Chapter 8

<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> <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> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Chapter 8</B></div> <div> Gladstone Avenue</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> SOMETIME in the spring of 1942 Mum's oldest sister, Aunt Lou, together with cousins Rene, Joe, Syd and Don, moved into 11 Gladstone Avenue, Manor Park, a quite respectable road of terraced Edwardian villas, a few turnings north of East Ham station.  It so happened that another house in the same road was also vacant, and as Gladstone Avenue was much closer to the main part of the High Street, Mum gave up Stanley Road and moved to No. 39 Gladstone Avenue.   Of course, it's entirely possible that she had other motives for moving but at this distance who can say?   </div> <div> Cousin Rene was then a trainee nurse, while Joe had recently joined the Merchant Navy.  Born to Aunt Lou's first marriage, they were half-sister and brother to Syd and Don, the sons of Syd Peters, who were respectively two and three years younger than me.  You will recall their father was lost when the `<I>Jervis</I> <I>Bay'</I> went down in October 1939.   But as they were still ignorant of this, Mum had forbidden me to allow them to find out through me, so I had always to be careful of this as we three played together.   </div> <div> Though similar in layout to the houses in Second Avenue, the houses in Gladstone Avenue were much larger.  Needless to say, most of Mum's eight rooms remained empty, just three rooms downstairs being more than adequate for us three.  It also meant another change of school.  Sid and I now transferred to Kensington Avenue School, where dear old Mr. Green was headmaster.  Sid joined his final year of Juniors, while I joined the last year of Infants.  </div> <div> Fatefully, as it turned out, Mum also changed her job, becoming a lunchtime assistant in the Port of London Authority (PLA) canteen in the Royal Docks.  I say fateful because it was here she would meet Johnny Nicholls for the first time.   She also continued working as a barmaid in the evenings though, after taking up a long-standing offer from the landlord of The Burnell Arms, a large pub in the High Street renowned for its talent competitions, and less than two hundred yards from our latest address.  </div> <div> But even with two jobs, money remained very tight, the two jobs together bringing in less than £3 per week; far less than a man's average wage of £6 to £8.  To say we lived frugally totally understates the case.  By Monday morning Mum was always broke.  We could never have survived without family help.  Again it was a time of borrowing a shilling here and a shilling there from Gran Treloar, Aunt Lou or Aunt Florrie.  But mostly we lived from day to day, a hand-to-mouth existence, surviving on dry bread only when needs be.  </div> <div> However, the worst part of the war for Mum was always the cigarette shortage.  When she could afford them, she'd happily forego a meal to buy a packet of cigs. `What's it all about if you can't have a fag?  Might as well all be dead,' was a common cry.  But even for those who could afford them, cigarettes were so scarce that the windows of most tobacconists displayed permanent signs declaring, `Sorry, No Cigs'.  Of course, it didn't mean they didn't have any.  What it really meant was that only regular customers need apply.  Happily for Mum, old Mr. Day, the newsagent tobacconist at the top of the street, eventually came to accept her as a regular.  But on the occasions when he literally had none Sid or I would be sent scouring the High Street for dog ends.  We might spend an hour or more searching the pavements and gutters, hardly daring to come home without enough to make a few roll-ups.  (Indeed, this practice lasted till well after the war ended).  Once home we'd all three sit round the table extracting the meagre amounts of tobacco so that, unsurprisingly, I'd learned to roll a decent `tailor made' by the time I was ten.  </div> <div> Built at the turn of the century to accommodate senior management and skilled tradesmen, Gladstone Avenue was a pleasant road to live in, with lime trees lining both sides and each front garden replete with heavy cast-iron railings and gates, painted green, just as in Second Avenue.  Sadly, soon after we arrived, the road was transformed by a team of workers when they descended one day armed with acetylene torches. Then I watched in horror as they cut down the gates and railings and threw them onto a lorry in aid of `the war effort'.  This also had its upside, however, once we discovered that playing `hide and seek' and 'tin can Tommy' was easier with them gone, for now we could hide in the front gardens without worrying about squeaky gates. </div> <div> Another good thing about Gladstone Avenue was its proximity to Plashet Park, which was just across the High Street and a short walk down Tennyson Road.  There we had a large open space for football and cricket, as well as a playground with a really high slide and murderous swings that could lift a kid twelve feet off the ground (easily capable of killing anyone walking in the way of a down-swinger), plus two roundabouts <I>and</I> a jazz.  (A kind of rocking `boat' that took six kids plus the 'pushers' who stood pushing with their legs at either end).  The park also contained three or four Ack-Ack guns, two searchlights, a barrage balloon unit, and a series of trenches.  Okay, so all this was fenced off but, all the same, it was fascinating to watch the men going cheerfully about their tasks.  </div> <div> Yes, it was a great street for kids. With scarcely any traffic, just the odd coal lorry perhaps, so that playing in the road was perfectly safe, allowing for a permanent `hop-scotch' in the middle of the road.  Better still, halfway down the street a hundred yards of houses were missing on either side, destroyed by a land mine in 1940.  These created two open spaces through to the adjoining streets.  Today it's hard to believe it ever happened, for at some time in the early Fifties the houses were rebuilt to their original specifications.  Clever, that.  In any case, as these bombsites were closer than Plashet Park, we mostly played there.  </div> <div> A favourite spot was the static water tank.  These emergency water tanks were circular, about twenty feet in diameter, and erected on bomb sites all over London, ready for emergency use by the AFS (auxillary fire service).  Being some five feet in depth, they made excellent swimming pools in the summer for those who could swim.  Well, that is, they did until the water became stagnant, when it was soon discovered that static water tanks were an ideal breeding ground for poliomyelitis, and the cause of so many kids succumbing to paralysis.  