Cobbled Streets and Penny Sweets--Happy Times and Hardship in Post-War Britain

by Yvonne Young

  The week away from home was over all too quickly. There was so much to do and so much to discover – for instance, the sight of a duck’s backside. As I had never seen a duck before, it fascinated me how they fed by dipping their heads. All I could see was the backside and tail feathers. Also, that ice cream could be floated in a glass of lemonade and I could be a latchkey kid in a completely different part of the country.

  On our return, I went back to Guides and the girl who had given me the lovely blue skirt passed on a straight skirt with four pleats at the front in a little square shape. I did the odd bit of sewing, but this was too difficult so Mam suggested I take it to Mrs Thompson to alter. When I called to pick it up, she said, ‘That will be two shillings.’

  Mam went off on one: ‘We take her daughter on holiday and the spending money they gave her didn’t even cover the whole week. Don’t you dare go around with that Lillian ever again or there will be big trouble!’

  Of course, I did, but she only ever came to mine when they were out.

  * * *

  I had a small portable record player with a hinged lid. The arm was held in place by a clip at the side. Me and Lillian decided to dance to the odd few singles I owned, but it wasn’t working. Against my better judgement I was talked into allowing her to ‘take a look at the plug’. I brought in a screwdriver from Dad’s toolbox and Lillian patiently removed the two screws from the two-pin plug.

  ‘I will rewire it,’ she said. ‘I’ve watched my dad.’

  She removed the copper wire strands from the metal teeth, put them back in the same place, but joined the wires together across the middle. It still didn’t work, so we just went outside to play. Later, when Dad came in from work, I lied that a fictitious pal called Alice had tried to fix my record player. When he took the back from the plug he turned pale and told me never to do this again, this was very dangerous. Although he could talk! I could have reminded him of the last year when he rigged up a makeshift aerial when we bought our first TV when I was eleven. Mam was mildly electrocuted when she pulled the curtains back.

  Dad enjoyed inventing things and could become quite obsessive, which greatly annoyed Mam. He was concerned about a possible break-in to the house – burglars were everywhere – so he devised a kind of Z-shaped black metal contraption behind the front door. It was rigged up to the doorknob at the front. He could have made a fortune from this, had he patented the idea (this was before the deadlock was invented). He had chiselled two rebates on each side into the door frames. When he turned the knob, which was loosened, the Portcullis thingy snapped into place. Mam hated it.

  ‘What if there’s a fire and it sticks?’

  ‘It won’t.’

  As the front door was of the old-fashioned panelled kind, Dad decided to update it by nailing a sheet of plywood over the top. He painted it pale blue and from the outside it looked very presentable, but I was to undo his good work. A daft lad in the next street was always name calling, so when he started in on me, I gave as good as I got. When he picked up half a brick, I knew that it was time to beat a hasty retreat. I had just made it inside when I heard a dunk sound. After waiting some minutes for the lad to leave, I opened the door to find the brick lodged in the plywood and threw it away. Dad came in and assumed some vandal had put their foot through it. I said nothing as he foraged for his pliers in the toolbox. So, we were back with our old front door, but this time with a load of nail holes as decoration. Eventually the door was removed and replaced with a trendier design. Not being one to waste anything, Dad used it as a platform to stand on while painting the staircase walls. He rigged up some planks of wood as a bracket – it looked like a miners’ shaft, but did the job.

  * * *

  The old Victorian house we lived in had attics and was built on a steep slope. From the street there were five stone steps, which also led to the downstairs neighbours’ place. Once behind our front door there were another fourteen steps to climb before we were on the level where the kitchen, sitting room and two bedrooms were. The attics were up another set of stairs. It was very spooky up there, with three bedrooms and a bathroom.

  The back bedroom had a padlock on it when we moved in and Dad jemmied it open. It was full of cardboard boxes with old stuff inside and the skylight window was painted black. The lock was replaced and things left as they were. I only went up to slide down the banister when I was on my own. But with my pals, I wasn’t scared. As we sang ‘Halfway To Paradise’, we stuck posters of Billy Fury on the walls, which we took from the Pop weekly magazine.

