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

by Yvonne Young

  A team of investigators would be sent out to interview the families to assess their needs. Meetings could take from twenty minutes to an hour-and-a-half. This officer noticed that he was sitting on the same red sofa in a few of the houses that he called into. A report had been made to the police that two men were seen carrying a red sofa from a house but he hadn’t seen where it was taken to. The next day, at around about the same time, the same two men were carrying the furniture back. The man recognised the lads and asked:

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s our Brenda’s stuff,’ was the reply. ‘She and her man have a really nice home and for a few quid, they lend their furniture to families who are due a visit from the housing officer. There’s a bloke on Armstrong Road wants a table lamp and two chairs before two this afternoon and old Tommy wants a pair of curtains. They’ve been off wor Brenda’s windows three times this week already!’

  Of course, the officers knew what was going on, but turned a blind eye – they knew of the appalling conditions that people were living in, from crumbling walls and dampness to lots of other problems.

  Once the homes were vacated, the joiner, brickie, electrician and plumber moved in to secure the property and gas, water and electricity would be turned off. They knew that robbers would be in there to take piping and boilers away – if someone was still in the flat below, there would be water damage to their place.

  A lad called Joe and his wife moved out of their upstairs flat and left a chandelier behind (she had decided she didn’t want it). Her husband was pleased as he said it had taken an age to fit it in the first place. She changed her mind, but the lower flat had been bricked up and the door of their place was boarded up. The officer arranged for a joiner to meet Joe at the flat and when they got there, Joe had no ladders with him. The joiner loaned him his bench, but was insistent he didn’t leave it behind as he needed it for his job. He left Joe to it and returned after an hour, but all was not good: the ceiling was down and there was a hole in the floor. The joiner reported back to the office:

  ‘There’s trouble at that flat, the ceiling is down and I can’t see my bench either.’

  ‘Well, is it an emergency?’

  ‘There’s no lighting and we can’t see if Joe is still in there.’

  The joiner, brickie, plumber and emergency services all turned up. Joe had tried to loosen the chandelier, wobbled and hung onto it. As it came away from the ceiling, he fell through the floorboards to the flat below. He came away with only a broken ankle and no light fitting. I don’t know if the bench was OK!

  * * *

  Hampstead Road suited me fine as it was nearer to the clubs I went to and there was a phone in the sitting room. They didn’t apply to have it activated, but we could still receive calls. I was in bed one night when I heard my parents fighting so I stayed put. The phone rang and I heard Dad say:

  ‘You’ll have to call back in the morning.’

  He shouted through ‘Yvonne!’, but I stayed where I was, not wanting to be dragged into their arguments.

  ‘Who is it?’ Mam asked.

  ‘It’s for Yvonne.’

  ‘No, she’s asleep in bed.’

  I leapt up and pelted into the sitting room.

  ‘It’s for me?’

  ‘You little bugger! You heard me and pretended to be asleep.’

  That was the second and last time I was clipped around the ear.

  * * *

  The biggest change that affected me was the introduction of the comprehensive system in 1965. Our close-knit community friendships were soon to be split not only by housing, but by the education system. The lads were packed off to John Marlay and the girls to Pendower Girls, which changed its name to Benwell School. It must have been a shock to the system for the established pupils who had all passed their Eleven Plus to have their environment infiltrated by interlopers from a variety of secondary schools in the area.

  We were set apart from the start as we were expected to wear navy pinafores with pink-and-white or blue-and-white dogtooth check cotton blouses with roll necks, while ‘they’ were allowed to continue wearing white shirts, ties and blue skirts. The major disadvantage was that they were already two years into study towards GCE examinations, so separate classes were set up for those from the four or so secondary schools. We were mixed together, but got on well with the girls: we were in the same boat.

