An East End Farewell

by Yvette Venables

  People were walking around in severe shock, some still caked in blood, faces black with soot and smoke, some hysterical, others dumbfounded, as they’d lost love ones or they were still missing. A lot of them still only wore nightclothes and staff walked around covering them up with blankets, handing out cups of tea, soup and sandwiches. A doctor was trying to help the injured, cleaning and bandaging wounds; many had badly burnt feet and hands. Others were just sitting silently in the hallways on what belongings they’d managed to grab, waiting for the coaches which they’d been told were coming at around 3 p.m.

  But they didn’t come.

  He chatted to one of the fathers who’d been waiting with his wife and four children. He explained that the coaches hadn’t turned up as expected but they were hopefully coming today. People were losing their patience and becoming angry. They just wanted to leave, as they all knew the bombers would soon be back; they’d even offered to start walking, just to get away, as they felt like sitting ducks in the exposed school, but were told to stay put and wait – so reluctantly they did.

  But after a series of official blunders the coaches never did arrive. Nobody actually knew why they hadn’t, as it was never explained.

  That evening at 8 p.m. the 600 souls huddled together waiting to be taken to safety heard the sound of the sirens starting again and, shortly after, the distant drone of the bombers rapidly approaching. They didn’t have to run to a shelter; the basement of the school was their shelter.

  At 3.45 a.m. on the morning of 10 September they took a direct hit. Over 470 perished but the exact toll was never known.

  Uncle discovered what had happened that morning when he went to the stables. The whole area was cordoned off, nobody was allowed to go near it, and press and photographs were banned, as the authorities didn’t want the story to ‘get out’ and lower the morale of the city.

  That night after dinner we sat around and listened to the wireless, but we didn’t hear anything about the school. If Uncle hadn’t witnessed it for himself we would never have known what had gone on. All the stories you heard afterwards were hearsay, and it was unnerving to know these tragic events were being covered up right on your doorstep on orders from the War Cabinet. This was done to prevent unrest and a propaganda triumph for Hitler, as it was later recognised as Britain’s worst civilian tragedy of the Second World War.

  When we all went to bed that night, I couldn’t sleep thinking about all those poor people in the school, how petrified they must have been when they heard the sirens start.

  I heard something downstairs; Uncle was sleeping in the armchair in our living room, as the shop was far too close to the docks to allow them to carry on staying there. I crept downstairs, pushing my feet into the crack between the wall and the stair to stop it creaking. Above the living-room door was a clear piece of glass, which allowed a bit more light into the room from the hallway. I put my foot onto the wooden handrail and levered myself up to peer through it. Uncle was sitting in the armchair. By the glow of the fire he was leaning forward with his head in his hands. I could hear him crying. I stood watching him for a few minutes, and I was taken aback. I’d already seen Grandma cry for the first time that week but to see him as well . . . I knew I couldn’t go in as he would have been ashamed to be discovered, so I gingerly put my feet down and crept back upstairs. I lay there for ages thinking of Grandma and Uncle – two people I’d never ever thought I would see crying. I don’t know why, I suppose their characters were so strong I never imagined anything could bring them to tears. Ridiculous I know, but having lived through the previous four days and the unbelievable devastation which had suddenly hit us, I could appreciate how even the most hardened of characters would be filled with despair.

  They never returned to live above the shop after that first night. Grandma moved in with us and, after a few weeks, Uncle went to live with his brother Bert and his wife in Leytonstone.

  3

  The Toilet Door

  1940 (age 12)

  People realised after that night that the bombings would be continuing for as long as the war was on. We couldn’t keep using the stair cupboard for protection, so the local borough councils provided Anderson shelters to whoever wanted one to put in their back gardens. They were free to anybody who earned less than £250 per year; if you earned more than that you paid £7 for one. During the course of the war over three and a half million were erected.

  They were made of galvanized corrugated steel panels, consisting of six curved panels bolted together at the top, three straight sheets on either side, and two more straight panels fixed to each end, one containing the door. They were 6ft (1.8m) high, 4' 6" (1.4m) wide and 6' 6" (2m) long. The council would normally erect them but we didn’t want to wait, so I helped my dad build ours. Once built they had to be buried 4ft (1.2m) deep into the earth and covered with a minimum of 15" (0.4m) of soil. It always made me laugh that the government encouraged people to plant the top with vegetables and flowers to make them more attractive, and the local councils even held competitions for ‘the best planted shelter’.

  Because they were below ground the insides were damp and nothing could be left in them so, every night before we went to bed, Mum or Dad would leave a bag by the back door, containing blankets, candles and matches, a torch, rationing books and identity cards. This bag would be taken down with us as soon as the siren was heard.

  Something else I discovered during the war was that even in the direst of circumstances we are still creatures of habit. I suspect most families were the same. After each air-raid – God willing – we would come out of the shelter still in one piece and head for the living room. The kettle would be put on for a large pot of tea and we would then sit around talking and listening to the wireless.

  One day, only a few weeks after the bombings had actually started, Dad was getting himself ready to go to work for his night-shift, while the rest of us sat in the living room drinking tea. It was around 8 p.m. and we’d just we emerged from the shelter.

