King's Cross Kid

by Victor Gregg

  Thanks to Mr Thornton we had a school band that used to win prizes and come out ahead of even the local grammar schools. It was Mr Thornton who taught me the rudiments of music and inspired me. ‘Keep your bow straight, hold the violin up to your chin, don’t let it droop, it’s not in need of a lie-down, keep your eye on the music, listen to the beat.’ And so on. Mr Thornton never believed in doing things by halves. He just kept us at whatever we were doing until, in his judgement, we were as good as we were ever likely to get.

  And so the years continued to pass and we lived happily in Compton Street until my grandparents managed to get accommodation in Kenton Street in the posh Borough of Holborn. And that’s where a new stage of my life began.

  16

  The Move to Bloomsbury

  When Mum told me about the move to Gran’s house in Kenton Street I wasn’t too happy about it. ‘But, Mum, I don’t know anybody round there. Anyway, it’s full of cissy boys, that’s wot they are. I’ve seen ’em, they spend their time talking to girls.’ ‘If it gets you away from this rough lot round ’ere then that’s a good thing. You’ll just ’ave to get used to it, and there will be no more bugs and mice and those ’orrible cockroaches and you can join the Boy Scouts when we settle in.’ It looked to me as though I was going to suffer a fate worse than death. I didn’t view being a Boy Scout with any enthusiasm.

  Not all the boys in the neighbourhood viewed the Boy Scouts as a cissy adventure to be avoided at all costs, however. ‘Ain’t all that bad, in the summer they go camping and the girls go wiv ’em.’ ‘So what?’ ‘Well, dontcha know, they all go in the same tent and do it?’ ‘Do wot?’ ‘Well, I don’t know ’cept they do somefink.’ All I knew about women was my mum, my gran and little Emmy, who wasn’t so little any more and was the reason that I’d been exiled to the kitchen, but she was still my little sister and if any boy took the mickey out of her I’d be on him like a ton of bricks.

  Then one day my Uncle Joe and another uncle, Mum’s brother Will, who came from Calthorp Street off the Gray’s Inn Road, turned up with a large barrow to transfer our meagre belongings to our new abode. To make matters worse, my mates queued up giving me the hoots. ‘Oy, Vic, gonna live with the cissy boys then? We’ll come round an’ do ’em up if yer want.’ At this point my Uncle Sam, who was a big bloke from Kentish Town, threatened them with ‘a clip round the ear’ that really got them going. I couldn’t help feeling proud of my mates; they were frightened of no one.

  At last the deed was done and me, Mum, John and little Emmy were settled in on the first floor, still only two rooms, but much cleaner, no gaps in the woodwork for the mice to crawl out of and the windows didn’t rattle. The rooms themselves were larger and bigger though the rent was the same.

  More than anything it was the front door that made me aware of our sudden change in fortune. For a start the door opened and shut properly; it wasn’t hanging on one hinge like the door in Compton Street which was a door in name only. It never closed properly either. Whoever came in last at night used to slide a piece of wood under it to stop it rattling. Some of our neighbours just had an open space, the door having been chopped up for firewood.

  This new door had a brass knocker and a big electric push-button bell, all highly polished, as were the three pull knobs for the upstairs bells. Even the door itself had a shine on it. Our new landlord was the Foundling Estate and part of the large Coram Benevolent Institution. And so we were dragged away from the sordid surroundings of our early years. From now on my grandparents took over.

  Grandfather was a short, round man with red cheeks and a huge curly moustache. Off he set every morning with his rolling gait on the walk to Hatton Garden where he worked, wearing a black Homburg and swinging his Gladstone bag, a larger than life gold watch chain strung across his ample paunch.

  Grandmother was the opposite, tall and angular, her black hair swept up into a tight bun, eyes that looked right through you. She was always dressed in a long black dress which encased her from her ankles to her high, ruffled neckline. She wore a chain around her waist from which dangled various keys, none of which seemed to be used, except the front door key.

