She was always telling me: ‘Stanley, don’t drop your aitches and roll your “Rs”.’ I swear she wanted to turn me into Little Lord Fauntleroy. I would like to say that was the first and last time I got a good hiding, but regrettably I can’t.
Right, back to bath time. At last it’s my turn and at least I then get left in peace. I get undressed, leave my clothes on the chair by the fireside, and gently ease myself in. It’s so small I feel like a contortionist. I often used to sit there fantasising that Harry Houdini must’ve come from a house with a tin bath and that’s how he got into escapology. My knees are under my chin, my arms are hanging over the side, as there’s no room inside, and, because the fire’s roaring next to me, my arm – which is hanging over the side – starts to get really uncomfortable with the heat and takes on the appearance of ‘corned-beef’ – do you know what I mean?
So I’m now clutching a block of Sunlight soap, which was used for clothes, sheets, hair, body . . . in fact, thinking about it, that’s all you had; it was used for literally everything. It was yellow and half the size of a house brick.
I start to move around and try to soap myself but then I think, ‘Well, it’s easier if I stand up and do it and then sit down again to wash it off.’ Now I’m not exaggerating – every week I did the same. I go to stand up and grab the sides of the bath to lever myself up . . . and then I scream. I scream because I’ve grabbed the edge of the bath that has been facing the fire. It’s like grabbing hold of a red-hot poker. Every week I did that and every week I would hear Mum’s voice call out from the scullery: ‘Oh, you haven’t burnt yourself again, Stan, have you? You won’t learn, will you?’ followed by a stifled laugh.
Truthfully, if you were looking for sympathy you wouldn’t have found it in my house.
Most people think of having a bath as a time for relaxation and contemplation; well, it wasn’t in those days, it was misery. How I didn’t develop a deep-vein thrombosis I don’t know, and I always had the hump when I got out because I knew what was coming next.
There I was sitting on the settee next to Olive, looking all pink and scrubbed in our nice clean pyjamas, when Mum hands us both a small glass of liquid, which is our weekly dose of senna pods. This, in case you don’t know, is a laxative. The pods were soaked in water and that’s what we had to drink. It completely ruined your Saturday, as you couldn’t leave the house; in fact you could barely leave the toilet. It was awful . . . the devil’s own brew, that’s what it was.
I had a bitter hatred of the senna pod, as it ruined my childhood. I could never go to Saturday morning pictures for years because of it.
People in those days were obsessed with their bowels. I never knew anything like it. All sorts of remedies and potions were taken, from Carter’s Little Liver Pills, syrup of figs, Andrews Liver Salts to liquorice Pontefract cakes. I know it sounds peculiar but it was a very topical conversation in most families. The thought being that if you were ‘regular’ then nothing would ail you.
It was only when I started work that I had to insist I couldn’t take it on a Friday night due to having to work the next morning, so I was then made to take it on Saturday night . . . there was just no escape.
2
Black Saturday
1940 (age 12)
The afternoon of 7 September 1940 would always be known as ‘Black Saturday’, and was the day our lives changed forever.
The air-raid sounded around 5 p.m. and we hardly took any notice, as we’d been hearing them for nearly a year. Each time the planes flew over, we geared up for the bombs to start dropping but nothing ever happened. Little did we know that at first they were taking aerial photos of the docks and the surrounding area – reconnaissance they called it. All along, the bastards had been preparing themselves for this night.
I was in the garden on top of the chicken shed that me and my dad had just built for our twelve chickens. Nearly everybody kept animals of some sort back then: chickens, ducks and rabbits, some houses were like a menagerie; mostly they were kept for food. I loved looking after them and hoped that one day I would be able to keep my own. With our daily fry-up they were a necessity; the only other alternative was powdered egg, which was revolting.
