Survivor of the Long March

by Charles Waite

  One of the best times was when Lily and I set up our own greengrocery round from the back of a lorry. Brian was born in 1946 and had started school so this was probably in the early 1950s. It was hard work with long hours but we were our own bosses and enjoyed being together. It wasn’t a deliberate act to set myself up in opposition to the family business; it just sort of happened that way.

  A friend of mine who knew I was looking for work had heard about some second-hand removal vans for sale. A firm which made cough mixture – I forget the name, had gone out of business and were selling off their vehicles, including these 2-ton delivery lorries. He thought that one of those would make a nice shop and offered to show me them. He took me down to a garage in Deptford where five were displayed on the forecourt. He knew a bit about engines and looked them over and listened to them running and he picked the best one out for me. I made an offer to the salesman and I bought it for £100 on credit over five years.

  My nephews, Keith and Roy, had inherited their father’s carpentry skills and they came and helped me fit out shelving inside. I hadn’t fallen out with my big brother Alfred but he didn’t want to upset other members of the family so I rarely saw him. That was a pity. We got the inside all ship shape and I set out all the different bins for the vegetables (just like in the old shop) and stocked them up and it really looked the business.

  I decided to stick to a familiar district and people I knew and set up round the corner from my old home and family shop. I gradually built up my own customers and expanded the route. I had a very loyal following and some of my old ones started coming to me instead of the shop. I’ve always got on with people in spite of being shy and if you provide a good service to the public, they trust you and you can do well. I suppose there was the idea at the back of my mind that I might get sympathy from people who knew me from the old days, who thought I had been treated badly by my relations.

  And yes, I did take business away from the family and yes, they didn’t like it and tried to stop me. Somebody reported me to the council saying I was breaking the law by selling goods from a stationary vehicle in the street. So when an official came and spoke to me about it, all I did was to get in the driving seat of the van and move it a few feet further down the road. Then I decided to check with the police and went down to the station. They told me that they hadn’t received any complaints so I could carry on. Word soon got back after that: not to bother Charlie again.

  We did have fun together and Lily got on with all the customers and I didn’t mind chatting to them either because I knew them and wanted to please them. Over time, the weekly takings got better and better and I am proud to say that we were very successful.

  After a few years of the greengrocer’s round I decided it was time for a change. What I needed was a job with regular hours and regular pay. It wasn’t fair on Lily being stuck with me all day in the back of a van or on Brian who didn’t see much of us. We both wanted to enjoy a proper family life while Brain was growing up. Lily also wanted to broaden her horizons and had an eye on working again using her sewing skills.

  She soon found work in a clothing factory owned by singer Sandie Shaw’s father out in Hainault, I think it was. She took Brian to school before work and picked him up after. Then she went on to work for a large furniture manufacturer where she learned to do upholstery and became very skilled in that specialist work. She continued making her own clothes in her spare time and made all Brian’s when he was little. He was always perfectly turned out, whatever the occasion.

  One day Lily and Brian, who was four years old at the time, were in Dolcis Shoe Shop in Romford. Lily was looking for new shoes for Brian and he caught the eye of a photographer who was doing some advertising work there. He was setting up a shot and thought Brian would look good in it. Brian had to sit next this glamorous model and look on as she tried on shoes. He looks angelic in his beret and best tailored coat, another of Lily’s creations. It’s a lovely picture and appeared in several magazines.

  What about me, then? What was I going to do with myself? All I was qualified to do was drive and sell things. And that is what I continued to do in my next job, which lasted twenty-seven years. However, the difference was that this job took me from the bottom rung of the ladder almost to the top.

  16

  On the Road Again

  I nearly didn’t get the job at Macarthys Ltd in Romford because of the young girl on the reception desk. ‘The advert clearly says, “Drivers between 25–35 required” and you’re 39,’ she said.

  I had seen the advert for drivers in the local paper and thought I would give it a go. I stopped off on my way back from market with a lorry load of potatoes. I went in and filled in a form with my personal details and passed it over to the girl. When she saw my date of birth she pushed the paper back to me.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s no good me passing it on upstairs. They won’t even look at it. You’re too old.’ That was it and I left and went back to deliver my spuds. I persisted however and some days later I started working for a company which grew from small beginnings, from working out of the back of a chemist shop, into one of the country’s leading wholesale pharmaceutical distributors.

  My first job was accompanying one of the drivers in his 12cwt Bedford van full of surgical dressings which we delivered to the hospital at the Ford Dagenham Works. I suppose I was the spare driver and now I knew what Pony Moore felt like in France when he was sitting in the passenger seat beside me. I accompanied this chap for a few days to learn the ropes and then I was given my own route and left to get on with it. I collected the orders from the warehouse, loaded them up and then went out on my round to the various customers, mostly pharmacists. I was out on the road again, on my own.

