and we arrived back in the foyer to find Mr Lunga standing at the open door of his office. He invited me into the economical space of that room with a huge and welcoming grin on his face. The only other person in the office was, once again, the area manager, Mr Green.
Cyprian Lunga kicked the session off by asking me to tell them something about myself. It was a long list! Joy had given me some pointers that she had remembered from her own interview when she had gone for the ‘casual’ position at Greenporch. I told them that I was married and that Joyce was currently working at Greenporch. I informed them that we had three children, Darran who was near the end of a PhD at Imperial College London, Gavin studying Maths at Nottingham University and Meera who was just about to go off the college in Plymouth. He managed to avoid looking too quizzical at the name ‘Meera’. I quickly made the decision not to offer an explanation of our daughter’s name until and if I was offered a job. This applied also to some other personal issues.
I explained that my education to that point in time included just a bunch of some nine O’levels GCEs and an A ‘level in applied maths. I told them that I was Jewish but that would not interfere with my work in any way except that there were three days in the year when I would not work but that I would manage that seamlessly through my holiday allowance. He explained that it might not be necessary to take from my holiday entitlement because of the shift system at Gatland House. Bob H. he explained , managed the staff work rota and it would be possible to work around three days without getting into a sweat.
“Do you have any experience at working with children”? I reminded him that Joyce and I had raised three of our own fairly successfully to that point. “You might find these here a bit different.” He pointed this out with a serious face. I grinned and added that Joy and I had been foster parents for nearly ten years, for the KCC, in the earlier years of our marriage. The great man actually seemed quite impressed by this. “Well now, that’s really interesting – ten years eh?” “Yes.” I replied, “That too was different though. I was on my own territory then. My job here would be to make this my territory too.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, you can’t push yourself into young people’s faces. You need to wait a bit, let them get used to you, to become a part of the scenery.”
“How do you do your work whilst becoming part of the scenery?” This time he was more challenging, as if he didn’t like the responses he was getting. I couldn’t let it go though…
“Gaining a presence and being accepted is an important part of the work as far as I’m concerned.”
“Right.” He responded somewhat sharply. “Let me ask you another question.” He paused as if expecting a response from me. He got none. I was beginning to realise Cyprian Lunga was a man who expected to always ‘hold the stage’. On this occasion though I was keen to hear his question. When it came it was a complete puzzle to me at first. I thought that I heard him say…
“What would you do if you came across a young girl having her feet in the bath?” Now I have to explain that Cyprian Lunga spoke perfect grammatical English but he did have a slight accent which, I realised quickly, had given me to miss-understand his question. My brain managed to un-scrabble itself pretty quickly when I realised that he had actually asked;
“What would you do if you came across a young girl having a fit in the bath?” Once I realised that, I began to wonder why I might be in a bathroom with a young girl in the first place. What sort of establishment was this? Still, to answer his question…
“If that happened I would lift her out.” “She might have no clothes on.” “That’s true, if she’s in the bath she might well have no clothes on, but me worrying about that wouldn’t save her life, lifting her out would! I would then cover her up and call for another member of staff to help me.” I have to admit that the initial question had felt strange and was beginning to exasperate me. Cyprian seemed satisfied however. He sat back in his chair and slowly lit a cigarette. In 1985 smoking in public buildings still had a long way to go before it had to bow, first before the court of public opinion and finally before the law of the land.
As a final question he asked me about Joyce’s work at Greenporch, also a KCC children’s home. I explained that she was working on a casual basis at the moment but hoped to obtain a permanent job in the near future. He paused for a moment and then asked me how it would affect our home life, both of us working shift work. “Would it not be too disruptive?” I explained frankly that it would be a relief to have two incomes into the house and with someone else being responsible for paying the wages and collecting the taxes. He smiled and nodded as if he suddenly understood the whole situation which he certainly did not, not at the stage. I would tell him much more later. Mr Lunga then indicated that the interview was over and that I would hear the result in due course. I left Gatland House that day without a semblance of a clue as to how I had done.
I need not have been concerned. By the middle of the week I had received two phone calls advising me that I was being offered a place at each of the two houses; Howard House and Gatland House. I needed no time in which to decide. I had long since decided that I would choose Gatland if I were lucky enough to get both jobs. Gatland and Cyprian Lunga had left me with a feeling of much greater ‘openness’. At Howard House I had not been able to meet any other members of staff that husband and wife management team. I had only glimpsed a couple of the children. The atmosphere at Gatland House was such that I looked forward to working there.
Mr Lunga was able to give me an early date to start work which was to be the following Monday. That was really convenient because Joyce and I were due to take our daughter Meera down to Plymouth on the Sunday to begin her degree studies there.
Gatland House Chapter [3]
“He Who Carries the Water!”
My First Two Weeks
My first morning at Gatland House began badly from my point of view. Finally, when Joyce and I left Meera at Plymouth on the Sunday I remember that I had tears in my eyes for most of the way home. Joyce and I were both very saddened that we were now going back to a home that was permanently devoid of ‘live in’ children. My mind, though, was very quickly dragged back on to practical concerns when, just as we reached the M2 the exhaust fell off of the car, a blue Datsun estate car, and I had to secure what was left of it with a bandage from the first aid kit. Having completed nearly the whole of our 300 mile return trip home from Plymouth We had to make the final 10 miles of our journey home extremely noisily. My only consolation being that, in those days it was not at all unusual to hear cars in that particular predicament making their guilty way home or to a garage to have the matter fixed. Car exhaust systems are much more reliable these days. You don’t, in fact, see repair shops with the long racks hanging with multifarious exhaust systems as you did in those times. There were also multifarious exhaust repair kits on the market that never worked for more than a few hours before they blew out. They were never a good way of saving the expense of a new exhaust.