As I stood there the sirens started, and within minutes I heard the steady drone of the engines heading our way; this time it sounded much louder than usual. As I looked up, my jaw dropped open; I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing . . . there were so many planes. The sky for as far as you could see was filled with them. They looked and sounded like a gigantic swarm of bees. In fact there were around a thousand aircraft, which were sent to target London; they spanned twenty miles wide, filling 800 square miles of sky.
I leaped down, ran inside and excitedly told Mum and Dad.
‘It’s alright, Stan, take no notice, they’re only flying over,’ my dad said, smiling.
‘But Dad, there’s . . . ’
‘Calm down, you know this always happens. Just sit down and eat your tea. I’ve told you there’s nothing to worry about,’ he said, ruffling my hair.
I’d just sat down when an almighty explosion shook our house so hard I went flying across the room. I sat in the corner stunned. I was still clutching my bread and jam when Dad screamed: ‘Quick! Under the stairs!’
We didn’t have a shelter, as we hadn’t needed one up to that point. Not one bomb or incendiary had been dropped, so most people squeezed into their stair cupboards when the siren went, but they soon got out again when they realised nothing was going to happen.
This all started the year before at 11.15 a.m. on 3 September 1939 when Neville Chamberlain, the then Prime Minster, had broadcast to the nation that, despite his long struggle to win peace ‘. . . this country is at war with Germany.’After that, within minutes, the air-raid sirens sounded and Londoners scurried to take shelter. As soon as the announcement had been made everybody was issued with small boxes containing gas masks. Adults had them on a shoulder strap whilst us children wore them around our necks. You were told to carry them at all times, which we did for a short while but then didn’t bother and left them indoors. Street lights were turned off and we were instructed to cover up all windows at night with black-out material, so the German bombers would hopefully have an even harder time finding us. But since that day nothing had actually happened until this night. Hence it had been named the ‘phoney war’.
But the ‘phoney war’ was now a reality. And this particular night turned out to be one of the longest nights of our lives.
The bombs started to drop.
Molly was only three months old and she screamed the entire time we were under the stairs. I remember thinking, She’s only a baby but that scream! It’s not normal. Babies cry and it’s an annoying distinctive cry, but this . . . it was horrible. It sounded like a scream of terror. It seemed to me as if in some inexplicable way she’d sensed what that night was to bring. I had to put my fingers in my ears to drown it out, as it made my blood run cold.
An hour later, thank God the ‘all clear’ was heard and we climbed out of the cupboard. I was so relieved it was over I felt like bursting into tears. We went outside and people were standing in the street, shocked and bewildered; there were some fires going on around us but nothing too bad.
Mum said to Dad that she wanted to go and see if Grandma and Tom were alright, so we went back inside and got our coats on. We were just about ready to head off when at 6.30 p.m. the sirens started again. We couldn’t believe it! Olive now started crying, which nearly set me off, but we all headed back under the stairs.
The bombers were back with a vengeance. All you could hear and feel were explosions. They were bombarding us. It was relentless. I was twelve years old and I never knew what fear was until that night.
‘Please, Lord, please, please, please let them run out of bombs soon,’ I prayed silently. But they didn’t.
We all sat quietly, as you were too frightened to talk. We just sat there waiting for one to drop on us. It was horrifying. M
um was holding Molly cradled in one arm who, thank goodness, had exhausted herself after the first barrage, and her other was around Olive, clutching her tightly. All I could hear was her saying over and over: ‘Shh, it’s OK, don’t cry, we’ll be alright.’ I sat looking at them, wishing I was being cuddled too, but there wasn’t room for me. Dad obviously noticed and put his arm around me. ‘I know you’re nearly twelve, son, and you may not need a cuddle but I do.’
I gratefully reached my arms around his waist and laid my head on his chest, as he put his other hand over my ear. I think he was trying to block out the noise, but it didn’t help – it just made his heart pounding in my other ear seem even louder. I clung onto him wondering which was worse, the noise of the bombs or the sound of his petrified heart. We stayed like that the whole night, sitting in a tiny cupboard feeling that at any second one of those bombs would find us. It was continuous. Never stopping for a second – we were being blown to smithereens.