  There was bullying from some lasses who resented us secondary moderns infiltrating their set-up. Two little sods from a central classroom on the ground floor used to rush out if any of us walked past and would threaten us by waving fists. We simply hurried past, but one day, I jumped out in front of them and growled with my fists up. They ran back inside and never did it again. But most of the bullying was carried out by some of the rougher lasses, who looked on them as snobs. Pranks were played, but not amusing in one case. A lass called Chris, who was very shy and quiet, was terrified of bees. Marilyn caught one and put it inside her desk. When the lass opened it, she fell backwards on her chair and was hurt, but the fear of the bee took precedence and she suffered a panic attack. Eventually it all calmed down and folks got on OK.

  I took to the lessons immediately. Everything was magic, all the teachers took their roles seriously and we were treated like adults. In English, we studied Macbeth, the first Shakespeare play I had ever heard. The teacher played an LP on an old Dansette, it was brown with cream sides. It was like nothing I had ever heard before. There was plot, tension, drama and excitement, so different to the soaps on television. The way we analysed the characters led to a lifetime of enjoyment of poetry and plays.

  After three months we took the same tests as the established pupils to decide which classes we would go to the following year. In spite of being a duffer at Maths, I was placed second in the whole year group (this included the long-time pupils). A meeting was called and the conclusion was ‘This child has been seriously misplaced’ but really it was down to the dedication of staff and the fact that they didn’t allow my lack of skills in Arithmetic to deter me from taking part in the other subjects. I moved into my new class and began studies towards GCEs. However, I still could not avoid the Maths lessons. The teacher could have just left me to my own devices as it was clear from the start that I wasn’t able to pick up the simplest of tasks, but she assigned me to Heather, a lovely girl who was way ahead. Bless her, she tried every which way to explain manipulation of numbers, but a cardinal number might be a pontiff in the Church for all I knew! She was patient and kind, but to no avail – I was no further forward from junior school.

  Miss Cubit, our English teacher, would sweep into the room and always addressed us ‘Good morning, ladies’. Her hair was styled in the Sandie Shaw fashion and we loved to watch her look down at her book so that it swung forwards. When I compare the titles for essays at Atkinson Road, ‘The Life of a Penny’ or ‘A Worm’s Eye View’, there was no contest. Miss Cubit brought a wine bottle into class, held it up towards the light, described the rainbow colours, who may have used it, what the contents had tasted of, maybe it ended its days on a table in an Italian restaurant with wax built up from a lighted candle? Now this was a teacher!

  Biology was so interesting. We were allowed to use Bunsen burners for experiments, we learned about teeth, skin, photosynthesis. Why wasn’t this taught in secondary schools? Did they think we wouldn’t be able to understand, was it because they didn’t want us to? After all, who would man the tills, empty dustbins and sweep up? However, in one lesson, worms were given out to dissect. This was not a problem, but then the teacher said:

  ‘Be careful when using the scalpels, they are extremely sharp. They are used for lancing veins in hospital.’

  Now, she had no way of knowing my dislike of the mention of veins. This was definitely Mam’s fault, as when I was within earshot when I was younger, she relished in the tale of her encounter at the doctor’s for a blood test. Apparently, the nurse commented, ‘That’s a nice juicy vein,’ and Mam had
collapsed into a faint. This horror story stuck with me and even today, I have a phobia – the nurses sometimes lose patience with me:

  ‘Hold your arm straight, your arm isn’t broken!’

  With the image of Mam’s encounter plus the aroma of formaldehyde, I slid from the stool in the lab and hit the deck. I was taken to the sick bay until I came around. I spent a fair bit of time in there as I was experiencing some excruciating period pains. Anadin was handed out and after half an hour, I was back on track. This ailment also came in handy for a reason to be excused from games, something I hated. Being four-foot ten inches, I was no competition in netball and I couldn’t be bothered with tennis – hitting a ball back and forth, no thanks! This school didn’t offer hockey, which I had enjoyed at Atkinson Road.