  I once blocked the sink up while making plaster cast ornaments. It wasn’t until I was much older and the houses on the road had long since been demolished that a friend mentioned a man had committed suicide in that house before we had taken up residence.

  A huge iron boiler hung from the ceiling in one of the rooms. Quite conveniently, it had two rails on the bottom, which were ideal for swinging on. Me and Sarah, a pal from my class, were taking turns. Unfortunately, on my forward swing, it detached from the ceiling. My hands were still grasping the rails as it hit the floor and I lay there, arms above my head. There was water everywhere – I dread to think if it had landed on top of me. Dad came rushing upstairs and clipped me round the ear. Somehow he managed to stem the flow of water but I was so devastated that he had actually hit me, I rushed downstairs and jumped into bed, pulling the covers over my head.

  As usual, Mam was nowhere to be seen. Maybe it had been after one of their fights and she had stormed off to her parents for a week or so. Anyway, it was just me and him at home. Sometime later, he came into the room and said he shouldn’t have smacked me but it was because Mam had wound him up earlier. He told me that he had only got hitched to her because she was English (he was generally anti-foreigner) and pregnant with me. Thanks, Dad! Then he went on to reminisce about his time spent in the army, how he had enjoyed keeping his kit in order, the places he went to and how he had met a girl called Edith who lived on a farm in a place near Hanover. She had been pregnant when he left to return home after the war, but he didn’t go back, like he had promised her.

  ‘She was more my type, I should have married her instead of your mother.’

  That would explain the letters I found in his wardrobe. Some were in German, so I didn’t understand what they said, but I remembered the drawings of horseshoes and bells beautifully coloured in. One photo showed him sitting among five other Tommys outside a tea van with their metal cups. Dad is the only one looking chipper, the rest of them look positively miserable, which would be expected during wartime, but Dad thrived on the regimentation – oh, and obviously, shagging about with the local women.

  A friend of mine, Lena, had a German mother and her aunt translated the letter. It expressed a longing to see Dad and how she was so excited to meet his brothers and sisters when she visited his home before the wedding. Poor lass!

  * * *

  In another of Dad’s ‘timesavers’ a tube of rubber purloined from the garage where he worked was connected to the gas tap. He bored holes through a piece of metal piping and fixed that to the other end. This was meant to save time lighting the fire.

  ‘All you have to do is set up the grate as usual with coal and sticks, then poke this end inside. Turn on the gas tap and light it,’ he explained to Mam, who was holding her head in her hands at the time. He then demonstrated this flame-thrower procedure, which never quite caught on. Mam continued to set the grate alight with matches, put a bleezer in front of it and covered it with newspaper. This was meant to draw air away from the blaze, making it take hold more quickly. Regularly, she left the room and the paper ignited. When I screamed, she re-entered, crumpling up the paper and leaving ash all over the place. Being absent-minded, she would often turn the gas ring on, then go looking for the matches. When the light was finally put to the gas, an almighty whoosh went up.

  * * *

  One Saturday, Dad had bumped into his brother Tommy while in the city centre and was invited to visit.
He took me with him. I didn’t know where we were headed and I imagined we were maybe on our way to the coast or a park. So here was another sibling of Dad’s that I knew nothing of. Tommy lived in a huge block of flats at Rochester Place in Walker, which is in the east of Newcastle. His wife Violet made us feel at home and as soon as I set eyes on my uncle, I could see the resemblance between him and Dad immediately: they were so alike, they looked like twins. Tommy’s daughter June was a couple of years younger than me and his son Tom and elder daughter Margaret were working.