  I never mentioned before what he actually did in the police. When he served in the First World War he was taught Morse code. When the war finished and he returned home to join the force they discovered he could use Morse, so they sent him on a course in order for him to perfect it. He was allocated the position of ‘Wireless Operator’. In those days police officers in cars were unable to contact each other through radio. The operator, who was permanently positioned behind them on the back seat, would sit with earphones clamped to their heads, listening intently to any signals that came through from officers manning the Information Room on Victoria Embankment. They would be immediately deciphered and the operator would then instruct the officers sitting in the front as to what was going on and where, before heading off in pursuit of the criminals. He did this job throughout his entire police career. Even during the breaks for lunch and dinner he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the vehicle, so he would have to eat in the car to make sure not one message was missed. During the war years he often heard the ‘V’ for Victory beaten out in Morse over his radio . . . three dots and a dash.

  This was another campaign (we loved a campaign during the war) launched by the BBC in 1941. People were asked to show their support for the Allies by writing the letter ‘V’ in chalk wherever they could, and to beat it out in Morse whenever possible. It was also discovered that the first three bars of Beethoven’s Fifth symphony echoed the Morse code for ‘Victory’ so this became the call sign of all of the BBC’s European wireless services.

  Grandma, Mum, who was holding Molly and Olive, and Miss Thackeray – a friend of the family who’d been visiting at the time – were enjoying their tea and chat. I was sitting reading my comic when something strange started to happen. I looked up at the dresser in front of me, and the jugs and ornaments on the shelves started to move.

  How peculiar, I thought. Nobody else seemed to have noticed but it wasn’t long before particles of plaster began dropping from the ceiling like snow. Mum covered Moll
y’s face with her shawl. I instinctively dived under the dining table.

  ‘What’s on earth’s going on?’ she said, looking down at me then up at the ceiling.

  Within seconds there was an almighty whoosh. The entire contents of our chimney had shot out into our tiny living room, covering us all in a thick blanket of soot. Screaming, we jumped up and ran outside. Most of the street was out, looking stunned, but we were the only ones covered in soot. Mum handed Molly to Grandma and she ran back in, calling for Dad.

  ‘I’m OK,’ I heard him shout, ‘but it’s in a bit of a state up here.’

  Debris had struck our roof, travelling through to land on Mum and Dad’s bed. Fortunately he wasn’t having a lie-down, as he normally did at that time of the day, otherwise he would probably have been seriously injured, if not killed.

  Most of the houses along our side of the road had been structurally damaged in some way, but across the road where my friend Joan lived (I say she was my friend, which she was, but I fancied her like mad) were in a far worse state. The damage had been caused by a landmine exploding in the middle of Kimberley Avenue, just up the road from us. The row of houses she lived in backed onto Kimberley; that’s why they’d taken the worst hit, and thirty houses were completely destroyed.

  Landmines were another of the problems we had to face during the bombings. These were mines that the Germans attached to a khaki-coloured silk parachute. They were pushed out of their planes and floated down to their target. If you weren’t in a shelter and you saw them in the distance, you could never determine their final destination, as they’d be guided by the wind; a quick gust could blow them towards you or, if you were lucky, take them away. They caused huge devastation when they landed, as they blew outwards not upwards, flattening everything around them. They, together with the other array of bombs constantly bombarding us, were pure evil.

  We then had the unenviable task of cleaning ourselves and the house of soot. A stiff brush was used on each of us in the garden to knock off as much as we could. Then buckets and buckets of water were used to wipe down the furniture and mop the floors. No carpets were on the floor in those days, only linoleum, which was hardwearing, waterproof and easily cleaned, which was a blessing in this instance.

  Everybody was on the move after that. Houses were classified as uninhabitable. Luckily ours wasn’t too bad, but it would still take quite a while to repair. Most of the people rented their properties, so when they were bombed out they would find another house or flat to rent. We were very fortunate to own ours, so for a year or so we rented a house at 12 Hall Road, E6 while it was being repaired. All repairs on the damaged houses were paid for by the government and classified as ‘war damage’.

  Joan’s house, sadly, was too badly damaged for them to return to. It would be rebuilt but it would take a very long time. Her dad was a carpenter and he’d made some lovely things for the house, such as beautiful heavy wooden shutters, but they had been blown away into matchsticks by the force of the bomb; some of his furniture was salvageable though. They ended up moving to Eversleigh Road, in East Ham. I missed seeing her every day, and we tried to meet up when we could. I was only twelve and she was fourteen but things were moving along. She was working then at the Curwen Press in Plaistow. As I was still at school and she was out earning a wage she would pay for me when we went to the pictures . . . it was all a bit embarrassing, to be honest. But I knew I’d have to find money from somewhere, so I could treat her too, although once I got over the initial embarrassment of her paying, the prospect of being a ‘kept boy’ did have a certain appeal. So after we were bombed out, I decided to use my initiative.

  I was lying in bed one night and the idea hit me – I would make a hand-cart. I could help people move their belongings and make a few bob as I went along. All I needed to do now was put the plan into action. Firstly I needed a door and I knew where I’d find the perfect one.