  Across the road from our building and up a little lane was a sports field. We sometimes went up there to practise the long jump, another sport in which there was no contest, with my short legs. Much to our discomfort us teenage girls were marched over there in our white Airtex shirts and navy knickers. I still can’t believe that the teachers allowed this. I ask you, why couldn’t we have taken our skirts off when we got there? It wasn’t only the embarrassment of passing the general public in my underwear that bothered me, it also carried through to this day. I was passing through the Grainger Market on Clayton Street when an old classmate from secondary school was smoking outside the Star and Garter pub. He shouted, ‘Hello Yvonne, are you still wearing those navy knickers?’ I was with the photographer of my last book, The Grainger Market: The People’s History, and another historian. They must have thought that I was protesting too much as I gabbled the meaning of this comment.

  I loved Art lessons. We sometimes took our boards and paper into a wooded area to sit drawing plants. Homework wasn’t a chore for this subject.

  During a prep session we could work on homework in one of the classrooms. One day, Miss Purdie was supervising and I decided to draw her. I had an hour, so I completed the portrait and took it to Miss Macro, our Art teacher and handed it in. The next day, I was walking along the corridor, enjoying the beautiful cherry blossom trees in quadrangles outside of each classroom. I was just about to step out there to breathe in the perfume of the flowers and thinking how lovely the environment was compared to the grey dirt from industry in Benwell. Miss Purdie grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the side of the hall, where she hissed at me through clenched teeth, ‘Be careful who you choose to draw for your Art homework!’

  I didn’t mention this to my Art teacher. I had obviously captured Miss Purdie, warts and all. Maybe she had been laughed at in the staffroom, but I kept my homework subjects until after school as a result.

  We were given rubber tiles on which we drew an image and the next step was to carve it out in relief with a sharp tool, ready to use rollers and ink for printing. A warning was given before we commenced that because the tools were very sharp, we should score away from ourselves. One lass didn’t heed that warning and gouged a hole clean through the soft tissue between her thumb and index finger. I immediately hit the floor in a faint as her blood scooted out, the poor lass was hysterical and the teacher was trying to calm everyone down as she took her to nurse.

  I also loved History. The teacher, Mrs Gray, must have been in the early stages of dementia. Of course, we couldn’t know or understand at the time so we sat there smirking as she began to speak and then turned her attention to the way her pen was moving. The girls would start to chatter among themselves out of boredom and soon enough a member of staff would lead her gently from the room to be replaced by someone else. On one occasion in her class, my pal Freda and I were mindlessly amusing ourselves by transposing the first letter of our classmates’ names – Kathleen Little became ‘Laughleen Kittle’, etc. – until we came to Charlotte Finn, which translated into Farlotte Chinn. The poor lass had a big chin and we burst into fits of giggles.

  ‘Girls, please share the joke with the rest of the class!’ commanded the teacher from the next room as she rushed into our class.

  We were mortified at the thought of sharing this with everyone: our cruelty would be exposed for what it was and the disrespect we had shown to our teacher. Because we wouldn’t own up, Freda and I were sent to stand in the corridor until break time, one at each end, so that we couldn’t continue our disruptive behaviour.

  Miss Pickering was our music teacher and she had a novel way of retaining order. She would put a record on – for example, Peer Gynt’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. She would pick out any troublemakers before the music began, then went on to explain how Peer Gynt had fallen asleep on the mountainside and nymphs came to nip and pinch him. So, off she went during the crescendo, up and down the aisles, nipping the ones whose cards she had marked!

  She played the piano and we stood next to it, one at a time, to sing the scales. There were written music sessions, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (a learning exercise for the notes of music, E, G, B, D, F), and we also learned how to draw a treble clef and a bass clef. Now I knew that Mr Scott was right when he said of my last school, ‘What have these people been teaching you?’ This was how it was supposed to be and I loved it.