The fact is, however, that I had to do something about getting that exhaust fixed on the Monday morning which meant inevitably that I was going to be late for my first morning at work. I left the car at a garage at about 8 o’clock having shaken most of Sittingbourne with the noise on the short journey. Joyce would be able to pick it up after she had finished her shift at Greenporch at 2.pm. I then had to catch a bus to Maidstone. I only had to wait about 20 minutes but the bus turned out to be the local tour bus to get to the County Town seemingly from anywhere in North Kent. I saw villages that I didn’t even know existed! I got to Gatland House well after 10 o’clock. I tried to apologise to Bob Hawkins when I caught sight of him in the corridor to the kitchen but he would have none of it. He simply grinned at me and made the comment that he was glad I was there because they were beginning to think that I was yet another one who had decided not to come to work at Gatland.
I was very naïve when I began my career as a residential social worker at G.H. As I have already said Joyce began her work at Greenporch some weeks before I got the job at Gatland. During those weeks the members of staff at her home were invited to a talk on child abuse at Sittingbourne Police Station by one of the inspectors there. It was to take place one evening in Central Avenue. As I was doing some part time work for the probation service Joy wangled a place for me. I remember very clearly saying to her, as we left the station after the talk; “I don’t believe a word of that. No parent would ever do those things to a child, not their own child”. How quickly was my bubble about to be burst!
Abuse, as we all now know, comes in many guises. Many and most of those were evident for the children and young people at G.H. I gained some very distressing knowledge from some of the young people themselves over the years there. What they told me or hinted to me or I learned from family members was gained in trust. I do not intend to break that trust now.
On about my second or third day working at G.H. I happened to be sitting in the games room. Totally by chance the only other person in the room with me and in an arm chair opposite was a young girl 15/16 years old, B.C.R. As she stared at me I got the feeling that she was very edgy about something. Her knees were tight closed together and she seemed to be pinching the sides of her legs quite hard as well as gritting her teeth to ease the self-inflicted pain. Finally she managed to utter; “I suppose you’ve read my file.” Well at that point I was very much the ‘new boy’ I had not read any of the children’s personal files. I didn’t even know where they were kept. I replied to her that I had not; “Would you rather that I didn’t read your file B.?” I asked quietly because I heard other kids coming along the corridor. B simply nodded without uttering a further word. I then made a promise to that girl that I never broke; that I would never read her file.
Later that evening I got to thinking, no laughing please. Why do I need to read files? From what I had seen of the Gatland ‘Day Book’ they could be mostly negative comments anyway. If I ever needed to know anything the young people were available; I would ask them. Apart from family and social workers’ telephone numbers I kept to that decision throughout my time at Gatland House. There were, of course, discussions about different young people during staff meetings but I never made notes of these nor did I ever wish to do so.
I also began to notice, the longer I worked at Gatland House, there were some staff members who felt a need to probe new arrivals at the place as to the reasons for them being placed or sent there. I always thought this type of activity to be both offensive and beyond the ‘pay grade’. Our job, my job, was to care for and to protect, the young people as far as one could do so. There is a Yiddish expression that sums up my feelings about this illicit probing. “Er kricht ahrein in mein beyner”. ( spelling variable) ‘He’s creeping around in my bones’. It describes exactly my views on this subject.
Perhaps I should just say something here about the Gatland ‘Day Book’. Every residential home has a Day Book. It is simply a daily record, a diary, of a day’s events both general as well as those specific to the residents. If a resident has a visitor, that is noted in the Day Book. If a window cleaner falls off a ladder, that goes in the Day Book, and so on. My experience tells me though that the selection of what went in Day Books was almost universally negative and that applied to Gatland House as well as anywhere else. If a young person had had a perfect day at school but, for some reason had thrown a wobbly at tea time it was the wobbly that went into the Day Book. This bias was so strong that the Day Book was neither worth keeping nor reading. I saw no reason to believe that files would be any different. The same people were writing in them after all.
There is one incident that stands out for me that occurred in the first week at Gatland House. I remember it so vividly because it involved a person, a staff member, who was about to leave GH. And who I was about to replace. His name was X and he and I were talking in the games room at the pool table end of the room. I was chatting with him about my duties when a young lad, P.B. ran along the corridor next to the games room making a bit of a racket as he did so. X shouted at the boy to stop running at which the boy returned the comments with some mild abuse thrown in. X did no more; he rushed over to the corridor and knocked P. to the ground with one punch. I remember that incident well because I have been ashamed of myself ever since that moment for not having reported the matter to Cyprian. I can only claim that I was so new to the job and that the guy seemed to be a much respected member of staff. Neither of those though is a real excuse. I never once, during my three years working at Gatland House saw any other member of staff raise a hand to a child in the way of that man that Day.
Some of the rules of behaviour that I felt strongly were factors that added hugely to the tension in the house were exhibits of a bygone age, for example; Children were woken up in the morning and brought downstairs to breakfast as a group, almost in a crocodile of pairs. Gatland House is a big House. The corridors are long as is the flight of stairs. This combination of factors presented the kids with a gifted opportunity to begin a variety of petty squabbles and scuffles. The first meal of the day began, therefore, almost always, with some issues that had not been fully resolved during the journey downstairs. Breakfast then was the time during which scores had to be settled.
Whenever this morning regime was challenged in staff meetings one was invariably met with the old story and excuse “it’s the way we’ve always done it and it works for us”. What they failed to understand was that it wasn’t working for them and probably had never done so.
Children, as people usually continued to call the young people, were not allowed into the kitchen even, supposedly when accompanied by a member or members of staff. Now then, we need to think carefully about this. We all realise that kitchens are dangerous places and that the majority of accidents are caused in the home and that the majority of those are in the kitchen. This fact, however, just as much makes the argument for allowing young people into the kitchen environment as it does for keeping them out. Think about it! One of the standard ‘contra’ arguments was that there were knives in the kitchen. The implication of this point being that an angry child might be tempted to use a knife maliciously.
It was necessary to take the above point very seriously because, over the years, we did have some children who had threatened members of their families with knives. Those incidents were usually the ‘up front’ reason for them being in care. When you think about this as a responsible adult however you do to have to think about it with your very thoughtful hat on and ask yourself some pertinent questions; have you yourself never had a noisy, sometimes serious, argument with one of your own children? How many times have those arguments involved the picking up of a knife? For my part the answer is never. I suspect that that would be the same for most adults except for a very few of the parents of children who were with us. For a child to threaten his mother or father with a knife during an argument is an outstandingly unusual occurrence. I would maintain that for such a thing to happen then the fault, somewhere down the line, must lie with the adult. Don’t argue with me, I know – you don’t!
