Chapter 3

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="12ad4c00dduajq.gif"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 ><NOBR><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="stan hedges homepage"><U>Home Page </U></A></div> <bR> <div>  <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Times New Roman" >Chapters</FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="id132.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Autobiography"><U>One</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id144.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 2"><U>Two</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id145.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 3"><U>Three</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id146.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 4"><U>Four</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id148.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 5"><U>Five</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id149.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 6"><U>Six</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id151.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 7"><U>Seven </U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id156.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 8"><U>Eight</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id158.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 9"><U>Nine</U></A></div> <div> Ten</div> <div> Eleven</div> <div> Twelve</div> <div> Thirteen</div> <div> Fourteen</div> <div> Fifteen   </div> <div>  </div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="stan hedges homepage"><U>Home Page</U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFBF0" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> <div> <B>Chapter 3</B></div> <div> Bailiffs and Banter</div> <bR> <div> SOON after this, Dad was laid off at Fords.  Unable to find other permanent employment, he began rising at four-thirty each morning to ride his bike over several miles of cobbled highway to Mann & Crossman's brewery at Mile End.  Together with several other breweries and factories in the East End, this was a place where queues of unemployed gathered in the early hours each day, except Sunday, hoping for a day's casual labour.  (I often did so myself when on leave from the army during the early Fifties). When not taken on, he'd ride back to Dagenham to join the end of the doll queue at the local Labour Exchange.  </div> <div> In those days even being on the doll could be hard work, in a sense.  For in order to qualify for the weekly doll of fifteen shillings (75p), claimants were made to present themselves for `signing on' twice a day, morning and afternoon.  If unlucky, they could find themselves queuing for hours at a time and then hanging around until the next session, there being no point in returning home.  Thus, whole days were often spent simply hanging around doing nothing, which, to my mind, is hard work.</div> <div> Fifteen shillings barely covered the rent, even though rent was never an essential part of Dad's financial planning.  (So far as he was concerned , life's essentials consisted of enough tobacco and a pint or two of beer each night).  Mum carried on as a barmaid several nights a week of course.  But she was also fast earning a reputation as a jazz and blues singer, winning a few pounds here and there in pub talent competitions.  She actually went on to win first prize in a competition organised by Mantovani, the famous orchestra leader, in the late summer of 1939, singing `The Down and Out Blues'.  Mantovani promptly filled the silver cup she won with gin, which apparently kept Mum, Dad, and friends happy until the following morning.  That night, Mantovani promised to do whatever he could to further her career as a singer.  However, war was declared the following morning, so nothing ever came of it, and she spent the rest of her life wondering what might have been.  </div> <div> She had a wonderful memory for songs, only needing to hear the latest ballad on the radio a few times before she had it off, word for word.  Every morning she'd lift me onto the draining board for a face and knees scrub, then commence singing her latest addition to the repertoire.  It was a favourite time for me, though I have to say it might have been better still without the wash and scrub bit.</div> <div> But even with occasional supplements from talent competitions, Mum could never expect to earn enough to feed a family, far less pay the rent.  As penniless as her own mother at the beginning of the century, she sometimes resorted to scavenging in the local market for rotten fruit and vegetables discarded by costermongers, just as she and her siblings had done when they were children.  Boiled up with a few pennyworths of marrow bones, she could make a tasty stew.  Afterwards, we'd crush the bones with Dad's old hobbing foot, then scrape out the marrow jelly.  I remember enjoying it immensely.  Otherwise, there was nothing for it but to soldier on with porridge and bread and dripping. </div> <div> It was Mum's oldest sister, Aunt Lou, who eventually came to the rescue.  At least, that was her intention.  She'd always had a soft spot for Dad.  He was a rogue, she thought, but a likeable one.  With her influence as a chief stewardess with the Shaw Saville Line, she was able to get him taken on as a utility steward.  