Innocent in Ealing
Beginnings
One afternoon, in a house near Ealing Green, I was waiting to be born, that is, to be pitched into the enigmatic time-trap that is the lot of everything living.
Ealing Green, shadowed by great tall trees, has excited certain individuals to produce notable explanations of the enigma. These were however sufficiently in conflict with each other to ensure its remaining an enigma. Local public schoolboy John Henry Newman grew up to teach that man's only hope lay in the service of the one providential God, and was made a cardinal. Thomas Henry Huxley, from the same school, grew up to see the human race as merely evolved from worms and fish via ape-like creatures. For him, man's salvation lay solely in the exercise of his own intellect.
I knew nothing of any of that at the time of my birth. I had been formed naturally inside my mother, living in a warm bath with full catering facilities laid on. Now that it was time for me to be expelled, I understand a midwife was having trouble in getting me out. She was determined and eventually effected my exit, assaulting my naked person until I yelled. I heard there was relief all round. My mother, whose physical endowment, I would learn, led her to the conviction that giving birth was not the sort of thing any lady should undergo, did express astonishment on seeing just what had resulted from nine months of discomfort. She found the noise I made 'disturbing', I was told, but this was just down to my being a boy and not a girl as was first thought. They also appeared to think I was a balloon for they stuck the nozzle of a peculiar bottle into my mouth, which had the effect of blowing me up so hard I deflated immediately in a very rude manner. The reason was that no human milk being available, I had been given the sort made by cows for their calves. Babies had grown fat on this for time out of mind, but it did not suit me. Obviously, I was going to be 'difficult.'
Nature provides new-born babies with a time-space before conscious awareness sets in; before they become 'knowing' as it is said. During that time, I imagine I was goo-gooed by people one minute and berated the next for causing disturbed nights and sticky messes. I had not been programmed to be a 'good' baby, 'giving no trouble.'
When awareness first dawned on me, it was to find myself sitting on a shiny black cloth laid out on a landing upstairs with only upright wooden posts to look at. On the other side of the posts was the murky stair-well where now and then a face appeared, looking at me. If I saw it I yelled and it disappeared immediately. If I kept on yelling for long enough on the other hand, I was picked up and taken out into the garden to be put in an open-topped box on wheels with hooks and straps on me to keep me in it. At least there I could see birds flying about and what the dog did. He was a slim, dark brown sort of dog called 'Bill' or 'Billyums', who came out of the scullery, sniffed round the garden, then, grinning with white teeth, jumped the high back fence in a tangle of long legs and tail to go on his adventures. When he came back he often smelled awful because he had 'rolled in something.' He was told off and chained up but he always did it again. I too often smelled awful, was cleaned and strapped back in the pram. It was then I learned my first words. My mother usually said she 'had a lot to do' and what I and the dog did 'stopped her from getting on.' Neither of us knew what she was talking about. Actually, when the dog had gone over the fence I used to start yelling because, I suppose, I wished I could go with him. The lady next door used to look over her wall and say; "What is the matter with him?" I could not tell them, of course. It was put down to my failing to be like other babies.
Came a day when I was dressed in a little suit, little shoes were put on my feet and I was set to walk in the garden with a toy wooden horse on wheels to help me along. They pointed a small black box at me and were smiling, the dog wagging his tail. It looked as though I had done something right.
That did not result in my being able to jump over the wall with Bill, my ability to walk was very limited. My mother allowed me periods in the garden on my feet on condition I did not 'touch her plants.' A terrible fate would overtake me if I did. In fact, after seeing a cat come in the garden when Bill was not there and scratch up some dirt, I whacked a plant with a stick to punish it for getting more attention than me. My mother did think a cat had done it and said she would put pepper down. I was sufficiently knowing to feel I was guilty of deception; I experienced my first moral dilemma.
One day my mother fussed especially on dressing me in the morning. Then she took me right out of the house and into a huge box on wheels with seats inside. It moved off and went on and on down endless streets and I felt sick. Eventually the streets ended and a leafy part appeared, where we got out. My mother walked down a quiet avenue until we came to a church. Along past the church was a lane and she made for this. As we came in sight of some cottages in a row my mother stopped suddenly and declared: “Oh, all that terrible work!” I always remembered what my mother said. All the same, we went up to one of the cottages and she knocked on the door. It was opened and we climbed up some steep stairs to a room where a lady was in bed, sitting up. The bed was covered with a colourful patchwork quilt. Saying “This is your great-grandmother who was born in Dickens’ time,” my mother presented me to the lady in bed, but I had a fit of shyness and hid my face in the patchwork quilt. They all laughed, who were sitting in the room. It was all very well for them; I had no idea what a great-grandmother was or about ‘Dickens’ times.’ The only time I knew about was the 'now.' Nonetheless, I would live to wish I could have talked with that great-grandmother who was born in 1842.
Time Passes
There was a man living in our house called 'your Father,' who was rarely seen by me. He was gone out of the house before I was got up in the morning and returned long after I was put to bed. He did come home for lunch but I had to go in the front room so that he could 'have it in peace' because he had to 'get back.' Looking through the front room window I saw him arrive, a distinguished-looking man in winged collar and bow tie riding a big bike. As he came in I could hear he was humming a tune. Later, I saw him leave, mounting his bike as though it was a horse already galloping away. He came back late at night and sometimes I would wake up to hear hammering and sawing going on in the scullery downstairs. Sometimes I heard raised voices. I heard my father was making display stands 'for the shop.' I don't think my mother liked 'the shop;' I think she hated it. Sometimes she called it 'the Maypole shop.' I don't think she liked our house either.
Some mornings now I was strapped into a push-chair to 'go to the shops.' Although my mother constantly said that 'time' was after her, I had to wait while she put on her hat. This was because she said she could not go out looking 'like the Wreck of the Hesperus.' At last we went on to the road outside where people were going up and down, carrying parcels and baskets. Traffic hardly ever came down our road. We passed houses on one side that had the same roof all the way down though the front of each house was slightly different from the next one, as were the little front gardens. They were where 'other people' lived, who it appeared were in some way different from us, like their front doors. I wondered what was 'other' about them but that was not considered 'proper' for me to do. On the other side we passed a mysterious high fence, a church hall that was always shut, then the 'Flats' where a different sort of 'other people' lived. Ordinary people were supposed to live in houses. Next came a big gate that was the rear entrance to St Saviour's Church. You could just see the church with its short spire on which a golden angel was blowing a golden trumpet. After the Scouts' hut, a strange church-like building set back from the road, we crossed Baker's Lane to go through the Three Pigeons alley with its iron arch having a gas lantern on it, to come out on to the High Street where the shops were.
The shop windows and displays were all covered with cards having words and big numbers painted on them. My mother would look at these for what seemed like ages but said, if I fidgeted, "We don't pay any price they ask!" and would move on to do it at another shop. When we did go in, there were men in there that to me had no legs because they were behind a 'counter'; they were very anxious for my mother to buy things. When she did, they wrapped the things up in a brown paper parcel and tied it with string so fast you hardly saw it done. Sometimes there were other children in push-chairs in the shops and I would have liked to speak to one but there was 'no time and we had to get on.'
At the cooked meat shop at the top of the High Street however I had certain hopes. The shop had golden joints of meat hanging out over the window, but the real meat inside was on white china pedestals. A lady in a white coat served my mother, wrapping her purchases in white paper. Then, outside, I asked if we could 'see the trains.' My mother would say "How is the enemy?" and look up at the clock on Christ Church steeple. She often said "we just have time." We crossed the big main road where plenty of traffic was passing, to go up an alleyway between the shops. Up there, tall iron railings ran along a path and on the other side of them, down below, were the railway lines. It was very quiet there until my mother cried out suddenly "Here it comes!" Rushing towards us was a great green engine puffing out black smoke and white smoke. As it thundered by us it screamed because it was going through Ealing Broadway Station at high speed. I could see people in the coaches behind and was a bit fearful for them, but glancing up at my mother saw she was looking at them with shining eyes as if she wished she was rushing along in the train. Once. a gentleman came up and, doffing his hat to my mother, said: "That was the Cheltenham Flyer," then to me: "Have you been on a train, sonny?" I said: "Yes, it makes the lampposts move." The gentleman looked nonplussed for a moment, then smiled and said: "It looks as though you have a young Einstein here!" My mother laughed and replied: "Children say funny things!"
The fact was that when going along in the push-chair I used to sometimes imagine I was driving a train and I saw the lampposts come towards me one after the other as if it was they that were moving. At home I tried to ask my mother what the gentlemen had said. She did not want to answer because she had a lot to do getting my father's lunch ready. When I made a nuisance of myself she replied I would not understand, but he had likened me to a man who had recently explained the world without God. When I asked: "Who is God?" my mother coloured up and said: "That is too sacred to discuss!" and shooed me into the front room.
There was a day that came round called 'washing-day,' My best policy was to keep well out of the way on that day. My mother filled the copper in the scullery with water and lit the fire underneath it, then put the sheets and things into the hot water, poking them with the copper stick. Afterwards, she took the wet things outside to where an awful machine called a 'mangle' stood; she had to turn it by hand to squeeze the water out before hanging the washing out to dry on the line.
One washing day I unwisely decided to play in the garden shed. I climbed on to a pile of deckchairs in there, imagining them to be something other than they were, when the pile slid sideways, with me on it, hit the door which opened and somersaulted me into the path of my mother, who dropped the washing she was carrying on to the dirty ground. She cried out "I'll get a baby in to put your nose out of joint!" as I bolted into the house. She did not follow me and I thought she said: "I've got another baby in ... " Where could it be? I asked myself and the only likely place was my parents' bedroom. I went gingerly upstairs and stood by their bedroom, the door of which stood ajar. They did not have to lock it to keep me out, forbidden was forbidden. I must solve the mystery, however, and forced myself to peep round the door. There was my parents' big bed but no baby. Yet in the far corner was a door -no doubt to another room. I had got to see what was behind it and, feeling somewhat hot under the collar, went right into my parents' bedroom. On the way to the other door, however, I stopped at my mother's dressing table. There was a beautiful china tray decorated in blue and gold with little pots to match and a china hand with gold rings on it. I did not touch anything but made for the mysterious door. It turned out to be a bed-clothes cupboard with shelves from floor to ceiling. I was disappointed in a way and thought I had better make my escape before I was caught, but could not help stopping for a further glance at the china tray. Then I realized I could see through the window behind right over the mysterious fence opposite our house. There were many gardens horizontal to the fence stretching back some way. All had washing flapping on the lines, except the nearest one that had little sailing boats pegged out along the line as if to dry. I stood fascinated, forgetting my perilous situation, when suddenly I realized my mother was standing by me. She did not kill me or even threaten, but was looking at the little boats with those shining eyes she had at certain times. She told me a man called Old Hands lived there who had sailed all round the world and now he was old, made boats for boys to float on the pond. She made it sound as if the most wonderful thing people could do was to sail round the world, of which I had the vague idea that it was a big ball in a net.
It was when we were going down our road one day that my mother said: "Here comes Old Hands!" He had a sparse white beard, a battered hat on his head and a grin on his face. He came up and leaned over my mother to whisper something in her ear. She let out a raucous laugh and cried out: "Go on with you, you've been a sailor all right! Take the boy with you and show him some of your boats!" Old Hands took me into his house by the back way, through a small brick-walled yard, where a fragrant smell was coming from wonderful-looking flowers in wire baskets on the wall. "Them's from foreign parts," he said. There was a glass tank full of water in which tiny fish were swimming, little boats floating on top and a sunken model ship on the bottom. "That's Davy Jones's Locker," said Old Hands. In his sitting room he showed me a little four-masted fully-rigged ship he had made and named all the ropes the sailors had to know and climb in bare feet. He pointed to the bunkhouse where the sailors slept and had to turn out in all weathers. "Up to the Fore-t-gallants!" cried Old Hands, "Set the Royals and look lively!" Then he put a finger on the masts of the little ship and squashed them flat, laughing on seeing the face I made. However, he pushed the little ship through the neck of a bottle when the masts and rigging stood up again on their own. He told me how it was done, and then tied tight knots in pieces of thread that he undid before I could say "West Ealing." Old Hands' wife brought in a piece of 'sea cake' (seed cake) straight out of the oven. When I had eaten my piece, he gave me a little boat made out of a whale's bones to take with me. It could not be floated on water but used on a carpet or the counterpane of my bed.
