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These are my memories of people and events of the war seen heard and often felt by someone who was then a 5-year-old child. I was the third and last child born to my parents. My sister was nearly 11 and an elder brother had died aged 12 days after my pregnant mum had attempted to stop the thief boarding a bus to escape. The kick in the stomach she received meant that the unborn child was born prematurely and in those days resulted in almost inevitable death. The culprit was a neighbour who knew they were both out at work. The man was injured resisting arrest and received 18 months hard labour - 'neighbourly' act!

They moved to 3 Bradwell St.(off Bancroft Rd.) The island was called thus because it was an enclave bordered by the L.N.E.R. line to Liverpool St. Bancroft Hospital and the Coal Wharf which was really a small 'inland' dock area on the Grand Union Canal. The wharf was used to despatch and receive bulk cargoes. Many coal merchants had depots there and coal rounds began their journeys there. Transport was mostly by horse and cart then. And if we played in the road there was usually ample time to get out of the way. The house in Bradwell St. was shared with a large family named Brown.

The sanitary arrangements were basic to say the least! The outside loo was shared by both families. The Browns had a weekly ritual. Every Sunday morning they bathed their brood in a galvanized bath. They all shared the same water and also emptied the pots of urine in too! One Sunday morning disaster struck. Whilst Mr Brown and his brood were manouvering the over full receptical down stairs to discharge it down the loo a calamity occurred. A handle broke and the filthy concoction cascaded down like Niagara Falls. It being summer the swarms of flies that descended on the 'feast' were a nuisance for weeks. My father was a tobacco blender for the Imperial Tobacco Co. in Commercial St, Aldgate. In 1929 there was a suspected smallpox outbreak in East London. Dad had been promoted to manage a brand new facility in Southampton. Our house like many others was placed in "quarantine" nobody could leave or enter. My gran broke the rules and pushed 'essentials' through the letterbox. It was a false alarm, but too late somebody else from an 'unaffected' area got the job instead.

At school my dad had proved a skilled carpenter and a baby's highchair had been exhibited in the 'Schoolboys Handicraft' exhibition held annually during the Christmas holiday period at the Agricultural Hall Islington. This skill which sadly I did not inherit stood him in good stead and his brother-in-law got him a job with a firm a builders who were making alterations at the printers where he worked. Dad remained with them until he retired in 1963.

I was born on April 14th 1934 in Bancroft Road Hospital. A Saturday night at 6.30pm. That afternoon West Ham who I supported for 46 years had drawn 1-1 with Lincoln City. Other and older young men who made the news in the East End that year for different reasons were; Billy Forecast, who won the News of the World darts championship playing for the Duke of York pub in Antill Rd. Bow, and another local young man John Stockwell, a cinema usher who was hanged for murdering his boss at the Eastern Palace, later the Regal cinema, that stood opposite Bow Church. One of my earliest memories is waving a paper streamer while being held up by my Mum in Green St. Bethnal Green, as King George V and Queen Mary came past on their Silver Jubilee procession. And a late Christmas Eve trip down Bethnal Green Rd. to buy a cheap turkey. The butchers had sold them cheap as there were few fridges in the East End then! I started school at the age of 4 at Portman Place school in Morepath St. The school was a typical three storey building. It's roof top playground overlooked the L.N.E.R. railway line.

The "lessons" were basic to say the least! Mainly an exercise in bonding with other kids outside the family. The afternoons were spent laying on canvas beds for a "nap" few of us slept. But if you pretended to be asleep it seemed to please the teachers. And they rewarded you by placing a sweet beside you. It was boring beyond belief! One afternoon the tedium was at last relieved! A little girl wet herself and the liquid could not escape the canvas. I can still hear her bawling as she was admonished by the teacher much to the delight of we boys. Perhaps she really was asleep. We had by now moved across the road to 9 Buckeridge St.

The family opposite, the Cartwrights, Mr Joe, Mrs. Mary and their two sons Joey and Ted were particular friends of our family. The men were fanatical fans of the then Clapton Orient and one Saturday during the so-called "phoney war" the period before the full "blitz" began, they took me to see them play. We walked up Bancroft Rd. Devonshire St. through Meath of Gardens where at that time there was a small detatchment of R.A.F. personnel manning a barrage balloon site. They had a couple of tents for accommodation and a lorry to shift the whole lot elsewhere if required. They were "pitched in a corner near the railway line. Then up the rest of Green St. turning at the Aberdeen pub down Grove Rd, and Antill Rd. to the railway station in Coborn Rd and caught a train. I can't remember the score, but I have never forgotten that walk. Joey had been born in 1916 when his father was serving in France. As a teenager he had lost an eye in an accident but despite this, after the retreat at Dunkirk, there was a mass call-up and Joey was passed Grade 2. He was sent to Aldershot. Chaos reigned there at the time. Returning veterans and new recruits all squeezed together.

