A Dangerous childhood?

By present day standards children between the wars lived quite dangerous lives in their leisure time.Hours spent without adult supervision, roaming hither and thither with just a few friends.Country children were off into the countryside, often miles away

from home, following footpaths through farmland, playing in woodlands, climbing trees, crossing streams and sometimes rivers. If their were no tiddlers to be seen then the water was OK to drink!

Chasing rabbits using slingshots or makeshift catapults which often caused more damage to the firer than to the wildlife they were aimed at.  Bows  fashioned from small
saplings and string fired arrows made from any woody material which fortunately was rarely straight enough to allow the flight to be true. Making camps in the woods  from anything available and lighting camp fires to toast some bread or whatever they had, which if they had the skill, might even be a hedgehog.  Picking blackberries in fields which also contained a bull, but  of course it was quite safe providing you weren't wearing red.

City children had only slightly less freedom.  Off to the park where although the playgrounds were often supervised the equipment was mostly of the kind which is regarded as being too dangerous today.  Swings with heavy wooden seats hanging from strong chains.

 Umbrella swings, cast iron rocking horses and rope maypoles provided the thrills that youngsters wanted and would still want if they were allowed. Twenty foot high slides which  had no safety rails, but no one seemed to fall off no matter how much pushing and shoving there was on the stairs climbing up.
Even five year olds were entrusted to go to the local shop to make purchases, "running errands" it was called which was OK as long as there were not too many items to remember.

The street was also a play area suited to cricket, football, hopscotch, skipping, rounders as well as makeshift swings from lampposts. The traffic, of course, was considerably less than today and much of it horse drawn, which provided the more adventurous the opportunity to gain a ride by hanging onto the back of a cart.

  Those living in the riverside area also had the traffic on the Thames to watch, tugboats, steamers, barges and still the occasiona rower.  The watching was

often from precarious perches on walls or the steps leading down to the river itself.  There had been warnings from parents that falling in the water would result in having 25 needles because of the dirty water, but this was no deterrent.

If the Tower of London was within walking distance then there was the man made beach.  There were always adults about of course, but not necessarily the parents of the children who were there.

Where these children neglected by being left unsupervised in that environment?  It was not considered like that then and who is to say that it was wrong.

These images are mainly from the Facebook group Old school eastenders

Free Councillors

Underpaid Councillors

Heard a local councillor on the TV saying that he would not be standing for election again as he could not afford it. Couldn't follow his point very well as Councillors in most councils get close to £10,000 a year and committee chairpersons get considerably more.  surely this is sufficient to cover any loss of earnings for attending a few daytime meetings.

Once upon a time public spirited folk stood for election in order to serve their local communities, not for payment or perks.

When my Dad was on the council of the Metropolitan Borough council of Stepney in 1928 there were no payments of any kind.  Councillors, which included Clem Attlee  as well as my dad, did their day jobs and attended council meetings in the evenings, quite often until late.

When I was a councillor and later Alderman of the Borough of Lewisham in the 1950s there were still no payments for being a councillor.  During my term legislation was introduced to allow the payment of travelling expenses. . To attend committee and council meetings   I would drive to the town hall, pay parking fees but was only able to claim bus fares, despite the fact that there often no buses running by the time extended meetings finished.  I did not claim my expenses at any time as I refused to be part of such an insulting system.

When I had a term as Deputy Mayor I was even further out of pocket. We had an official car to take Jean and I to various functions that the Mayor could not attend, but there was no provision for paying for a babysitter whilst we were away from home.

There is no reason why anyone should be out of pocket by being an elected representative of the people, but I doubt very much back then, that anyone was ever deterred from standing for election because there were no payment for actually doing the job.  

Suffering from GOMS

I am sick.  I am suffering from GOMS (Grumpy Old Man Syndrome).  I have had this for some time and have done my best to cope with it, but now I realise that there is no cure. I know that there are many people like me who are suffering with this business of being sick of the way that the world is today. 

Sick of politicians who have had no experience of life as lived by the majority of people.
Sick of Doctors who dont want to see patients.
Sick of  "attitude" being regarded as normal
Sick of 20 year olds being referred to as "kids" and being treated like it.
Sick of overpriced tat in the shops
Sick having to buy "two for the price of one" when you only want one and it should be half the price of anyway
Sick of not being able to go into a shopping centre without having to listen to background "music" of moaning boys or screaming girls.
Sick of half hour news programmes which are fifteen minutes of sport.
Sick of having to hang around at airports because of unnecessarily rigourous "security" regimes.
Sick of having my Old age pension that I paid in for called a "benefit"
Sick of not being able to find a programme on the TV which is not food, lifestyle, "celebrities "travelling on foreign railways, talentless talent shows.........