There was a lady who lived in a cottage near Old Hands we called Auntie Edith; she had worked for a doctor with my mother, and called me 'Nobbler'. One day she had to look after a little boy in her family who had lost his father, and I was sent to play with him. There was a big Noah's Ark full of wooden animals there. The auntie laid the table for tea and went into the kitchen to boil the kettle. The little boy got up to the table on his own but knocked over a jug with a crash. The auntie rushed in very angry, and whipping down his trousers smacked his little white bottom until it went red as he screamed for mercy. I looked on with horror and told my mother about it. She told me the auntie had often been smacked by the people who brought her up because she was an orphan and they did not want her.
My mother sometimes said I would get a smacked bottom or be put to bed for the day, but she never did those things to me. The threat she held over me was that I would be put into the children's home where they are 'made to behave.' Three men used our front room at times, one of whom was the Founder of the Homes for Motherless Children in Ealing. His wife came to tea sometimes. My father, I heard, sold provisions to the Cuckoo Schools poor children's home, 'where the boys had to polish their own boots -before they got breakfast!' I heard about Dr Barnardo who separated brothers and sisters so that they grew up knowing nothing of each other's existence. There was an instance, however, when my mother carried out her threat. I started 'messing myself like a new-born baby at my age.' My mother said I would not stop my games to 'go.' Then eventually she said if I did it again she would put me into Mr Smith's Homes for Motherless Children. I did do it again and execution was fixed for the morrow. I was dressed up in the morning and led down the Uxbridge Road to the Home. There was a wall outside and having arrived there, my mother gave me a last chance to say I would not do it again. I think I must have agreed because I had to wait while my mother went in 'to tell the Matron I was not coming.' Indeed, the symptom did not return but years later it was found I had a fault in my digestive system and a surgeon had to do something about it with his knife. In the meantime, a doctor came round and cut my throat on the kitchen table. He came again and cut a piece right off me. I wondered why grown-ups did these things to children.
It now happened that a girl came in who sat with me while I played, or took me out to the park. She did not cuddle me or anything but read what I heard was called a 'love-book.' All the same, I was pleased to have her, especially when she slept with me in my bed because my parents were gone out for the night. To have a companion for the long lone hours of bedtime was a boon to me when ghosts and ghoolies were on the landing outside. I had no idea what was different about girls. My girl did not come in all the time though I wished she would.
When out shopping I realised other children had sisters and brothers that lived with them, and eventually I asked my mother if I could have a sister of my own. My mother replied that she could not possibly 'go through that again;' the doctor had forbidden it. I had hurt her very much in being born, it had ruined her health. My mother added that next year I would be going to school where I would have 'boys to play with.’ First, though, we had to go on holiday and get through Christmas. We were to go on a train and a ship to the seaside.
To 'Foreign Parts'
There was a day that came round called Sunday when I was not allowed in the front room in the morning. My father was in there making a strange whistling sound as he added up hundreds of figures in big white books. "We are not free of the shop even on Sunday" my mother would say. We were all together at Sunday lunch, which was called 'Sunday dinner,’ and occasionally there was a third party, the minister of the church of which my parents were members, who was not like a priest. My father talked about what he 'believed,' of which I understood not a word.
If the weather was good, we would go across Ealing Green to walk in Walpole Park, all dolled up in our 'Sunday best.’ The children's swings were tied up and no ball games were allowed because it was Sunday. One Sunday we saw a Grove Chapel Hall open air meeting on Ealing Green, with auntie Edith singing the ‘sacred solo' to the accompaniment of a portable organ.
Then came the time when my mother got very excited with 'a lot to get ready' and seemed to like it. There were 'many things to be done.' I was taken to the big shop to get 'some clothes for the holiday.' I did not like new clothes as they were stiff and scratchy, but I did not complain when I was fitted out with a sailor's white suit, with a sailor's blue-striped collar and a sailor's white cotton hat. I requested to keep them on to go home in. Outside on the pavement two big girls came up, smiling. They touched the stripes on my collar 'for luck' and kissed me, which I liked.
On the way home my mother called at my grandparents' home in the next road to ours, to see them about looking after our house and dog while we were on the high seas. Grandfather could be very stern or very funny. He would put his finger up to the canary in its cage on the wall and threaten to have it cooked for his dinner. Then he went red in the face with laughing as the canary threatened him back with its open beak and outstretched wings, while granny flapped her apron at him and said he was ‘a wicked old man for giving the boy a bad example.' Their cat, Ephraim, always bolted on seeing me; they said I must have once pulled its tail, but I didn't, ever. Now on this occasion they laughed to see me because there was a framed photograph on the wall of what looked like me in my sailor suit. It was in fact of my father wearing a suit just like mine when he was my age, which I could not really imagine his ever having been.
It was on a Sunday that 'making sure we had everything we needed' came to a peak. My father was not in the front room but wearing a blazer and flannel trousers as he carried out the instructions my mother fired at him. She was very excited. I was put to bed early, the yellow sunrays that got through the blind made patterns on the wall that turned red as they climbed up it. I made my little whalebone boat weather a storm on my counterpane, then had qualms about the possibility of our real ship running into a storm of the sort related by Old Hands.
I was woken in the morning by my mother with the little soapy rock bunched up in her hand with which she attacked my naked person, though the torture was soon over on this morning. Downstairs, I had to wear an extra large bib so as not to get egg on my sailor suit. I had noticed our sea-chest in the hall and a hand-bag full to the brim that my mother said was 'for the beach,’ whatever that was. There came a knock on the door and my mother cried out: "He's here!" It was Mr Reeves our next-door neighbour who was a taxi owner. He was a smart man with a waxed moustache and a peaked cap. His fine brown taxi was standing outside our door. There was a light yellow sunshine in the street where no-one was about. Our sea-chest was loaded on, my father came out last, locked and tried the front door, got in, and we were off. The taxi went down empty roads, except that there were people about at the station, though they were very quiet, hardly talking at all. We had to go down some stairs to get to our train, at the bottom of which I turned round and saw a horrid monster with glaring red eyes looking at me from a cave. I yelled. My mother said: "What is the matter with him?" My father grinned and told me it was only the buffers at the end of the line to pull up the train 'if the driver forgets to stop.'
Our train was waiting without any steam visible. When we had got into it and I had a seat at the window, it went: "ding-dangding-dang-ding-dang" without moving. I asked when we were going to see the ship. I was told "We are going to sail from the Tower," which I thought peculiar. At last a man in a uniform appeared on the platform. He took out a huge watch, looked at it, then holding up a flag with a sort of gold bit on it, touched a pair of round wires with it as he blew a whistle. Our train started to move, going er-er-er-er-er instead of puff-puff-puff. As we pulled out of the station I heard the grinding of the wheels on lines that seemed to go this way and that until they straightened up. Then we just rolled on, the wheels going clickety-click, and the telegraph poles appearing to move like the lampposts. We passed hundreds of houses and their backgardens, all with rarely anybody in them. At one moment I realized our sea-chest had disappeared but I imagined it must be somewhere. At last we got out at a station called Mark Lane, where I got told off for hanging back wanting to see the engine. My father said it was an electric train, that it went by 'electricity’ - which I did not understand.
Outside there was no 'lane' but a great wide street with an old castle on the far side, nor was there a tower to be seen. We proceeded down by the side of the old castle, however, and suddenly I saw the ship and the towers - there were two of them, one each side of a big river. The ship was much bigger than I had imagined, with no sails but with a huge yellow funnel and great boxes on the sides on which its name "The Golden Eagle," was pointed out to me. We went on board where my mother enthusiastically started to set up a sort of camp on the afterdeck, on a special seat that would float if the ship sank. The funnel let off steam with a noise that scared me, so my mother put her hands over my ears, saying it meant we were about to sail. I saw the sailors pull up the gangway, there was a great splashing of water as the paddles began to turn and we moved slowly away from the pier. My mother looked very pleased; my father said: "Look, we are passing Traitors' Gate, if you went in there, you stood to come out without you head!" My mother, however, observed seriously: "Those were terrible days when some people had the power of life and death over others!"
There was a bridge between the two towers and this broke in two to let our ship go through without knocking its funnel off. Then, as we were under way, my father said: "I think I'll go down and get fifty black cats for the holiday," and was told: "Take the boy with you while I put up a snack." I would never understand grownups: what would we do with fifty cats?
My father took me down into the ship. There was no bunkhouse on the deck and no 'cargo for money’ as Old Hands had said would be down there. We came to a hot oily part where the engines were, huge wheels going round making great steel rods thrust back and forth, turning the paddles. My father declared: "How's that then!" and told me he had sailed in a battleship that 'ate coal.1 We went on to a part with glass doors of the sort that could not be seen through. My father told me he was going in there to get some black cats but that children were not allowed, so I must 'wait for a couple of minutes outside.' As I waited, the door opened and a man with a big red nose came out. He looked down at me and said: "Now, then, sailor boy, is this your first trip afloat?" I said "yes." His eyes seemed to water and he breathed a sort of sweet breath over me. "Once I was a clean young rip like you," he said, "until I signed on shipboard to go and sow my wild oats in foreign parts. Now I have to sail for ever with the demon drink." He pointed at the glass doors and went on: "Them is the gates of 'ell, don't you never go through them!" He told me what to say if I was tempted:
"Wine is a mocker.
Strong drink is raging!"
and went in a door nearby.
I was afraid my father would come out with a red nose but he looked exactly the same as before. He said he had to wait to get served and had only a white box in his hand. This did have a picture of a black cat on it and there were cigarettes inside. My father said I would get a train set from the black cat factory one day when he had enough coupons, suggesting to me that black cats not only made cigarettes but also train sets. I found this difficult to believe. My father then said he was going 'to see a man about a dog, did I want to go too?' We went through the door the man with the red nose had gone and it turned out to be a special sort of lavatory. The man was just coming out and said to my father: "Look after that young sailor boy, shipmate!" My father grinned and remarked: "He's been aboard ship all right!"
Back on the after-deck my mother had made a picnic. She liked picnics but I did not; there was usually nowhere safe to put down the drink or the plate with the sandwich on it. We were passing ships with different coloured funnels tied up at tall black buildings. When my mother gave me a drink of hot tea from what she called the 'thermos,’ I said:
"Wine is a mocker.
Strong drink is raging!"
My father exclaimed: "Where did he learn that?" I did not tell them and my mother thought Old Hands had taught it to me. He didn't have a red nose; I don't think he ever went through the gates of Hell.
After the picnic they 'settled back.’ In fact all the people sitting around the after-deck were 'settled back,’ 'having a rest,' as the ship sailed on. The sun was shining down from a blue sky and the only great movement of the water was made by the paddles. I asked if I could go and see the engines myself. They looked at each other as much as to say they didn't think it likely I would 'settle down’ They said there were 'too many adults about to let a child climb up anywhere dangerous’ and gave me permission to go as far as the engines. In fact, people looked at me and many of them smiled but did not say anything. After looking at the engines for a while I suddenly felt tired from the strong air and having been got up early in the morning. I made my way back and lay down on the special chair with a blanket over me, imagining I was in the bunkhouse, and dozed off, helped by the vibration of the engines below.