One Sunday morning a Telegram boy arrived at the Cartwright's house. Joey had been accidentally shot in one of the barrack blocks. Blood poison quickly set in and he died. The Army provided a funeral. A firm of civilian undertakers brought the body home and in the custom of the time it "laid" on trestles in the front room. When the funeral took place the Army provided the transport. A civilian limousine for his parents and brother and a military vehicle to carry the coffin. A 1 ton Fordson turned up with a Sergeant in charge and 6 bearers. What followed was pure "Monty Python"! and marred what was a very sad occasion. The soldiers could not manoeuvre the coffin up the narrow passage. In his frustration the sergeant took his "jack knife" and cut the sash cords and put both halves of the windows on the pavement, where they stayed, and passed the coffin through the window. I went back to school. When my dad came home he was furious and before he even took his coat off replaced the cords and windows back. The next night he came home and told us he was being sent away to assist the Army construct new facilities for the ever increasing influx of recruits. He left on Friday.

On Saturday night mum and I were in bed. Our back yard being too small we had no air raid shelter, we slept in the front room down stairs. Mum had removed the ornaments from the mantle shelf and placed most on the hearth. Among the assortment was a huge black clock, a wedding present mum had always hated, the clock was surmounted by a fearsome spike. We snuggled down when suddenly the sirens went and shortly afterwards there was a massive explosion. A bomb had fallen on the corner of the street. Mum dived out of bed and trod on the spike of the clock. That was the first time I ever heard the "F" word! The water main had been severed. In the morning a "stand pipe" was erected and we queued with our buckets, bowls etc; to collect our share. I had friends, the Clarey brothers, Alan and Terry. The older Terry was obese. When he howled in protest at the weight of his bucket he was told to "shut up you Goering faced B…….d! by his mum.

After our narrow escape my dad insisted we went down to Wiltshire where he was working at Winterbourne Basset near Swindon where he was building military facilities. We stayed about a month. And came back to the island. Neighbours, the Sumners who lived behind us in Bradwell St. offered us a place in their Anderson shelter, and my sister had been sent away on "war-work", we just squeezed in. The Sumner family were Mr. Norman, Mrs. Polly daughter Sylvia and best pal Norman junior. Young Norman was always a daredevil without an ounce of malice. Today he would be described as hyper active. Mr Sumner drove a lorry for Sainsburys and, if we were off school, would take us on his trips. One night Norman and I fell out. He spat in my ear and mum and Mrs. Sumner 'fell-out' over it and it only lasted for a few weeks.

Soon after that we were provided with a Morrison shelter this was an indoor shelter built from steel. The legs were of steel angle, the top from steel plate at the sides steel mesh could be moved to effect entry and exit. It was reputed capable of withstanding several tons of rubble. Fortunately we never had to put this claim to the test. At the corner of Buckeridge St. stood a redundant pub, The Tiger. For many years since its Victorian heyday it had served as premises for many different businesses on short term rent. Currently it was being used by a firm of upholsterers. One night in 1941 it was struck by incendiary bombs. The gutted shell was a danger, and soon an 'army' of elderly men complete with an assortment of ropes, ladders, and tools in a clapped out old lorry came round. It took all morning to bring the walls down. Finally with a mighty rumble and in a cloud of dust that took ages to clear it finally gave way.