The third contentious ‘rule’ for me was that children’s bedrooms had to be locked for the day from the moment they came downstairs for breakfast until tea time. I just could not accept any of the reasons offered, including the usual it’s the way we’ve…etc. My question was always; “Do you do that at home?” “They’re not at home” “Why then, call this a children’s home?” This argument jerked back and forth for ages until eventually it fell into disuse. I had just been doing some work in a probation hostel where convicted prisoners had 24 hour access to their rooms with their own keys. “We can’t allow it here because… because… because…” etc. I began the revolt quietly for myself by simply asking young people if they wanted their room locked when they left it in the morning; some did some did not. Those who did want it locked usually expressed the view that they were afraid of pilfering. That was fair enough.
Some of the members of staff who were nervous about the ending of the above practice maintained that they wanted to know what the children were doing. They felt uncomfortable if they could not see them at all times. Those of us who had had teenage children knew full well that in most families you see very little of your children from the age of about 14 except for when they are going out of the front door! In that house we had a residential group of at the minimum 16 persons. Sometimes it when up to as many as 22 teenagers. There were times when they just ‘needed’ to get away from each other, to get a bit of peace and quiet. That brings me to yet another tension raising ‘rule’ of the house.
In the first weeks it became clear that there was a firm expectation that only two young people were to be allowed out of the house together at any one time without a member of staff being with them. “Why?” “They might get up to mischief in a bunch”. “Or they might simply enjoy themselves and have a good time.” Would be the reply to that. “No, they’re more likely to get into trouble”. “No they’re not”. “Yes they are…” etc. . .You get the drift. Then came the retort that we don’t want Gatland House to get a bad reputation in Maidstone. To be fair to him Cyprian shot this one down himself. “Both Maidstone and Gatland House are big enough to look after themselves”. And so, after a short while children started to go down into Town most evenings. Singly or in groups, it was up to them. Boyfriends to meet, girlfriends to chat up…normal teenage things.
The final ‘rule’ that I remember as being particularly onerous even downright nasty was one where children were actively discouraged from having friends to visit or even to return for a visit after they had moved on from Gatland House. This brought me to boiling point in Staff meetings. “What messages are we giving to our current group of youngsters if they see us refusing to allow their predecessors back to visit a place they may have occupied for years?” I felt that it was both dangerous even criminally stupid to even consider such a practice.
This was one battle that was never fully won, however. Some members of staff were quite happy to receive ex residents back into the fold for an afternoon. Others would never consider it. Such is life I suppose although when I moved on to become assistant manager of a Children’s Home in East Kent I was able to influence the eradication of the practice. In fact I was really chuffed when, one afternoon when I was on duty there K.W. sought me out for a visit. He brought some friends and we spent a really nice couple of hours together. That though, and unfortunately, was the last time that I ever saw K to this day.
During the first two weeks I worked with all the members of staff, one way or another. The first night shift I was scheduled to work with a young woman, C.O. She was, I believe only about 20 but to my advanced years she seemed to be even younger than that. Cyprian made the point of calling me to one side before the shift began just to emphasise that although she was the younger by far she was to be my senior as far as the job went. I, after all, had only just begun my probationary period. He paused as he was giving me this ‘dramatic’ news as if he thought that I might object. I never did feel the need to object to that sort of news. In any case I still hadn’t worked out where all the loos were let alone argue about seniority.
That first week I did two night shifts; one with C.O. and a second with D. Both shifts went well as far as I can remember. I tell a lie! Towards the end of the week a young girl went missing. L.L. absconded. The police were informed as was required but it was felt that she would return within a day or so. Bob H informed me that he had put me down for the Sunday shift which meant working all day Sunday from 10am and doing a sleep-in on the Sunday night. The weekend shifts were in two parts; Friday afternoon from 2pm through to Sunday morning at 10am. That meant two sleep-ins on the first part, Friday and Saturday and just the one i.e. Sunday night on the second part of the weekend. Those days were fairly relaxed as most of the children liked to have a lie in, particularly on Sundays.
I can really only remember one thing of note for me about that first weekend. It was one of those “We don’t do that here moments.” And was directed at me. We were having tea on the Sunday afternoon. Most of the children were there, only a few of them would occasionally go home for the weekend. The weather was warm and so we had prepared a salad for tea. As the meal began I was sitting on a table with the other two members of staff. One was a man T.L. and J was there as well. That is the lady I had met on my very first visit to G.H. It is my habit when eating a salad to make a sandwich from some of the contents. On that occasion it was cheese and lettuce; vert tasty on a warm day I always think. “We don’t do that here.” J said to me on the very moment that I was raising my treasured sarnie to my mouth. I really could not believe what I was hearing. I had a lot of time for J, she had been very kind to me from the moments that I arrived into the, for me, very strange environment of Gatland House. Nonetheless I was not going to allow her or anyone else to direct the manner in which I ate my food. “Sorry J “I replied, and proceeded to make a second sandwich, just to make the point, even though I would have been satisfied with just the one.
I had advised both Cyprian and Bob H that I had one more shift to do at Fleming House. I had agreed to do the shift on the day before I was offered the Gatland position. The final shift was to be the following Saturday night’ to finish my involvement at Fleming by 10 am on the Sunday. When I reminded Bob of this it became apparent that he had forgotten. This put him in a fix because he had me down for the following Friday night Saturday night shift. He had to make some rapid adjustments the results of which were that I was down for the night sleep-in on the Tuesday after the ‘sandwich’ incident. T.L. then agreed to fit in for the part shift from the following Saturday afternoon to the Sunday morning thus allowing me to get to Fleming House for 6 pm on the Saturday. This all suited me quite well because I was then able to do a night shift with D and the following Saturday with a woman called B.H. She was a really terrific person to work with, as in reality were most of my new colleagues. We didn’t always see perfectly eye to eye but that’s not unusual and not a bad thing anyway.
