by Victor Gregg
We boys knew the risks we were running. We all knew that doing a stint in a Borstal was not a pleasant experience: about half a dozen of the older boys had been inside one and what they told us about those establishments was enough to make anyone’s hair curl. So we all decided to give Soho and the Hoxton Mob and all the other gangs the drop kick. There were other ways to earn money.
20
Choirboy and Scout
When I was about twelve John and I were dragged round to the church in Woburn Square. The word had gone out that they were short of choirboys: ‘Put the two of you on the straight and narrow,’ said Grandfather. As an aside he mentioned the news that we would be eligible for the ‘Sunday School Outing’, soon to take place.
Unfortunately, I had acquired a certain reputation in the area. ‘Bit of a scruff, that one.’ The vicar was not at all keen. He said he could only take one of us, but what he really needed was a boy who could sight-read a score. He shoved one under my nose, and without hesitation I gave a true rendering of the music. This must have shaken him to the foundations and from that moment on I was flavour of the month. Not that I was in any way keen on the idea of being a cissy choirboy, but to please Mother and my grandparents I stuck with it for nearly nine months. After that, enough was enough.
Although I was hopeless at singing, I used to help the organist out with the musical arrangements. When he found out I was leaving, he promised me the earth to stay on. ‘Be a good lad and think of your future.’ He even made contact with the headmaster at Cromer Street School. I got a lecture from him as well. I suppose they were both trying their best to help me; after all, it was obvious to them that I did have some talent. For me music was just something I enjoyed but that was all.
Soon after I was press-ganged into the Woburn Square church choir the news went around that there was some Yank who had a big posh car and was going to start up a new Scout Group in Herbrand Street. The vicar expected all of us to turn up at the first meeting; he said it would be like a big party and there would be cakes and ice cream and jellies, followed by games with prizes.
The man responsible for all this had formed a group called ‘the Holborn Rovers’ and these lads were going around putting cards in all the local shop windows, and the whole area was abuzz with the news. The locals considered the enterprise a good thing: ‘About time something was done, keep the little scruffs off the streets.’ Or some such words.
The first event was mightily oversubscribed. There was to be a meeting every week and, once they had been accepted, boys were expected to turn up with their uniforms clean and pressed. For any boy whose parents couldn’t afford the uniform it would be issued free of charge. The local mums loved it and they loved the man who was organising it all. He was called Ralph Reader and, as well as having an American accent, he was very handsome. He moved and talked like a film star. To top it all, the posh car he owned was an enormous American open-top touring Chrysler which he parked outside the hall where we met. Even though he had all the women swooning and starry-eyed, he used to spend a lot of his spare time in the company of his friend, a gentleman who lived in a block of flats on the edge of Russell Square.
The uniform we had to buy consisted of a pair of blue short trousers, a khaki shirt, a red scarf with grey trimming around the edge and a length of coloured string with a whistle on the end. There was also a belt which, when we could afford to buy one, was meant to carry a vicious looking sheath knife. Finally, there was the hat, wide-brimmed with a pointed top. You could also earn badges by passing various tests and these were sewn on to your shirt.
Ralph Reader himself was actually born in Somerset. He had emigrated to America and become a successful choreographer and stage producer but had for some unknown reason returned to the land of his birth and became a personality in the theatre scene. One evening he was chatting to a small group of us and told us that he had never realised how bad it was for us London kids. He said it was bad in New York but just as grim over here. Reader was sincere in what he was attempting to do. ‘The Skipper’, as he wanted us to call him, stuck to his task, finally producing his famous Gang Show at the Scala Theatre. The event became a centrepiece of the world Scout Movement – and it all started at the 10th Holborn Scout Group.
