Jellied Eels and Zeppelins

by Sue Taylor

  When we went to Walton-on-the-Naze one summer, there were some photographers from the Walton Gazette up on the cliffs, who asked if they could take some photographs of us. Doris arranged us all for the pictures. Lots of other people wanted to take our photos too, as they could see what a fun time we were having! We would take any unused film from the cameras that were brought into Ensign for repair out in the darkrooms and use it up on our days out.

  Ethel (2nd from left) on a seaside outing with friends from Ensign Cameras

  Doris, May and I played for the Ensign Netball Team - I became the captain eventually. Doris played Goal Shooter. May only played for a little while. We used to play behind The Billet (public house). Doris and I thoroughly enjoyed that, but when Doris suddenly took a fancy to walking, we both dropped out of netball. The team weren’t all that good, so it was quite easy to give it up.

  Doris was marvellous at walking. I wasn’t all that sporty really. Doris was the sporty one and so was May. Doris rode a Matchless motor bike when she was 14 (she was four years older than me). The motor bike had a long red tank. She used to rev up and down our road like mad and make me roll up.

  Doris was a good runner too. She won quite a few races on sports day. She always used to go nice and brown in the summer - you could always pick her out in photos. I was no good at running or walking. Cousin Flo was the runner in our family. I went to keep fit classes mostly. I was about 15 or 16 when I went to the school at Mission Grove to do keep fit. Doris would come along sometimes - when she wasn’t out walking!

  If I went out with Doris to go to a dance, she would take the man’s part and I would take the lady’s. I used say to her ‘You know that I’m not allowed out after 10 o’clock?’ Sometimes, a friend of Doris’s, who was a Freemason, would give her two free tickets for the dances at the Masonic Hall. The chap I was engaged to only came round once a week, so I used to go with Doris. We were back late once or twice and she came home with me. One night after a dance at the Chequers Pub in the market, we arrived back late. We’d got some balloons and Doris shut one in the door - I thought it was going to wake up Dad, but we were lucky that time!

  Trouble was, some of the dances used to be on a Wednesday night and we’d got to go to work in the morning. Dad used to get up early to go to work and, as he walked past our bedroom door, he would bang on it. ‘Get up you girls! You’ll be late!’ He used to make out that he was going out by slamming the front door and then he would creep back in. He made sure you got up, my Dad did. He was good in that way. My foreman used to say ‘You’ve never been late once in all the 18 years you’ve been here.’ Yet Doris was always late when she lived with her sister.

  Doris died aged 94. She was in a nursing home. The last time I saw her, she still had the same mischievous laugh. May died many years ago. She left me some money and I bought an exercise machine with it!’

  The girls from Ensign. Doris is far left, May 2nd from right and Ethel 3rd from right

  Eleven

  More Cameras, Pineapples and Nice Hot Rolls

  ‘I used to love to go to work, but we had to be through the gates before eight o’clock in the morning or pay a fine a threepence.

  Being a tester, I had to make sure that the cameras were all perfect, that no light could get in and that they were all clean and polished. There were all different types of cameras - big ones, little tiny ones, box cameras. We used to go into the darkrooms to test them.

  One day, I went up to Wood Street at lunchtime and brought back a pineapple. I started to cut it up in the darkroom with a small pocket knife I had. Just as we were about to eat it, the foreman came in. ‘This is what you do when you’re supposed to be working!’ he said. Then he rolled up and said ‘I don’t mind as long as you give me a lump!’

  Every Saturday morning before eight o’clock after I’d got out at the station at Wood Street, I used to pop into the baker’s on the corner and buy half a dozen rolls. Then I’d go into the dairy next door and buy half a pound of butter. I’d get to work, take all my purchases into the darkroom five minutes before we were due to start, and cut and butter the nice hot rolls for our breakfast. The foreman used to say ‘I don’t know why you’re hiding in there, ‘cos I know what you’re doing and I’d like one of those rolls!’ His name was George and he always had his breakfast of a hot roll with us every Saturday morning!