  We were treated to a lovely lunch and Tommy had lots of funny stories to tell about his working life. As a young lad he took a job as delivery boy, riding one of those huge iron bikes with a metal basket on the front. He said, ‘Mr Hewitt would say, “Just go to Weidner Road” or “Just go to Ferguson’s Lane” as if it was a couple of minutes away.’ One freezing-cold day, Tommy was told to ride a few miles up to Ponteland. He got halfway there and decided he was going no further. Then he punctured the tyre and went back crying. The boss sent someone else and he was given the job of repairing the tyre with a kit in a little tin box. Tommy was sent to the Swan Hunter Shipyard to deliver some lobster and sandwiches for a buffet, which was to take place in the offices. On the way, he took a little filling from each sandwich to keep him going. On arrival, he was in awe of the size of the ships and cranes, the busy, noisy atmosphere and fell in love with the place. After a chat with some of the workmen, he asked if there was any chance of employment.

  ‘Sure,’ one of them said, ‘go and ask the foreman.’

  Tommy was offered a choice there and then, carpenter or joiner. Carpenter was his choice as he preferred to be aboard ship, where he could lay decks and work on the doors to the cabins. He received the Letter of Appointment and his first ship was the Petrolicus. Other vessels which were originally trawlers and had been adapted as minesweepers were being changed back to their original use. This was a time for big orders – there had been so many ships sunk by U-boats and as World War II progressed, they had orders for aircraft carriers and oil tankers, as well as cargo ships, with holding tanks for equipment, machinery, guns and tanks.

  ‘Some of them weighed around 200-odd tons!’

  Tommy showed us some brilliant photos of his time served in the army. His last photo before service was taken in the Hydraulic Crane pub (named after Armstrong’s famous invention) on Scotswood Road. Tommy and two of his mates dressed in army uniform were raising a glass (he had been drinking Guinness and still has the glass). After time served in the army, he returned to the shipyards, where he worked on HMS Illustrious and the Ark Royal. One of his favourite photos shows him sitting on a rail at the top of a ship with the Petrolicus in the background.

  ‘There were no safety harnesses and only ladders strapped to the ship to climb to the top. We had practically done a day’s work by the time we walked the deck and climbed up there. It was someone’s job to secure the planks we walked on around the outside of the ship, only two-wide. One day, this hadn’t been done and I fell through. I managed to catch onto something on the way down, but there were deaths due to safety issues.’

  The toilets system was very unsatisfactory compared to modern-day comforts: no cubicles, just one long one-hundred-hole plank, with a little stream of water running underneath to clear away waste. One foreman was particularly disliked by the men, who nicknamed him ‘Nappy Neck’. He was in the habit of wearing a nappy to protect his clean white shirt collar and if any dignitary turned up, he would remove the nappy. If he turned up to snoop on the men at work, someone gave the alert, ‘Quick, Nappy Neck’s coming!’ This was the signal for all men to down tools and sit on the toilet. Unfortunately, this was the opportunity one prankster would wait for. After crumpling up a piece of newspaper, he set it alight, then sent it down the water trough. He watched the fun as the men had their backsides burned.

  Another story, which wasn’t told to me by my uncle Tommy, involved the use of sign language. As the whole shipyard was a thundering place, men relied on a set of signals, such as for telling the time. Ten to ten was all digits held up twice. If a man was signalled ‘What time is it?’ and he had forgotten his timepiece the sign was pointing to the left breast and then his back. This translated as ‘Left tit behind’, meaning he had forgotten his watch.

  Dave Anderson, an old pal, used to work as an electrician on ships when Vickers became part of Swan Hunters and asbestos lagging was used. They weren’t aware of the dangers back then and were using it rolled up as snowballs. At the end of the shift, the men rushed up to the gate to catch the 39 or 40 bus. A yard detective was holding his arms out to stop them and said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ to which a cry from a man at the back came, ‘Hey, man, there’s a bloke here who doesn’t know who he is!’

  It’s difficult to go past the shipyards and see only a handful of cranes today where there were once dozens and a thriving industry, but that goes for many places in the North.

  After our hugely enjoyable afternoon Tommy suggested we visit Walker Park, which was a big adventure. We played football and I got on great with June. It had been something new to me: a family having actual conversations around the dining table. However, this was to be our first and last visit. The family moved home soon after and Dad didn’t bother to find out the address so we lost touch completely.