The day went off without incident on the Tuesday. After tea some of the kids went out for a short while. D was never one for keeping them confined to the house and now that the matter was beginning to be discussed as a possibility he decided that the time was ripe for some freedom! At the back of the house there was a large field. On the edge of that field near the house but not under the canopy was an empty hexagonal paddling pond. It was about 15 inches deep and D liked to sit there with as many of the youngsters who might join him. That night I made up some ‘Cheese Dreams’ recipe follows later in these scribblings. D made his favourite kids’ drink – hot chocolate with marshmallow. It was actually a very convivial hour or so and a really good prep for bed time.
Well then, I had indulged considerably in both the cheese dream and hot chocolate menu on offer earlier and so went to sleep almost at once and quite soundly for me. D being the senior person was using the sleeping-in room in the boys’ corridor because that was the one that had a telephone. I was in the room in the girls’ corridor. It had no ‘phone. I came to quite like that room in fact because there were several showers just along the corridor that I was able to use when I had served enough time to realise that there was absolutely no likelihood of any of the girls being around at the sort of early rising time that had been my habit for many years. The male showers were sited way downstairs in the house wash-room, concrete floor and all! Not an attractive proposition at any time let alone 5.30 am!
At about 2 am. on that Wednesday morning I heard someone knocking on my door. As I began to rouse myself rather grumpily I shouted for them to come in. I never, ever locked my door on night shift in a children’s home. I did at Fleming but not at any children’s home where I did sleep- ins. I did not do so at home; in fact we had no locks on bedroom doors at home, only ball- sockets. I did not like the possible message that it might give to the children, the sound of a key turning in the door lock.
It was D, he explained that L.L. had phoned and wanted to come back from her unscheduled few days of escapade away from Gatland. She needed a lift from a bus stop at the end of Castle Road Allington. D asked me if I would go in the van to pick her up. He realised that L.L. did not know me, she had only seen me a couple of times but the bright yellow van, with Kent County Council written across in Bold Black, would be well known to her and would put her mind at ease. He explained to me how to get to her and all went well with the pick-up. L was very tired but accepted a cup of hot chocolate, with D’s usual ‘marshmallow ‘delight’ extra. The chickens were scheduled to come home to roost the next morning!
After D and I had had breakfast with the kids Cyprian met me as I was walking along the corridor away from the dining room. He was looking quite serious. “I want to see you in my office…now!” The ‘now’ was added as I appeared to hesitate in my progress along the corridor. In fact it was just that I was surprised at the rather grumpy way in which he was talking to me. There was nothing that I could think of that I had done that merited grumpiness from him or anyone else.
We entered his office, him first. “Close the door behind you!” Again with the grumpiness! “Sit down!” I did so and waited for him to begin. As I have mentioned before, Cyprian liked to ‘hold the stage’ he did so on the occasion by dramatically holding fire for a few moments before beginning. “I’ve just been reading your report in the Day Book regarding last night’s activity. Your collecting of a girl L.L. an absconder, from Allington.” He paused as if to let this news to sink in but I could see nothing wrong with my report as I took a few moments to review it mentally.” I think that the report states the situation quite accurately Mr Lunga…” I began to reply but he held up his hand to stop me in my stride. “I’m not talking about the accuracy of the report but about the appropriateness of the activity.” Again he paused. “You left D on his own with a house full of children to swan off into the night to go search for an absconder.” I was astounded. I could not believe that I was hearing this. I took a few moments to clear my head… Much as I respected the man I could not let this go. I began to frame my response.
“Do I get a right of reply?” He sat back in his chair. “Yes” Still grumpy. “Well firstly I did not go swanning off into the night, as you say, to search for an absconder. I was woken at two in the morning and asked by ‘my senior’ to go to a specific place, the directions to which he gave me and it was to pick up a lost child not, to my mind, an absconder.” I paused. “by the way, I don’t like the word absconder; I don’t like it at all. It’s a policeman’s word.” Cyprian actually winced at that. He sat back in his chair once more.
“Anything else?” His tone had actually softened slightly. “Well yes…” I began slowly, hesitantly. “I think that I have to tell you that I would certainly take the same action again. I cannot speak for D but I’m pretty certain that the same would go for him.” I really do remember pausing at this point… “Do you remember, Mr Lunga, the question you asked me during my interview about the girl having a fit in the bath?” He smiled unexpectedly at this. “You’re going to use my own words against me?” “No sir, not against you but in my own support, you asked me a deliberately challenging question and I gave you an open and honest answer.”
“What about D?” He asked me. “If the children had woken he would have been on his own with a house full of children, what about that?” I actually smiled at this. “We both know Mr Lunga that’s D’s never happier than when he’s got a house full of children.
We left it there. Cyprian could be a very serious man when it came to the care of ‘his children’ as he frequently called them. He was also very serious when it came to the running of his establishment. If anything had gone wrong he could have got it in the neck. He also knew, I strongly believe this, that D knew exactly what he was doing that night and that the thought of there being any problems if the children woke up did not even occur to him. I now think that he, Cyprian Lunga, was simply testing me.
Surprisingly though that was not the end of the interview. It was as if Cyprian had flipped a mental coin and had decided to change the conversation entirely. Firstly he told me that in view of my fostering experience he would like me to be Gatland’s representative in the local fostering group meetings. He gave me the contact name and number. The name was C.E. He and I had lots of contact over the years following my time in residential care. Secondly Cyprian gave me a list of dates to put onto my calendar. They were for a series of lectures that he had arranged to be held at Gatland House by a group that I had never heard of but with which I was to become very familiar…’The Family Rights Group’; more of them later.
That interview with my boss was on the Wednesday morning of my second week. I was off duty at lunch time with the prospect of a day off on the Thursday and back on duty on the Friday lunchtime for the weekend shift. The normal Friday night shift would have taken me through to the Sunday morning at 10 am. On this one occasion as I have already explained I was scheduled to leave just before 6 pm on the Saturday so that I could get down to Fleming House (two minutes away by car) for 6 pm and my shift there.
