大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/大象传媒 Radio Nottingham on behalf of Mr Skeats with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

We returned to London in December 1941 when things were a bit quiet and my next memory is of one Saturday morning my brother and I were supposed to have gone on a scout day out but we arrived at the assembly point to late and found that the pack had gone. So we decided to go to finsbury park instead.
While we were walking in the park a lady who was accompanied by a number of gentleman raised her hand and called' come her little boy' my brother and I took to our heals. When we got home later in the day my father asked why we had run away from H.R.H Queen Mary the then Queen mother.
When I was l lyrs old I went to South Grove Secondary Modern School this school was very up to date in those days with purpose built metal and wood working rooms science laboratory and a gymnasium fitted out with showers
One of the lessons we had was swimming it was about two miles to the swimming pool and the teachers used to walk us there on the way back, we used to stop of at the bakers and many of the children would buy half a loaf for two pence. This came to a stop when a Messersmit machine gunned a column of children on their way back from a swimming pool in south London, after this all swimming lessons were cancelled.
One day just after I went to South Grove the head master came into the class room and said I don't suppose anyone here takes a size 9 or more in shoe size. I put my hand up he did not believe me and made me take my shoes of so he could measure my feet a few days later he issued me with 9 extra clothing coupons. This was because children did not get as many clothing coupons as adults and you had to give up more clothing coupons for shoe sizes above eights (after this if any body asked were I was the children always said has gone up to the cross roads to turn round)
It was when I was about 10 years old in late 1942, when my father bought a paper pitch and paper rounds. This was the end of most of my freedom for I had to get up at 5 o/clock in the morning to deliver morning papers, I used to finish about 8 o/clock go home have a wash and some breakfast and go to school. At lunch time I stopped to school dinners. During the afternoon if the subject was boring I used to fall asleep in class.
With the rounds we also got a paper pitch and a ramshackle barrow to go with it this had to be cleared away by 9 o/clock in the morning, Monday to Saturday but we were allowed to keep it there till 12.30P.M. on Sundays we found a lot of people came to pay there paper bill on Sunday mornings. The rest we went round to their houses to collect, so Monday and Tuesday evenings when I got home from school I was given my tea and then sent out to collect the money for papers which was outstanding from previous weeks. On Wednesday and Thursday evenings I was allowed to go out and play, Friday evening I had to go out and deliver the Tottenham Herald a local news paper. On Saturday after I had done my morning papers I had to go and look after the paper pitch till 9 o/clock then push the pitch down St Anne's road to a lock up shack that we rented put the pitch inside lock it up and go home to breakfast. After breakfast generally shortly after 10 o/clock, I would be sent out to collect paper money this I would do till about 4.30 P.m. Sunday I would do my morning paper round go home for my breakfast and then go and look after the paper pitch till about 12.30 o/clock.
I was not the only person delivering morning papers for my father, he used to do a round himself and my mother used to deliver two rounds there was a lad who used to deliver about 200 papers each morning and was paid 拢1 a week My round filled 3 bags and I would take one bag to do some flats and short roads near the pitch by the time I got through with that bag full my other two bags were ready. My father would take one of them to a pick up point because the two were to heavy for me to carry, I would then return to the paper pitch and pick up a small bundle to deliver on my way home
On odd occasions my mother would give me six pence, I very often spent this in Caves the bakers on the corner of Conway rd and Rowley rd he used to make some very good macroon's. He also had a van with a big balloon on top which he filled with gas from the gas main's to run his van on.