Sick sick sick.

I am lucky I suppose that I am not physically sick of all this otherwise I wouldnt be able to go out.  I have not yet reached the stage of "Stop the world I want to get off" (For the under 50s that was a stage show back in 1961 written by Anthony Newley, and if you dont know Anthony Newley either, youtube him and listen to some proper music!)

The ageing process is not a sickness, just bits and pieces wearing out.  So why GOMS?
As things change over the years, it should be easy for anyone to accept the changes as they happen if it is a gradual process, but somehow for many of us the changes in recent times have been much more rapid than can be easily assimilated.  The new things are quite easy to handle, no big deal about accepting mobile phones, computers laptops and so on, but its the disappearance of familiar things that is more complicated.  Not being able to find a public phone box for instance when you have no signal on your mobile.  Even if you find one that works you need a lot of coins to use it!
And why is the spring so late this year!!!

I could go on and on and on but I wont I will save some of my other grumps for another time.

Never trust an adult

Never trust an adult

As a schoolboy, like many, I used have a little collection of odds and ends which were MINE.  In a large family this is quite difficult to keep as being really personal.  I had acquired a small sandalwood box, about 8 inches by 10 which had a sliding lid in which I kept my treasures.  I had a hidey hole for this under a loose floorboard in the bedroom. My other hiding place was in the hollow post of the iron bedstead which had a brass knob on, which unscrewed, but this was only large enough for smaller items.  The box had to go under the floorboards.

One time one of my older brothers Tom was home on leave from the RAF. He saw me with the box and asked if he could have it, to which agreed assuming that I would get it back when he went back to his unit.  Tom had a great interest in photography, this being the days of films in cameras which needed to be developed with special chemicals and then printed in a darkroom(bathroom).

I had other things to do so when he showed what he had made with my lovely box I screamed and carried on like a banshee.

He had cut a round hole in the end and fixed a light bulb inside and then had cut an oblong  hole in the sliding lid, fixed a piece of glass over the hole and he had a contact printer for his photos. Being very pleased with his effort he couldn't understand what the fuss was all about ,

He didn't know how important that box was to a ten year old, and in any case he thought I had agreed to him having it.

I tried to learn a lesson from that, never let adults see what you have.  I should have known better because I had experienced adult insensitivity before.  When only a tot, as part of the Christmas stocking  I was given a chocolate policeman.

Childlike I offered it to my father to have a taste.  Now when this happens grown ups are supposed to pretend to take a bit, go "yum yum" and give it back. Not my dad. He bit the head off and was surprised when I yelled and screamed.

So. Don't trust adults to understand what is going on and be ready to yell and scream when they dont.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of cold tea

YO HO Ho and a bottle of cold tea

Most people will know that it was a tradition in the Royal Navy for a daily  issue of rum or grog as it was known. Grog was Navy rum watered down, although the watered version was still a lot stronger than the rum that you will find on most supermarket or liquor store shelves today.

There are many who believe that there is some relationship between the drinking of rum and the somewhat strange dances that sailors in days gone by indulged in.

The Ration during World War Two was a quarter of a pint of the grog per day, issued in two halves, the first between ten and midday and the second after 4 o clock in the afternoon.A quarter of a pint is roughly equivalent to 5/6 doubles.

One of the rules regarding the issue of the rum ration,  which had existed since the nineteen century,  was that the issue was supposed to be drunk there and then, not saved up, or given to another rating.

This particular rule was circumvented quite often, there being many men who did not particularly like rum or wanted to save their issue for later. So it was that certainly during the war, quite a lot of rum needed to be smuggled ashore, but for the most part this was not a problem.  Most dockyard security at that time was mainly concerned with the control of anyone going into the docks rather than the sailors going out.  The dock police were quite often ex sailors or merchant seamen who whilst being aware of the practice of bringing excess grog ashore for the most part did not consider it part of their remit to prevent it. After all it was against Nvy regulartions, but not a crime.  This attitude apparently was not apparent at the Liverpool docks for some reason, which is not explainable.  Going into a Liverpool shipyard meant running the gauntlet of officious officers manning the gates and randomly searching the sailors kits.

Unfortunately for HMS Whimbrel they had to go into Liverpool for weather repairs in April 1945 after just completing a more than usually bad run in a convoy from Scotland to Russia.  You would have expected that in the appalling weather, the crew would have been glad enought to drink their rum ration at the time of issue.  However there were still quite a few who had accumulated a stock which they would need to take ashore, as it was necessary to take all kit with them whilst the ship was in the repair yard.