It must have been the change of rhythm of the engines that woke me up. The "Golden Eagle" was approaching a platform on stilts right out on the sea, the land being far away. My parents did not move so it was not the end of our voyage. The ship pulled up to the platform and the gangway was run out: there were people waiting to come on board. I went to see my first people from 'foreign parts.’ They did look a bit different, they talked and laughed more than people at home. A sunny-faced little girl gave me a big smile but of course she was with her family. Other children were always with a family. As our ship sailed away from the platform I saw this was connected to the land a long way away by a railway that ran over the sea on stilts. I told my parents what I had seen and my father remarked: "That was Southend on Mud!"
We had another small picnic after which I went off again as the ship just sailed along on the smooth sea. I went past the engines after a while and got to the Gates of Hell. I could hear more talking and laughing and tinkling of glasses in there but nobody with a red nose came out. Beyond was another staircase and going up this brought me out on to the foredeck. There were people sitting around as elsewhere, but there was a mast and some sailors wearing jerseys standing by it and talking softly. I thought it was all too quiet for a ship at sea and sang out to the sailors: "Avast there! Up to the yards and look lively!" People laughed and the sailors grinned at me, except one who replied: "Aye aye, Sir!" and made as if to shin up the mast. A voice boomed down from above: "Put that man in irons, mister! I give the orders on this ship!" I thought I was for it, but all the people laughed again, and an old lady poked me with her umbrella. "You are a clever boy," she said, "look through my opera glasses and see if you can see Margate yet." The glasses had what I knew as mother of pearl on their outsides, painted with flowers. I looked where she pointed and was surprised to see on the murky horizon what looked like a tower and other buildings. I was astonished and handed back the glasses, managing to say I saw the tower. The old lady said I had better run back to my parents as we were 'nearly there.'
I went back and told them I had seen Margate and could we buy a pair of opera glasses. My father replied he would look out for a toy telescope. The sun was now low in the sky and before long we had come up to the towers that were Margate pier. We went down the gangway behind a man carrying his little child on his shoulder. As we reached the road some big girls came along wearing pyjamas with wide-bottomed trousers in the very street. The little boy cried out: "Look at the funny ladies, daddy!" They all laughed while my mother exclaimed: "Oh Lor, flappers!"
Now at a house not far away we were let in and taken up to a bedroom where, to my surprise, I saw our sea-chest standing on the floor. There was an 'unpacking' flurry, then I was put to bed as my parents wanted to 'go out for a meal.' They told me there were people in the house. I went to sleep to the sound of roundabout music coming in from somewhere outside.
When I woke up in the morning there were my parents asleep in the big bed. I thought, "how long will I have to stay quiet before they wake up?" when a church clock chimed outside. I heard my father say: "We'll have to go down so as not to miss the breakfast!" My mother was not pleased, and saying: "No rest, even on holiday," she jumped out of bed. My father said we had better have 'a lick and a promise’, but I was not let off my usual 'being got ready’ as my mother said people in the dining-room would be 'looking at me.' In fact, when we got down there I thought the people did anything but look at me, apart from perhaps a glance, for they were 'keeping themselves to themselves,' as I was told is advisable. A lady in black appeared and did look at me as if she was afraid I would make rude noises or a mess on the tablecloth, which was set with toast and rolls, such as we did not have on the breakfast table at home. My mother somewhat pointedly ordered a boiled egg and bread and butter for me, and when it came it had its head already cut off and the bread and butter was cut up into 'soldiers.’ My parents had sausage, bacon and fried eggs which I thought was a lot.
After breakfast there was a flurry upstairs as we had to make sure we had everything we would need 'for the beach.' I looked out of the window and saw a string of donkeys going by, on the way to the beach, I was told, to be ridden by children.
Once outside the door it was but a short walk along the road to where two or three stone steps took us on to the beach. It was an expanse of brown ground called 'sand,' covered with the marks of hundreds of feet, a number of boats upside down, and a pile of deckchairs. The light was brighter than at home and a special sea-smell permeated everything. My father took a couple of deckchairs from the pile and we set up camp not far from the sea where other families were encamped, as I saw it, in sort of little private fortresses. Leaving my mother in one of the deckchairs with her bag, my father took me to a stall where brightly-coloured balls and other inflatable things were hanging up. He bought a tin bucket and wooden spade for me, a 'Tit-bits' magazine for my mother and a Sexton Blake 'blood' for himself. As we returned to our chairs, more families were arriving on the beach. Now I was told to 'dig the sand for sea-shells' while they were reading, though I heard my mother say she did not want to 'spend the holiday reading on the beach.’
I was pleased to find sea-shells did come up, as also a small crab which I put in the bucket with a view to taking it down to the sea. I dug the sand until the inevitable picnic time arrived, being given tea with a sandwich on a plate and told 'not to get sand in it.’ After that however my parents ‘snoozed’ and thoughts of looking at other families came into my head; I would not wander far, being careful to keep our 'camp’ in sight. Making sure my going had not been noticed, I began my departure. The 'other families' did indeed appear to present a fortress closed against me, until I came upon a child of my own age, alone, and engaged in making a sandcastle. I don't know whether it was a boy or a girl, but I began to play with that child and stayed for hours and hours. I looked up and saw the child's mother and father, but they just smiled at me. I was completely absorbed until I heard my own parents' voices saying: "There he is!" They said they 'hoped I had not been a nuisance' but the other parents replied 'on the contrary, their child had been glad of the company.' I was very reluctant to leave, though my mother said I could play with that child again. As expected, of course, I never did see that child again.
The next day we went on the beach my mother said we should paddle in the sea. My father rolled up the trouser legs of his flannels and made a funny face as he went in, as if the water was cold. It was very shallow. He was still wearing his trilby hat and smoking his pipe; his 'For King and Empire’ badge was on his sports jacket, instead of the 'Brotherhood’ badge he wore on Sundays at home. The sand underfoot down there where the water wafted slowly in was ribbed; the water was cold at first but immediately after felt warm. My mother held her skirt up a little bit and collected a sprig of seaweed to take home that 'would tell the weather.' An aeroplane flew along low over the sea, the passengers in the cockpit waving to the bathers. My mother said it was a trip for which you paid a few shillings and a little bit more if you wanted to loop the loop. She said she wanted to do it and upset my father. He said she was a married woman with responsibilities and even threatened to go home if she went in the aeroplane. I was glad she did not go up in the air and cause trouble. My father said; "Why not go for a sail?" We did do that, getting into a boat with a lot of people and one sailor who handled the single big sail. It was more like Old Hands must have done many a time. When we got back to the little jetty, we had our photograph taken and I fell into the sea. It was not deep there, I saw everything green for a moment but came up again. My mother said she thought I was a 'gonner,' but, strangely, it didn't worry me.
Another day we went to Margate's "Dreamland." It was not at all dreamy. The 'roundabout' music I had heard in the boarding house came from a "Trip round the World on an Underground River." A windmill was going round on top of the starting point and a large waterwheel was turning. The passengers sat in a tub that was first pulled up a short incline, then allowed to slide into the water with a splash to go into the tunnel of the river; this was dark nearly all the way, except for a few scenes from different parts of the world on the sides which were lit up. I liked it very much. I heard a man say it was really for a 'canoodle' with a girl and I wished my girl had been there, although I had no idea what a 'canoodle' might be.
Afterwards my father showed me how to use a machine that shot at a row of grinning pussy-cats sitting on a wall. I never succeeded in knocking them all down; it cost another penny to make them all come up again.
Sunday came round at Margate as well, sunny and quiet, all the shops shut and the beach deserted. As my mother went out the back of the house for some reason, I asked my father why 'everything stopped on Sunday.' He replied: "We must have one day a week on which to relax!" He grinned in a way that made me think he felt getting the chance to relax didn't often come his way. When my mother reappeared she cried out to me: "Go and see the baby white rabbits!" I went out the back and saw an old man who had three hutches in which were mother white rabbits with their babies. He let me hold one and I asked if I could take it home. He said "Yes, if your parents will let you!"
There was a bike shed out there and among the bikes were two almost exactly like my parents' bikes, one having a dress-guard, the other a big one with a little saddle and stirrups on the cross-bar. They were my parents' bikes, but how they got there I could not imagine. It turned out we were going to ride to Ramsgate that day, with me riding on my father's 28" B.S.A., which, grinning, he said would give him a b.s.a., but did not explain.
We cycled along by the empty beach, where only a service like the Gospel Hall one on Baling Green was going on, and passed a Salvation Army "open air1 where a man was saying he was 'happy in the Blood of the Lamb.' Then we went onto a long leafy road, completely empty, where my father declared: "Another jolly old mile done!" every time we passed a milestone.
Ramsgate was very quiet because it was Sunday there too. On a seat, my mother produced the inevitable picnic after which we made out way along a jetty to the Lifeboat Station. There was a service going on, a man in yellow oilskins and sou'wester leading it. They sang a hymn:
"Eternal Father strong to save...",
each verse ending :
"... Those in peril on the sea."
I heard my father say to my mother: "There's no back way out of a ship in trouble" and she looked serious. Behind the man I could see a wonderfully quiet sea with the afternoon sun glinting on the ripples and could not imagine being 'in peril' on it. On the other hand I had heard from Old Hands what it was like to be 'on the rigging' in a raging storm.
Back in Margate we had days on the beach, further trips to Dreamland where I went round the world again and shot the pussycats, we made a couple of coach trips and bike-rides; I drove a donkey cart and had ice creams. Then it was the day before the end of the holiday. They said we were going to the pier-o show, though it was not on a pier but in the Winter Gardens although it was summer. The Pierrots were dressed in clown-like white clothes with black bobbles on them and sang and danced to a piano. Then a big man came on dressed as a little boy carrying a jam-jar by a string handle, and a fishing net. He sang:
"Has anybody seen my tiddler?..."
and the audience laughed their heads off. I thought it was a sad song about how he had lost the little fish he had caught, but every time he repeated the refrain:
"Has anybody seen my tiddler?"
the people roared, even my father and my mother, who looked as though she did not ought to. I of course knew nothing about innuendo.
The next morning after breakfast there was a terrible bustle upstairs 'packing everything up.' When at last my parents were ready, I declared: "The man said I could have a baby white rabbit, can I go and get it now?" They looked at each other in agitation. My mother replied "I'm afraid we can't have a rabbit at home, we've nowhere to keep it." I said my father 'could make a hutch,' to which my mother replied the neighbours might object to the smell. I said "Rabbits don't smell," at which my mother retorted "It might attract rats!" I said: "Everybody has a white rabbit, why shouldn't I?" and added a rude remark about what sort of parents they were. At that, my usually long-suffering father lost his temper and, saying: "You can't have a rabbit and that's that!" gave me a clout on the ear. So it was that our procession descended the stairs, me with a red face, and the landlady waiting at the bottom to see us out. My mother said I was upset at the holiday being over and the landlady answered: "Children can be a trial on holiday!"
We left on the "Crested Eagle" which looked exactly the same as the "Golden Eagle", and I soon forgot about the white rabbit, looking through a toy telescope my parents had bought me a few days before. It was nowhere as good as the opera-glasses I had looked through before and I yearned to have a pair of them. When we got home our house was exactly as we had left it. The only thing was that when I looked through my bedroom window the chimney stacks of the houses looked like ships' funnels. I told Old Hands about my voyage and noted particularly he had nothing like a red nose.
Christmas is coming
The days began to get shorter and colder, the fire was lit in the grate and the coal scuttle filled. Coalmen came now and then, bringing in the coal in sacks on their backs and tipping it into the coal-hole. I was not allowed to touch the coal but I was told off if I saw the fire needed some coal on it and did not tell my mother. It was called 'letting the fire go out.’ The gaslight was lit; it was said we were going to have 'electricity' that would be better. The gaslight was really a yellow flame that went brilliant white because of the 'mantle,' which had to be renewed when it burnt out. It was a 'cosy' light when the dark evenings came, until bedtime at least, which was immutable. Whatever I was doing I had to stop immediately because it was 'time for bed,’ there being 'no time' to finish my game. There was often 'no time’ to do something or other because it was 'time' to do one of the many things my mother had to do. How there could be a 'time' and 'no time' at the same time was a mystery to me.