  The fronts of deserted houses were boarded up, so it was difficult to get in, but I went round the back of Kimberley Ave and found the house that had backed onto Joan’s. I climbed over debris and a couple of broken fences and ended up in her old back garden. I headed towards the toilet – everybody’s was outside then – and there it was, the toilet door, still standing and barely a mark on it . . . absolutely perfect! It was lovely; her dad had made it only a few months before. It was solid, made of oak, and I couldn’t have wished for a better start to my new business venture. I took a screwdriver and hammer from my bag and got it off its hinges. It was heavy, but I managed, although carrying it back over the debris was a bit tricky. I had to drag it part of the way but once I got it out onto the street I slipped my old roller skates under each end and guided it home. As soon as I got it there I fixed two strong bits of wood underneath for handles and then painted it dark green. It was starting to take shape.

  I couldn’t wait to show Dad when he got home, and once he saw my endeavours he was so impressed.

  ‘That’s a beauty, Stan, where’d you get the door from?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I just found it lying on some debris,’ I explained. I hoped he didn’t see me blush.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll get quite a few jobs with that son, well done! Just need a set of wheels now. In fact, I saw an old pram abandoned this morning when I was working; it’s on the corner of Gillett Avenue. If you go up there now, I’m sure it’ll still be there – you can take the wheels off that.’

  I didn’t waste any time. I jumped on my bike and headed off. There was the pram, still sitting there, all battered with the hood hanging off, but the wheels were perfect. Within an hour they were fixed onto the cart. I was almost ready to roll. All I needed was an old sack to secure underneath, as this was often used to put coal in when moving. With that done I was set for action.

  Once the news got round that I had a cart, quite a number of old neighbours would knock and ask for my services. People used to load virtually their whole houses onto these carts. Mine wasn’t big enough for these types of jobs but it was certainly big enough to carry bags and crates of personal possessions that people didn’t want to risk being broken on the larger ones. It was hard work, but I made a nice bit of pocket money – certainly enough to impress Joan.

  One night, when we were going for a ride on our bikes, her mum called me over.

  ‘Stan, I know you’ve got your cart now. Well, we just heard today that we’re definitely going to move to Denbigh Road in the next few weeks. Would you give us a hand?’

  ‘Course I will, Mrs Davies, just tell me when and I’ll be there.’

  Two weeks later I wheeled her belongings from Eversleigh Road to Denbigh Road. As she walked alongside me she kept looking at the cart, touching it. I could feel sweat start to trickle down my forehead.

  I thought I’d take her mind off it.

  ‘So, are you looking forward to the move, Mrs Davies?’As I said it, my voice, which was in the process of breaking, went two octaves lower, and to my guilty ears it seemed even more obvious I was covering something up. I was so embarrassed, and thank goodness she didn’t notice, but her hand kept sliding up and down the door edge. At that moment I’m sure she was thinking, I definitely know this door from somewhere.

  I piped up again, coughing first, trying to get my voicebox under control.

  ‘I was just saying, Mrs Davies, are you looking forward to your move?’ Sweat was now dripping down my back.

  ‘Mmm . . . sorry, Stan, I was lost in my thoughts there for a minute. This is a lovely cart. It’s so solid it’s as if it was made by a proper carpenter.’

  I cleared my throat again. ‘Oh, do you think so? I hadn’t noticed, but I suppose it does when you look at it. Tell you the truth I couldn’t believe my luck when I found it just lying there on top of a pile of rubble.’

  ‘Where did you find it, was it near you?’

  ‘No, no nowhere near me; it was up by Nelson Street,’ I explained with my head hanging down so she wouldn’t look at me. I felt bad now, but there w
as no point in coming clean – what good would come of it? ‘What the eye doesn’t see’ is what applied in that instance.

  I had a marvellous time with that cart. I helped people move their possessions for years and made myself quite a few bob along the way. But little did I know my ingenious business plan would come back and haunt me several years later.

  4

  My First Day

  1942 (age 14)

  It was a lovely mid-summer’s day, and I had a feeling of euphoria as it was my last day at Napier Road School in East Ham. I was kicking a ball around the playground and there was lots of screaming and shouting from the other children when, all of a sudden, an eerie silence fell. As we looked up, a gleaming hearse had pulled up outside the school.

  ‘Bloody ’ell, who’s croaked?’ said Alan. ‘It’s not ol’ tin knickers, is it?’ he said, looking around. We all started giggling. Ol’ tin knickers was our R.E. teacher – a very odd woman whose ways were often a topic of conversation between us. During our many chats together, Alan, who always seemed to be a fountain of knowledge about matters of an adult nature, explained in hushed tones that spinsterhood was unquestionably the cause of her problems. Sounded like a lot of old tripe to me, but I would nod and mutter my agreement, although half the time I didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was on about.

  ‘Shut it! He’s my uncle and, take my word for it, you don’t want to upset ’im . . . er, him,’ I whispered. Even then I was thinking about my ‘aitches’ – my mum’s brainwashing technique was certainly working.