We were worried sick about Grandma and Uncle Tom living above the shop and, of course, our stables and garages, as we knew the docks were their main target.
We later discovered that the first set of planes were the Luftwaffe, sent to drop incendiaries – a type of bomb that caught fire on impact. These blazes created ‘beacons’, which lit up a path for the heavy bombers to follow when night fell and, during that night, over 800 bombs had dropped in and around London.
The ‘all clear’ was heard at 5 a.m. and the overwhelming feelings of relief were inexpressible. We crawled out of the cupboard, so stiff and exhausted we were hardly able to stand. The entire East End had witnessed a night not one of them would be able to erase from their memories for the rest of their lives.
As we got out of the cupboard we grabbed our coats again. Mum put Molly in her pram and we left to go and check on Grandma and Tom. We didn’t even get 100 yards down the road when we had to turn back. The ARP (Air Raid Precautions) and Rescue Services were all out, shouting for people to return to their homes.
People were wandering around in a complete state of shock. But the noise! It was overwhelming. People were shouting, screaming and crying, and fires were roaring all around us where gas pipes had been struck. It was incomprehensible what had happened. It felt as if walking through our front door had led us straight into the bowels of Hell. The flames and devastation around the surrounding area was a sight you could never forget. Some houses had been completely flattened whilst others were left still standing with their roofs gone and either their fronts or backs blasted out. Dogs, cats and chickens were running around bewildered, and everybody was completely disorientated. There was a horrible smell that filled your nostrils and we realised later it was the smell of burning flesh.
The further you looked up the Barking Road towards Rathbone the worse it got; it felt as if you were looking towards the end of the world. The sky had turned orange where so many fires were raging. After Mum saw what lay ahead she slowly turned away and started to cry. ‘They’re gone,’ she said, collapsing into my dad’s arms.
‘You don’t know that, love,’ my dad said, holding her to him. ‘I’m sure they’ll be OK. Come on, let’s go inside.’
We got back indoors and Mum was still sobbing; you just felt so hopeless. What could we do except sit there and wait for news. Dad decided that as we couldn’t get to Canning Town he would make his way up to the Police Station – hopefully to see that it was still standing but also to find out any information.
We sat there for hours in a state of shock until there was a knock on the door. Mum jumped up to answer it. I knew by her face she was expecting the worst, but there at the door was Grandma and Uncle. Grandma still had her black bonnet tied under her chin, and was covered in dust but Uncle Tom’s clothes were in a terrible state – in tatters. You could see by their faces they were severely traumatised.
They came in and sat together on the settee while Mum went to make them some tea. She’d started crying again, but they were now, thank goodness, tears of joy. When the tea was made, Grandma lifted the saucer off the table but couldn’t hold it still and the teacup started violently rattling. She tried to stop it by putting her other hand around it but it didn’t help, so she placed it back down again, tried again, then burst into tears. Mum took it from her, then put her arm around her. In all my life I’d never seen my grandma cry.
‘It was so horrible, Kitty,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve never felt so frightened in all my life. I honestly thought we would die at any minute . . . how we didn’t . . .’
‘It’s alright, Mum, you’re safe now,’ she said, putting her other arm around her, hugging her tightly.
We sat for a long time, all lost in our own thoughts. Uncle Tom broke the silence. In a voice so soft we had to lean forward to hear him, he began to describe what had happened. We thought our night had been horrendous but, to listen to what they had experienced, we couldn’t believe our ears.
Shortly after the ‘all clear’ had sounded after the first bombardment, someone had started banging on the shop door. It turned out to be a young man who lived near the stables, panicking. He told Uncle Tom that three incendiaries had landed on the stable roof and that he could see smoke. Uncle ran back with him to the yard. They saw that the hay which had been stored in the roof had started to burn. They could hear the horses kicking their doors and whinnying. He unlocked the gates and dashed in. It was pandemonium; the ARP and neighbours ran in to help, and some were able to lead the horses out into the street. It was difficult as they were in such a state of panic and they were proving hard to handle. He said he’d never seen fear in their eyes before but it was there that night.