The supposed number of a shift team was four with two of those members leaving for home at 10 pm with the remaining two staying for the ‘sleeping’ night shift. The actual membership of a shift team was invariably reduced to three by the arithmetic of the staff numbers. In reality three was enough especially after the children began to be ‘allowed’ to go out into the ‘wild horizons’ of Kent’s County Town.
I believe that I was on duty for that Friday and Saturday with B.H. and Mal. These were two women who were living proof that you do not need size-one men to keep ‘control’ of teenage boys and girls. My experience of women working in residential homes for children is that they are at least as good as men and frequently better. The fact, in my view, is that men often want to be seen as cock of the walk, particularly in relation to teenage boys. This generates tension and often clashes. At this point the man can roll up his sleeves and demonstrate his ‘manhood’ physically thus justifying his usefulness in a self-fulfilling and negative cycle. Women just cannot do this and so develop much more useful and constructive strategies to deal with recalcitrant teenage boys and girls. I learned a lot from the two women mentioned above together with C.O. and T.E. as well as other female members of staff whose names I cannot remember at this moment.
At lunch on the Saturday we had a smaller group than we might have expected because one or two were out with family or friends and a couple of the residents had gone home for the weekend. These types of contact had to be approved by the young person’s social worker according to an agreed plan. These plans were in the child’s file and prepared by the social worker and his or her line manager, not by residential care staff.
At lunch one of the lads K.W. who I’ve already mentioned got talking to me about fishing. He seemed to be interested so I encouraged him to talk. I had enjoyed fishing for years. Finally I mentioned that it was a pity but that he and I could have gone down to the river if only we had some fishing gear. I now believe that at that moment I fell neatly into his trap! “Oh but we do have some gear”. He looked at Mal for support. She returned his gaze but with a doubtful expression. Her doubt was clearly increased when I mentioned that K would have to bring the gear back to Gatland because I would have to clear off at about 5.40 in order to get away to Fleming.
“I’m not at all sure about this, it’s a big responsibility K”. She glared at him. “Oh that’s all right Mal. I’ll probably come back with Tony anyway” “Well ok then…” was the very reluctant response. All went well with the fishing until it became time for me to leave. “Right then K”. I said, “Pack up, it’s time for me to go”. Then, of course, it did not go as arranged with Mal. To cut a long story short I have to admit that I had yet to grow my full set of incredibility wings. K managed after some feeble attempts on my part to return to the plan arranged with Mal. I have no excuse, yet again, for this error. But was it a mistake? I asked myself as I made my way up to G.H. After all K gave me his word that he would be bringing the kit back during the next half-hour or so. Yes, that’s right, he gave me his word!
By the time that I got back to Gatland I was already a bit late to get to Fleming right on time. My discussion with K had taken up more minutes than I would have like. Yet another element to his cunning plan, I later realised. I did not need to go into the house because I met T.L. coming round to the front door having parked his car. We exchanged greetings and me, well I offered my thanks to him yet again for helping me out. My change of clothes etc. was in the car so I got on my way down the hill to my final duty with the probation service.
It was just before 10 pm when I received the phone call. It was B.H. “Mr Lunga wants to see you in his office as soon as you’re free in the morning”. She explained that K had arrived back home after 8pm and that he had apparently sold 100 quid’s worth of fishing gear for a fiver. My heart sank. Oh dear! I thought, up before the beak twice in less than a week! It was not a good start for me in my badly needed job – not a good start at all. I didn’t sleep too well that night.
I made my way back to Gatland House as soon as I had finished my shift. Another meeting with my boss was not one that I relished. I did not see either Mal or B.H. it was after 10 am on the Sunday and they were preparing to go home. They were taking part in the usual shift take-over meeting.
I walked across the foyer and knocked on Cyprian’s door. I was anxious to get it over with but very nervous about the possible result. “Come in.” I opened the door and stood before the man who had only been my boss for one day less than two weeks.; two weeks moreover in which I had not conducted myself very well at all. “Sit down Tony.” I was very surprised at the soft tone of his voice. Perhaps he was just softening me up before the fall of the axe? I suppose that you’ve been told by others that I’m really angry about the happenings of yesterday with K and the fishing gear. “Well yes, a hundred pounds is a lot of money to lose like that, and I was warned. I just took his word when I shouldn’t have done so.” Who says you shouldn’t have done so?”
This was not going the way I was expecting it to go. “It’s common sense, looking back on it…” He raised his hand to stop me in mid flow.. “We can all be wise after the event, only experience can teach you wisdom before an event and even then you might take the decision to go the other way.” I was beginning to realise that Cyprian Lunga had his own way of thinking about issues. “Firstly”, he continued. “I have told the other two member of your shift that I do not like anyone to predict my emotions over something, as a threat to anyone.” I began to protest here that none of this was their fault. “That fishing gear was only worth a hundred pounds on the day it was purchased over a year ago. Since then it has sat in a cupboard doing nothing so it has been worth nothing. You are the only person to ask one of my children out to bloody well use it.” He paused for breath and I sighed with relief. “You know that I am a Zulu?” I nodded. “In my language we have a saying. It’s the one who carries the water who is most likely to break the pot.” “ You understand?” Again I nodded. “Well yesterday you tried to carry the water and you broke the pot. That’s all there is to it. Now go away and enjoy the rest of your Sunday.”
That was the end of my first two weeks at Gatland House. It had been quite eventful. I began to realise that I had met some extraordinary people and that my new boss was the most extraordinary of them all.
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The Schnorrer [A Short Story]
Language is a strange thing! From a Yiddish/English dictionary the word Schnorrer of this title might translate as meaning the same a beggar. They are not, however the same. As any speaker of any two languages will know there are some words that truly cannot be fully translated one to another. The word Schnorrer is one of those. It does mean beggar, that’s for sure, but there are other qualities implied in the word that bring another dimension to it for a Jew. These qualities are well demonstrated for anyone who has seen the film, ’Fiddler on the Roof’ and who remembers the scene with the Schnorrer and his ‘regular’ donor; “Only one kopek this week? Last week you gave me two kopeks.” He says “I’ve had a bad week.” The donor replies “So! You’ve had a bad week. Why should I suffer?” Yes indeed, there is large element of a chutzpadick1 quality embedded in the word that is just not there in the English word, ‘beggar’. That is not to imply that some beggars do not have this quality it’s just that the word itself does not. ‘Schnorrer’ has an almost honourable and likeable quality in the Jewish folk-heartland. You really have to add the Yiddish word chutzpadick to Beggar to get a bit closer to the meaning of Schnorrer in Yiddish.