As my gran had forked out the cash for the uniform I was morally bound to turn up for the weekly parades. Afterwards I would make my way to my mates in Wakefield Street who scoffed at the whole idea. ‘Load of cissy boys, that’s what they are, let’s go round and bash ’em up.’ They never did, but I have to admit I felt the same way. I thought that, somehow, the boys were being used, but I couldn’t put my finger on how. I knew where I was with the lads in Wakefield, Sidmouth and Cromer Streets: there was no double talk, a spade was a spade, nothing hidden. I was happy with that and after a while I left the Holborn Rovers; some of them even started calling each other ‘Dear’ – not my cup of tea at all!
Once I was free from the responsibility of being a well-behaved choirboy, I was soon back with my old Wakefield Street mates. While I had been away a couple of Irish families had moved into the street.
For all the time that I had known them, the leader of the gang was a hard nut by the name of Tommy Spires. Tommy and I had it out together a couple of times over the leadership of the gang and on both occasions I came off second best. But we respected each other and the rest of the gang understood the score. Tommy was top dog and that was that.
Unfortunately for Tommy, around the time that I arrived back in the fold a couple of the new arrivals, Irish boys, began to challenge his authority. ‘Well, if you carn’t sort ’im out, Tommy, what you expect me to do?’ ‘Well, I was finkin’ that we could sort the two of ’em out together, run ’em off the turf, give ’em a good bashing.’ The thought that they might be about to witness a real good bundle was irresistible to the rest of the gang. ‘Let’s go and sort ’em out then.’ When I finally got home that evening I had two split lips and my eye was cut above the lid. I was put through the mangle by my mum and gran: ‘Ain’t you ever going to grow up? I thought you was told to keep clear of that lot in Wakefield Street.’ With my sore head I wasn’t feeling in the best of spirits but the two Irish lads were stopped, never to challenge again. Tommy and me were now the best of mates and the gang carried on stronger than ever. Our little leadership struggle had been noted by no less a man than the Bear himself. The lads who had caused all the trouble didn’t go to Cromer Street School; they went to the Roman Catholic school a few streets away. In our school the word went around that Tommy and me had seen them off and we stalked around the playground like a couple of gods. That is until we were called in to see the headmaster.
We went prepared for the worst, but, instead of the dreaded cane, Mr Thornton told us to sit down and to listen carefully to what he was about to say. It went something like this. ‘I suppose you two consider yourselves unbeatable? The pair of you strutting around like a couple of champion fighting cocks. You’re both nearly thirteen years old and in a year’s time you’ll leave school and be out on the streets trying to earn a living. If you carry on the way you are now you will both spend most of your lives behind bars. As for you, Victor Gregg, I really thought you had something better in you. And you, young Tommy, what do you want out of life, just one fight after another? Is that all you’re good for? I think you can do better for yourselves. I want you both off the streets and into the grammar school. It’s the only chance you’ll have so get stuck in and make something of yourselves.’ With that he dismissed us. We learnt later that our Mr Thornton and the Bear had talked about us and, much to the Bear’s satisfaction, Mr Thornton had decided to lay down the law to us.
The amazing outcome was that, almost overnight, Tommy Spires left the gang and ended up at the grammar school in Great College Street. As for me, I knew that I could do better, but I was torn between that and wanting to be with the lads in Wakefield Street.
Part Two
21
Brooklands Boy
&
nbsp; My years at Cromer Street School ended when I turned fourteen, at which point I presented myself to the local labour exchange in Penton Street, at the top of Pentonville Road.
The next week, straight out of school and now in a good pair of second-hand long trousers, I started working for an optical firm just off Rosebery Avenue, on the second floor of an industrial building at the corner of Exmouth Street Market. The firm was called F. G. Optical Company, the F. G. standing for Fritz Gua. The company was a specialist manufacturer of spectacle frames and nearly all the work was carried out by scruffy boys just out of school. Boys like me in other words. Fritz’s partner was a Welshman by the name of Lewis, who handled relations with the small workforce. The work was just a means of making a wage in order to have money in your pocket. We earned ten shillings a week, standard for a youngster at the time, half of which I gave to my mum; the remaining five shillings was all mine to spend on clothes, mostly second-hand, and anything else that took my fancy. Paid on Friday and skint by Sunday night, if not before, that was the norm.