Bedtime meant being undressed and going upstairs where there was neither gaslight nor fire. My mother put a little paraffin lamp on my washstand that made a pattern on the ceiling. It was blown out when my mother came up to bed. Sometimes, in the coldest weather, a "Beatrice" paraffin heating stove was put in my bedroom, to be transferred to my parents' bedroom when I was put to bed. One evening when we went up there were black curtains of soot hanging on everything because the stove had flared up. It was not my fault because it had happened before I was taken up. A stone hot water bottle would be put in my bed; it was inside a sock but only warmed one part of the bed and was too hot to cuddle at first, then too cold.
It was at this time my mother said: "Christmas is coming," and did not sound enthusiastic about it like she did about the holiday. Out shopping, some ladies said: "Christmas is coming" in the same tone, though there were people who remarked: "Never mind, Christmas is coming!" As for me, I saw the shop windows all brighten up, some with coloured lights and holly round the borders. In toyshops, an electric train went round all the time and there would be a working model of what was called Meccano. In the bike shop at the top of Ealing Green a miniature train that went by real steam puffed round inside the shop. At John Sanders' big shop I went for a ride on a little railway affair to Jack Frosts's cave. A girl lifted me off and asked if I knew who she was. I said: "Jack Frost," she kissed me and gave me a present of a big top that hummed different tunes. There were pictures of Father Christmas everywhere; my mother thought it was not good for me to believe in Father Christmas because I would not like it when I found out he did not exist. Actually, in the big shop called Rowses at West Ealing there was a Father Christmas, but you could see his beard was not real, proving he was an ordinary man dressed up. The church hall in our road that was nearly always closed opened up in a blaze of light and filled up with postmen in their round helmets who pushed baskets on wheels full of parcels.
A postman came to our door and said he had a parcel 'for the boy from Father Christmas.’ My mother laughlingly said it must be a mistake and asked me if she should send it back. I said "no" and she took it in. It contained a glass railway engine full of toffees and had come from Aunt Lily who did exist. That was a joke of mother's of the sort I did not like as they made me nervous. I was woken up in the night by hammering and sawing; my father was making stands for the shop's special Christmas display.
I learned my other grandparents were coming from Sidcup to stay with us for Christmas. I would have to move into the little back room upstairs to sleep. I did not mind that, I looked forward to having company in the house, even if there would be no children.
The front room became very cosy with a fire in the grate, a bit of holly round the overmantel and bowls of nuts and raisins placed on the shelves to each side. Everything in there was familiar to me although much of it remained outside my understanding. On the overmantel were little shelves with china 'ornaments,’ a china battleship, a china lighthouse, a china tank. Opposite on the wall was a picture of a battleship's crew on the battleship. Around the room above the picture rail were several photographs of 'Maypole' shops with their staffs of seven men and boys in front of them, one being my father in his long apron with the fringe on the bottom. Then on another wall was a bookcase full of books. I would love to be able to read! Central on the mantelshelf, a pendulum clock 'told the time’ with a measured 'tick.’ I found this more acceptable than the silent devil-clock in the living room that ruled the roost. Its case was red and once I got it down with a view to making its hands go backwards. I dropped it and its inside came out. My mother cried out she 'must have the time’ and took it to Old Hands who put it back together again.
Now just before Christmas my mother took me on a trip down to West Ealing where my father's Maypole shop was. It was dusk. Having gone up the High Street, we turned down the Uxbridge Road to pass huge houses that rich people must have lived in, passed Alexandra House, Smith's Home for Motherless Boys that I looked at askance, and got to the part where the shops began. There was a shop with a half-window showing golden things behind a grille, brilliantly lit up, with a big clock above them to tell the time. I thought rich people must buy their presents from that shop. I had to wait outside a double-windowed shop that was a stationers on one side and a toyshop on the other, while my mother went in there. Halfway up the window on the toy side was a shelf with miniature furniture and everything a doll would need for her house. My mother came out with her purchase and we went on past the sports shop that had full-size cricket stumps and bats on the wall up over it. It was run by a man who had played cricket for England. I noticed air guns in his window; shooting was evidently a sport. On street corners there were stalls selling fruit, vegetables and chestnuts for Christmas, lit by special gas lamps that hissed and popped.
After crossing over by the Kinema where a light ran up the wall and made an arrow that pointed at the entrance, I had no difficulty in recognising 'the shop.' It had "Maypole" in big golden letters over it, and a temporary counter in front from which the boy, who rode the 'trike' with groceries round the roads on Saturdays, was selling eggs. There were pictures of Father Christmas stuck on the window. My mother went in a door at the side as the shop was full of people. I could see my father in there, patting up a block of finest butter and imprinting a picture on it, and then wrapping it up in white paper. He came out into the office and gave my mother some provisions parcelled up ready for her, and also 'money for the bird.'
Outside, on the other side of the road, was a raised gallery on which men were selling chickens and turkeys from rows of them hanging up, all plucked, their heads hanging down. The men slapped each chicken or turkey they tried to sell to show how fat it was, but I heard they would not sell many until later on into the night when the prices would have to come down. My mother went into a butcher's shop where a chicken or turkey was packed up ready for her to collect and pay for. That was 'the bird,’ my mother said.
Making our way back, we passed a shop with three large brown brass balls hanging up outside. My mother told me poor people would have to pawn their watches and things 'to pay for their Christmas dinner,' which I did not understand. She said that in an almost angry voice as though she thought it ought not to be so.
The next day was Christmas Eve which I had to spend in the front room. "Chick's Own" children's paper had been ordered for me because I was about to go to school. The pictures in "Chick's Own" had their stories printed underneath in words broken up into syllables for children to learn to read. Chick, who was a chick, was usually the hero. When Jack Sprat would eat no fat and his wife would not eat her lean, Chick solved the problem, by changing their plates round. Picture books were my great standby. I had an old one that had belonged to my mother, about the adventures of Golliwog and the Girls. The Girls were Dutch dolls whose arms and legs moved and who were always smiling. They did not always bother to wear clothes. The book I had told of Golliwog as Robinson Crusoe, wrecked on a desert island. When savages came in canoes he frightened them off by flapping an umbrella he had made at them. He was saved by the Girls who arrived in a sailboat, all smiling as usual.
The whole house had become cosy; my mother was in the kitchen with a lot to do to get ready. It was late afternoon when the knock came at the door and I tried to get there first, but my mother beat me to it. She opened it to the grandparents from Sidcup, calling them 'mum and dad,' and took them straight upstairs to their room. The grandad was a man with a bristly moustache, the granny small. I was sent off to bed.
I only slept lightly and feigned sleep in fact when my mother came in to blow out my light. She put something on the table beside me but it was too dark for me to see what it was. I heard the grandparents come up to bed and was woken up by my father coming in downstairs. I heard he came in at one o'clock on what was Christmas morning.
I found I had a box of six men riding camels, and a tin of toffees that was also a mountain cable car; it had a pulley on top and some thread inside to make it go. I started to play with my presents right away as I thought it would be some time before my mother appeared. When my mother did come to get me up her face was all flushed, due to the kitchen I guessed. She said I was to go in the front room and say "hello" to the grandparents, 'behaving myself,' as it would not be long before the Christmas dinner was on the table.
In the warm front room the granny and grandad sat where a black bottle and wine glasses had appeared. Dates were on the shelves now, together with nuts and raisins, but I must not touch them before the meal. The grandad grinned at me and the granny smiled, but I didn't think they had had much to do with children. She was smaller than the grandad. The grandad asked me if I played the cornet, putting up his hands and making as if he was playing one. I replied: no, I only ate ice cream out of them. He laughed and said: "What about the one string fiddle?" and made as if he was playing that. I said I had not even seen one of those. He replied: "Well, I reckon at least you can play a piece of paper round a comb!" It was a bit hard going with them; of course they were less familiar to me than my grandparents round the corner, though there was something familiar about this granny. At last my mother came in and announced: "The bird is on the table!" They got up in obvious anticipation of something good.
In the living room my father was at the head of the table on which our best lace tablecloth was laid, and best china plates together with shining knives, forks and spoons. On the marble-topped sideboard, blue crested china pots were filled with steaming vegetables so that the lids would not fit on properly. In front of my father was the big chicken or turkey. As everybody looked on with gusto he took up a long knife and, sharpening it with a flourish on a long sort of fluted dagger, he said: "Here's to a good coming 1926!" and began to carve. Pots were transferred from the sideboard and everybody took what they wanted. My plate was made up for me, I had some poultry, some little cabbages called Brussels sprouts, round chestnuts and crispy roast potatoes. A gravy was poured all over it that consisted of hundreds of little golden bubbles which seemed to have a life of their own. My mother declared: "Tuck in!" and they all did.
After the main meal a Christmas pudding was brought in. I was given a piece and told to chew it carefully 'in case there is something in it." There was, a silver sixpence. My father said: "Don't spend it all in riotous living!" When they had finished eating tea was served, for they all liked their 'cup of tea.' The teapot had a crocheted 'cosy' on it with the picture of a battleship worked on it. My father sang:
"Hark the herald angels sing,
Maypole tea is just the thing.
Drink it hot or drink it cold.
It's the best that's ever sold."
They laughed, although my mother remarked she had thought he would bring 'the Maypole shop' into it somewhere. Then they said they were going to retire to the front room to 'sleep it off.’ That meant they were going to snooze and my absence would be appreciated. So I remained in the living room to play under the table with my glass railway engine, men on camels and other things.
Eventually, legs appeared, my mother and father were making the 'cold snacks' for the evening. It seemed my other grandparents were coming round and they, being full of Christmas dinner like us, would only want 'high tea.’ I heard the granny from Sidcup tell my mother "I'll say this for you, Gwenny, you know how to put up a good meal!"
My granny and grandad from round the corner arrived. I saw the two lots of grandparents greet each other rather solemnly, I thought, though they did use first names. The grannies seemed to know each other well and there was a similarity between them, as though they were sisters. They sat down to their high tea, then retired to the front room for what my father said was to be an 'entertainment.' I got down behind the chairs in there to string up my toffe-tin cable car. The granny from round the corner was Granny Maggs and the one from Sidcup was Granny Martin. I heard Granny Martin say to Granny Maggs: "What about a drink, Harriet?" But Granny Maggs replied: "I never touch it!", at which Grandfather Maggs looked pained I thought. Only Granny and Grandad Martin had port wine, though neither of them had red noses, nor did they rage.
The 'entertainment' started when my father appeared as a funny man, wearing baggy short trousers and holly in his hair. He said they would have to guess the characters from the "pictures' and what he called 'variety.' They laughed at him while the grannies did so a bit solemnly. My father went out and my mother came in wearing a hat with a very tall feather and talked in a funny voice. Somebody said she was 'Nellie Wallace.’ I had heard the names of the people they represented mentioned, but had not seen them. When my father came in as Bill Sykes, to whom he referred to at times, I did not know he was from one of the books in the bookcase. In fact I lost interest and concentrated on making my cable car run on its thread until I heard Grandfather Martin play musical instruments that he did not have. His imitations, and his playing a piece of tissue paper round a comb were so funny he had a job not to laugh at himself through his moustache. It was then that my mother noticed me and said it was long after my bedtime and hauled me off.
The next day was called Boxing Day and my father gave out he was going with Grandfather Martin to see the Bees play. I had a job imagining bees playing, but it turned out they meant the Brentford Football Club called "The Busy Bees." Brentford was not far away and we heard the roar of the crowd at home when Brentford scored a goal. After that, the grandparents from Sidcup went home. The next morning my father had to open the shop at 8.30 a.m. as usual and everything returned to 'ordinary’ as if it had not happened.