  This doughty pair lived in the lower part of the house. The kitchen was in the basement in which nearly all our waking hours were spent. Behind the kitchen was the scullery, complete with a huge open boiling pan in which the weekly wash was done (and the Christmas puddings were cooked). The bedroom was at the back on the ground floor, while the front room, or parlour, was reserved for special occasions, like Christmas and birthdays. The centrepiece of the parlour was a large aspidistra, the leaves of which my gran polished religiously once a week.

  During the summer months Gran took her place at the window to look out on the street, commenting on the qualities, good and bad, of the neighbours. It was in this front room that brother John had his bed.

  This couple deplored the social level that their daughter had sunk to, blaming it all upon my father, ‘that scandalous plumber from Kentish Town’. ‘You never could trust them as comes from that neighbourhood.’ The fact that my grandparents had lost two sons in the Great War while the plumber from Kentish Town had emerged unscathed didn’t help matters either.

  In those days working people had an almost fanatical allegiance to the royal family. I never went to my mates’ homes without seeing the stern eyes of King George and Queen Mary staring down at me from one of the walls. No matter if the rooms were nice and clean, or filthy with flaking plaster and the paper peeling off, the pictures were there for all to see. And, of course, in my grandparents’ house, hanging next to the sacred royal photographs, were the pictures of the two sons who had been laid out in Flanders Field. My grandparents were Victorian in their outlook; there was never any messing about. At the meal table you were served according to your station in the household, small boys being last, and not only that, seen and not heard. ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full!’ ‘Eat what’s given you!’ ‘Ask permission if you wish to leave the table!’ To be certain that discipline was maintained there was a convenient shelf under the edge of the table where resided the CANE, and my grandmother was an expert at wielding that formidable instrument while Grandfather just sat and ate. All the same, they were both good to us. They had realised that Mother was in an impossible situation and had decided to take the weight off her shoulders.

  17

  The Crusade of Rescue

  As soon as we moved into our new home, Grandmother announced that on Saturday we were going to take a walk to the Crusade of Rescue. This emporium had its premises in Tavistock Place, just at the end of Kenton Street. The Crusade was the Oxfam shop of its day, a place with a huge open front, filled to bursting with all sorts of second-hand clothing, all donated by charitable organisations.

  So there we were, my brother and I, standing like a couple of goons while Mother and Grandmother debated as to whether some garment or other was appropriate. After the suits came the boots, and once these were selected they were taken to the boot mender who put as many studs into them as possible. By the time we came to wearing them, the soles and heels were almost solid steel. ‘And don’t let me catch you sliding about on them.’

  One afternoon, as I was walking to Grandmother’s home, a dog rushed out of a doorway and took a large chunk out of my arm. A passer-by took me home, where Gran doused the gash with iodine and took me to the doctor’s to be stitched up. Then off she went to find the owner of the dog. When she found him she set about him with a large shovel she had taken with her for that specific purpose. The poor man ended up in the Royal Free Hospital and Grandmother up before the local magistrate. It turned out that Grandfather, who was a Freemason, was in the same lodge as the beak, so nothing came of it.

  The move to Kenton Street also brought us into contact with all the uncles and aunts on the Hamblin side of the family – at least those surviving uncles who had managed to escape the scythe of the Grim Reaper during the war. Uncle Will lived quite near, just off the Gray’s In
n Road, but Uncle Tom lived out in the wilds of Epsom. Then there was Uncle Sam and Uncle Joe, who I have already mentioned and who lived in council flats in Rosebery Avenue. All these relatives used to visit us once a month to ‘pay the Club’, the club being the Sir John Peel Working Men’s Mutual Society, of which Grandfather was one of the trustees. Once a month off he toddled to a meeting up in Marylebone Lane, sometimes taking me with him.

  After handing over the monthly dues he had collected, he would, with much puffing and blowing, assume his place at the committee table alongside the rest of the hierarchy. After the evening farewells came the walk home, often in the company of one or two of the other club dignitaries. A halt was usually made at some drinking establishment. I never saw the inside of these places – ‘Just hang about a bit, Victor, small boys not allowed in here’ – and while waiting I amused myself thinking about the reception that I knew from experience Granddad was going to get from Grandma.

