大象传媒

You learnt a very hard lesson when you were young, that no one gave you anything for nothing. I had to run errands or do different jobs around the house. In the summer time,at the week-ends, we would go camping down by the River Thames. We also had fights with the other kids of the neigbourhood. It was a rough, tough time for us children growing up. There would never just be one Copper come into our road, when there was any trouble, or just even to deliver a summons for someone to appear in Court. They would always come in pairs.

Family fights were very common and it almost certainly split the road in half. It was nothing to hear about a husband and wife fighting or to see two women fighting like men. on a saturday night, a quarrel would start in the pub and then next, outside of the pub, the men would form a ring and then the two men would knock hell out of each other. When one was knocked down and did not stand up then the fight was over. The two men would then get up and shake hands and they all went back into the pub and they were the best of friends. It was nothing to see a fist fight down on Kew Meadow fields.

There were good times at Easter and Whitsun or the Bank Holiday Mondays, the drinkers at the pub, would come back to the road with a crate of beer or Milk stout,pints of beer in small barrels and all of the beer was stolen from Watneys. there was a man with the barrel organ, then they would have a party. Some would be eating their Sunday lunch on the kerbside and having a good time by all.

The fathers that had been working,arrived home on a Friday night and they would be blind drunk and have no wages, because they had drunk it all up with beer. Then a quarrel would start because there was no money for the rent or food. But the neighbours would rally around, for the sakes of the children and their mothers, but not for the fathers. We children would be sent to the Cafe to get dripping, either pork or beef for two pence and you would get a half of a basin full. THis then was used to put on bread. The new bread would cost you four pence a loaf, but it was never bought because of the price so we always got the bread that was a day old because then you could get three loaves for two pence.
The rabbit man called at the top of the road on a Saturday morning, to sell rabbits and fish. The rabbits would cost four pence each and these would be used for baking or for stew making, with dumplings. You would have this for a Saturday tea or a Sunday lunch. We would go to the butchers for stewing beef to make either a stew or a meat pudding. You would then buy a pennys worth of pot herbs, which consisted of a onion,carrot and turnip. You would also get a pennys worth of potatoes, which cost a penny per pound.

My friend, George Piper had left school and he was working with his father at Puddy Cliffords. We got a job delivering, early morning and evenings, newspapers, which we were paid 3/6d-which was three shillings and sixpence a week. If you did the Sunday deliveries you got an extra six pence. My mother soon claimed that, mostly all of it from me, all that she would leave me, if I was lucky, was six pence only. We also got a Saturday job, of which we were paid 2/6-two shillings and sixpence for 5 hours on a Saturday, for delivering meat, greengrocery and groceries. This was a lot of money to us in those days. We then decided to spread our wings a little further, to go camping to Esher in Surrey on the bicycles. We stayed at the camp until Sunday evening and then we cycled home.

One Whitsun, we cycled to Brighton in Sussex, we arrived there at about
3.00 a.m.in the morning and at 6.00 a.m. we were awoken by the Police. They asked us what we were doing there, sleeping on the beach. We explained that we had cycled all the way from London, but they told us that we were not wanted there and they escorted us out of Brighton and sent us on our way home. But when we were cycling home, we found a field, so we all went and set up our tent, but then a man arrived on horse back, and he asked us what was we doing in his field, and we explained what we were doing and about the Police, and he said that it would be alright to stop in his field until Monday. But he also told us that we had to leave his house alone or he would call the Police. For once, we were all on our very best behaviour, not like our usual mischievious selves! On the Monday, we started out to cycle back home and when we arrived home, I was ordered to go into the bath, which was a tin bath, which my mother done her washing in. She had lit the Copper, for hot water in the scullery and then I had my bath. Then I was ordered to go straight to bed.

As we grew up, I learnt to play cards for money. In the garden, down the bottom of the road was the Sunday card school. We never played them, we only played between ourselves. Sunday evenings, we might go to the pictures which was The Globe which was in Putney in Surrey. Our local picture house never opened on a Sunday.