Norman Maggs
This extract © Peter Maggs 2017
Beginnings
One afternoon, in a house near Ealing Green, I was waiting to be born, that is, to be pitched into the enigmatic time-trap that is the lot of everything living.
Ealing Green, shadowed by great tall trees, has excited certain individuals to produce notable explanations of the enigma. These were however sufficiently in conflict with each other to ensure its remaining an enigma. Local public schoolboy John Henry Newman grew up to teach that man's only hope lay in the service of the one providential God, and was made a cardinal. Thomas Henry Huxley, from the same school, grew up to see the human race as merely evolved from worms and fish via ape-like creatures. For him, man's salvation lay solely in the exercise of his own intellect.
I knew nothing of any of that at the time of my birth. I had been formed naturally inside my mother, living in a warm bath with full catering facilities laid on. Now that it was time for me to be expelled, I understand a midwife was having trouble in getting me out. She was determined and eventually effected my exit, assaulting my naked person until I yelled. I heard there was relief all round. My mother, whose physical endowment, I would learn, led her to the conviction that giving birth was not the sort of thing any lady should undergo, did express astonishment on seeing just what had resulted from nine months of discomfort. She found the noise I made 'disturbing', I was told, but this was just down to my being a boy and not a girl as was first thought. They also appeared to think I was a balloon for they stuck the nozzle of a peculiar bottle into my mouth, which had the effect of blowing me up so hard I deflated immediately in a very rude manner. The reason was that no human milk being available, I had been given the sort made by cows for their calves. Babies had grown fat on this for time out of mind, but it did not suit me. Obviously, I was going to be 'difficult.'
Nature provides new-born babies with a time-space before conscious awareness sets in; before they become 'knowing' as it is said. During that time, I imagine I was goo-gooed by people one minute and berated the next for causing disturbed nights and sticky messes. I had not been programmed to be a 'good' baby, 'giving no trouble.'
When awareness first dawned on me, it was to find myself sitting on a shiny black cloth laid out on a landing upstairs with only upright wooden posts to look at. On the other side of the posts was the murky stair-well where now and then a face appeared, looking at me. If I saw it I yelled and it disappeared immediately. If I kept on yelling for long enough on the other hand, I was picked up and taken out into the garden to be put in an open-topped box on wheels with hooks and straps on me to keep me in it. At least there I could see birds flying about and what the dog did. He was a slim, dark brown sort of dog called 'Bill' or 'Billyums', who came out of the scullery, sniffed round the garden, then, grinning with white teeth, jumped the high back fence in a tangle of long legs and tail to go on his adventures. When he came back he often smelled awful because he had 'rolled in something.' He was told off and chained up but he always did it again. I too often smelled awful, was cleaned and strapped back in the pram. It was then I learned my first words. My mother usually said she 'had a lot to do' and what I and the dog did 'stopped her from getting on.' Neither of us knew what she was talking about. Actually, when the dog had gone over the fence I used to start yelling because, I suppose, I wished I could go with him. The lady next door used to look over her wall and say; "What is the matter with him?" I could not tell them, of course. It was put down to my failing to be like other babies.
Came a day when I was dressed in a little suit, little shoes were put on my feet and I was set to walk in the garden with a toy wooden horse on wheels to help me along. They pointed a small black box at me and were smiling, the dog wagging his tail. It looked as though I had done something right.
That did not result in my being able to jump over the wall with Bill, my ability to walk was very limited. My mother allowed me periods in the garden on my feet on condition I did not 'touch her plants.' A terrible fate would overtake me if I did. In fact, after seeing a cat come in the garden when Bill was not there and scratch up some dirt, I whacked a plant with a stick to punish it for getting more attention than me. My mother did think a cat had done it and said she would put pepper down. I was sufficiently knowing to feel I was guilty of deception; I experienced my first moral dilemma.
One day my mother fussed especially on dressing me in the morning. Then she took me right out of the house and into a huge box on wheels with seats inside. It moved off and went on and on down endless streets and I felt sick. Eventually the streets ended and a leafy part appeared, where we got out. My mother walked down a quiet avenue until we came to a church. Along past the church was a lane and she made for this. As we came in sight of some cottages in a row my mother stopped suddenly and declared: “Oh, all that terrible work!” I always remembered what my mother said. All the same, we went up to one of the cottages and she knocked on the door. It was opened and we climbed up some steep stairs to a room where a lady was in bed, sitting up. The bed was covered with a colourful patchwork quilt. Saying “This is your great-grandmother who was born in Dickens’ time,” my mother presented me to the lady in bed, but I had a fit of shyness and hid my face in the patchwork quilt. They all laughed, who were sitting in the room. It was all very well for them; I had no idea what a great-grandmother was or about ‘Dickens’ times.’ The only time I knew about was the 'now.' Nonetheless, I would live to wish I could have talked with that great-grandmother who was born in 1842.
Time Passes
There was a man living in our house called 'your Father,' who was rarely seen by me. He was gone out of the house before I was got up in the morning and returned long after I was put to bed. He did come home for lunch but I had to go in the front room so that he could 'have it in peace' because he had to 'get back.' Looking through the front room window I saw him arrive, a distinguished-looking man in winged collar and bow tie riding a big bike. As he came in I could hear he was humming a tune. Later, I saw him leave, mounting his bike as though it was a horse already galloping away. He came back late at night and sometimes I would wake up to hear hammering and sawing going on in the scullery downstairs. Sometimes I heard raised voices. I heard my father was making display stands 'for the shop.' I don't think my mother liked 'the shop;' I think she hated it. Sometimes she called it 'the Maypole shop.' I don't think she liked our house either.
Some mornings now I was strapped into a push-chair to 'go to the shops.' Although my mother constantly said that 'time' was after her, I had to wait while she put on her hat. This was because she said she could not go out looking 'like the Wreck of the Hesperus.' At last we went on to the road outside where people were going up and down, carrying parcels and baskets. Traffic hardly ever came down our road. We passed houses on one side that had the same roof all the way down though the front of each house was slightly different from the next one, as were the little front gardens. They were where 'other people' lived, who it appeared were in some way different from us, like their front doors. I wondered what was 'other' about them but that was not considered 'proper' for me to do. On the other side we passed a mysterious high fence, a church hall that was always shut, then the 'Flats' where a different sort of 'other people' lived. Ordinary people were supposed to live in houses. Next came a big gate that was the rear entrance to St Saviour's Church. You could just see the church with its short spire on which a golden angel was blowing a golden trumpet. After the Scouts' hut, a strange church-like building set back from the road, we crossed Baker's Lane to go through the Three Pigeons alley with its iron arch having a gas lantern on it, to come out on to the High Street where the shops were.
The shop windows and displays were all covered with cards having words and big numbers painted on them. My mother would look at these for what seemed like ages but said, if I fidgeted, "We don't pay any price they ask!" and would move on to do it at another shop. When we did go in, there were men in there that to me had no legs because they were behind a 'counter'; they were very anxious for my mother to buy things. When she did, they wrapped the things up in a brown paper parcel and tied it with string so fast you hardly saw it done. Sometimes there were other children in push-chairs in the shops and I would have liked to speak to one but there was 'no time and we had to get on.'
At the cooked meat shop at the top of the High Street however I had certain hopes. The shop had golden joints of meat hanging out over the window, but the real meat inside was on white china pedestals. A lady in a white coat served my mother, wrapping her purchases in white paper. Then, outside, I asked if we could 'see the trains.' My mother would say "How is the enemy?" and look up at the clock on Christ Church steeple. She often said "we just have time." We crossed the big main road where plenty of traffic was passing, to go up an alleyway between the shops. Up there, tall iron railings ran along a path and on the other side of them, down below, were the railway lines. It was very quiet there until my mother cried out suddenly "Here it comes!" Rushing towards us was a great green engine puffing out black smoke and white smoke. As it thundered by us it screamed because it was going through Ealing Broadway Station at high speed. I could see people in the coaches behind and was a bit fearful for them, but glancing up at my mother saw she was looking at them with shining eyes as if she wished she was rushing along in the train. Once. a gentleman came up and, doffing his hat to my mother, said: "That was the Cheltenham Flyer," then to me: "Have you been on a train, sonny?" I said: "Yes, it makes the lampposts move." The gentleman looked nonplussed for a moment, then smiled and said: "It looks as though you have a young Einstein here!" My mother laughed and replied: "Children say funny things!"
The fact was that when going along in the push-chair I used to sometimes imagine I was driving a train and I saw the lampposts come towards me one after the other as if it was they that were moving. At home I tried to ask my mother what the gentlemen had said. She did not want to answer because she had a lot to do getting my father's lunch ready. When I made a nuisance of myself she replied I would not understand, but he had likened me to a man who had recently explained the world without God. When I asked: "Who is God?" my mother coloured up and said: "That is too sacred to discuss!" and shooed me into the front room.
There was a day that came round called 'washing-day,' My best policy was to keep well out of the way on that day. My mother filled the copper in the scullery with water and lit the fire underneath it, then put the sheets and things into the hot water, poking them with the copper stick. Afterwards, she took the wet things outside to where an awful machine called a 'mangle' stood; she had to turn it by hand to squeeze the water out before hanging the washing out to dry on the line.
One washing day I unwisely decided to play in the garden shed. I climbed on to a pile of deckchairs in there, imagining them to be something other than they were, when the pile slid sideways, with me on it, hit the door which opened and somersaulted me into the path of my mother, who dropped the washing she was carrying on to the dirty ground. She cried out "I'll get a baby in to put your nose out of joint!" as I bolted into the house. She did not follow me and I thought she said: "I've got another baby in ... " Where could it be? I asked myself and the only likely place was my parents' bedroom. I went gingerly upstairs and stood by their bedroom, the door of which stood ajar. They did not have to lock it to keep me out, forbidden was forbidden. I must solve the mystery, however, and forced myself to peep round the door. There was my parents' big bed but no baby. Yet in the far corner was a door -no doubt to another room. I had got to see what was behind it and, feeling somewhat hot under the collar, went right into my parents' bedroom. On the way to the other door, however, I stopped at my mother's dressing table. There was a beautiful china tray decorated in blue and gold with little pots to match and a china hand with gold rings on it. I did not touch anything but made for the mysterious door. It turned out to be a bed-clothes cupboard with shelves from floor to ceiling. I was disappointed in a way and thought I had better make my escape before I was caught, but could not help stopping for a further glance at the china tray. Then I realized I could see through the window behind right over the mysterious fence opposite our house. There were many gardens horizontal to the fence stretching back some way. All had washing flapping on the lines, except the nearest one that had little sailing boats pegged out along the line as if to dry. I stood fascinated, forgetting my perilous situation, when suddenly I realized my mother was standing by me. She did not kill me or even threaten, but was looking at the little boats with those shining eyes she had at certain times. She told me a man called Old Hands lived there who had sailed all round the world and now he was old, made boats for boys to float on the pond. She made it sound as if the most wonderful thing people could do was to sail round the world, of which I had the vague idea that it was a big ball in a net.
It was when we were going down our road one day that my mother said: "Here comes Old Hands!" He had a sparse white beard, a battered hat on his head and a grin on his face. He came up and leaned over my mother to whisper something in her ear. She let out a raucous laugh and cried out: "Go on with you, you've been a sailor all right! Take the boy with you and show him some of your boats!" Old Hands took me into his house by the back way, through a small brick-walled yard, where a fragrant smell was coming from wonderful-looking flowers in wire baskets on the wall. "Them's from foreign parts," he said. There was a glass tank full of water in which tiny fish were swimming, little boats floating on top and a sunken model ship on the bottom. "That's Davy Jones's Locker," said Old Hands. In his sitting room he showed me a little four-masted fully-rigged ship he had made and named all the ropes the sailors had to know and climb in bare feet. He pointed to the bunkhouse where the sailors slept and had to turn out in all weathers. "Up to the Fore-t-gallants!" cried Old Hands, "Set the Royals and look lively!" Then he put a finger on the masts of the little ship and squashed them flat, laughing on seeing the face I made. However, he pushed the little ship through the neck of a bottle when the masts and rigging stood up again on their own. He told me how it was done, and then tied tight knots in pieces of thread that he undid before I could say "West Ealing." Old Hands' wife brought in a piece of 'sea cake' (seed cake) straight out of the oven. When I had eaten my piece, he gave me a little boat made out of a whale's bones to take with me. It could not be floated on water but used on a carpet or the counterpane of my bed.
