Custard Cream Confessions

Part 4

Eventually, two rooms in the house were let to a widow and her daughter who was my age, named Joan Bull, and then the games were often shared, but never my dream world. The Bull family occupied one room on the first floor as living room/kitchen, and the largest attic room as their bedroom. The small attic room as spasmodically occupied by a maid-of-all-work referred to by my mother as the “the shiksa” which simply means, in Yiddish, a non-Jewish girl, but which my mother, being religiously bigoted, always managed to make sound derogatory. In the years from approximately 1925 until the years of the forties when cheap labour became hard to get, we had domestic help. It was the normal pattern amongst the small – and not so small – business people to employ such a person, often resident. In my recollection these were mostly Jewish families, of which there were many in Forest Gate. Undoubtedly, as I realised in later years, it was exploited labour, but probably not so bad monetarily as it could have been, at least not in our case, as I remember my mother negotiating the wage as ten shillings a week plus food and accommodation. (This was precisely the princely sum I was to receive many years later when I started work in 1932.)

At that time (the late twenties) nothing worked by pushing a button – gramophones had to be wound, cars cranked with a handle, washing hand-washed, cakes hand-beaten. No refrigeration meant butter, milk, etc. had to be kept in the cellar to be cold, covered with a wet cloth and of course shopping was almost daily.

What general impressions do I have of that period? Many tradesmen called regularly, most of our meat was delivered by the traditional whistling boy on a bicycle, the milkman doled out milk into one’s own jug, dipping the dispenser into a large churn – highly unhygienic one would imagine. Bread was delivered by a baker with a horse-drawn cart, handling both horse and bread indiscriminately. Coal cart drivers called their wares “C-O-A-A-AL” around the streets; the men wore sacks roughly made into hats which hung down their backs, enabling them to carry the sacks of coal more comfortably. The coal was shot straight into the coal-hole to the cellar, with my sister or me standing by counting how many were delivered to ensure we were not overcharged. Supermarkets did not, of course, exist, but shops selling several different kinds of goods were just coming into existence – in Woodgrange Road there was a Penny Bazaar (the origin of Marks and Spencer’s) with all the goods laid out on stalls around the shop. Sainsbury’s sold groceries and dairy products only, with an egg stall laid out in front of the shop – cracked ones were sold cheaply and placed in your own basin (about a halfpenny each). Fresh fish shops, now almost non-existent, were as common as butchers – there were three within walking distance.

Most of the shopping was my responsibility, probably because I rushed about and was so quick, weaving my magic tales to myself all the while. One job I hated was taking my father’s tea round to the shop. This consisted of liquid tea in a covered enamel jug, plus a cake in a bag, but I often managed to spill it and I can feel the hot tea now, dripping through the little wicker basket and running down my leg. The fact that it was such an inexorable daily task made me resent it but it continued for some years. Another shopping exploit concerned biscuits, which were sold loose. I loved custard creams passionately and on my way home from buying some, ate one – and then another – and then another. My mother soon spotted short weight and I was sent back to demand the full half-a-pound – I cannot remember how it ended, but certainly I would have been quite unable to own up to eating some.

The nearest street market was about two miles away, reached by bus on tram, and my mother enjoyed visiting it occasionally, sometimes dragging along a reluctant girlie (me) with her. I remember she had a thing about gloves and I spent many boring minutes by a stall surrounded by gloves of all shapes and sizes – certainly kid gloves must be “soft as butter”, I recollect! Kathleen always seemed to manage to avoid these trips (although she would certainly have enjoyed them more than I did) probably because she was so much older (4 ½ years). She and I seldom played together as we really had no common interests, but I can remember no quarrels. In any outgoing activity, I usually led the way, especially if it was escapade which might not win approval – and she silently applauded. We slept together in a double bed, and often at night I composed a story while she listened; sometimes I illustrated this with shadow figures on the wall, as our bedroom was lit at night with a small paraffin lamp.

