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Bitterne Park Memories — 1939-1945: part I

I was born in February 1937; I had a brother,Peter, and sister,Anne, — 4 and 6 years older than me respectively. My mother died in March 1939 following an accident at home; my father, formerly a merchant seaman had fallen down the hold of a ship, broken his back and was thus precluded from call-up into one of the Services — he drove a lorry for Vickers Armstrong, based, I believe at either Romsey or Chandlersford. I understand that my paternal grandmother initially helped to bring us up because my father’s work took him away from home. Granny’s house was a mile or so away in Southampton — both homes were ‘over the shop’ — fresh fish/fish and chips . I also understand that my father tried unsuccessfully to get us taken into Nazareth House in Southampton. In 1944 my father re-married and in May 1945 my half-sister was born — a few months later my step-mother died: I have vivid memories of ‘life with Dorothy’— our stepmother but would prefer not to commit them to paper. Many things are quite hazy — I do remember that before my father’s re-marriage my older siblings and a cousin were evacuated to Swanage, that my sister was very unhappy and that they did not stay for long. A cousin lived with us at times: she was being brought up by my grandmother who also cared for my older sister at one point. I do not remember my older sister as being an active part of my childhood — my brother was a greater presence. I spent a great deal of time and mental energy on trying to get him into trouble with my father/grandmother: these endeavours were not entirely without success as my brother (now aged 72) continues to remind me — bearing a grudge/remembering misdeamours and personal affronts being an Elliott trait!

My brother and I took it in turns to set the table for tea — table cloth, bone china tea set which had to be precisely placed. One of us would have been sent to buy the bread and if it was my turn, on the way home, I would break off the crusts and eat them, assuring granny or dad that that was how it came. The biscuits in the same shop were displayed in big, glass-topped tins, and were a source of great lusting on my part — all we seemed to get were broken biscuits. Occasionally dad would make a cake, using some of the palm kernel oil that was what the chips (in the shop below) were fried in. We ate well, although the diet was unvarying and somewhat monotonous. Our weekly menu went something like this: Sunday — roast; Monday — cold meat, bubble and squeak; Tuesday — stew of whatever meat we had eaten on Sunday; Wednesday — more stew; Thursday — same stew but with curry powder in it; Friday — fish and chips; Saturday — fish and chips. I used to help in the shop from quite an early age. My brother and I had to do the washing up — an enamel bowl in a Belfast sink, hot water, a dollop of soda and as many bubbles as we could raise by rubbing Sunlight of Fairy soap into a quite disreputable dishcloth. The method of washing up and drying up was dictated by and often supervised by granny: glasses washed first, then crockery followed by cutlery and finally saucepans; plates and saucers had to be dried singly (to avoid chipping) and put on the table separately (so that they dried completely), saucepans had to be dried with the wrung-out dishcloth (to avoid blackening the tea-towel) Now, aged 68, I still do things in much the same way — well, granny’s ghost might well descend …

My older sister (now aged 75) would sometime be taken to school in the sidecar of my father’s motor-bike. The sidecar was used to collect fresh fish from the market and was a sarcophagus-like, home-made wooden affair. Anne would get in, the lid would be closed and off they would go: on arrival at school dad would lift the lid and Anne would step out, smelling of fish! Smelling of fish /chips was an every present fact of our childhood — I was not even aware of it until I left home. My brother and I walked to school, Peter taking me to infant school (Bitterne Park Infants) on the first occasion — and leaving me I can remember the first day - sitting in one of serried ranks with a slate and piece of chalk in front of me staring at the blackboard and easel; one child only remains in my memory — a boy called John Cole who I can clearly remember holding my attention because of his excessively runny nose which ran down to his lips where it was sucked in! Another memory of that first day is desperately needing to go to the lavatory (outside across the yard), being unable to attract the teacher’s attention and wetting myself then bursting into tears — following which I was allowed to collect the slates — no doubt a sop to my distress. Infant school, generally, is a haze: I cannot remember not being able to read but can remember the boredom of reading round in a circle, of having to wait my turn while the less able stumbled, dying to have my turn and probably show off. Our classroom was divided from the next by a folding door and the unreal colours of the Philip and Tacey alphabet high on the wall — the orange, dismembered leg on ‘L for leg’ came back to haunt me 28 years later when I took up my first teaching post in a small country school in Cornwall an identical alphabet was in situ — still ridiculously high up and with an identical, highly coloured, dismembered leg I can remember only one infant teach, Miss Synopyski, who I remember as a short, small lady who had very grey hair which was drawn tightly back into a bun - not unlike Proysen‘s Little Miss Pepperpot: Miss Synopyski taught us to knit and we knitted a string dishcloth. Whilst in her class I was chosen to be the Archangel Gabriel in the Nativity play — I can, even now, clearly see the Angel’s outfit (the same one being brought out year after year) a long, sleeveless white robe and absolutely enormous wings which were a solid construction faced with overlapping scales of white tissue. I could hardly control my excitement and then, just before the day of the play, granny stepped in with the injunction that I would catch my death if I wore that skimpy outfit and I was forced to wear an apple-green, long-sleeved hand-knitted jumper underneath! I didn’t dare disobey granny but I was mortified. When the air-raid siren went all the classes went into the cloakrooms and sat upon the lockers: I don’t remember that we were taught anything during these sojourns — some girls knitted or crocheted and I watched the ‘crotcheters’, absolutely fascinated, longing to be able to do the same. During playtime we skipped (many skipping games), played marbles, flicked cigarette cards, played dibs (fivestones), many ball-games, hand-clapping games. The skipping and hand-clapping games were accompanied by rhymes which are well-documented by Iona and Peter Opie. The girls also made bracelets with coloured, plastic covered wire which was purchased in Woolworth’s — I was good at making these but cannot now remember how to do it. We did French knitting although I cannot recall ever doing anything with the resultant tube; we also made tiny woollen golliwog type dolls which were very easy to make but whose making is difficult to describe. I do not remember being unhappy at school in fact, I quite enjoyed it. I loved being milk monitor, distributing the 1/3rd pints to everyone and being fascinated when the extreme winter cold had frozen the milk and there was a frozen cylinder of milk rising about an inch from the neck of the bottle. Another, highly desired job when I was in the junior school was to be ink monitor: making the ink from Stephen’s ink powder and then pouring it into the sunken inkwells in each desk. I well remember the nit nurse and also, after a medical, it being decreed that I needed to take malt which was given out at school; I hated it and in response to the edict to ‘bring a teaspoon’ thought that I was very clever when I took an apostle spoon because that way I would have to take less of the hated stuff — the teacher made me have two spoonsful!

At around the age of 7 I was taken, with an egg with my name on it, to the Royal South Hants Hospital to be relieved of my tonsils. I was in Upper Bullar Ward and apart from the girl in the next bed, the other patients were all elderly (or seemed to be!). I had been assured by my friends that hospital was lovely because they gave you jelly and ice-cream, which luxuries were unheard of during the war. The jelly and ice-cream never materialized — I can quite clearly remember my first meal post operation — boiled fish, peas, boiled potatoes — horrible. And the egg … it arrived, boiled, for Sunday breakfast. No-one came to visit and I can very clearly recall my distress, asking the nurse to ‘phone granny who, I said, would be sure to visit if she knew where I was. Still no-one came and, after a week, I was allowed home, unaccompanied, travelling on the ‘bus.

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