  We sat in the quadrangles and discussed the latest records, ‘Let’s Dance’ by Chris Montez and Chris Farlowe’s ‘Out Of Time’. And we began to mingle in more as we worked on our needlework samples homework, French seams and Petersham bindings. I made a white cotton blouse with flared sleeves, a fashionable sixties item, but by the time I had finished, it was ‘out’! Clothing of the day had really stepped up in colours, styles and the more outrageous, the better. We couldn’t believe it when we noticed that Eve Brown’s store was stocking Mary Quant make-up, but then we saw the prices and it was back to Rimmel! We loved her dresses and miniskirts as well and tried to adapt our own clothing to imitate her styles. Levi Strauss jeans were also becoming popular, and our parents couldn’t understand why we wanted to wear them, as they were worn by working men.

  Halfway through the year, a new lass called Gabrielle joined our class. She was from a children’s home and took some time adjusting. It was bad enough for us, but starting there on her own must have been difficult. She reacted by being rebellious and disruptive. There were three Hindu girls in the class and as we were all working, one of them, Parveen, screamed out. It was discovered that her backside-length plait had been chopped in half. During cookery lessons Gabrielle went around reducing the regulos on the ovens, which caused another girl to howl as she saw what had happened to her soufflé. Gabrielle didn’t stay at the school long!

  One day, the Indian girls treated us to a wonderful display of traditional dance in the school hall. It was amazing! We waited cross-legged and in they wafted, wearing the most beautiful silk garments, which were embroidered and decorated with diamanté. The Hindu music began and it was like nothing I had ever heard before, very exotic and mesmerising. Everything was expressed using eyes, fingers and undulating movements. They thumped on the floor with bare feet, their ankles bound with bands of bells, which added to the beat.

  But some of the original pupils were bullied by secondary lasses: because the older pupils wore bowler hats and ties, some of the secondary school girls knocked their hats off or pulled their ties. I still don’t understand why we weren’t all in the same uniform, a recipe for bullying if there ever was one, to differentiate teenage girls by clothing. However, it was all a settling-in process, mainly arising from feelings of inadequacy and not really knowing what our place was supposed to be.

  * * *

  Mam was working more hours at the restaurant and when a trip to France was advertised via the school letter, she said I could go. I was thrilled, but a little apprehensive as none of my pals were going, but I was allowed to tag along with a few lasses and Heather was coming, so it wasn’t so bad. We travelled by coach and then took the ferry to Belgium, where we were to spend our first night before travelling to Paris; the crossing was calm on the way there and we stood on the deck
to watch Blighty fade into the distance. The first night was spent near the Port of Ostend, at a scruffy-looking place up a side street. The rooms were very dull: there was a balcony, but the view was decidedly industrial. Mam had bought me a gift set with astringent, cleanser and cold cream; it was the envy of my roommates and they all tried it.

  The amount of pocket money we were allowed and the French prices meant that we couldn’t buy anything of note while we were there. A day trip to a lacemaking village was planned and we took a packed lunch from the hotel. I don’t think anyone could afford to buy any lace, but it was the most beautiful sight I ever saw – all of these very skilled ladies out in the sunshine, spinning away like spiders. We saw the Bayeaux Tapestry and toured the castle at Chinon – fabulous views, but girls of our age aren’t the best at appreciating historical triumphs.

  One of the posh girls in our group took a fancy to a French waiter at our next hotel in Blois and was intent on impressing him with her use of the French language. He pretended that he didn’t understand her. His name was Max and she insisted on calling him Maximillion in the most sexually charged way. She suggested we sneak out of our rooms after lights out to explore the town, but I didn’t opt in. I’m not sure she did either as it seemed to me all a puff of hot air and bravado.

  Paris was our next stop and this time the hotel was a little worn but much better than the previous ones. The posh girls were perfectly suited to dining out – they snapped their bread from a side plate. The teachers were mortified when us common lot just shoved the whole thing in. I could hear them muttering how we were showing them up. I certainly didn’t appreciate receiving each vegetable on a separate plate and where was the gravy? But we had a little wine with the meal, so that made up for it. I’d only taken the occasional swig from my dad’s cherry brandy bottle which he had won in a raffle. Wine wasn’t something that was heard of in Benwell.