  I was very fond of whistling while I was doing the cameras and once, when I had just started work, I was whistling away cleaning the cameras and George was upstairs in the focussing department. The darkrooms were under the stairs and, when he had got so many cameras finished, he would have to come downstairs to test them for light in the darkrooms, see. Well, this particular time when he came downstairs, he heard me whistling and said sternly ‘You’re not paid to sit there whistling, get on with your work!!’ I told my colleagues ‘I don’t like that foreman one bit,’ but in the end, we got on ever so well with him, when I realised that he was really nice and didn’t mind what you did as long as you got the job done.

  Sometimes, they’d take you off what you were doing and put you in another department, to make sure that you could do all the jobs and not just one. Once, I was put on packing - the times I cut my fingers on the paper!

  But I really loved my job at Ensign, working with all the girls and everything. We never ‘ad no rows, not one and no one took advantage of you. However, when our manager left, we had a new one, who was a right so and so. He gave me a camera and said ‘Do that now!’ I said that I wouldn’t do it while he was watching me. He was one of those people who look at you as if you are a bit of dirt. He never used to say thank you.

  The second time he demanded that I check this important camera for the Gold Coast immediately, I told him ‘I’ll bring it up to you when I’ve finished it and I’ll not do it with you standing behind me!’ When I took it up to him, I demanded a pay rise, and I got it!’

  ‘The girls’ from Ensign at Walton. Ethel top left, Doris top middle

  Twelve

  Motor Bikes and Primus Stoves

  Joe Elvin had been working in the woodyard next to Ensign, when he met Ethel. When the woodyard had to make him redundant, because of the decreasing supply of wood, Ethel managed to get him a job at Ensign:

  ‘Joe had always loved doing small work and, as a hobby, used to make radios, so I thought that he might like a job working with cameras.

  Joe was an inspector of the air force cameras - he used to make and repair them - during the Second World War. Oh - he loved all that. Great big things they were.

  He always had every Sunday off and he belonged to this crowd - his brother and sister-in-law, his nephew, Charlie and Edna - there was a big crowd of them and they all used to go out together on Sunday in the summer to seaside places like Walton and Frinton. Some had motor bikes and some had motor bikes with sidecars. They would all take their own food and park in the car parks there, spread their picnic out on cloths and have a bit of everybody’s. Proper merry crowd they were.

  Well, on the days that Doris’s chap used to work, Doris would ride on the back of Joe’s bike. One day, we’d been working on Saturday morning up until 12 o’clock, when Doris said ‘There’s that chap waiting who I go out with on Sundays.’ She told him ‘No, I can’t come tomorrow; Stan’s not working this week. Take Ethel instead.’ Joe said that he would take anybody who wanted to come. ‘I’ll make sure that she comes,’ Doris said. Joe told me that he’d be waiting for me at Forest Road at eight o’clock in the morning. So I said ‘Well, don’t wait too long - I probably won’t be there.’ I didn’t know what to wear or what I was going to take, but Mum said ‘Go on, you go! But I shall worry ‘til you get back, ‘cos you’ll be on a motor bike.’

  Joe on his motor bike

  I did go. We went to Walton-on-the-Naze. Mum said ‘Give him some cigarettes or something. That’ll pay for your day out. We won’t tell your father,’ ‘cos my Dad wouldn’t have ‘ad it, see. Well, I got on this bloomin’ motor bike and to
ld Joe ‘Don’t go too fast!’ He said ‘If you’re frightened, put your arms around me waist and stick your fingers in me belt!’ I remember hanging on like mad. We never had any helmets or anything - just leather coats and berets. Once I ripped the sole off my new sandals goin’ round a corner! But they weren’t fast drivers and it was all country lanes then. We picked up the gang at the Green Gate, Ilford. I said to Joe ‘When we come back, don’t you dare drop me near my home - my Dad’ll kill me if he sees me on a motor bike!’ So he dropped me off at the top of the road and said ‘Come again if you feel like it.’ I said ‘All right, but I mustn’t let my Dad know.’ Mum was a good coverer though. We used to get back about six or seven in the evening, ‘cos we all had to go to work the next day.

  I used to really enjoy those outings. They were such a lovely crowd. I’ve still got the Primus stove we took to boil up the water for our tea. On the way home, we used to sing - Joe’s favourite song was ‘The Very Thought of You’ by Bing Crosby.’