Poor lady, she could have no idea this act of kindness was to put an even greater strain on Mum's marriage. </div> <div> Dad was assigned to the s.s. Jervis Bay early in 1938, a ship on which Aunt Lou's second husband, Sid Peters, happened to be Second Steward.  As a matter of interest, this ship was to become the first armed merchant ship to be lost while engaging the enemy in October 1939, being sunk with the loss of many hands, including Aunt Lou's husband, and she remained a widow the rest of her days.  And Dad?  Well he wasn't on it, was he?  Fortunately, or otherwise, and after only four trips as a steward, he'd failed to sign on for that particular trip.  Apparently he'd slept in and missed the boat due to a hangover from the previous night's farewell binge.  </div> <div> However, before that, Mum had decided to give up our nice new house in Dagenham while Dad was away at sea.  The reason given was that her parents and married brothers and sisters had mostly all moved out of Canning Town and into the slightly more salubrious areas of East Ham and Manor Park.  These outer suburbs of the East End had grown during the late nineteenth-century to provide better standards for growing numbers of artisan and middle-management workers, and were thought a cut above Canning Town, Custom House and Plaistow.  As Mum wanted to be closer to her family, she acquired three unfurnished rooms on the ground floor of  87 Second Avenue, Manor Park, the upstairs being occupied by two old blind men.  In moving there, we were now no more than half a mile from both sets of grandparents. </div> <div> Very soon I discovered just how many siblings she really had; amounting to four sisters and five brothers.  Suddenly I had an inordinate number of cousins living close by, two of whom would later become close friends.  </div> <div> We moved in at the beginning of 1939.  As I said, Dad was at sea at the time.  Soon she'd taken a job behind the bar in a pub called The Earl of Essex, which I believe is still situated on the corner of Romford Road and High Street North at Manor Park Broadway.  I remember the two old blind men keeping an ear open for Sid and me till she came home each night, usually sometime after eleven.  They were kind, gentle men, and Mum was very fond of them, almost adopting them as her own.  I hear her now: `Anything you need, darling… washing, shopping, anything… you only have to say.'  In illustration, she once told me about the night during the Blitz while Ken, Sid and I were in Somerset as evacuees.  She came home from work one night to find the street cordoned off.  Not even residents were allowed to enter.  It seemed a stick of bombs had fallen on road backing onto Second Avenue, leaving several houses in our road badly damaged.  Teams of rescue workers were busy searching the wreckage for casualties.  Seeing them, she cried out, `The old men!  My lovely old men! They're both blind!  Let me through!'  After the policeman waved her through she ran down the street shouting, `No 87!  No 87!  There's two old men upstairs!  They're both blind!'  She arrived at the house to find the rear doors and windows blown out, plaster off the walls, and ceilings down here and there, but otherwise damage to our house was slight.  And the two old men?  They were fine; badly shaken, but otherwise safe and well.  </div> <div> Dad never made an allotment to Mum whilst at sea, calculating that, between working behind the bar and winning the odd talent competition here and there, as well as sponging off her family, she'd survive somehow.  Mum said he thought it made up for it so long as he came home with a few `silly bleeding presents' and taking her out for a good time.  No; I tell a lie.  He did come home with something special once, but Mum didn't care much that either.  Though, in fairness to the man, he did tell her within the first hour why they wouldn't be making love for a while.  As she said, `It just goes to show, there's good in everyone.'   </div> <bR> <bR> <div> Soon after Dad came home from sea to 87, Second Avenue for the first time, the real reason for our move from Dagenham was soon made apparent. </div> <div>  It was a month or two after we moved in.  We were all sitting at table having a mid-day meal when two or three unexpected knocks were heard at the front door. Very loud knocks.  Poor Dad.  It was sheer bad luck, his being home.  A week later and he might have got away with it.  But the day had obviously been earmarked as a tragic turning point for us all, and the Fates were not minded to be denied.  The true reason for our leaving Dagenham was to become manifestly clear.</div> <div> It had nothing to do with Mum wanting to be nearer her family. It was because Dad, as well as getting into debt for our furniture and, no doubt thinking to give his sons a better education than himself, had also (true to form) succumbed to a smooth-talking encyclopaedia salesman.  During the next six months or so, with him at sea most of the time, and leaving no allotment, nothing was ever paid on the books.  And so, after falling hopelessly behind with the rent, then the furniture payments, and then the books, you can imagine some pretty heavy mail began falling on Mum's coconut door-mat in Dagenham. In the end there was nothing for it but another secretive flit in the dark.  </div> <div> But, irony of ironies, it wasn't the council or the furniture shop that brought Dad to his knees, but the smallest debt of all, the encyclopaedia people, Newnes, the publishers.  