大象传媒

It didn鈥檛 do me any harm :-)

I was born in Queen Charlottes hospital in the spring of 1932. My mum was a Byker Geordie and my dad was a quick witted lad from Hammersmith.

In the September of 1939 my sister and I were evacuated with the Sacred Heart School, Hammersmith to Lutterworth, Leicestershire, with Mother Keogh in charge; a very loving lady. Sonia my sister, and a year younger than I, stayed with the same loving family, Mr and Mrs Bolland, until 1948, whilst I was billeted with three different families of which the middle one was the one that suited me best - me being of an independent nature and they allowing independence to flourish. They having a grown lad who had tasted the Middle East as a policeman.

My independent nature not only resulted in my learning the 12 times table during playtime, among other things, - which to this day I can gallop through in nothing flat: 12, 24, 36, 48 etc., (the others I can recall via the familiar Pavlovian chant) but was instrumental in my return to London in early 鈥�41.

London, in 1941, was not the most tranquil place to be. I lived with my gran in Wilsons Road, Hammersmith and mum lived with aunt Aggy and Molly in Aspenlea Road, just off the Fulham road, but our sleeping arrangements varied with Jerry鈥檚 state of play.

At this time I went to Brook Green Catholic school - the boys arm of the Sacred Heart, but while the girls were turned into ladys at SH, Brook Green was far less genteel. At BG the head teacher, brought out of retirement, was the same one who had taught both my father and granfather. My father and his brother agreed to differ with BG and did a runner to the Fair Grounds and Gypsy haunts at a fairly early age.

The school in 41 had a good mix of Maltese, Irish, Italian and of course we English. There were many altercations which I enthusiastically watched on the sidelines. These set-tos always took place further down the Green toward Shepherds Bush Road as the school taught brotherly love and forgiveness with a rod of iron. It wasn鈥檛 unknown for teachers to follow the mob down the Green and add their considerable weight to separating the arguments.

As I said above, our sleeping arrangements were, at the time, very unpredictable. When Jerry鈥檚 attention to rearranging the bricks and mortar became too much, mum and I, with Aggy and young Mavis, would slope off to Gloucester Road Tube station - it being the first station on the Underground to be underground from Hammersmith Broadway. Aunt Molly鈥檚 two, Geordie and Pat came along too. Molly stayed at home with Bill her husband who was bed bound in the terminal stages of TB. The same illness that my mother had and who would eventually die from it in 1954.

We kids thought the Gloucester Tube sleeping arrangement great fun snuggled up in a cosy though feted atmosphere people watching was much nicer than cowering on the floor in Aspenlea Road listening to the whistle, crump and then falling masonry. After the all-clear went one was always amazed that the fallen brickwork was at least a couple of streets away. I never understood the whys and wherefores of when we Tubed and when not too

After the all-clear I would wend my way home to Wilsons Road, the black-out lifted by the firelight around you. One memorable night the firelight was from the school seen from the 鈥榬ec鈥� in Great Church Lane. For some reason that night I was angry at something and kicked at the remains of the metal railings protruding from the ground - removed to help the 鈥淲ar Effort鈥� - my kick took a nasty gouge out of the toecap of my new shoes, whereupon I was immediately overcome with guilt because shoes not only cost money but also coupons. This night was also the night when aunt Lila took me up to my bedroom put on the light to show me a coping laying across my pillow - just as well it was not one of those nights when Jerry came came a-calling late as I could have been snuggled up in dreamland. On reflection I think that our Gloucester Road tube trips took place, when, after a number of raids on the trot mum must have thought enough is enough, we鈥檝e got to get some proper shut eye. It seems strange now that people took those kind of chances - to stay at home - grin and bear it - then off down the tube at a whim. But as Hammersmith never took the thrashing that the East End took mum/people thought they were in with a fair chance of getting away with it. I suppose we never used the Standing street shelters - nine inch walls with a flat concrete roof - because they looked no safer than a house. But enough did get to be enough for mum, and we upped sticks and moved to St Briavels in Gloucestershire - sweeter smelling than Glouster Road tube - to join aunty Belle, and cousins Gloria, Sheila, Barbara and Anita at Windward House.

From St Briavels we moved on to Newcastle upon Tyne where I finally left school at 14 and started work in the coppersmiths section at the Wallsend Slipway.

Between 1939 and 1946 I attended six schools in four counties and never sat an exam. So exam angst and anxiety were never on the agenda - some people have all the luck - and it never did me any harm :-)

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