Bill Thompson, Harry Bishop and George Beaver all left school at the same time, along with myself. I was still in short trousers and I was working for a butchers at Barnes by the name of Dewhurst. My wage was 12 shillings a week and I also was allowed to take meat home for my family every day. I also had a joint of meat for a Sunday. Out of my wages, my mother would take 10 shillings of it so that meant that I only had two shillings to spend on what I wanted, and I was still in short trousers! So I decided to go to a Pawn Shop and buy myselves a pair of trousers, which cost me six pence, they were second hand, but at least they were long trousers! You could buy a white shirt for six pence then you could dye it to whatever colour you wanted each week. Our wardrobes were not full of clothes, but we considered ourselves lucky if we had a second pair of trousers or boots. In those days, there was no hand outs or Welfare State. Your mother would take on a cleaning job for 3 pence a hour or clean a house steps for 2 pence .

George Beaver moved to Hounslow in Middlesex, we did hear that he was working at Heathrow Airport, but we never saw him again. Lenny Brown moved into our road and he was not too bad, but he had not had a rough life. When he was 14 years old he joined the Royal Navy Boys Training. His father was also in the Navy, he was on the Submarine Station at Portsmouth. But he was now out in the Middle East. At that time I joined the Territorial Army at the age of 16 years of age, but I put my age up to 18 years old so that I could get in. That was in 1934 and I went to Bisley Firing Range in Surrey. I went on a Summer camp at Camberley in Surrey, I trained with the Territorial Army for 2 years then I joined the Royal Navy in 1936. I trained as a Stoker second class. After training I was on a working party on H.M.S. Rodney and then I worked in the Dining Hall of H.M.S. Drake Barracks. I was then drafted to H.M.S.Furious, which was a Aircraft Carrier,it went to the Meditteranean. Then we went up and around Scotland.The H.M.S.Furious was used to train Fleet Air Arm pilots as well as the R.A.F. pilots, they then would pass out to H.M.S Glorious.

I had a ear problem and went a little deaf so I reported sick and went to Stone House Hospital to see the Doctor. He told me that I needed to have a bone removed from my nose. I had heard of this operation before and I said that I would not have it done. So 3 months later I was discharged from the Navy as being unfit for service.

So I returned to civvy street. The late Prime Minister, Mr Chamberlain returned from Germany, waving a piece of paper and shouting "Peace in our time". But that was not what the public were saying. I did try to rejoin the Navy but I was turned down because of my problem with deafness. I made arrangements to go to West London Hospital at Hammersmith in London. It was there that I had the relevant treatment to cure my problem with my deafness.

When I had this treatment, I made arrangents to send all of my documents off once more to the Navy Department Records. I was then informed to attend a medical at Whitehall in London, this I passed. I was then told that I could rejoin. I requested to be posted to Chatham, so that I could return to my home to have some week-ends with my family.

I had rejoined the Territorial Army at Richmond in Surrey. Out in the street, the people were saying that the writing was on the wall,for War to start on 3 September 1939. Mr Chamberlain declared War on Germany.

After the Prime Minister, Mr Chamberlain returned in 1938, one was hearing that War would be there for Christmas, after it had been declared by Mr Chamberlain and it happened on 3 September 1939. It was of no surprise to the families that lived in Mortlake, my home. Those, that had been involved with the World War 1, would have done a dance, but they remembered the problems of the last War in 1914/1918. Basey Benham had got lost in the allotment and there was Water Board land at the rear of Castlenau in Barnes. He later, found himself in a garden, and he knocked on the window of the house. A lady, in the house, called the Police and Basey was arrested and charged. he received 3 years Borstal. The house, in which garden he had found himself, belonged to the German Ambassador, Herr Rebontroff, who was a Nazi. I was then called up to serve my Country.

Mr Sullivan would come home drunk and beat up his wife. One Monday,when he tried to do this ,she put the belt from his trousers around his neck and she pulled him all the way down the stairs. On reaching the outside and the pavement, a neighbour came and cut the belt, in order to save his life, otherwise he would have died.Mrs Sullivan had waited until her husband had gone to sleep before she took this action. Some of the wives, who had similar problems with their husbands, did the same, in order to get their own back on the abuse that their husbands would inflict on them.

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