Dad did not know how the arrangement came about, but a scheme was concocted to try to bamboozle the dock police regarding the bottles of rum in the kit.  It was quite complicated in that a large number of rum type bottles were filled with cold tea, and  placed in a somewhat conspicuous position in some of the kitbags.  The decoys carrying the tea, had a buddy who carried their rum ration.  The tea carriers pushed their way forward to the front of the line waiting to go through the gates, with non bottle carriers in between.   The first tea carrier being stopped, asked to open his kit bag and identify the contents of the bottle.  "It's tea" say he.  A knowing nod from the the policeman, who opens the bottle and takes a swig. By the time the policeman had tasted half a dozen bottles of tea, he knew that he was being conned in some way but was not able to work out how to deal with it.  There were over a hundred sailors waiting in line and the delays were causing much unrest, particularly amongst those who were not involved.  The policeman called a sergeant, who decided to make a test for himself, walked down the line, chose a kitbag at random and asked for it to be opened.  Fortunately this also contained a tea bottle.

Dad was of the opinion that the Sergeant either had a sense of humour, was towards the end of his shift or had other reasons, but he just went to the front of the queue, told the constable to open the gates and waived them all through.
This always seemed like a most unlikely story to me, but Dad insisted that it was true. 

When I was in a Boy Band.

I used to be in a Boy Band!

 

 

When I was about four of five years old I was in a Boy Band.  Well really a bundle of boys who thought they were a band but didn't have any instruments, so we improvised.

The instruments were based on those that we were used to as percussion in infants school.  I have no idea if they use these in schools these days but they were comprised of drums, tambourines, triangles, clappers ( sort of castanets on sticks) and cymbals.
Each instrument was given a colour name, and sheet music was put up onto the blackboard, and when the teacher pointed to a note, the one with the appropriately coloured instrument gave it a bang.  Not sure if we learned any music that way, but it was amusing.

Most of these instruments were not difficult to emulate, a drum was usually an upturned biscuit tin strung around the neck with string, cymbals were two biscuit tin lids banged together, a triangle was made from a bent bit of old iron and so on.  There also proper instruments like a penny whistle, a kazoo and comb and paper.

So we used to march around the courtyard of the block of flats that we lived in, banging away for all our might until such time as we were chased off by some adult  who couldn't stand it any more.  Another requirement to be a member of the band was to have access to a peaked cap.  Most the of the bands that we ever saw, mostly in the street processions wore peaked caps, except for the Tower Hill Pipe Band, who wore berets.  I suppose a peaked cap would not have looked right on men wearing kilts.

Fortunately I had access to two peak caps in our house which could be "borrowed"  My eldest brother, Ernie played the flute in the St. Patricks Church Band and brother Tom had been a telegram boy for Cable and Wireless and his cap had a silver badge saying "Via Imperial", which I never understood.  Other caps in the band had been old army caps and one from a Walls Ice Cream man.

Eventually we grew out of that, thinking that there was no future in Boy Bands that couldn't play a tune, how wrong we were!

When the Devil came to Wapping on Christmas Eve

When the Devil came to Wapping on Christmas Eve

Christmas around again and all is merry and bright, but there have always been some who think that it needs  a little bit of something different.

Before the war we lived in Wapping and were part of the fairly large Catholic community so that Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve was quite a large event.  The church was full to overflowing and the the Parish Drum and Fife band played for the carols. After Mass there was the usual chinwagging outside the church before the congregation started to wend their way home to try the mince pies and the crackling off the roast pork.

We lived in a flat on the top floor of a building just down the road from the church so many of the congregation passed by as they went home.

My older brother Tom, about 16 or 17 at the time, a teenager but they weren't called that then, always good for a laugh, had acquired a cows skull, I know not from where, as cows head was not a common dish on east end tables.  So he dashed home immediately after the Mass and and put a lighted candle inside the skull and dangled it on a stick just like a fishing rod out of the window just as they first passers by approached.  He had tipped off his mate Leslie Munns about this and Leslie was supposed to just point it out as he came along.  Leslie though was as big a wag as Tom, he had a deformed back and used to do impressions of the Hunchback of Notre Dame so he did his performance whilst pointing out the skull floating mysteriously in the air.

 Difficult to imagine these days that anyone would be frightened by such a thing, but there was complete pandemonium in the street for some considerable time. It was not clear if it was the antics of Lesie or the skull which was more to blame, but one woman actually fainted and others ran screaming back to the church for protection.  Fortunately the candle soon blew out and the skull disappeared from sight so that those who had not seen it were doubtful that it had ever been there.

Tommy opined to me many years later that there must have been quite a few guilty consciences around that night for so many to imagine that the Devil had come to get them on Christmas Eve.