A Watchmaker's Daughter

Part 3 of the memoirs: Childhood in 1920s London

The watches in their disintegrated state lived under wine glasses mostly (usually broken ones with the base missing) to keep the watches dust-free. It was a tiny shop, with room for only one or two behind the counter and possibly three customers, and my father spent many solitary hours there – he employed no-one. Shop hours were 9am till 8pm and 9pm Saturdays. Around the walls hung clocks of various shapes, sizes and sounds, which created a cacophony of uncoordinated chiming throughout the day.

Evidently the shop generated enough income to keep the family in relative comfort, although with little surplus. Christmas was relied upon to raise at least a quarter of the year’s income: the shop was well-known for its crystal necklaces and hundreds were sold during the run-up to the festive season. Also, Japanese-style coffee sets were fashionable and saleable and both my sister and I helped in the selling at Christmas time, when we were old enough, although I was never keen on either jewellery or the selling of it. I can remember an unexpected source of income one year, when Britain came off the Gold Standard – whatever that means – and consequently people were rushing to sell gold at a good price. My father brought the gold home at night to weigh up and get it ready for re-sale and melt-down. He much preferred to buy old jewellery rather than sovereigns and half-sovereigns, as everyone knew the value of these (37/6d, old money) and consequently he did not make much profit on sovereigns.

Most Sundays he spent in the East End (Stepney) buying new stock, getting fine engraving done (he did the everyday stuff himself) and perhaps attending a boxing match at Blackfriars Ring. This was his only recreation, except for a very occasional trip to watch West Ham football when I accompanied him and Kay minded the shop. He had no holidays as he only closed on Bank holidays, but I never heard him complain and I believe he enjoyed his quiet working day. Once or twice he tried taking a young lad (usually from the Jewish orphanage where he had spent some years of his own childhood) with a view to teaching him the trade, but it did not work out and I think he resented his solitude being invaded – and of course the shop was hardly big enough to house two people permanently.

My period of childhood spent on Sebert Road was in the main a happy time, except for the last few months, of which more later. The terraced houses were larger than they appeared to be from the outside, as they were two-storied; three bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor and two attic rooms above. Opposite the house was a small biscuit factory run by an Italian family, producing ice-cream wafers and cones. Their children seldom played with anyone outside of their own “clan” – we regarded them with curiosity but no animosity.

I spent many, many hours in the garden. It was a fairly long, narrow one, with a very small lawn on which grew a cherry tree. There was a greenhouse containing no plants except a vine producing nice black grapes. Neglected flower beds, loganberries, gooseberries and weeds comprised the rest of the garden. The railway ran along the bottom of it and I liked to sit on the fence there, watching the trains go by and waving to the drivers, until one day I fell off and part of the way down the embankment of the railway line, to be rescued by my sister – luckily no adult ever heard of this escapade. 

Tar and Touring Violinists

Grandma Sybil's Memoirs, Part 2: Forest Lane and the First World War

The small shop with flat above where I was born (165 Forest Lane) has been demolished and the space where it stood incorporated into a Girls’ High School, but the rest of the row of little shops are still there at the time of writing. Amazingly, the shop next-door to my birthplace is still a café. Across the road, my father’s tiny lock-up jewellery and watch-repair shop remained a jeweller’s until quite recently but the 90s recession put paid to it – how sad. That shop held many memories for me, mainly but not wholly pleasant ones. More about the shop later.

Recall of features of my place of birth are somewhat dim, but I recollect a little shop selling cheap jewellery and knick knacks, and I particularly remember being allowed to serve someone with a penny whistle. The shop parlour was dark and pokey, with the stairs leading from it to two bedrooms above. Lighting and cooking were by gas (although electricity was quite common by then) and one lit oneself to bed by candlelight, there being no gas above ground floor level. I lived there until the age of three (1920). The most vivid memories are of the back yard, with the WC at the bottom of it. After dark, the twenty paces it took to reach this were a nightmare to me, especially as we occasionally had to run the gauntlet of a neighbour’s vicious cat springing out at one’s legs and hanging on. This may well have happened only once or twice and been multiplied in my imagination because of the fear.