  Ethel and Joe became engaged some three years later. The single diamond engagement ring came from Walkers, the Hoe Street jewellers. Their betrothal lasted for two years before they married during the Second World War in September 1940 at St. Michael’s Church, Walthamstow, where the weddings of Ethel’s parents and her sister Florrie had taken place.

  Part Three

  1939-1945

  Thirteen

  Doodlebugs and Dugouts

  ‘When you got home from work, before you’d even had time to change, it would be ‘Oh, blow - there it goes again (the air raid siren).’ So you’d quickly put on your dugout clothes and go into the shelter. You couldn’t even make yourself a cup of tea and you weren’t allowed to listen to the wireless in the dugouts. They used to switch off the stations then, in case the Germans picked it up.

  It was frightening, especially when you had those buzz-bombs or doodlebugs. You could hear them coming, and, when you heard them shut off, you thought ‘Oh God, is this our one?’ And, you’d wait for it to go bang, but you would always think ‘It might be us next’. And that’s how it went on. In the end, you did become a little hardened to it and you might say ‘Let’s go to bed and take a chance!’ But we never actually did take that chance - just in case.

  We came out of the dugout at about six in the morning. Mostly, we just talked and dozed. Directly we used to nod off, a bomb would drop and wake you up. In the winter-time, the raids started at about six when it was dark.’

  The Anderson Shelter or dugout as it was known was made of corrugated steel and stood in a pit four feet deep. As it didn’t have a proper floor, only earth, it flooded whenever it rained. During the London Blitz in 1940, the city was bombed every night for more than two months.

  ‘Eight of us used to sit in the shelter, very often with our feet in water. It was so very crowded and we could hardly move sat on these wooden benches. As for going to the loo - you had to wait until there was a lull in the bombing and then dash outside! If we had time, we would make up drinks to take into the dugout with us - we used to use any old mugs. There was no heating at all, so we would put old thick socks on our feet to keep warm, but then they would get wet, so we’d have to take them off! Of course, as there were so many of us in there, we generated our own heat, which would then cause condensation to drip on our heads!

  At The Elms cricket ground at the back of where I lived, there were playing fields and the River Lea beyond, where there were horse-drawn barges. The Germans dropped a load of bombs there, ‘cos they thought it was the Thames - it stretched almost to Edmonton. So, when we were in the dugout during a heavy raid, we were being shaken about through the impact of the bombs exploding. Your head resounded with the ‘Bang! Bang!’ as you sat there with your feet in water. After the war was over, I think that about four to five hundred unexploded bombs were found there.

  There were Molotov baskets (Incendiary Bombs) and they used to come down all alight and you could only put sand on them to put them out. Land mines, rockets, buzz-bombs - we had the lot!

  I was sitting in front of the cooker crocheting once when the air raid warning sounded. Mum said ‘I’m not going in the dugout tonight - I’m fed up sitting with me feet in water.’ All of a sudden, we heard an explosion, flew up the passageway and got down on our knees. Mum was in front and me behind, we were almost lying down. We could hear another one coming and as we listened, I looked at my hand - my crochet hook was just inches away from my Mum’s bottom! I’ll never forget that as long as I live.

  We sat in the dugout and Dad would say he was going for a walk to make sure everyone was all right. If people were frightened and a bit nervous, he’d go and talk to them and all that sort of thing, you know. He was very good and got a medal for it, ‘cos I found it in one of his drawers when he died.’

  1942: Joe in his NFS uniform

  Joe, for his part, joined the National Fire Service (NFS) after failing his medical for the services because of a leg injury. He completed his training at Forest Road Fire Station in Walthamstow and was the leading fireman at Ensign, where he made, repaired and inspected air force cameras:

  ‘He fell down the iron staircase, where he worked and twisted his leg two weeks before his number was called up for the Air Force. They made you stand on one leg and swing the other and he couldn’t stand on his bad leg, so they asked him to come back in three months time. During those three months, they dropped his age group (he was six years older than me) so he had a choice of going in the Fire Service or the Home Guard. Where he worked at Ensign, they wanted him in the fire service, so he chose that which meant that he could do a bit of work as well as be a fireman.

  Joe loved his fire service. I remember later, when we came to Doddinghurst and the chimney caught alight, he knew just what to do - he took out all the front and stuck wet sacks up it. It was when I had an Aga and it was Christmas morning and I was cooking me chicken in it and it made the chimney breast red hot upstairs. And he knew what to do - he was really clever.