I was given the job of operating one of the milling machines that turned out the frames. Oblong pieces of thick plastic were piled up on the bench in the morning. The boys employed in milling had to put a piece of this plastic into a jig and then we milled it out on a cutting wheel which whizzed around at thousands of revs per minute, just a bare cutter protruding from a hole in the bench with no protection of any kind. There was a constant depletion of the workforce due to the regular cutting off of fingers. The Royal Free Hospital in Gray’s Inn Road knew the firm well. The factory inspectors used to turn a blind eye and I often wondered if they were being bribed to stay away.
Work started at eight o’clock, with a ten-minute break at ten thirty, then half an hour for dinner for which the firm provided the tea. We ate whatever our mums had provided in the way of sandwiches. Then the final slog until the whistle blew at five thirty. When a mishap occurred such as a finger being cut off, the cry would go out: ‘BLOOD UP’. Then, while the victim was whisked away to hospital, one of us was detailed to wash the blood off the wall, and cover it with liberal amounts of distemper to hide the stain. The only employees who were over sixteen or seventeen were the man who cut out the blocks of plastic on a huge bandsaw and the girls who worked in the polishing shop. There were also some men – we were told they were Germans – who worked in a separate room fixing the side pieces to the frames. By the time the boys were old enough to ask for more money they were sacked and a fresh bunch of recruits taken on.
It was during a slack period that Mr Lewis asked me to take a bucket and some polishing kit and go down to the local garage to wash his car, a big American Buick. The garage was the home of the Mount Pleasant Taxi Company. It was run by the son of old man Levy (a well-known character on the London cab scene) who owned Levy’s of King’s Cross, the parent company, and it was the major taxi firm of the day. This was quite exciting. I used to polish the Buick and then polish it again. Unbeknown to the boss I learnt to drive it around the garage to the amusement of the fitters and cleaners who worked there.
One fine day old man Levy’s son came up and asked me if I could ‘find the time to wash down a couple of his cars’. ‘Not ’arf?,?’ says I, thinking, of course, of the extra money. Tom Levy had a couple of MGs with which he competed at Brooklands, in Surrey, and sometimes Donington, in the Midlands, and it was these cars that he wanted me to keep ‘nice and shiny’.
I gave my first job the boot. I had been at it for just eight weeks. My new job as a taxi cleaner at Levy’s of Mount Pleasant paid an extra five shillings a week with much better conditions and without the threat of losing my fingers. It was when Tom Levy started taking me to Brooklands that life began to get interesting. It was there that I met all the famous racing drivers of the day, men like Freddie Dixon who used to drive for Riley, Tom Birkett, another character, and last but not least Earl Howe, whose most famous car was a huge Napier Railton. It was an unforgettable experience watching this giant of a car lapping the bumpy surface of the Brooklands oval at speeds of over a hundred miles an hour. Tom Levy’s team used an old flat-bed lorry to transport whatever car was to compete, along with the ramps, spare parts, ropes, petrol and oil. As far as I can recall there were four of us. Tom, of course, was lord and master, then there was the chief fitter, his mate and, at the bottom of the heap, yours truly.
My first job, once the car had been manhandled off the lorry, was to get the polishing cloth going. After the first few trips I was trusted to check the tyres, oil and the chassis, to make certain that all the bolts were secured with split pins. All four of us had specific jobs. Whether the fitter and his mate ever got paid for what they were doing I haven’t a clue. I only know that I never was, although I used to get small sums of cash for the little jobs I did for some of the other drivers. I tended to do the jobs nobody else wanted to do, like getting underneath the car to drain the hot oil, while at the same time scorching my clothes on the red-hot exhaust pipe.