There was a lady who lived in a cottage near Old Hands we called Auntie Edith; she had worked for a doctor with my mother, and called me 'Nobbler'. One day she had to look after a little boy in her family who had lost his father, and I was sent to play with him. There was a big Noah's Ark full of wooden animals there. The auntie laid the table for tea and went into the kitchen to boil the kettle. The little boy got up to the table on his own but knocked over a jug with a crash. The auntie rushed in very angry, and whipping down his trousers smacked his little white bottom until it went red as he screamed for mercy. I looked on with horror and told my mother about it. She told me the auntie had often been smacked by the people who brought her up because she was an orphan and they did not want her.
My mother sometimes said I would get a smacked bottom or be put to bed for the day, but she never did those things to me. The threat she held over me was that I would be put into the children's home where they are 'made to behave.' Three men used our front room at times, one of whom was the Founder of the Homes for Motherless Children in Ealing. His wife came to tea sometimes. My father, I heard, sold provisions to the Cuckoo Schools poor children's home, 'where the boys had to polish their own boots -before they got breakfast!' I heard about Dr Barnardo who separated brothers and sisters so that they grew up knowing nothing of each other's existence. There was an instance, however, when my mother carried out her threat. I started 'messing myself like a new-born baby at my age.' My mother said I would not stop my games to 'go.' Then eventually she said if I did it again she would put me into Mr Smith's Homes for Motherless Children. I did do it again and execution was fixed for the morrow. I was dressed up in the morning and led down the Uxbridge Road to the Home. There was a wall outside and having arrived there, my mother gave me a last chance to say I would not do it again. I think I must have agreed because I had to wait while my mother went in 'to tell the Matron I was not coming.' Indeed, the symptom did not return but years later it was found I had a fault in my digestive system and a surgeon had to do something about it with his knife. In the meantime, a doctor came round and cut my throat on the kitchen table. He came again and cut a piece right off me. I wondered why grown-ups did these things to children.
It now happened that a girl came in who sat with me while I played, or took me out to the park. She did not cuddle me or anything but read what I heard was called a 'love-book.' All the same, I was pleased to have her, especially when she slept with me in my bed because my parents were gone out for the night. To have a companion for the long lone hours of bedtime was a boon to me when ghosts and ghoolies were on the landing outside. I had no idea what was different about girls. My girl did not come in all the time though I wished she would.
When out shopping I realised other children had sisters and brothers that lived with them, and eventually I asked my mother if I could have a sister of my own. My mother replied that she could not possibly 'go through that again;' the doctor had forbidden it. I had hurt her very much in being born, it had ruined her health. My mother added that next year I would be going to school where I would have 'boys to play with.’ First, though, we had to go on holiday and get through Christmas. We were to go on a train and a ship to the seaside.
To 'Foreign Parts'
There was a day that came round called Sunday when I was not allowed in the front room in the morning. My father was in there making a strange whistling sound as he added up hundreds of figures in big white books. "We are not free of the shop even on Sunday" my mother would say. We were all together at Sunday lunch, which was called 'Sunday dinner,’ and occasionally there was a third party, the minister of the church of which my parents were members, who was not like a priest. My father talked about what he 'believed,' of which I understood not a word.
If the weather was good, we would go across Ealing Green to walk in Walpole Park, all dolled up in our 'Sunday best.’ The children's swings were tied up and no ball games were allowed because it was Sunday. One Sunday we saw a Grove Chapel Hall open air meeting on Ealing Green, with auntie Edith singing the ‘sacred solo' to the accompaniment of a portable organ.
Then came the time when my mother got very excited with 'a lot to get ready' and seemed to like it. There were 'many things to be done.' I was taken to the big shop to get 'some clothes for the holiday.' I did not like new clothes as they were stiff and scratchy, but I did not complain when I was fitted out with a sailor's white suit, with a sailor's blue-striped collar and a sailor's white cotton hat. I requested to keep them on to go home in. Outside on the pavement two big girls came up, smiling. They touched the stripes on my collar 'for luck' and kissed me, which I liked.
On the way home my mother called at my grandparents' home in the next road to ours, to see them about looking after our house and dog while we were on the high seas. Grandfather could be very stern or very funny. He would put his finger up to the canary in its cage on the wall and threaten to have it cooked for his dinner. Then he went red in the face with laughing as the canary threatened him back with its open beak and outstretched wings, while granny flapped her apron at him and said he was ‘a wicked old man for giving the boy a bad example.' Their cat, Ephraim, always bolted on seeing me; they said I must have once pulled its tail, but I didn't, ever. Now on this occasion they laughed to see me because there was a framed photograph on the wall of what looked like me in my sailor suit. It was in fact of my father wearing a suit just like mine when he was my age, which I could not really imagine his ever having been.
It was on a Sunday that 'making sure we had everything we needed' came to a peak. My father was not in the front room but wearing a blazer and flannel trousers as he carried out the instructions my mother fired at him. She was very excited. I was put to bed early, the yellow sunrays that got through the blind made patterns on the wall that turned red as they climbed up it. I made my little whalebone boat weather a storm on my counterpane, then had qualms about the possibility of our real ship running into a storm of the sort related by Old Hands.
I was woken in the morning by my mother with the little soapy rock bunched up in her hand with which she attacked my naked person, though the torture was soon over on this morning. Downstairs, I had to wear an extra large bib so as not to get egg on my sailor suit. I had noticed our sea-chest in the hall and a hand-bag full to the brim that my mother said was 'for the beach,’ whatever that was. There came a knock on the door and my mother cried out: "He's here!" It was Mr Reeves our next-door neighbour who was a taxi owner. He was a smart man with a waxed moustache and a peaked cap. His fine brown taxi was standing outside our door. There was a light yellow sunshine in the street where no-one was about. Our sea-chest was loaded on, my father came out last, locked and tried the front door, got in, and we were off. The taxi went down empty roads, except that there were people about at the station, though they were very quiet, hardly talking at all. We had to go down some stairs to get to our train, at the bottom of which I turned round and saw a horrid monster with glaring red eyes looking at me from a cave. I yelled. My mother said: "What is the matter with him?" My father grinned and told me it was only the buffers at the end of the line to pull up the train 'if the driver forgets to stop.'
Our train was waiting without any steam visible. When we had got into it and I had a seat at the window, it went: "ding-dangding-dang-ding-dang" without moving. I asked when we were going to see the ship. I was told "We are going to sail from the Tower," which I thought peculiar. At last a man in a uniform appeared on the platform. He took out a huge watch, looked at it, then holding up a flag with a sort of gold bit on it, touched a pair of round wires with it as he blew a whistle. Our train started to move, going er-er-er-er-er instead of puff-puff-puff. As we pulled out of the station I heard the grinding of the wheels on lines that seemed to go this way and that until they straightened up. Then we just rolled on, the wheels going clickety-click, and the telegraph poles appearing to move like the lampposts. We passed hundreds of houses and their backgardens, all with rarely anybody in them. At one moment I realized our sea-chest had disappeared but I imagined it must be somewhere. At last we got out at a station called Mark Lane, where I got told off for hanging back wanting to see the engine. My father said it was an electric train, that it went by 'electricity’ - which I did not understand.
Outside there was no 'lane' but a great wide street with an old castle on the far side, nor was there a tower to be seen. We proceeded down by the side of the old castle, however, and suddenly I saw the ship and the towers - there were two of them, one each side of a big river. The ship was much bigger than I had imagined, with no sails but with a huge yellow funnel and great boxes on the sides on which its name "The Golden Eagle," was pointed out to me. We went on board where my mother enthusiastically started to set up a sort of camp on the afterdeck, on a special seat that would float if the ship sank. The funnel let off steam with a noise that scared me, so my mother put her hands over my ears, saying it meant we were about to sail. I saw the sailors pull up the gangway, there was a great splashing of water as the paddles began to turn and we moved slowly away from the pier. My mother looked very pleased; my father said: "Look, we are passing Traitors' Gate, if you went in there, you stood to come out without you head!" My mother, however, observed seriously: "Those were terrible days when some people had the power of life and death over others!"
There was a bridge between the two towers and this broke in two to let our ship go through without knocking its funnel off. Then, as we were under way, my father said: "I think I'll go down and get fifty black cats for the holiday," and was told: "Take the boy with you while I put up a snack." I would never understand grownups: what would we do with fifty cats?
My father took me down into the ship. There was no bunkhouse on the deck and no 'cargo for money’ as Old Hands had said would be down there. We came to a hot oily part where the engines were, huge wheels going round making great steel rods thrust back and forth, turning the paddles. My father declared: "How's that then!" and told me he had sailed in a battleship that 'ate coal.1 We went on to a part with glass doors of the sort that could not be seen through. My father told me he was going in there to get some black cats but that children were not allowed, so I must 'wait for a couple of minutes outside.' As I waited, the door opened and a man with a big red nose came out. He looked down at me and said: "Now, then, sailor boy, is this your first trip afloat?" I said "yes." His eyes seemed to water and he breathed a sort of sweet breath over me. "Once I was a clean young rip like you," he said, "until I signed on shipboard to go and sow my wild oats in foreign parts. Now I have to sail for ever with the demon drink." He pointed at the glass doors and went on: "Them is the gates of 'ell, don't you never go through them!" He told me what to say if I was tempted:
"Wine is a mocker.
Strong drink is raging!"
and went in a door nearby.
I was afraid my father would come out with a red nose but he looked exactly the same as before. He said he had to wait to get served and had only a white box in his hand. This did have a picture of a black cat on it and there were cigarettes inside. My father said I would get a train set from the black cat factory one day when he had enough coupons, suggesting to me that black cats not only made cigarettes but also train sets. I found this difficult to believe. My father then said he was going 'to see a man about a dog, did I want to go too?' We went through the door the man with the red nose had gone and it turned out to be a special sort of lavatory. The man was just coming out and said to my father: "Look after that young sailor boy, shipmate!" My father grinned and remarked: "He's been aboard ship all right!"
Back on the after-deck my mother had made a picnic. She liked picnics but I did not; there was usually nowhere safe to put down the drink or the plate with the sandwich on it. We were passing ships with different coloured funnels tied up at tall black buildings. When my mother gave me a drink of hot tea from what she called the 'thermos,’ I said:
"Wine is a mocker.
Strong drink is raging!"
My father exclaimed: "Where did he learn that?" I did not tell them and my mother thought Old Hands had taught it to me. He didn't have a red nose; I don't think he ever went through the gates of Hell.
After the picnic they 'settled back.’ In fact all the people sitting around the after-deck were 'settled back,’ 'having a rest,' as the ship sailed on. The sun was shining down from a blue sky and the only great movement of the water was made by the paddles. I asked if I could go and see the engines myself. They looked at each other as much as to say they didn't think it likely I would 'settle down’ They said there were 'too many adults about to let a child climb up anywhere dangerous’ and gave me permission to go as far as the engines. In fact, people looked at me and many of them smiled but did not say anything. After looking at the engines for a while I suddenly felt tired from the strong air and having been got up early in the morning. I made my way back and lay down on the special chair with a blanket over me, imagining I was in the bunkhouse, and dozed off, helped by the vibration of the engines below.