I first met ‘my’ Schnorrer Hannah, in 1973 when I was working for my dad in Whitechapel in the rag or ‘smatter’ trade. Our factory was on the first and second floors of a building in Fieldgate Street. There were a number of factories in this section, the entrances to which gave on to a smallish, dark courtyard capable of parking some half a dozen cars but which also involved much shouting and manoeuvring to permit access and egress throughout the working day. Mr Goldman, on the ground floor at the back of the yard, was not a patient man! His language frequently incorporated colourful words from both Yiddish and English. There were also times when he did not behave like a Mensh2, particularly to his brother who was a kindly, quiet man, who he seemed to treat much worse than any of his workers! The front of the yard was separated from the street outside by a large, green double gate into which was inset a smaller entrance door secured by a padlock when the building was shut up for the night.
It was a Friday morning in late summer when I first met Hannah. There had been some rain after a long dry spell and, when I arrived early at the factory to open up the factory ready for the workers, the streets smelled soft and sweet from that new and welcome rain. You felt able to rejoice at the prospect of one of those soft, warm English summer days that, despite our contradictory memories, do occur from time to time. The roads had been quite clear of heavy traffic on my drive up from Kent but I knew well enough that the East End would become very busy very soon. I arrived at the factory at about 6am to light the steam boilers for the hand irons and the Hoffman press. The workers were due in for their day’s work at 7am. It was good, efficient practice to have these items ready to go! Dad did not pay his workers for standing around idle!
When I had set everything up for the workers I had locked the factory and gone to the cafe a few doors away along Fieldgate Street to have some breakfast. Sid’s cafe was a dive! It represented the very worst of the old time transport cafes, so much so that your immune system needed to perform at its very best for you to survive eating there. Sid himself was never without a half burned cigarette complete with a dash of ash drooping precariously from his mouth. At that time of the morning, however, it was the only game in town! Nathan [Nat] was already there. He was dad’s cutter, a very skilled worker and savvy East End man well versed in the, sometimes crooked, dynamics of the area. We sat and had breakfast together. Half an hour or less was all it took us to have our well-earned breakfast. Sid’s cafe was no place for sitting and having a cosy chat after eating. It was a get in, sit down, eat and get out quick, sort of place.
We walked slowly back the few yards towards the factory. We were in no hurry. It would be fifteen minutes at least before the workers would begin to arrive. We met my soon to be Schnorrer in the yard near the outer door at the bottom of the stairs to the factory. I say met somewhat hesitantly for I first realised her existence when I felt a short, sharp bony tug on my jacket sleeve at the elbow. Her aged, time worn face looked up at me with a mixture of hope and firm expectation. She appeared to be waiting for someone. It might as well have been me. “A git tug Boobah” (good day grandma}, I ventured politely, unwisely using up large elements of my embryo Mame Loshen [Yiddish] on the old lady. “A git yor yinglach.” Came the swift reply. “Vilst koyfn a jar pickles?” She held out to me a jar that had seen better days long ago.
I realised immediately that I had made a mistake in even acknowledging her existence as soon as I saw the sudden look of disbelief on Nat’s face. He pointed towards the door of the room opposite the bottom of the stairs. Isaac Green was the owner of the best salt beef shop in the area. Salt beef sandwiches over an inch thick were all that he sold but he had more customers than he could provide for. Izzy’s tiny salt beef shop was famous and he had customers who would come from Stamford Hill or even Romford just to buy his salt beef. Dad loved the place and the aroma of the succulent beef wafting up the stairwell to his office on the first floor drove him to partake much more than he should have for the benefit of his figure.
Nat grinned at me and pointed slowly at the jar. “She’s sold that very same jar of dill pickles to Izzy every week for months now. He always gives it back to her when no-one’s looking. It’s his way of letting her save face.” “Anything else in the pram Boobah?” I nodded towards the old lady’s battered, dilapidated, pram. She smiled a quick and knowing smile and pulled out, from underneath a shrivelled blanket a jar of dill pickles identical to the first. “Vifel?” I asked her. “A pahnd.” there came the immediate and almost predictable reply. “A pound eh? You drive a hard bargain Boobah.” I replied, handing over the required note after taking several frustrating seconds to retrieve one from my jean’s pocket. The old lady did not even make the pretense of passing the pickles to me. She quietly returned the jar to its original home underneath the shriveled blanket as, in the same movement; she deftly took the coin from me. That was my first meeting with Hannah Fleischman.
From that moment on Hannah seemed to know just when to catch me on a Friday morning as she did her ‘round’ of willing victims, mostly Jewish men who had known the rules of Schnorrer support from birth and simply regarded it as an almost welcome feature of Jewish life. As for me I ‘took’ to this old lady from the beginning. Her accent, a mixture of Polish Yiddish and embryo English was so reminiscent of my maternal grandmother, my Boobah, that she stole my heart just a bit. I never even considered trying to avoid her, although, often, the first I would know of her presence would be the feel of her steely fingers gripping my arm from behind and her staccato demand “Gis a pahnd!”
It became a regular event for Hannah to catch me every Friday morning without fail and I have to say that I never did regret the time that I first met that old lady. She sold me that same jar of dill pickles every week for nearly a year, her crafty old voice and her Yiddish accent so reminiscent of my own grandmother, my Boobah that I never even felt like avoiding her. She had become in such a short time a feature in my life, a part of my Friday morning regime. Through the rest of that summer through the autumn and winter and into next spring I saw Hannah every Friday morning except on holidays and holy days. Even these though she was canny enough to plan ahead so that she still got her ‘pahnd’, sometimes in advance sometimes in arrears but as if guided by a heavenly hand she always got her money.