  I didn’t think of myself as just another driver or delivery boy – well, certainly not a boy at nearly forty. I didn’t want to be one of those fellows who just dumped the goods out the back and then drove on to the next job. I took an interest in the people I met and spent time chatting to them and tried to be friendly and helpful. If somebody wanted to change or add to an order I would see to it personally. I got myself a notebook and started keeping records of the various requests. I sorted them out myself in the warehouse when I got back. Nothing was too much trouble.

  I was doing well and enjoyed what I was doing, particularly offering a more personal service. People told me, including customers and reps from other drugs companies, that I ought to be out on the road selling. ‘Got the gift of the gab,’ I heard somebody say. ‘You’re a natural.’

  ‘They don’t take drivers off the road and make them reps,’ I said.

  One day a sales rep from Pfizer was standing on the kerb outside one of my regular customers. As I passed him to go into the chemists, he said hello and started chatting. I had seen him before and didn’t know his name but he knew mine.

  ‘Awright, Charlie. How you doing?’

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ I said, ‘and you?’

  ‘Tickety-boo.’

  I thought that was it but he continued, ‘Little birdie tells me,’ and he tapped the side of his nose, ‘Little birdie tells me that a certain person not a million miles from here is coming up in the world.’

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘They’re trying to get you out on the road, repping. You know, like yours truly.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Your bosses. Haven’t you heard?’

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a driver.’

  But you know what? They did want me out on the road, wanted me to become a sales representative. What’s more, I did become one and continued to do so for the next 20 years until I retired in 1984.

  Things have happened to me more by accident than intention. I’ve been lucky. I left school at fourteen without any qualifications but I’ve done well. People always seemed to take to me and my face fitted. I worked with two regional directors where all the other reps worked with one. They left
it up to me to organise my work load which I really appreciated. I remember the first time they called me into their office to tell me the good news.

  ‘You see that desk there.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘It’s nice and empty.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, I want it staying that way. I don’t want a load of rubbish on my desk on a Friday afternoon.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘We know where you are and what you’re doing. If we want to speak to you we can find you at home, can’t we?’

  ‘Yes, any time,’ I said.

  That was fine by me. There was nobody breathing down my neck and there were no piles of paper to deal with or reports to send in. I was very lucky. I had good bosses who respected and trusted me enough to let me get on with my job.

  I was put in charge of part of the South East area: the whole of Essex, part of Hertfordshire and part of Kent. We were living in Thundersley, near Southend, by then, so I was travelling a good deal on my patch but soon got to know all the other places. Sometimes one of my bosses asked me to cover for another rep in a different area if that chap was absent or unavailable.

  Most of what I did was what is known as ‘cold calling’. I went out and visited chemists, pharmacists and doctors who didn’t know me from Adam and didn’t buy from us. My job was to sell my company to them and get them to move their accounts from their wholesaler and sign up to us. I wasn’t pushy or grasping or greedy. I know some reps would do anything to get a new customer but I treated people with respect and I did very well. Occasionally people closed the door in my face but mostly they were polite and spared me the time to hear what I had to say about the service and competitive prices my company could offer. You did need a bit of a silver tongue and I had that, so it seemed. As my boss said, ‘We employ you because you’re a good talker.’ Funny to think how shy I used to be and how I would go out of my way to avoid meeting people.

  When I went out in the morning I was my own boss in my company car, out on the road, not stuck indoors – what I’ve always liked best. I didn’t have to report to anybody or ask for permission to do so and so. I used my initiative in arranging my visits. If I had been on a long journey one day I worked locally the next. If I fancied an afternoon off then I took it and made up the time another day. This suited me and fitted in well with the family. I could be doing a couple of hundred miles a day but I always tried to get home in time for tea.

  Family life was important to me. I needed love and security after all those years of hardship and neglect as a POW. It was such a lonely time, even with your pals for company. They had their own fears and worries. Men don’t talk about their feelings like women and I kept mine bottled up.

  Lily was a wonderful wife and companion and made a lovely home for me. When Brian came along that gave me a real purpose in life and I wanted to be a good father. I never thought I would ever marry and have a child. When I lay on my bunk bed at night in the camp, listening to men snoring and rats gnawing the floorboards, I stopped myself from thinking about Lily and being with her in a place of our own. It was too painful. I honestly believed that I would die out in that dreadful place. One year turned to two, and then three to four, and then five. An eternity of misery.

  I had everything I wanted now and life was good; Lily and Brian were settled and happy. However, the time came, as it always does, when the bosses wanted more.

  When I first started at Macarthys there were about 400 staff in Romford; by the time I retired in 1984, they had over 4000 and had expanded their premises and locations. There were always new drugs coming on the market and at the beginning they were very expensive because of the cost of the research. I was handling orders worth a hell of a lot of money. The company was doing very well indeed. They could afford to be generous with bonuses for employees but when one of the directors handed me a huge roll of money held together by a rubber band I was taken by surprise.