And now their bailiffs stood brandishing a very ugly looking Possession Order.  Poor chap. Wherever he is now, he may still be wondering how they caught up with hi m.  </div> <div> Mum answered the door, then returned, ashen faced. </div> <div> `It's for you.  They won't talk to me.  Now you've done it. You've really done it this time.'  </div> <div> Ever the gentleman, Dad went to the door and foolishly invited them in, sending Mum, Sid and me into the front bedroom while he `took care of things'.  We waited, listening to the rumble of voices in the kitchen.  </div> <div> However, on this occasion, Dad's persuasive powers were tested and found woefully inadequate.  And it seems that, in those days (or so he was made to believe), once bailiffs were inside the premises they had the right to remain until the debt was either discharged or goods-to-the-value remitted.  No, they said, the books would not do.  Who in their right mind in the East End of London wants a dozen second-hand encyclopaedias?  In the meantime, they said, they had the right to claim full board and lodging until the full purchase price was paid or some other satisfactory arrangement agreed.  </div> <div> In fairness to Dad, it was now a case of `needs must when the devil drives'.  I only remember us all being sent into the bedroom. Only later did I learn that Dad returned after a while and sent Sid and me out to play.  He then commenced to explain to Mum how there might be a way out of their current predicament, if she was willing.  For it seems these two nice, enterprising bailiffs had suggested a perfectly feasible remedy by pointing out that, under the circumstances, and as his wife was such an attractive woman, an agreeable alternative to hard cash was readily to hand, and would be perfectly acceptable  -  especially as they had no wish to see those two lovely boys sleeping on bare boards tonight.  So… was she willing?</div> <div> `Look Rose, I know how it sounds, and believe me, it's the last thing in the world I'd want in any other circumstances.  But if we're not careful, we could find ourselves out on the street.  After all, it's not only you and me we have to think about, is it?  It's the kids. We've got to think about the kids, right?</div> <div> Nothing was too good for Mum's kids, always saying how she'd kill anyone who laid a finger on them.  Which is why Mum, who'd never slept with another man till then, capitulated.</div> <div> She said things went rapidly downhill after that.  </div> <div> One of my favourite stories was her telling me what happened to that possession order later.  How it came to feed her, me and Sid for several months.  But let that wait for now.  For in order to keep some semblance of order in all this we must return to that fateful summer of 1939 while I relate how I earned my family nickname.  </div> <div> I was four years old.  In retrospect the incident seems trivial, but does illustrate the different expectations adults had of their children in those days.  For it seems to me that, today, when a child speaks the whole room gives way to listen.  I don't say this is wrong, I only say that things were very different in 1939.  </div> <div> It all happened in Granny Treloar's parlour, 91, Shelley Avenue, Manor Park.  Once back in Manor Park, Mum quickly renewed the practice of popping round to Gran's each weekday to catch up on all the family gossip.  It was established custom that, with all her sisters now married and living within half a mile of Gran's, they each scurried through their chores, did their bit of shopping, then gathered like chattering sparrows for their daily dose of tittle-tattle.  </div> <div> Gran's round parlour table, replete with aspidistra and red chenille cloth, stood in the bay window.  Even on the hottest day a coal fire burned in the grate, and for a very good reason.  Simmering on the coals was her enormous, soot-black kettle.  It may have been tin, copper, perhaps even gold;  being totally black, it was impossible for a boy of four to tell.  Ever grateful for the occasional top-up from the enamel jug, this kettle sat patiently all morning, every morning, ready to serve all-comers.  </div> <div> The kettle was of course slave to its companion, the giant universally palliative earthenware tea pot which, when laden, needed both Gran's hands to lift. With its blue and yellow bands, this brown-glazed giant of a pot held place of honour at the centre, secure beneath its hand-knitted cosy of many colours, reminiscent of a small woollen tent.  If anyone remarked on the size of her teapot, Gran might answer, `You leave that bloody teapot alone. That's the only good bit of exercise I get in this `ouse, lifting that thing.'  Other essentials were sugar bowl, a bottle of sterilised milk (with patented replaceable stopper), an assortment of cups and saucers of varying pattern and condition, plus four or five ash-trays.  For though Gran never smoked, her daughters were all heavy smokers. </div> <div> The seats round the table would gradually fill as each daughter arrived with her shopping.  Apart from Gran, then in her mid-sixties, would be Mum's three older sisters, Lou, Gin and May, as well as Florrie, her younger sister.  All took after Gran, being blonde with grey-green eyes and a fresh complexion.  Young Florrie had recently married a `shitpot' named Pat Niles (to use Gran's expression), so her latest news was always eagerly sought.  </div> <div> Lou and May had been stewardesses with the Shaw Saville Line on and off since the early 1920s.  They may have taken a trip off that summer.  Both aunts were distinguished from all other members of the family in that, having spent so many years mixing with those wealthy enough to travel the world by cargo liner, both had acquired a smidgeon of middle class refinement.  For instance, not only had each taken to drinking from cups full-time (as opposed to saucers), fingers cocked, but they had also made some ground in eradicating their cockney accents.  As a matter of interest, May eventually divorced her current husband, Ernie Pardoe, (another ship's steward), to marry a millionaire wholesale greengrocer from Stratford Market.  But that would take time to tell, and I ought really to get on with the gist of this particular tale. </div> <div> Nothing but family affairs interested the Treloars.  Best of all, they enjoyed `running down' the various in-laws shared between them, including  -  when they weren't present  -  those sisters-in-law married to their brothers.  The first four sons followed in their father's footsteps to become master plasterers and, when working earned good wages, but it seems (according to Gran) that at least three of them had sold themselves short in the wife department, just as Gran insisted that each of her daughters had sold themselves cheap to their respective shitpot husbands.  In her opinion, all their husbands were nothing but a load of old shitpots  -  just like her own, my gruff old, stroke-laden Grandfather Treloar.  In Mum's case, I can admit the epithet bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the truth; but otherwise, at this distance, Gran's judgment seems a little harsh.  And in any case, one daughter-in-law appears to have been a singular exception, a fact which really does deserve a minor diversion.</div> <div> Though I never met her, it seems that Uncle Ted's first wife was loved by all.  Her name was Grace.  But Ted became a tragic figure when Grace died of consumption eighteen months after their wedding.  Both in their early twenties, and knowing her condition was terminal, they nevertheless had chosen to marry.  Even so, he never quite recovered from losing her.  Years later, towards the end of the war, while serving as a sergeant with the Pioneer Corps in Derbyshire, he met and married Evelyn, a girl who was pregnant by an American GI who `went over' on D-Day.  As already stated, girls in her position could expect no help or sympathy from family or friends, war or no war.  Consequently, she had been disowned by her family.  Nor, it must be said, did Evelyn receive an ounce of sympathy from the Treloar women after she joined the family, once they discovered that, after giving herself to him, he'd married her out of a misguided sense of honour.  However, some months after the war, he adopted Evelyn's daughter Judith, and they moved to Helston in Cornwall, where Grandfather Treloar originated.  Ted then set himself up as a builder.  Even though he and Evelyn had come to despise each other by then.  Evelyn produced two sons within the next few years. But Ted never did come to terms with the fact that she was promiscuous by nature.  After years of estrangement, he died in 1975 and was buried with Grace, in accordance with his last wish.</div> <div> `No, there's not one of `em can clean the shoes of you lot,' said Gran. </div> <div> Lou, the eldest, very kind, and easily the most intelligent member of the family, offered, `Oh, but Grace was lovely, Mother. You have to say that.' </div> <div> `Oh, no-one's denying that, poor little cow.  She was a angel.  No, I'm just saying.  I have to speak as I find.  No, I've seen the dinners that Violet dishes up to our Tom.  T'cher!  Wouldn't keep a sparrow alive!  I notice he don't say no to a bit of dinner here whenever I `as a bit to spare.'</div> <div> In the parlour that morning, though there was much to engage a little boy's attention, two things fascinated me more than anything.  First was the swirling cloud of smoke given off by my aunts, writhing in the air like some blue-grey, tortured genie.  Second was the stoic kettle, working itself into a paroxysm as it spat regularly into the coals from a pin-hole in its base, gasping for relief from the red-hot coals.  Being properly seen but not heard, wearing a white blouse with grey short trousers and white ankle socks, I still remember standing at Mum's knee listening to each aunt compete for the biggest laugh as she described her husband's latest folly.  But though the conversation seemed to fully engage the grown-ups, I was more taken by the regular pyrotechnic display occasioned by the splatter and sizzle of the kettle as each drip raised a small cloud of steam to spectacular effect.  For the life of me I couldn't understand how such a phenomenon could fail to interest Mother and the rest of them.  But obviously it did not.  </div> <div> At least Mum should be initiated, I felt.  So in that way of small boys of the time, suddenly finding myself with an undeniable urge to communicate but daring not to speak, I began tugging her skirt for attention.  Every so often she'd brush my hand away with, `Shush! Be a good boy.  Mustn't interrupt when Granny's talking,' or `Aunt Lou's talking,' or `Aunt May's talking,' or `Aunt Florrie's talking' or, perhaps, even herself.  