It must have been the change of rhythm of the engines that woke me up. The "Golden Eagle" was approaching a platform on stilts right out on the sea, the land being far away. My parents did not move so it was not the end of our voyage. The ship pulled up to the platform and the gangway was run out: there were people waiting to come on board. I went to see my first people from 'foreign parts.’ They did look a bit different, they talked and laughed more than people at home. A sunny-faced little girl gave me a big smile but of course she was with her family. Other children were always with a family. As our ship sailed away from the platform I saw this was connected to the land a long way away by a railway that ran over the sea on stilts. I told my parents what I had seen and my father remarked: "That was Southend on Mud!"
We had another small picnic after which I went off again as the ship just sailed along on the smooth sea. I went past the engines after a while and got to the Gates of Hell. I could hear more talking and laughing and tinkling of glasses in there but nobody with a red nose came out. Beyond was another staircase and going up this brought me out on to the foredeck. There were people sitting around as elsewhere, but there was a mast and some sailors wearing jerseys standing by it and talking softly. I thought it was all too quiet for a ship at sea and sang out to the sailors: "Avast there! Up to the yards and look lively!" People laughed and the sailors grinned at me, except one who replied: "Aye aye, Sir!" and made as if to shin up the mast. A voice boomed down from above: "Put that man in irons, mister! I give the orders on this ship!" I thought I was for it, but all the people laughed again, and an old lady poked me with her umbrella. "You are a clever boy," she said, "look through my opera glasses and see if you can see Margate yet." The glasses had what I knew as mother of pearl on their outsides, painted with flowers. I looked where she pointed and was surprised to see on the murky horizon what looked like a tower and other buildings. I was astonished and handed back the glasses, managing to say I saw the tower. The old lady said I had better run back to my parents as we were 'nearly there.'
I went back and told them I had seen Margate and could we buy a pair of opera glasses. My father replied he would look out for a toy telescope. The sun was now low in the sky and before long we had come up to the towers that were Margate pier. We went down the gangway behind a man carrying his little child on his shoulder. As we reached the road some big girls came along wearing pyjamas with wide-bottomed trousers in the very street. The little boy cried out: "Look at the funny ladies, daddy!" They all laughed while my mother exclaimed: "Oh Lor, flappers!"
Now at a house not far away we were let in and taken up to a bedroom where, to my surprise, I saw our sea-chest standing on the floor. There was an 'unpacking' flurry, then I was put to bed as my parents wanted to 'go out for a meal.' They told me there were people in the house. I went to sleep to the sound of roundabout music coming in from somewhere outside.
When I woke up in the morning there were my parents asleep in the big bed. I thought, "how long will I have to stay quiet before they wake up?" when a church clock chimed outside. I heard my father say: "We'll have to go down so as not to miss the breakfast!" My mother was not pleased, and saying: "No rest, even on holiday," she jumped out of bed. My father said we had better have 'a lick and a promise’, but I was not let off my usual 'being got ready’ as my mother said people in the dining-room would be 'looking at me.' In fact, when we got down there I thought the people did anything but look at me, apart from perhaps a glance, for they were 'keeping themselves to themselves,' as I was told is advisable. A lady in black appeared and did look at me as if she was afraid I would make rude noises or a mess on the tablecloth, which was set with toast and rolls, such as we did not have on the breakfast table at home. My mother somewhat pointedly ordered a boiled egg and bread and butter for me, and when it came it had its head already cut off and the bread and butter was cut up into 'soldiers.’ My parents had sausage, bacon and fried eggs which I thought was a lot.
After breakfast there was a flurry upstairs as we had to make sure we had everything we would need 'for the beach.' I looked out of the window and saw a string of donkeys going by, on the way to the beach, I was told, to be ridden by children.
Once outside the door it was but a short walk along the road to where two or three stone steps took us on to the beach. It was an expanse of brown ground called 'sand,' covered with the marks of hundreds of feet, a number of boats upside down, and a pile of deckchairs. The light was brighter than at home and a special sea-smell permeated everything. My father took a couple of deckchairs from the pile and we set up camp not far from the sea where other families were encamped, as I saw it, in sort of little private fortresses. Leaving my mother in one of the deckchairs with her bag, my father took me to a stall where brightly-coloured balls and other inflatable things were hanging up. He bought a tin bucket and wooden spade for me, a 'Tit-bits' magazine for my mother and a Sexton Blake 'blood' for himself. As we returned to our chairs, more families were arriving on the beach. Now I was told to 'dig the sand for sea-shells' while they were reading, though I heard my mother say she did not want to 'spend the holiday reading on the beach.’
I was pleased to find sea-shells did come up, as also a small crab which I put in the bucket with a view to taking it down to the sea. I dug the sand until the inevitable picnic time arrived, being given tea with a sandwich on a plate and told 'not to get sand in it.’ After that however my parents ‘snoozed’ and thoughts of looking at other families came into my head; I would not wander far, being careful to keep our 'camp’ in sight. Making sure my going had not been noticed, I began my departure. The 'other families' did indeed appear to present a fortress closed against me, until I came upon a child of my own age, alone, and engaged in making a sandcastle. I don't know whether it was a boy or a girl, but I began to play with that child and stayed for hours and hours. I looked up and saw the child's mother and father, but they just smiled at me. I was completely absorbed until I heard my own parents' voices saying: "There he is!" They said they 'hoped I had not been a nuisance' but the other parents replied 'on the contrary, their child had been glad of the company.' I was very reluctant to leave, though my mother said I could play with that child again. As expected, of course, I never did see that child again.
The next day we went on the beach my mother said we should paddle in the sea. My father rolled up the trouser legs of his flannels and made a funny face as he went in, as if the water was cold. It was very shallow. He was still wearing his trilby hat and smoking his pipe; his 'For King and Empire’ badge was on his sports jacket, instead of the 'Brotherhood’ badge he wore on Sundays at home. The sand underfoot down there where the water wafted slowly in was ribbed; the water was cold at first but immediately after felt warm. My mother held her skirt up a little bit and collected a sprig of seaweed to take home that 'would tell the weather.' An aeroplane flew along low over the sea, the passengers in the cockpit waving to the bathers. My mother said it was a trip for which you paid a few shillings and a little bit more if you wanted to loop the loop. She said she wanted to do it and upset my father. He said she was a married woman with responsibilities and even threatened to go home if she went in the aeroplane. I was glad she did not go up in the air and cause trouble. My father said; "Why not go for a sail?" We did do that, getting into a boat with a lot of people and one sailor who handled the single big sail. It was more like Old Hands must have done many a time. When we got back to the little jetty, we had our photograph taken and I fell into the sea. It was not deep there, I saw everything green for a moment but came up again. My mother said she thought I was a 'gonner,' but, strangely, it didn't worry me.
Another day we went to Margate's "Dreamland." It was not at all dreamy. The 'roundabout' music I had heard in the boarding house came from a "Trip round the World on an Underground River." A windmill was going round on top of the starting point and a large waterwheel was turning. The passengers sat in a tub that was first pulled up a short incline, then allowed to slide into the water with a splash to go into the tunnel of the river; this was dark nearly all the way, except for a few scenes from different parts of the world on the sides which were lit up. I liked it very much. I heard a man say it was really for a 'canoodle' with a girl and I wished my girl had been there, although I had no idea what a 'canoodle' might be.
Afterwards my father showed me how to use a machine that shot at a row of grinning pussy-cats sitting on a wall. I never succeeded in knocking them all down; it cost another penny to make them all come up again.
Sunday came round at Margate as well, sunny and quiet, all the shops shut and the beach deserted. As my mother went out the back of the house for some reason, I asked my father why 'everything stopped on Sunday.' He replied: "We must have one day a week on which to relax!" He grinned in a way that made me think he felt getting the chance to relax didn't often come his way. When my mother reappeared she cried out to me: "Go and see the baby white rabbits!" I went out the back and saw an old man who had three hutches in which were mother white rabbits with their babies. He let me hold one and I asked if I could take it home. He said "Yes, if your parents will let you!"
There was a bike shed out there and among the bikes were two almost exactly like my parents' bikes, one having a dress-guard, the other a big one with a little saddle and stirrups on the cross-bar. They were my parents' bikes, but how they got there I could not imagine. It turned out we were going to ride to Ramsgate that day, with me riding on my father's 28" B.S.A., which, grinning, he said would give him a b.s.a., but did not explain.
We cycled along by the empty beach, where only a service like the Gospel Hall one on Baling Green was going on, and passed a Salvation Army "open air1 where a man was saying he was 'happy in the Blood of the Lamb.' Then we went onto a long leafy road, completely empty, where my father declared: "Another jolly old mile done!" every time we passed a milestone.
Ramsgate was very quiet because it was Sunday there too. On a seat, my mother produced the inevitable picnic after which we made out way along a jetty to the Lifeboat Station. There was a service going on, a man in yellow oilskins and sou'wester leading it. They sang a hymn:
"Eternal Father strong to save...",
each verse ending :
"... Those in peril on the sea."
I heard my father say to my mother: "There's no back way out of a ship in trouble" and she looked serious. Behind the man I could see a wonderfully quiet sea with the afternoon sun glinting on the ripples and could not imagine being 'in peril' on it. On the other hand I had heard from Old Hands what it was like to be 'on the rigging' in a raging storm.
Back in Margate we had days on the beach, further trips to Dreamland where I went round the world again and shot the pussycats, we made a couple of coach trips and bike-rides; I drove a donkey cart and had ice creams. Then it was the day before the end of the holiday. They said we were going to the pier-o show, though it was not on a pier but in the Winter Gardens although it was summer. The Pierrots were dressed in clown-like white clothes with black bobbles on them and sang and danced to a piano. Then a big man came on dressed as a little boy carrying a jam-jar by a string handle, and a fishing net. He sang:
"Has anybody seen my tiddler?..."
and the audience laughed their heads off. I thought it was a sad song about how he had lost the little fish he had caught, but every time he repeated the refrain:
"Has anybody seen my tiddler?"
the people roared, even my father and my mother, who looked as though she did not ought to. I of course knew nothing about innuendo.
The next morning after breakfast there was a terrible bustle upstairs 'packing everything up.' When at last my parents were ready, I declared: "The man said I could have a baby white rabbit, can I go and get it now?" They looked at each other in agitation. My mother replied "I'm afraid we can't have a rabbit at home, we've nowhere to keep it." I said my father 'could make a hutch,' to which my mother replied the neighbours might object to the smell. I said "Rabbits don't smell," at which my mother retorted "It might attract rats!" I said: "Everybody has a white rabbit, why shouldn't I?" and added a rude remark about what sort of parents they were. At that, my usually long-suffering father lost his temper and, saying: "You can't have a rabbit and that's that!" gave me a clout on the ear. So it was that our procession descended the stairs, me with a red face, and the landlady waiting at the bottom to see us out. My mother said I was upset at the holiday being over and the landlady answered: "Children can be a trial on holiday!"
We left on the "Crested Eagle" which looked exactly the same as the "Golden Eagle", and I soon forgot about the white rabbit, looking through a toy telescope my parents had bought me a few days before. It was nowhere as good as the opera-glasses I had looked through before and I yearned to have a pair of them. When we got home our house was exactly as we had left it. The only thing was that when I looked through my bedroom window the chimney stacks of the houses looked like ships' funnels. I told Old Hands about my voyage and noted particularly he had nothing like a red nose.
Christmas is coming
The days began to get shorter and colder, the fire was lit in the grate and the coal scuttle filled. Coalmen came now and then, bringing in the coal in sacks on their backs and tipping it into the coal-hole. I was not allowed to touch the coal but I was told off if I saw the fire needed some coal on it and did not tell my mother. It was called 'letting the fire go out.’ The gaslight was lit; it was said we were going to have 'electricity' that would be better. The gaslight was really a yellow flame that went brilliant white because of the 'mantle,' which had to be renewed when it burnt out. It was a 'cosy' light when the dark evenings came, until bedtime at least, which was immutable. Whatever I was doing I had to stop immediately because it was 'time for bed,’ there being 'no time' to finish my game. There was often 'no time’ to do something or other because it was 'time' to do one of the many things my mother had to do. How there could be a 'time' and 'no time' at the same time was a mystery to me.