  I was called to the board room one day and the directors told me that they needed somebody to cover the Midlands region. I told them I was happy where I was and turned the offer down and that was it for a while. They asked me a second time and I was worried that if I refused again I might lose my job.

  ‘Mr Moore, tell me, does this mean I’m on the scrap heap?’

  ‘Oh, no, not at all. You carry on with what you’re doing.’

  So I did. For a bit longer.

  Lily knew what was going on. I told her about the meetings and she said, ‘We’re settled here, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, we are. I told them I wasn’t moving.’

  They kept asking me and I kept saying no. It was on the third or fourth occasion that the roll of bank notes appeared. I was sitting opposite the director again when he pushed the money across the desk. ‘Have a think about it,’ he said.

  On that particular day Lily was busy repainting the garage doors when I pulled into our drive just before midday. She only had to look at my face to know what had happened.

  ‘Oh, no, they’ve asked you again, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they had me in the office first thing.’ I showed her the bundle of money. ‘Look what they gave me.’ I’d had a quick look at it in the car and reckoned there was more than £50 in notes (worth over £600 in today’s money). I took Lily’s hand. ‘It’s all right, I’m not taking it.’

  The next day I returned the money without saying a word. I thought that would the end of it and they would get the message. I don’t know why, but they were persistent buggers and the next time they asked me I said yes. It was Lily’s decision. I think she realised that they must have thought an awful lot of me the way they kept offering me this and that incentive to move. She thought that a change might be good after all. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. We moved to Kidderminster in 1972 and I have lived there ever since.

  I never wanted an office job or to be a boss or tell people what to do and fortunately that continued. I worked hard finding my way around a different part of the country and slowly built up my business with a whole new lot of customers. The Essex Boy was getting used to Brummie and Black Country ways. Lily and I worked awfully hard in those days and we only took short holidays or had days out. We enjoyed gardening and spent our spare time worked together on our patch at the back. Lily had the ideas and the artistic flair, and designed the layout and chose the plants while I provided the muscle. You know me –good with a fork and spade.

  When I retired they held a party for me in the Birmingham depot. I was presented with a carriage clock which sits on my mantelpiece and is still going and keeps good time. Lily received a beautiful bowl of plants and a bouquet. She was very popular and had also worked for a while in one of their depots helping with the daily orders. I left the company at the right time because a year later they were taken over and everything changed. I was lucky.

  I think it was about this time that my niece Ann Broom (my second eldest sister Doris’s girl) paid me a visit. We got talking about the family and were sharing memories of childhood and growing up.

  ‘What did you do in the war, Uncle Charlie?’ she said and asked if she could see my medals.

  ‘What medals?’ I said, ‘I haven’t got any.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ she said. ‘Everybody who served in the war has them. Even Auntie Lily.’

  We had never received our service medals – the 1939–45 Star. In addition I should have had the War Medal 1939–45. I thought we both deserved them considering what we had gone through. Ann found the address for me and I wrote to the MoD Medal Office in Glasgow with our details. A while later a package with a Droitwich post mark arrived. It was only a few miles away where the medals were struck. They came in two little boxes and I thought somebody had sent us some wedding cake. When I opened them there were our medals nestling in tissue paper inside, not a piece of iced fruit cake. I wouldn’t have minded that as well.

  I didn’t have any reason to wear my medals back then but I put them away somewhe
re safe. I am proud today to wear them on Remembrance Sunday and at any function or occasion I attend where it is appropriate.

  There were changes when I retired. I was spending more time with my family which I liked. I was always happiest when it was just the three of us. It was Lily and Brian’s turn to do what they wanted and I wanted to support them now their interests. Lily still loved sewing and enjoyed making things for friends. Her aprons and cosmetic purses were very popular and she decided to take a stall at a local craft fair. She was very successful and we started going regularly to these and bigger shows all over the place. I was happy taking a back seat, apart from doing the driving that is. Lily didn’t need me to do any selling as her goods just flew off the table by themselves.

  Brian spent a lot of his free time on his hobby which was replica model train building. He started showing his models which he made from scratch in his workshop, engineering every piece by hand. He exhibited at model railway clubs and fairs in school halls and at venues like Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre. I accompanied him to his shows and enjoyed helping him set things out and chat to the people who came to look at his exhibits. Not that I knew much about the details, dimensions, gauge etc of the engines. Bit over my head. Being with Lily and Brian kept me busy and out on the road yet again.

  Lily and I never travelled abroad. Lily didn’t like flying or going on boats so we always holidayed in this country. We never needed passports. However, Brian loved travelling and went all over the world and learned to speak French fluently and a bit of German. I would have loved to learn German. That is one of my regrets from all those years as a POW that I never learned more than a few words and phrases of German. I have tried to learn a bit on my own but it’s not easy.