With their help they were eventually calmed down and the fires put out. Uncle Tom then managed to get them back into their stalls, only to hear the sirens start again. With that, he headed back to Grandma, leaving the stables unlocked in case somebody had to get the horses out again during the night. As he ran back, the bombs started to drop again. He saw people running for their lives to get into a shelter.
When he was nearly back at the shop a bomb exploded nearby. Shrapnel was bouncing along the road; he was literally flung up in the air with the force and crashed back down onto the pavement. As he started to get up he felt himself being dragged towards the blast. It was the aftershock of the explosion. The ‘pull’ was so powerful it felt as if his eyes were being sucked out of his head and his clothes were being stripped from him. He fought to get his breath; black smoke was all around him and it was as if the life was being ripped out of him. He’d never experienced such a terrifying sensation.
People were screaming, calling for loved ones; some had been badly injured by flying shrapnel, but Tom managed to get himself up and back to the shop where he and Grandma were to spend the most shocking night of their lives.
The bombing was terrifying for us, but for them it was a night of indescribable horror. With the perpetual noise and the intense vibrations of the bombs dropping so close, which made the ground move beneath them, he said, ‘I truly felt as if I was going insane.’
When they left the shop the next morning they described the stuff of nightmares. Virtually everything was smashed to the ground for as far as you could see, across to the docks and the surrounding area. All of our immediate neighbours’ premises, such as Wag Bennett, the bike shop, Parrots the Chemist, Holmes the pawnbrokers and Wilson’s all took direct hits, yet – and this is the unbelievable truth – the only thing left standing in that area was our shop.
After taking it all in and talking to the Rescue Services, ARP and also neighbours who had tragically lost their homes and livelihoods, they managed to make their way to the stables to check everything was in one piece and, thank goodness, it was. Like the shop, how it had survived was a miracle. The horses were badly shaken up but, amazingly, Jack had managed to make his way there and was taking care of them.
I’ll tell you what was marvellous – in those days people just got up and went to work on days after the bombings. They might�
�ve got to their workplace to find it wasn’t there anymore but they still made the effort to get up and go. Everybody tried to carry on as they normally would; it was astonishing. When you look back now, the spirit the people had made you proud to be a Londoner.
Winston Churchill got it absolutely right when he said this of the British people: ‘They are a tough people, a robust people, who were able to bear home truths and make the consequent sacrifices.’
The saying at the time was ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ and we did . . . but how we did, looking back, I genuinely don’t know.
After we’d listened to Tom, we all sat there quietly digesting what we’d heard when Grandma said in a voice barely a whisper – and I’ll never forget her words – ‘I feel as if God spared us last night so that the poor souls who were killed could have a proper send-off.’
As she said it, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.
Neville Chamberlain resigned on 10 May 1940 to be succeeded by Winston Churchill. His first speech after becoming Prime Minister was:
‘You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.’
It did prove to be a very long and incredibly hard road, as that night was to be the beginning of five years of inexplicable misery. These terrifying bombings continued virtually nightly for around eight months. During those first months, September into October, every week around 40,000 houses were destroyed, badly damaged or structurally damaged throughout Britain and, by the end of May 1941, 2.25 million people were homeless, and two-thirds of these were Londoners.
So many horrific stories were heard after that first night, but one in particular gave me nightmares for years.
Uncle came home the following evening and told us around 600 people who’d been made homeless the night before had been given temporary shelter in South Hallsville School in Agate Street, just around the corner from the stables. Entire families had been taken there and were waiting for coaches to take them away to the countryside, to safety. He told us how he’d popped in to see if he could lend a hand but was asked to leave shortly after by the authorities. But before he left he’d managed to see inside the school, and the sight distressed him so much he was relieved that he’d been sent away.
An East End Farewell Page 3