Then one Friday in early summer the blow came. I had gone down the stairwell to the salt beef shop at the bottom of the stairs. I had bought dad’s usual order of that delicious delicacy which I had taken the upstairs to him when suddenly I realised that the steely hand of Hannah the old Boobah lady had been missing. I had not been required to pass my coin for that elusive jar of pickles. I went back downstairs out of the courtyard and onto the road looking in vain for Hannah. I waited for nearly 20 minutes to no avail. I was about to return upstairs when I saw a man walking purposely along the road. It was Micah who I knew as the Shammes3 from the synagogue round the corner in New Road. He walked straight towards me as if he had been looking for me. He was not smiling as would have been usual instead he looked quite serious, even sad. “If you’re waiting for Hannah I’m afraid she will not be coming, she passed away last evening.”
“What happened?” I asked somewhat stupidly for I cannot deny that the suddenness of the tragic information hit me harder than I would ever have thought. The realisation that I would never see old Hannah again brought a lump to my throat that I would never have thought could happen when I first met her. I had grown fond of that old lady and her jars and tins of this and that and her battered old pram that squeaked as she wheeled it around her manor.
“Well” Micah began. “You know that Hannah lived in Myrdle Street?” I nodded, he continued slowly. “My wife visited her yesterday evening which she has been doing every Thursday evening for several years. She did this to make sure that the old lady had enough food and stuff that she could make a Shabbat. Last night when she arrived and Hannah was clearly quite ill; she didn’t have a telephone so Moira went next door to use the telephone to call an ambulance. By the time she returned Hannah was only able to last a few minutes more before she passed away. The ambulance arrived shortly after but in the meantime Hannah had managed to say a few words before the time arrived for her to pass over quite peacefully.”
“What did she die of; I did not know that she was ill.” Micah smiled softly. “She wasn’t ill boychick 4, she was old and tired and worn out. She had no family nearby, her two sons live in Israel she hadn’t seen them for years. She just did not have the energy to go on any more.” Micah now grinned which surprised me. “She did manage to say something to my wife about you though, before the end. She left you this…” Michael pulled his hand from behind his back and held out an object that he had been hiding there. It was a scruffy old jar of dill pickles. Micah continued to grin as he handed me the pickles. “Hannah felt that by now you had paid a good price for this jar of pickles and she wanted you to have it in memory of her.”
I could not say another thing to Micah that day, the lump in my throat would have been far too big to control if I had opened my mouth to say another word. I walked away with my jar of pickles held tightly in my hands. I had no intention of ever eating that particular jar of pickles though and not entirely from sentimental reasons. I just knew that by now the bacteria living in that jar of pickles would have been far too strong for my stomach to contend with. I went back to the yard and my old dark blue transit van and placed the jar of pickles in a safe place between the two seats of the van.
I had intended to keep those pickles until such time as Hannah had been buried and her Stone Setting5 had taken place. I felt that Hannah with her sometimes cheeky grin would appreciate my action of returning her jar of pickles to her by placing it on her grave at the Stone Setting. Unfortunately this could never happen because about two months later my van was stolen whilst parked outside the yard in Fieldgate Street because there was no room in the yard for it at that time. I can now admit that I offered up a prayer that day that the thief who had stolen my van had also been tempted to eat those pickles. If he had done so I’m convinced that he would have been visited by a really serious attack of ‘Hannah’s revenge’. That single thought cheered me immensely! Hannah’s spirit would be alive again in the old East End!
1 Chutzpadik – the adjectival form of Chutzpah which is that quality of a person who, having been found guilty of killing his/her parents throws him/herself at the mercy of the court as a newly made orphan.
2 Mensh. To be regarded as a Mensh is high praise. The opposite is the opposite!
3 Shammes. The caretaker or janitor of a synagogue. The ‘servant’ of a community of Jewish worshipers
4 Boychik [Yinglish]This word is usually used as a term of affection. [As in this case]It can also be used however, as meaning he’s a sharp fellow i.e. watch out for him!
5 Stone setting. After a death there would have been a customary Stone Setting ceremony. This is within a year and usually after the mourning period of 11 months. In Hannah’s case however the ceremony was about three months after her death. Her sons could not be located quickly and were not present for her funeral. They wanted, therefore, to have the stone setting as quickly as it could be arranged so that they could say goodbye to their mother. It seemed to me moreover that it had been a very long time since either of them had said hello to her!
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The Fieldgate Street Fire Crew.
Fieldgate Street, London E1 meets Whitechapel Road in a nearly ‘V’ shape. The end of the potential ‘V’ being squared off at the end by Plumbers Row where it meets Whitechapel Road almost opposite the end of Greatorex Street. There used to be a Kosher fish restaurant in Greatorex Street where they served very good meals and where I often ate when I could take the opportunity in what was always a very busy day. I was introduced to that restaurant in about 1971 or so, by my cousin Shimon, (may he rest in peace), who was studying to be a Chazzen, a Cantor, at Jews College in Central London, at that time. During our first meal together in that restaurant I asked him. “Surely Shimon, all fish is Kosher?” He simply grinned and replied somewhat mysteriously, “Fish in the sea is Kosher.”
Shimon was my cousin and my friend. He was 11 years younger than me and moreover we came from very different worlds, different strands of Judaism and Jewish culture, yet we clicked somehow. We became friends from the time we first met [see chapter 18 of my book mentioned at the head of my ‘about’ page] until he sadly passed away in Germany some 11 years ago.
In the apex of that junction of Fieldgate St, Plumbers Row and Whitechapel Road there was a car park. This was at the time that I was working in Fieldgate Street in the 1970s. That particular car park had no hard surface; it was a simple piece of waste ground that had been roughly smoothed off, and fenced off to provide some very basic security. The word security being a real contradiction of terms here. The rough smoothing of the rough ground did give a quasi level surface on which to park. Nor was it cheap to do so. The management saw to that in an area of town where protected parking was at a premium.