  If by some chance the refreshing nectar had flowed too freely I knew enough to make myself scarce until the almost certain ensuing battle between my gran and her somewhat tipsy husband died down. That said, I never knew my grandfather to get really drunk and incapable; my gran wasn’t going to give him the chance.

  18

  Costermongers in Kenton Street

  The move to Kenton Street made life much easier for Mum: for one thing it was simpler for us to keep clean. John was still sleeping downstairs with my grandparents and it seemed to me that they had taken my brother off Mum’s hands and adopted him as their own son. As for myself, I used to spend the evenings and nights with my old friends from Wakefield Street. ‘What’s it like round there, Vic?’ ‘A load of cissy boys, I reckon’ was my verdict.

  There were other sights and sounds that were new to us after the move. Being a slightly better off area, it was common for the streets to be targeted by all the various costermongers, especially on a Sunday afternoon. The Muffin Man, walking along in the centre of the road, carried his wares on a large wooden tray balanced on his head, ringing his huge brass bell, ‘Muffins, luvly muffins.’ Then there was the man who sold shellfish, the Winkle Man. Everyone recognised him, trundling his barrow and announcing his presence with a large motor horn. Then there was the Cat’s-Meat Man, the Fruit and Veg Man, and last but not least, all through the summer months sitting in his old wicker chair and occasionally giving his ice cream a stir, would be Tony the Ice-Cream Man.

  There used to be a song the kids would sing, and it went something like this:

  I come all the way from Italia,

  And I find my way down Saffron Hill, how do you feel?

  In winter I sell ches-a-nuts a hotta,

  In summer I sell ice-a-da-cream bigger da top, no taster,

  Hurra, hurra, hurra for the Italian Man.

  I almost forgot the organ grinders, nearly all of them ex-service, with one or more limbs missing, reduced to begging as their only means of support. Hard times they may have been, but working people were not slow to throw pennies out of the window, and so music filled the street and the young girls, throwing a rope across the road, ended up skipping merrily away – Salt, Mustard, Vinegar, Pepper, with the rope whizzing around until they all fell to the ground, exhausted.

  To my mum’s delight I gradually began to mix more with the boys in Kenton Street. Although, if at a loss for something to do I’d go back round to my old mates in Wakefield Street and in no time would be back to the old tricks, one of which was a trip up the Cally to see if we could bunk in to watch the boxing, especially if there was one of our local heroes on the programme.

  The boys in Kenton Street weren’t interested in boxing, but, as I was to discover, they had other interests, like the swimming pool in Endell Street, which lay on the south side of New Oxford Street. For just twopence you could spend the whole of Saturday morning at the baths. It was in Endell Street that I became aware that there were men who gained much pleasure from associating with small boys and good-looking youths.

  It didn’t take long to suss out these individuals for what they were really after. I remember there used to be a clique of about four of them, always handing out bags of sweets which, naturally, we accepted: ‘Fanks, mister.’ Obviously they must have achieved satisfaction with some of the boys but none that I knew. It was through these gentlemen, as we grew older and into our teens, that we were able to get night-time employment in the clubs and cafés of Soho as washers-up.

  The work started any time after seven in the evening and then we set to, washing the crockery and cleaning the glasses until ten in the evening. For this we were paid the huge sum of ten shillings a night, which was equal to the amount we were to earn for a week’s work when it came time to leave school.

  19

  Growing Up in Bloomsbury

  Bloomsbury, the area we were now living in, was in those days almost a village. People were not born there, they moved there. A person might proudly announce that he ‘came from’ Bermondsey, or Poplar, or any other place, but you never heard people say that they ‘came from’ Bloomsbury; more like: ‘I am at present in rooms in Bloomsbury.’

  Bloomsbury and the area on the other side of the Tottenham Court Road, known as Fitzrovia, was the place in which I was to serve my apprenticeship in the art of growing up. The area was the happy hunting ground of the street girls and the gangs from Soho, just across New Oxford Street, who controlled them.