The paper business used to make 拢20 a week, on top of this my father also acted as a commission agent collecting bets at the paper pitch, in the Salisbury hotel and also on the phone. He would pass a lot of these back to other bookmakers who used to pay him 121/z per cent commission. This was all illegal and my father was quite often picked up and charged and fined. Two instances which stick in my mind were;
(1) my father was arrested as he left the Salisbury hotel with his pocket full of bets and my younger brother saw him so my young brother followed him down the road my father made a hole in his pocket and pushed the bets out of the hole and my brother went down the road picking them up by the time he got to the police station he had none on him but he still got fined
(2) One Derby day my mother came out of the Salisbury hotel with 拢300 worth of bets in her handbag and the police followed her so she went into a telephone box call dad who was at home taking bets on the phone and told him she was being followed and was leaving her handbag in the telephone box. My father got on his bike and went round to the phone box and recovered the handbag.
My father very often came home from the pub at lunch time very much the worse for ware and if I came in from school before he had gone to bed to sleep of his skinfull then I would get a good hiding.
When I was about 12 years old, we were able on a Saturday night to get a classified result sheet which had the dog results from all the London dog tracks and the results of all the football matches. I used to have to go and buy 40 quire and go round the pubs selling them I never got a penny out of this for myself. Neither was I ever given any pocket money although I used to make 拢3 in about three hours During 1944 when the V 1 s we used to go school each day but immediately after roll call we were taken to the air raid shelters were all we could do was sing do mental arithmetic and recite poems this lasted for about six months. With "~ the V 1, the practice was if you could hear its engine it was not for you but if the cut out the get down quick one day I was not quick enough and I got blown through a shop door by the blast of a doodle bug the surprising thing was that I was blown through the door the shop keeper just started to say what going on then we heard the blast. I was luckier than some of my school mates who got blown up by a V 2 on there way to school.
Also in 1944 my fathers sisters husband and her two sons worked on the London Evening News. The husband (my uncle Dick) and her eldest son (my cousin, dick junior) who was just 17 and had just got his driving licence were employed as drivers went to work one morning and has they walked into the transport yard they
were met by the military police who made them run up and down the yard and then made them stand on one side they ended up driving army lorries in France 24 hours later. They had no uniforms or army numbers till questions were asked in Parliament and the enemy said they would shoot them if they were caught because they were not recognised as military personal if they were not in uniform.
I used to go for walks in Finsbury park there is or was in those days a road that went round the inside of the park this road was over a mile long and in 1944 all a long this road was stacked bombs and shells the stacks were about six feet high and continuous right round the park, also at Harringay park station there was parked up hundreds of small armoured vehicles call Bren gun carriers these were parked between the railway line and the Harringay dog stadium and stretched for about a quarter of a mile and was parked about ten wide.
There was one day during the early days of the invasion of Europe that I shall never forget it was about 9 0' clock in the morning when the drone of aircraft engines made me look up into the sky, the aircraft were in blocks of nine and filled the sky as far as the eye could see from north to south and east to west so close were the formations that they looked just liked the pattern on a sheet of wall paper. I don't know what the target was but jerry must have caught a right pasting from that lot.
I have heard a lot of people say they don't know how we managed for food as a school boy I was able to get a lunch for 5 old pence (just a little more than 2 new pence ) most people had been directed into work in factories and were able to get a meal in the factory canteen. There was also a establishment known as the British restaurant were you could get a meal for less than a 1/= consisting of a starter and a main course or if you did not want the starter you could have a sweet and a cup of tea. These meals were meat less but none the less quite edible.
Some people kept rabbits but most kept chickens and used to trade there chickens surplus eggs for about at 6/= a dozen. One year we kept a Road Island Red cockerel this was a very dangerous chicken every time we went into the garden it would try to attack us. We had raised it for our Christmas dinner and to get near it we had to through a bag over its head, it then had its neck rung till we thought it was dead its legs were tied together and was hung up by its legs you could imagine my fathers consternation when half a hour after he thought he had rung its neck it began to crow again.
I can remember V. E. day we had a big bonfire in the road and it burnt a hole in the road surface about 9 inches deep but we had no fireworks or anything like that but we did bake jacket potatoes in the fir. For V.J.day we had a bonfire and a few day's later we had a party to celebrate the end of the war.

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