This illicit car park was run by Jimmy, a Cockney guy well versed in the ways of the East End. I was never certain on how Jimmy came to be running the car park. Did he own that piece of ground? I never got that impression. Was he merely the manager? There appeared to be no sign of ownership at all nor did Jimmy go out of his way to make the situation any clearer to anyone that I knew then or now or any time between. Whatever the case may be the management team was comprised of just Jimmy and his wife. Around much of the edge of this car park was a wide growth of wispy grass. The one thing that was certain in that car park was that the cars parked there were safe with Jimmy on guard. He was your veritable poacher turned gamekeeper. He knew all the tricks of the thief’s trade. That car park was the safest in London, safe from theft that is…
There were no services to the car park i.e. no running water no telephone and no toilet. There was a small hut on the Whitechapel road side of the car park where Jimmy could sit and be out of the weather. I have no idea how he met his personal needs regarding the lack of toilet nor do I wish to know, not for the purposes of this short story,nor for any other reason for that matter! Jimmy had a wife whose name escapes me at the moment but who supplied him with food and drink and some company here and there during the day. They lived nearby in Myrdle Street in a flat in one of the large buildings there.
Travelling down Fieldgate Street towards Plumbers Row and on the right just before the car park was the Fieldgate Street Synagogue which I had been in a few times over the years for services but was not the one that I used most regularly. I preferred the small less formal synagogue in New Road. I believe that since the period in which I was working in the East End the Fieldgate Street Synagogue has become a mosque. A short distance from the synagogue and on the same side of the road was and is the large and impressive building of Rowton House which is a hostel for down and out men with nowhere to live.
That day when the Fieldgate Street Fire Crew was pressed into action was a day in which the sun had risen seemingly determined to breath fire onto London. It had started as it meant to carry on; hot and breathless air hung around in the streets and in the houses, lifeless as if determined to choke the whole population. It was one of many dry, bone dry days that had been produced during a long dry period in the south of England in that year.The year was 1976. Everything was dry, the streets were dry the dogs and cats and their tongues were dry; grass everywhere was dry to the bone.
I had just walked away from the kosher fish restaurant in Greatorex Street and saw the smoke and heard the hubbub as I was entering Whitechapel road. I heard the babble of excited voices before I noticed the billowing smoke off to my right, which I then discovered to be coming from Jimmy’s car park. I tried to run quickly across Whitechapel road towards the smoke but it was a dangerous time to try to do so. There were several occasions when I narrowly managed to dodge between cars the drivers of which were also watching the smoke; some over their shoulders as they drove away from the scene, too slowly for other drivers following up behind them. It was a bad time to be a lone pedestrian trying to hurry across Whitechapel Road!
As I arrived in the car park the scene that greeted me was one of organised panic ascending into chaos . Jimmy was trying to gain control and organise a group of men who were fearful solely for the safety of their own cars and with no wit to join forces to save all the cars. It appeared that some fool had discarded a still lit cigarette butt into the dried grass which had caught fire and in the wind was moving inexorably towards the cars. There were of course no mobile phones in those days and Jimmy did not have a landline connection to his car park. He could not therefore easily call the fire brigade. Just as I arrived though he had a real Cockney brainwave. He rounded up a gang of men, including me, to form a line in front of the fire and to attempt to put it out by peeing on it. The earlier premature panic quickly turned into laughter and a great deal of really low humour of the “don’t piss on my boots” variety. I readily joined the fun and the line of men and enrolled myself into the newly formed Fieldgate Street Fire Crew.
The action was not an immediate success as the first fire crew quickly ran out of natural resources. Jimmy though was ever resourceful and was quickly and easily able to press-gang more members to his fire crew. He just had to whistle!This recruiting process created a decent supply of steam together with more and more base humour to the effect that in the final analysis it was a resounding success. There was of course no payment for the services of the members of the fire prevention team other than the joy of knowing that they had saved the day, had protected their own cars, as well as the cars of others, and had created huge volumes of ribald fun and laughter and not to say steam, in a scruffy little car park in Fieldgate Street E1. Some of the erstwhile members of the crew, including myself, have been able to ‘dine out’ on the experience for many a day.
Tony Kreit 05-05-2018
Bob’ Story
But It All ended well for Bob Due to a Concerned Neighbour
Bob was a member of our family. He lived in North London and never ever seemed to be a man who would be susceptible to any kind of fraud. He just did not seem to be the gullible type. One day a few years ago Bob had been shopping and on returning home he was encountered by a man who contrived to get into conversation with him on the basis that they happened to be walking in the same direction. This man introduced himself as a roofer who was working on some roofs in Bob’s road quite near to his house.
To cut a very long story short. Bob was coerced into going to his bank with the “new found friend” within a couple of hours where he drew out £2,500 cash and handed it over to the man to pay for an alleged roof tiling job to which he had been persuaded to agree about 15 minutes after he first met his “new friend”. Bob was also persuaded that the man could also offer him a ‘lifetime contract’ for repairs on his house provided that he agreed to sign over the deeds of his home to that scoundrel. Bob was persuaded that that might be a good deal and agreed to be collected from his home the next morning to go to the man’s ‘solicitor’s office to conclude that transaction. Thus Bob had been done up like a chicken for the slaughter in one or two easy steps. The poor chap was not given time to think or consult with anyone else at any time during the process.
At this point Bob’s good angel stepped in in the form of a lady neighbour who had noticed the unusual activity surrounding our Bob that day. She knocked on his door and quite bluntly announced her concerns. She asked Bob to tell her what was occurring. When Bob, who was beginning to have some doubts himself, began his explanation his kind neighbour was quite astonished. She was angry at the thieving rogue who was in the process of conning Bob, an elderly neighbour. She also let our Bob know what she thought of him by the way.
Nonetheless she insisted that Bob should call the police in straight away and would not leave him alone until the boys in blue had arrived. A police sergeant attended and when he heard the story he showed a great deal of interest and, indeed, kindness towards Bob. The upshot was that the would-be thief and two associates were arrested the next day in the process of trying to get Bob to sign his house over to them. There was a criminal court case after which the sergeant announced that he had also retrieved Bob’s initial £2,500. All was well that ended well and all due to the care and concern of a very kind and observant Neighbour.
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