  At the top of the pile was the gang run by the Sabini brothers who had the majority of the girls along with the vice dens and gaming houses. Close on their heels were the equally intimidating Hoxton Mob. These two gangs between them not only owned nearly all of Soho and the West End, but it was a well-known fact that they had Savile Row, the main police station, well and truly in their pockets. It was the Hoxton Mob who became one of our main sources of income, unbeknown to our parents, of course. Mother and our grandparents strove in vain to keep my brother and me away from the evils of the area, but if there was money to be earned then we would offer our talents to earn it. As we grew out of our short trousers and began to fill out into young men, the pimps and small-time crooks who had got used to seeing us around day after day began to buy our services as watchers or lookouts so they could carry on their nefarious enterprises in comparative safety.

  Mixing with the criminal elements had its dangers. If you started getting handouts from one of the mobs then that was the lot you got stuck with, the only trouble being that at any time you could be attacked by the kids who were getting dropsy – small retainers – from a rival mob. The six of us who roamed the backstreets of Soho, Greek Street, Wardour Street, Frith Street and the like started our life of ‘aiding and abetting’ by doing the simplest of tasks. The gangs hung about in the clubs during the daylight hours, drinking, playing cards and planning their next jobs. They started by asking us to ‘nip darn and get us some fags’. It wasn’t long before we realised that the lot we were doing these favours for was the infamous Hoxton Mob, cutthroats and number one villains to a man. ‘You boys want to steer clear of the Sabinis, if they get to know you’re hanging round us, they’d think nothing of slitting yer throat.’ Timely warnings which, because we were earning cash, went in one ear and out the other.

  The Hoxton Mob, as their name implied, originated from Hoxton, in the depths of the East End of London. The Sabinis came from a district much nearer to where our little bunch of tearaways lived, Saffron Hill, an area off the Clerkenwell Road adjacent to Farringdon Road, around the corner so to speak. They were of Italian or, more correctly, Maltese extraction.

  All the local ice-cream vendors had to pay their dues to this mob and, of course, all the girls and their pimps had to get permission if they wished to work to the east and north of Cambridge Circus or St Giles Circus. The two gangs didn’t encroach on each other’s territory and that’s how they kept the peace between themselves. It didn’t always work and then battles would rage that the police were powerless to stop. Us small, inconspicuous boys w
ere used to keep an eye on the enemy and occasionally, if a job was planned ‘up West’, it would be let known that a small earner was on for a couple of hours’ lookout.

  Much later on these two arch enemies had a head-on clash somewhere down in south London. According to what I read it was a right bust-up involving knives, shooters and anything that could do mortal damage. One of the Hoxton boys died of shotgun wounds and a couple of the Sabinis finished up with severe knife wounds. I think this took place in New Cross. What it showed was how far and wide these two gangs spread their tentacles. The final clash between the two gangs was a horrendous battle in 1936, at Lewes racecourse, where they were at each other’s throats over who was going to control the bookies and the lucrative off-course betting scams.

  Our little gang also earned some dropsy from a gang that came from Somers Town, known as the Tolma Gang, presumably named after Tolma Square which was just around the corner. This small mob specialised in breaking and entering. They got all their information from the society columns in the quality papers. They’d read when Lord and Lady Whatsit were out of town or visiting somewhere abroad, then they would spend a couple of days sussing the house out, which was usually in some expensive part of the city, Belgravia, Knightsbridge or the like.

  The first bloke in would be the screws man. He gained entry by shinning up a drainpipe. Once on a balcony out came a small putty knife to cut away the putty from a windowpane. Next a small pair of pliers to draw out the tacks that held the glass in. Then, with the help of a sink plunger, the pane was noiselessly removed. Then into the house, down the stairs, open the front door and that would be the screws man’s job finished. He departed the scene leaving a couple of men to go over the house while the most important member of the team set about cracking the safe. While all this was going on, us boys scoured the streets in the vicinity on the lookout for the law. As I said, a nice little earner. I never heard that the Tolma Gang ever got nobbled by the law. I finally came to my youthful senses when one of my mates mentioned to some of the elders of the Hoxton Mob that his dad worked as a lighterman on a Thames barge. The gang had been planning a heist on one of the many bonded warehouses that lined the river from Blackfriars all the way down to Wapping Creek. To have a contact who had access to one of the barges would have been like owning a goldmine.