It was afternoon before we could go to school. At school the playground at Portman Place was filling up with all kinds of vehicles. Taxis and private cars over 12hp were being commandeered by the civil defence authorities. All our playground was full up and we were transferred to the secondary school. One afternoon as we were passing the entrance on our way home a lorry with about a dozen men standing in the back of it came racing out of the gateway and struck the kerb just where we were passing. A man fell from the lorry smashing his head on the pavement at our feet. I always went home to lunch down Devonshire St. and Bancroft Rd. to the island past the café where the Carmen ate. Their horses outside tucking in to their nosebags. One day I had to take a sandwich instead. Mum had to go to Arbour Sq. magistrates court as a prosecution witness in a case against a local grocer named Bird. For some time mum had got shopping for a neighbour, a widow who very often had to work late.The lady was "registered" with Bird for groceries. People had to "register" with a particular food retailer so that the appropriate amount of food could be supplied, to meet their "registered" customers need. The widow had chosen to register with Birds. Mum had 'fallen out' with Mr. Bird who was something of a local "tycoon" and indeed had at some time served on the L.C.C. The offending item was bacon. The bacon was weighed at the local Food Office and found "light". Much to mum's satisfaction the case was proven and Bird was fined the then considerable sum of £10. One day coming home for lunch we saw a big crowd of people in Portlet Rd. The King and Queen had visited to see the devastation caused by a "land-mine". Another day one of my classmates was met by her mum to be told that "daddy was missing" at Tobruk. The Tiger site had been by now cleared. A retaining wall was built, and with cellar walls "rendered" and coated with pitch, become a "static water tank" to provide a ready supply of water for the firemen if the mains were damaged again. For some reason Morpeth St. school was shut. Rumours of subsidence in the playground, perhaps a shell or bomb? Whatever it was we were sent to Bonner St. To reach Bonner St. we had to walk down Morpeth St. past the supposed hazard and the church whose minister was nicknamed Pip. He used to show silent films in the church hall every Friday night. He was forever threatening to exclude any boy who did not join his unit of the "Church Lads Brigade".

New school meant new teachers. Ours was Mrs. Mcgregor, a Scots lady. As Christmas 1942 was approaching she decided her class would perform a play as part of the school festivities. She chose an excerpt from The Christmas Carol. The Cratchets Christmas Dinner was the title. The smallest boy in the class, Jimmy Rudd, played Tiny Tim. A girl Jean Maguire and I played the Twins it went "down well" and we broke up for Christmas. We were sent back to Morpeth St. early in 1943. At this time the school ran out of paper supplies to write down our classwork. The U-boats were rampant and food was the obvious priority. Our Headmaster was a dapper and ebullient little Jewish gentleman, Mr. Bloom, who decreed that everybody boys as well as girls should be taught to knit. We had to knit dusters as we had to revert to using slates. I can still knit but have not needed to do so, my wife is an expert at it. The news was getting better, El Alamein was the start. One day we got to school and there was an eerie atmosphere many of the class were missing and we learned that Jean Maguire my other twin in the Christmas play had perished in the Bethnal Green Underground Station disaster. Mr Bloom led a very sad and poignant assembly after all the details became known. My parents decided to move away. Mum's youngest sister found us a house to rent near her at Stratford. It was newer and bigger with an Anderson shelter in the garden. Opposite was a green space and the school was only 100yds. away and no roads to cross.. The day my parents went to view the house was a Saturday. In the morning I,Norman and some other friends had played in one of the local stables. I wanted to stay with my mates. My parents were adamant I must go with them. Early that afternoon we caught a bus outside the Peoples Palace to Stratford. Needless to say we were going to move. My aunt gave us tea and we arrived back at about 6.30. Mum and dad went into the Coach and Horses pub but were out again in a flash.

Something had happened to Norman. He had drowned in the water tank in the site of the old Tiger. He had been bouncing an old tyre and fallen in to 8 feet of stinking stagnant water. With its sheer sides it was a death trap. Nobody could survive long in that, let alone a non-swimmer. As his best friend I was the only child outside the family to attend the sad ceremony it was a horse drawn procession. A few weeks later in June 1943 we moved to Stratford. In July 1944 my sister was married at the same church as our parents, Holy Trinity in Rhonda Grove Mile End. The night before the ceremony a V2 rocket fell on the "island." Several of our old neighbours attended the wedding in the only clothes they had left. Some even went back into the rubble to rescue gifts they had bought. One of my friends, Tommy Price, was the only survivor of his family in another V2 incident. The Cartwrights still came to us at Christmas with their surviving son Ted if he could get leave. Christmas 1944 was his last. In April 1945 he was killed in Burma. My final and best memory of the war was the V.E. day street party. My dad and the neighbours built a large stage on the green facing us. Many people had pianos and other instruments in those days. A piano was indeed provided and several people provided a "turn" the kids had street races and winners were given a threepenny bit ! Next to the fire was a huge gallows where an effigy of Hitler was summarily hanged and then to a huge roar consigned to the flames.

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