  * * *

  Elswick Park was beautiful in the fifties. The drinking fountains had little metal circle-shaped cups tied on with metal chains and we always stopped to take a drink. There were huge rocks which I called ‘The Mountains’, which we climbed up. Dad would often pinch a plant from the conservatory. Yes, he was all for showing his child a good example.

  One of my favourite haunts was the Crown cinema on Scotswood Road, opposite the Vickers factories, but then again, everything was opposite Vickers as it took up most of the road on the riverside. Saturday matinees were so popular that once all places were taken, children were asked to budge up to make way for two on each seat. It was a rowdy place to be. Me and Sarah used to stand up on the seats pretending to ride a horse when the cowboy pictures were shown. Come to think of it, there were only cowboy pictures shown except for the odd Carry On film. Some slammed their seats up and down at the exciting chase sequences. It’s a wonder we heard any of the dialogue.

  ‘Hawway the good ’uns, hawway the bad ’uns!’ everyone shouted out.

  If the film snapped and the numbers went up on the screen there was hell on with kids screaming. Empty ice-cream tubs and wooden spoons were strewn everywhere.

  The place had been built in the early 1900s and was previously The Crown Electric Theatre, which showed silent movies and also offered vaudeville acts. It had been a grand establishment in its time, but was now known as a rough cinema, but cheap on the door.

  But violence wasn’t something that just happened in the fifties. An advert had been placed in the Evening Chronicle in 1933 for a male attendant:

  Must be fairly well-built and able to take care of himself. Five shifts per week, includes one day off. Hours 5.45 to 10.45 daily, with Saturday matinee. Wage offered 7 shillings per week.

  Jokes went round that the ‘lucky’ person to secure the job would be expected to provide his own uniform and pay for a police escort on the day he picked up his wages.

  So we went to see The Three Stooges, The Lone Ranger, Tom Thumb and many more. Checks on age groups weren’t too stringent back then and one film that I squeezed past the cashier to see turned out to be the cause of nightmares and the screaming abdabs in my sleep for weeks afterwards: The Night of the Walking Dead. Zombies came back to life and staggered round the streets, trying to eat folks. Well, that would teach me to watch films certified unsuitable for my age!

  One of the usherettes had two sons who tried all they could to get hold of her torch. When she wasn’t at work one night, they decided to smuggle it into their bedroom. Great fun was had shining it under the bed and around the ceiling until the next night when she was on duty and t
he batteries were flat. She knew who was to blame and hid it away in future. To us, the usherette had a very glamorous job, parading around, up and down the aisles in a tailored uniform. She got to see all of the films for free, what’s not to like? It didn’t occur to us that this woman would be paid peanuts, on her feet all night, then late home to bed. Sadly, our entertainment was to go the same way as many establishments of the day and was subsequently used as a Bingo hall five nights a week.

  One of the local cinemas, The Grande, was nicknamed ‘The Loppy Opera’ as there were fleas to contend with. When we went to see Bugs Bunny, we literally came out with bugs! We heard that in the past when the old silent movies were thrown out at the back of the building, lads collected them and cut them into short strips. These were rolled into cylinders, wrapped and twisted at each end like a sweetie. They set them alight and threw them into the communal laundry, causing a smell like stink bombs.

  Around then, I became tired of going around with Sarah too, partly because she was always borrowing my stuff and losing or spoiling it. A jumper was returned with a single iron print on the front and my portable record player came back with the arm flailing around inside the case, snapped, and the wires on show. The last straw was my precious Sobell transistor radio, which she said had been stolen from her house. Mam went thumping around to their house and Sarah’s mother informed her that she had sought a solicitor’s advice and was only obliged to replace the radio. She handed over the cheapest make, which had a very tinny sound. I also saw less and less of Lillian as I began going around with three lasses who were older than me and into records and fashion. I was moving into a new stage of my life.