  He never really said anything about his fire service work, except when a bomb dropped on Ensign on the place where they kept all the liquids, spirits and that for the work. It all caught alight and he got his shoes burnt… his feet got red hot, but, as he was leading fireman, he had to stand there you see. He used to tow this big tender with a truck. Directly the siren went he was on duty. We used to come down to Doddinghurst sometimes for a sleep in the shed to get away from all the noise, though we weren’t supposed to. You weren’t supposed to come out of your area if you were a fireman, but we didn’t do it often.

  Because the work I was doing at Ensign was classed as luxury trade, they closed down our floor, which is why I went into ammunitions. I was the last one to go.

  Colleagues at the munitions factory, Walthamstow

  I also worked as an inspector in a munitions factory in Billet Road, Walthamstow, where I oversaw the making of tracer bullets and gun parts. I used to do a fortnight of days and a fortnight of nights. I was there when I got married. I was there for about a fortnight and they put me on as inspector. I used to set all the machines up in the morning or at night. I loved it. I would inspect all the little parts that went in the bombs and we assembled them. I used to have to check them all and check the girls to make sure they did their work.

  I was paid by the Woolwich Arsenal by cheque once a month through the Post Office. They got me the job at the Labour Exchange. I had to have an examination by a doctor before I went there and I had to make a will to say what I was going to leave to my Mum. In the middle of a raid, we used to have to rush out and go into the dugout, where I would sit crocheting.

  When I was on nights, I would work from eight at night ‘til eight in the morning. When I was on days, it would be from eight in the morning ‘til eight at night for another fortnight. And I also made ammunition boxes for Cabinet Industries Ltd on the Arterial Road, with Cousin Flo.’

  Fourteen

  Roses and Wedding Cakes

  ‘I didn’t leave
Mum ‘til I was 30, ‘cos I loved her so much. I had my wedding dress made by old friends of ours, who were court dressmakers up in London, and my sister’s bridesmaid’s outfit - her dress, headdress, her gloves, shoes, everything - she was my matron of honour. I was going to have a little one to hold my train. She was three, but her mother had to go away, because they evacuated mothers who were expecting babies.

  I bought all the flowers, even the buttonholes, as well as the wedding breakfast. It was with the money I’d saved since I was a toddler. The only thing I borrowed, was my sister’s wedding veil. We went and saw a bedroom suite we wanted in Hoe Street and we hadn’t got quite enough money - we wanted another £3, I think it was. So my Dad said ‘I’ll loan you the £3, but I want it back,’ so I went and paid for it and got it delivered to our flat, and I paid my father back with my first week’s wages afterwards.

  My father grew us some flowers on his allotment and we had those on the tables. The flowers in my bouquet came from Alda’s florist in Hoe Street. I remember my bouquet cost £2 and 10 shillings and my sister’s was £1 and 10 shillings. My bouquet consisted of red roses and white heather and Florrie wore a dress of lavender and her bouquet was all lovely tea roses.

  Ethel and Joe’s wedding. September 1940. Florrie was bridesmaid and Joe’s brother best man

  When we were standing at the altar, the warning went and the bombs were dropping. We couldn’t have the church bells and we couldn’t have the choir, because they had all been evacuated, so all we had was the organ.

  Oh, and I’ll never forget it. I’ll tell you what happened. It was a High Church, St. Michael’s and All Angels mind, and they burnt incense in there. There was a man who waited at the door to lead you in. He was a little man in a little hat with a knob on the top. I was holding my Dad’s arm and we were walking up the aisle and this little man tripped and I had a fit of the giggles and couldn’t stop laughing. Because I couldn’t have little Jean holding my train, I’d sown a tape onto my train and held it on my little finger. When I got to the church, I let it go down. As we got to the altar - you have to walk up two or three steps to get to the altar - I remembered seeing in a film once at the pictures, one woman standing on some else’s train and pulling the back out. I was standing at the altar thinking of that - I don’t know why - and I said to my chap ‘When you move, don’t tread on my train!’ And he did just that. I whispered ‘Get off! Get off!’ When I got home and looked, I had footmarks right in the middle of me train. I never forgot that. There was three, if not four yards, of material in the train.