Bedtime meant being undressed and going upstairs where there was neither gaslight nor fire. My mother put a little paraffin lamp on my washstand that made a pattern on the ceiling. It was blown out when my mother came up to bed. Sometimes, in the coldest weather, a "Beatrice" paraffin heating stove was put in my bedroom, to be transferred to my parents' bedroom when I was put to bed. One evening when we went up there were black curtains of soot hanging on everything because the stove had flared up. It was not my fault because it had happened before I was taken up. A stone hot water bottle would be put in my bed; it was inside a sock but only warmed one part of the bed and was too hot to cuddle at first, then too cold.
It was at this time my mother said: "Christmas is coming," and did not sound enthusiastic about it like she did about the holiday. Out shopping, some ladies said: "Christmas is coming" in the same tone, though there were people who remarked: "Never mind, Christmas is coming!" As for me, I saw the shop windows all brighten up, some with coloured lights and holly round the borders. In toyshops, an electric train went round all the time and there would be a working model of what was called Meccano. In the bike shop at the top of Ealing Green a miniature train that went by real steam puffed round inside the shop. At John Sanders' big shop I went for a ride on a little railway affair to Jack Frosts's cave. A girl lifted me off and asked if I knew who she was. I said: "Jack Frost," she kissed me and gave me a present of a big top that hummed different tunes. There were pictures of Father Christmas everywhere; my mother thought it was not good for me to believe in Father Christmas because I would not like it when I found out he did not exist. Actually, in the big shop called Rowses at West Ealing there was a Father Christmas, but you could see his beard was not real, proving he was an ordinary man dressed up. The church hall in our road that was nearly always closed opened up in a blaze of light and filled up with postmen in their round helmets who pushed baskets on wheels full of parcels.
A postman came to our door and said he had a parcel 'for the boy from Father Christmas.’ My mother laughlingly said it must be a mistake and asked me if she should send it back. I said "no" and she took it in. It contained a glass railway engine full of toffees and had come from Aunt Lily who did exist. That was a joke of mother's of the sort I did not like as they made me nervous. I was woken up in the night by hammering and sawing; my father was making stands for the shop's special Christmas display.
I learned my other grandparents were coming from Sidcup to stay with us for Christmas. I would have to move into the little back room upstairs to sleep. I did not mind that, I looked forward to having company in the house, even if there would be no children.
The front room became very cosy with a fire in the grate, a bit of holly round the overmantel and bowls of nuts and raisins placed on the shelves to each side. Everything in there was familiar to me although much of it remained outside my understanding. On the overmantel were little shelves with china 'ornaments,’ a china battleship, a china lighthouse, a china tank. Opposite on the wall was a picture of a battleship's crew on the battleship. Around the room above the picture rail were several photographs of 'Maypole' shops with their staffs of seven men and boys in front of them, one being my father in his long apron with the fringe on the bottom. Then on another wall was a bookcase full of books. I would love to be able to read! Central on the mantelshelf, a pendulum clock 'told the time’ with a measured 'tick.’ I found this more acceptable than the silent devil-clock in the living room that ruled the roost. Its case was red and once I got it down with a view to making its hands go backwards. I dropped it and its inside came out. My mother cried out she 'must have the time’ and took it to Old Hands who put it back together again.
Now just before Christmas my mother took me on a trip down to West Ealing where my father's Maypole shop was. It was dusk. Having gone up the High Street, we turned down the Uxbridge Road to pass huge houses that rich people must have lived in, passed Alexandra House, Smith's Home for Motherless Boys that I looked at askance, and got to the part where the shops began. There was a shop with a half-window showing golden things behind a grille, brilliantly lit up, with a big clock above them to tell the time. I thought rich people must buy their presents from that shop. I had to wait outside a double-windowed shop that was a stationers on one side and a toyshop on the other, while my mother went in there. Halfway up the window on the toy side was a shelf with miniature furniture and everything a doll would need for her house. My mother came out with her purchase and we went on past the sports shop that had full-size cricket stumps and bats on the wall up over it. It was run by a man who had played cricket for England. I noticed air guns in his window; shooting was evidently a sport. On street corners there were stalls selling fruit, vegetables and chestnuts for Christmas, lit by special gas lamps that hissed and popped.
After crossing over by the Kinema where a light ran up the wall and made an arrow that pointed at the entrance, I had no difficulty in recognising 'the shop.' It had "Maypole" in big golden letters over it, and a temporary counter in front from which the boy, who rode the 'trike' with groceries round the roads on Saturdays, was selling eggs. There were pictures of Father Christmas stuck on the window. My mother went in a door at the side as the shop was full of people. I could see my father in there, patting up a block of finest butter and imprinting a picture on it, and then wrapping it up in white paper. He came out into the office and gave my mother some provisions parcelled up ready for her, and also 'money for the bird.'
Outside, on the other side of the road, was a raised gallery on which men were selling chickens and turkeys from rows of them hanging up, all plucked, their heads hanging down. The men slapped each chicken or turkey they tried to sell to show how fat it was, but I heard they would not sell many until later on into the night when the prices would have to come down. My mother went into a butcher's shop where a chicken or turkey was packed up ready for her to collect and pay for. That was 'the bird,’ my mother said.
Making our way back, we passed a shop with three large brown brass balls hanging up outside. My mother told me poor people would have to pawn their watches and things 'to pay for their Christmas dinner,' which I did not understand. She said that in an almost angry voice as though she thought it ought not to be so.
The next day was Christmas Eve which I had to spend in the front room. "Chick's Own" children's paper had been ordered for me because I was about to go to school. The pictures in "Chick's Own" had their stories printed underneath in words broken up into syllables for children to learn to read. Chick, who was a chick, was usually the hero. When Jack Sprat would eat no fat and his wife would not eat her lean, Chick solved the problem, by changing their plates round. Picture books were my great standby. I had an old one that had belonged to my mother, about the adventures of Golliwog and the Girls. The Girls were Dutch dolls whose arms and legs moved and who were always smiling. They did not always bother to wear clothes. The book I had told of Golliwog as Robinson Crusoe, wrecked on a desert island. When savages came in canoes he frightened them off by flapping an umbrella he had made at them. He was saved by the Girls who arrived in a sailboat, all smiling as usual.
The whole house had become cosy; my mother was in the kitchen with a lot to do to get ready. It was late afternoon when the knock came at the door and I tried to get there first, but my mother beat me to it. She opened it to the grandparents from Sidcup, calling them 'mum and dad,' and took them straight upstairs to their room. The grandad was a man with a bristly moustache, the granny small. I was sent off to bed.
I only slept lightly and feigned sleep in fact when my mother came in to blow out my light. She put something on the table beside me but it was too dark for me to see what it was. I heard the grandparents come up to bed and was woken up by my father coming in downstairs. I heard he came in at one o'clock on what was Christmas morning.
I found I had a box of six men riding camels, and a tin of toffees that was also a mountain cable car; it had a pulley on top and some thread inside to make it go. I started to play with my presents right away as I thought it would be some time before my mother appeared. When my mother did come to get me up her face was all flushed, due to the kitchen I guessed. She said I was to go in the front room and say "hello" to the grandparents, 'behaving myself,' as it would not be long before the Christmas dinner was on the table.
In the warm front room the granny and grandad sat where a black bottle and wine glasses had appeared. Dates were on the shelves now, together with nuts and raisins, but I must not touch them before the meal. The grandad grinned at me and the granny smiled, but I didn't think they had had much to do with children. She was smaller than the grandad. The grandad asked me if I played the cornet, putting up his hands and making as if he was playing one. I replied: no, I only ate ice cream out of them. He laughed and said: "What about the one string fiddle?" and made as if he was playing that. I said I had not even seen one of those. He replied: "Well, I reckon at least you can play a piece of paper round a comb!" It was a bit hard going with them; of course they were less familiar to me than my grandparents round the corner, though there was something familiar about this granny. At last my mother came in and announced: "The bird is on the table!" They got up in obvious anticipation of something good.
In the living room my father was at the head of the table on which our best lace tablecloth was laid, and best china plates together with shining knives, forks and spoons. On the marble-topped sideboard, blue crested china pots were filled with steaming vegetables so that the lids would not fit on properly. In front of my father was the big chicken or turkey. As everybody looked on with gusto he took up a long knife and, sharpening it with a flourish on a long sort of fluted dagger, he said: "Here's to a good coming 1926!" and began to carve. Pots were transferred from the sideboard and everybody took what they wanted. My plate was made up for me, I had some poultry, some little cabbages called Brussels sprouts, round chestnuts and crispy roast potatoes. A gravy was poured all over it that consisted of hundreds of little golden bubbles which seemed to have a life of their own. My mother declared: "Tuck in!" and they all did.
After the main meal a Christmas pudding was brought in. I was given a piece and told to chew it carefully 'in case there is something in it." There was, a silver sixpence. My father said: "Don't spend it all in riotous living!" When they had finished eating tea was served, for they all liked their 'cup of tea.' The teapot had a crocheted 'cosy' on it with the picture of a battleship worked on it. My father sang:
"Hark the herald angels sing,
Maypole tea is just the thing.
Drink it hot or drink it cold.
It's the best that's ever sold."
They laughed, although my mother remarked she had thought he would bring 'the Maypole shop' into it somewhere. Then they said they were going to retire to the front room to 'sleep it off.’ That meant they were going to snooze and my absence would be appreciated. So I remained in the living room to play under the table with my glass railway engine, men on camels and other things.
Eventually, legs appeared, my mother and father were making the 'cold snacks' for the evening. It seemed my other grandparents were coming round and they, being full of Christmas dinner like us, would only want 'high tea.’ I heard the granny from Sidcup tell my mother "I'll say this for you, Gwenny, you know how to put up a good meal!"
My granny and grandad from round the corner arrived. I saw the two lots of grandparents greet each other rather solemnly, I thought, though they did use first names. The grannies seemed to know each other well and there was a similarity between them, as though they were sisters. They sat down to their high tea, then retired to the front room for what my father said was to be an 'entertainment.' I got down behind the chairs in there to string up my toffe-tin cable car. The granny from round the corner was Granny Maggs and the one from Sidcup was Granny Martin. I heard Granny Martin say to Granny Maggs: "What about a drink, Harriet?" But Granny Maggs replied: "I never touch it!", at which Grandfather Maggs looked pained I thought. Only Granny and Grandad Martin had port wine, though neither of them had red noses, nor did they rage.
The 'entertainment' started when my father appeared as a funny man, wearing baggy short trousers and holly in his hair. He said they would have to guess the characters from the "pictures' and what he called 'variety.' They laughed at him while the grannies did so a bit solemnly. My father went out and my mother came in wearing a hat with a very tall feather and talked in a funny voice. Somebody said she was 'Nellie Wallace.’ I had heard the names of the people they represented mentioned, but had not seen them. When my father came in as Bill Sykes, to whom he referred to at times, I did not know he was from one of the books in the bookcase. In fact I lost interest and concentrated on making my cable car run on its thread until I heard Grandfather Martin play musical instruments that he did not have. His imitations, and his playing a piece of tissue paper round a comb were so funny he had a job not to laugh at himself through his moustache. It was then that my mother noticed me and said it was long after my bedtime and hauled me off.
The next day was called Boxing Day and my father gave out he was going with Grandfather Martin to see the Bees play. I had a job imagining bees playing, but it turned out they meant the Brentford Football Club called "The Busy Bees." Brentford was not far away and we heard the roar of the crowd at home when Brentford scored a goal. After that, the grandparents from Sidcup went home. The next morning my father had to open the shop at 8.30 a.m. as usual and everything returned to 'ordinary’ as if it had not happened.
Norman Maggs
This extract © Peter Maggs 2017