After that, they were fenced off with barbed wire round the top, which put a stop to us sailing our 'boats' and stuff.  What a load of old spoil sports.  However, there were still the empty cellars to play in, and plenty of rubble lying around to build trenches and dugouts for playing `Commandos v Germans'.  </div> <div> It was there I learned to hit a tin can at fifty paces with a slingshot, though I always preferred catapults.  These we made with a piece of forked elder plus a strip of rubber cut from an old inner tube for compulsion.  Regular competitions were held, shooting at pigeons and tin cans.  Well, in those days it was every boy's duty to prepare for the day when it would be his turn to fight for Old England, wasn't it?  In fact, we could hardly wait.  Bows and arrows were good too - if you could get hold of the right sort of stiff `bendy' wood for the bow.  Another favourite was the matchstick gun. These were easy enough to make.  First you needed a piece of old floorboard cut into the shape of a pistol.  Two hefty elastic bands were then tied around the 'barrel', an inch or so apart, through which a couple of Mum's hairgrips were inserted to make a spring-loaded trigger.  Then, taking a matchstick and threading it between the two grips, you could pull the 'trigger' and send the matchstick flying.  Hitler's face was a popular target.  So you see, by the age of eight or nine, most kids could make their own toys and weapons, and even the odd `jigger' (go-kart) whenever a couple of pairs of old pram wheels and an apple box came our way.</div> <div> Later that year Mum's younger sister, Aunt Florrie, moved into No. 41, the house next door to us.  At that time she and Uncle Pat had two boys, Dennis and Pat.   Then, soon after they moved in, twin boys, Peter and Michael, were born in the front room downstairs.  </div> <div> Naturally, the three sisters were in and out of each other's houses all the time, and Dennis and Pat made up a nice little gang of five scruffy urchins as they joined Syd, Don and me in terrorising the escaped German prisoners and spies that lurked behind every bush and tree in the neighbourhood.   </div> <div> Air raids were still frequent.  Night after night, we boys would be deposited in the air-raid shelter beneath Bailey's department store in the High Street, while the grown-ups enjoyed a good old `knees up' in the Burnell Arms across the road.  It was down there I learned to play the mouth organ, as well as my first three chords on the ukulele.  Closing time was best.  Mum and Aunt Florrie would join us, and in no time at all they'd get a good old sing-song going, often till late into the night, even during the air raids while the bombs fell all around us.   </div> <div> Though, when it came to sing-songs, the best times were the family reunions around the piano in aunt lou's front room, whenever Uncle Ted, or Tom or George happened to be home on leave.  The whole Treloar family, including Gran and Grandfather, would spend a couple of hours in the Ruskin Arms then return to Aunt Lou's in a very jolly mood.  We boys would be waiting up, and as soon as we could hear them all coming down the street, singing their heads off, we'd rush into Aunt Lou's front room and hide behind the sofa before they got through the front door, keeping out of the way in case we were sent to bed.  The thing is, once we were discovered, we were usually allowed to stay.  </div> <div> As most of the family could knock out a tune or two we had some really good times on those occasions.  I'd watch enthralled as everyone 'took a turn'.  Mum was always the most popular, of course.  Naturally, for she was the only one with the nerve to sing rude songs.  They used to clamour for her `dance of the seven veils', where she'd strip down to her cammie-knicks singing a song called `Salome'.  Another one was `All of Me', where she'd fondle her breasts and raise her skirts above the knee, while singing each word with graphic emphasis.  `Bye, Bye, Blackbird' was the all-time favourite because Mum sang her own (rather saucy) version.  It went something like this:</div> <bR> <div> 'I knew a man, he was no good;</div> <div> He took me to a great big wood.</div> <div> Bye, bye blackbird.</div> <bR> <div> 'First he took of all my hose,</div> <div> And then he took off all my clothes.</div> <div> Bye, bye, blackbird.</div> <bR> <div> 'He took me where nobody else could find me,</div> <div> Then he tied up both my hands behind me.</div> <div> He blacked my finger and he blacked my thumb;</div> <div> Blacked my belly and he blacked my bum.</div> <div> Blackbird, bye, bye.' </div> <div> (Etc., etc.).</div> <div>      </div> <bR> <div> Aunt Florrie and family stayed at No 41 for only a year or so.  After Uncle Pat obtained a job at the Woolwich Arsenal, working on munitions, he soon tired of catching a bus to North Woolwich and then crossing back and forth over the Thames on the ferry each day so they upped sticks and moved south of the river to Plumstead.  Then, for some unknown reason, Mum decided to move next door into their house, which allowed her friend Kitty Marks and two daughters, Grace and Doreen, to take over at No 39.  </div> <div> Inexplicably, this arrangement seemed to gladden brother Sid's heart, though it may have had something to do with he and the girls sharing a common state of puberty.  Who knows...  What is incontrovertible is that in no time at all these three were down the Anderson shelter playing 'truth, dare or promise' at every available opportunity.  It was then I first became aware of my age, for I soon learned that, most annoyingly, my initiation into this most exciting of pastimes was to be delayed by several years on the grounds that I was too young! Tcher!</div> <div> It was soon after this move that our errant father paid his last visit.  It must have been well over a year since he and Mum had last seen each other.  He arrived in sailor's uniform, explaining that he was on embarkation leave for the Far East.  I remember there being a very frosty atmosphere in the house during those few days, for he and Mum had little to say to each other.  So far as Sid and I were concerned he was still the same old bully, smacking our knuckles with his knife if we dared speak at table.  Mostly he occupied himself in digging over the garden.  Quite useless, of course.  I can only suppose he felt compelled to make a show of being the patriarch.  However, if I remember correctly, we none of us felt any great loss when he did finally depart.</div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> (To be continued...)</div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>