The neighbouring café was owned by a very frightening lady – a Mrs Ridgewell. She was a large, buxom woman, fully capable of dealing with a Railway Café full of boisterous, noisy and sometimes “rough” railwaymen and other tough customers. She was certainly able to cower me, and I was not easily sat upon. Her backyard contained a covered chicken run, which I was forbidden to approach, but it held a fascination for me and it took more than her shouting to discourage my squeezing through the fence to get a closer look, until one day I returned to my own yard plentifully bespattered with tar from the newly tarred run. My mother had the job of trying to remove it from flesh and frock and was very cross. This certainly stopped all further such excursions, as I was always somewhat frightened of my mother, although nothing like as overawed as was my sister Kathleen (later called Kay), who was four years my senior. I should add here that neither of us ever received corporal punishment – my mother’s face as she made big, frightening eyes, plus her tone of voice and general demeanour were enough to check us.

The shop, with living rooms over, was a way of adding a shilling or two to the meagre allowance my mother received from the Royal Flying Corps, for which my father volunteered early in 1917, when family men were beginning to be called up for military service. He thought it better to go into the armed forces as an instrument maker than chance being put into the “poor bloody infantry” or something equally dangerous! In the event, he spent most of the war well behind the front line, as a violinist with the Zigzag Concert Party touring round France entertaining the troops, my mother having sent over his violin and mandolin at his request. 

After the war, we left the Forest Lane shop and flat and moved to Sebert Road around 1920. After demobilisation my father re-opened the lock-up watch-repair and jewellery shop situated at 5 The Bridge, Woodgrange Road, which remained a jeweller’s shop until recently. This was on the railway bridge (a hill in Woodgrange Road) so he had to contend with the trains thundering underneath him all through the day, but I cannot recall any particular disturbance and the noise was not noticed, he was so used to it. An express train caused the shop to shake, but my father carried on imperturbably repairing the watches, with a steady hand, a magnifying glass almost permanently glued to his eye. 

Hello World

My Grandma Sybil was a Communist. I'm not - I'm mostly just mildly baffled in a left-of-centre way - but anyway, in 1993 she wrote down her memories from childhood to her husband's death in 1961. Since I was two in 1993, I didn't realise they existed until I found them in a box of Grandma's things in my Dad's study a few months after he died, and decided to type them up. Grandma was involved in politics from the age of sixteen, lived through wartime London, and knew how to tell a story, so they make quite interesting reading; this blog is mostly for the purposes of posting them, though other aspects of my life might creep in from time to time. 

The name of the blog comes from the memoirs themselves, which she gave occasional subtitles to. (I like "How Socialist Sybil Began" because it sounds sort of like a left-wing Just-So Story.) This is what they look like:

and there are about 18,000 words in total. I might not always post in order, but let's begin at the beginning:

Funerals Were Ignored

We did not even notice the number of hearses that passed our door, there were far too many. And this was because at the bottom of Sebert Road, Forest Gate, E7 (I lived at No. 30) was the largest cemetery in possibly all London, certainly in East London. Most – probably 90% – were horse-drawn hearses. Cars for everyday use were commonplace, albeit only a small minority of the population owned a private one. The magnificent black funeral horses were a breed apart: head-tossing, foam-flecked, very superior animals. Just occasionally, there was a funeral which captured our attention, belonging to a local big-wig (the term VIP was not yet current) or to one of the “monied” classes, and this meant four horses instead of two, large black plumes on their heads and black velvet horse blankets on their backs, with a surplus of top-hatted “ushers” in a attendance. Once, just once, came a military cortege, with a band playing a funeral march and a mounted gun pulled by horses. Without exception, all the men who happened to be walking along the road or were nearby when the funeral passed, took off or doffed their hats in respect, even the tradesmen.

I lived in the Sebert Road house for about eight years, from the age of three until twelve (1920 to 1928) and when we moved to Claremont Road to a posher establishment it was still in Forest Gate, where I had lived all my life. I was born in Forest Lane – a road opposite the railway station – and continued to live somewhere in Forest Gate until Hitler put paid to our settled existence by dropping a landmine on us in 1941.