In those days it only needed one nut to come adrift to cause a crash and, with no safety devices, like seat belts, a crash at Brooklands usually meant a stretcher job to the nearest mortuary. Luckily that never happened to us.
As far as I know Tom Levy never won much because his two MGs were the smallest of the MG marque so his only chance of a prize was in a handicap event. The MGs were only about 1100cc, unlike the Maseratis and the more modern English Racing Automobiles, or ERAs. ERA was a company formed by Humphrey Cook and Raymond Mays. Cook was the man with the money; his family ran a big firm of drapers. They wanted to design and build cars that could compete with the likes of Bugatti and Talbot. They were quite successful. Going back to Tom Levy, I suppose his vehicles were similar to the Austin Sevens and the Riley Nines, which was the well-respected car with which Freddie Dixon used to rule the roost. His main competitors were people like George Eyston and a Siamese driver of some fame, Prince Bira. All the bigger cars like the Talbots, the Alfas and, of course, the mighty Napier Railton charged around the infamous bumpy concrete bowl at breakneck speeds but it was always the Napier with John Cobb sitting dead upright at the wheel that won. If this mighty Goliath of a car hit a bump at a hundred miles an hour all four wheels took to the air. The crescendo of noise as they approached was tremendous, and then, as quick as a flash, they would disappear round the banking, leaving the strong and unmistakable smell of castor oil floating on the air. There was nothing like it. I became a sort of errand boy and general dogsbody at these meetings. ‘Hey, Levy, where’s that kid of yours?’ was the signal for me to give a hand and get smothered in oil and grease – I loved it. To be given a ride around the track in some of the bigger cars, along with instructions to pump the oil whenever the pressure needle dropped below a certain figure, was a dream straight from heaven. A pair of overalls, smothered in grease and dirt and supplied by the boss, plus a black beret from one of the drivers – that was my uniform.
The first job when we got back to the garage was to lift the engine out of the chassis and set it up on a workbench ready for the fitter to get to work on it before the next meeting. This meant a complete strip down. Everything that moved either in a circle or up and down had to be cleaned, weighed and polished. The flywheel went to the engineering shop to be skimmed and balanced. This meant shaving metal off the wheel and it was not unusual to skim as much as half an inch off its width. The finishing touch would be a polish job. The same attention was paid to the con rods and the cam followers. The inside of the exhaust and inlet valve channels also had to be polished: no obstruction to the flow was the name of the game. Those engines of the twenties and thirties, whether amateur or works’ run, were objects of industrial beauty.
Nearly all the drivers at meetings in those days had independent means of some sort. I don’t know how they behaved towards men of my class when they met us in ordinary life – probably ‘Do this, my man’ or something similar – but on the track it was another matter. I was never talked down to because
I was the ‘Levy kid’. During the meetings it wasn’t unusual for the whole family of an aspiring driver to be sitting at tables in the pits, while a butler waited on them with dainty sandwiches and flowing champagne, especially after a win.
I once witnessed a tragedy which gave me an insight into the way these elite people hid their emotions. It was at the Brooklands Easter meeting, the opening meet of the year. One young scion, attempting to overtake on, of all places, the Byfleet banking, came adrift and shot over the edge of the track. The result was flames, smoke and one very dead driver. A couple of labourers were sent with a stretcher to bring the remains of the lad back to the pits while the family went on supping the champagne with very few apparent signs of grief. On the way home the crew talked about the crash. Tom Levy said, ‘That’s what they’re like, some of them seem not to have emotions, not like us.’
Tom Levy was never really ‘one of them’. First of all, he worked for a living, but, more importantly, he was Jewish. All the same, a lot of ‘them’ were his friends.
I was now beginning to exhibit the behaviour patterns that I would show all my life. Once I got used to a job I lost interest, packed it in and looked for fresh pastures and more money. I was still only earning fifteen shillings a week, not enough. As well as which, girls were entering my field of vision.