I've no idea how long this farce continued, I only know I reached the point where reason simply had to prevail. I could be a fool no longer. `Sod it!', I burst out, and promptly stormed from the room.  </div> <div> `Well, I never!' I heard Gran exclaim. `A right little old man you've got there, Rosie.  The saucy little sod!  You're going to have to watch him, my girl.'  </div> <div> `Don't I know it,' said Mum. `Oi! Get back in here this minute and say you're sorry!'</div> <div> `Oh, leave him. He'll be alright,' said Gran.</div> <div> In those days, during summer, everyone left their street doors open, and so, furious with the lot of them, I stomped  out of the house and strode up the road in very high dudgeon, thinking just how ridiculous it was that one might have important things to say yet not be allowed to voice them.  </div> <div> An hour later, and a mile away, I was found by a policeman in East Ham's covered market, near the Town Hall, at the top end of High Street North.  He promptly placed me on his shoulders and carried me `flying-angel' fashion to the police station.  There I was fêted with tea and buns by the duty sergeant until Mum arrived to report my loss, when I was given a good spanking, which the sergeant had kindly forewarned me I must obviously expect.  </div> <div> But when Grandfather Treloar heard the story they say he laughed so much he almost had convulsions. `Sod it? Is that what he said?  Wey Hey! That's a good `un, that. And bloody good luck to the boy!  Once you lot get your knives out there's no getting a word in sideways, and don't I know it!  He's earned my respect, that boy.  Earned my bloody respect!'  Sadly, only Mum's youngest brother, George, remains alive at the time of writing.  He's eighty-two now, and a D-Day veteran, but, thankfully, he still calls me Soddit. </div> <bR> <div> Speaking of wars, I was in the wars myself that summer of 1939. </div> <div> Double-Dutch, my friend from across the road (`Double-Dutch' because his verbal skills were poor for a four-year-old), possessed a small bicycle.  How on earth his parents could afford such luxuries I will never know, I only know that Mum almost died laughing when I asked if I could have one.  He couldn't ride the thing, of course, and neither could I, but no matter; we quickly discovered the enormous fun in simply turning it upside down and turning the pedals by hand. In no time at all we could turn them really, really fast.  Then we discovered the ploy of holding a twig against the spokes and… Whoopee! what a joy that was!  What a simply smashing sound!  A really super, duper sound.  Inevitably, the chain came off one day.  Manfully (gallantly? foolishly?) like an idiot I volunteered to replace it.  My only excuse is that I hadn't lived long enough to observe that our altruistic acts do all too often receive a perverse reward, one which often takes the form of a personal calamity.  Can you believe that, before the task was even half complete, this Double-Dutch maniac, unable to contain his enthusiasm for another spiffing good whiz of the wheel, succumbed to the impulse of giving the pedals a quick spin?  In a flash, the little finger of my left hand turned full circle between the chain and the chain-wheel. And there it was… off!  Bob's your uncle!  -  top of the finger hanging by a thread.  To this day I curse that boy every time I pick up my guitar.  I'd already had a few chances to discover what lay just beneath the skin, various brushes with mangles and greengrocer's door, etc., but I have to say it was horrible to discover it could leave the body in spurts four feet in length.  But there, as it was the summer of 1939, and another war brewing in Europe, the nation had larger concerns than the fate of a little boy's finger: and so, unlike the time I fell from the cliff at Babbacombe in 1966, crushing every bone in my ankle, it failed to impress the news editor of the Stratford Express.  </div> <div> However, apart from the awful experience of being smothered to sleep with chloroform, my lasting memory of that day is the walk home with Mum from East Ham Memorial Hospital.  We were on our way to Gran's, of course, to tell her of this latest episode on my path to self-destruction.  </div> <div> As I'd been such a brave boy, Mum stopped at W.H.Day's, the tobacconists in the High Street, and bought me an ice-cream cornet. I still remember that row of shops, their striped awnings, wares piled high on trestle tables outside, all lit by naphtha lamps after dark.  A glorious sight on wet nights, each lamp multiplied a dozen times in the puddles. It made one's heart glow.  But within a year of my enjoying that cornet, except for Day's and the bakers on the corner of Tennyson Road, the Luftwaffe had reduced that row of shops to a pile of rubble.  Though even this had its upside when, once the site had been cleared and levelled, there remained an enormous honeycomb of cellars open to the sky for all the boys in the neighbourhood to enjoy.  It became a favourite place to play many a bloody and glorious game of Germans v Commandos in and around the cellars. Could Hide and Seek ever be so much fun?</div> <div> Once at Gran's, I showed off my several miles of bandage, and was duly fêted by everyone there.  `You're a little hero,' said Aunt Flo. `That's what you are; a little hero.'</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id146.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 4"><U><B>Next Chapter</B></U></A></div> </td> </tr></table></body>