| England was
now a home fit for heroes (or was that WW 1) whichever war it was, it wasn't
exactly true. My Dad was something of a wreck, little or no help available, but
that's another story. We did have to be re-housed; two grotty rooms in the
heart of the East End were not going to help him. My baby brother was born in
May 1947 and the family moved to the countryside two weeks later. I was left in
Hackney with my grandmother for a week or two until mum, dad and the baby had
settled in. |
| Nan took me to
South Ockendon at the end of May. She didn't want me to go with my mum and dad,
I was HER property. Not only that but South Ockendon seemed like a million
miles from London. |
| I clearly
remember waiting in a bus shelter in Upminster for the 370 bus to my new life.
I swung round the bars of the shelter to be sound of my Nan shouting: - "Don't
do that, you Linda, if you swallow that chewing gum it will wind itself around
your works and you will choke! Not only that, but you're showing your knickers"
When the bus arrived it was green; I'd only seen red London buses before, so
life was different already. |
| The bus took
us through country roads and lanes, past fields and flowers, farms, peace and
tranquility. We eventually came to South Ockendon, a small country village
suddenly invaded by hundreds of Londoners. 2 areas of white prefabs had been
built to house this homeless rabble. (with a third to come) We got off the bus
at The Plough pub and walked down Larkspur Road to the new home where my mum
was waiting. |
| Now, close
your eyes and try to remember the description of my former home. Dirty,
scruffy, flights of stairs, cooker on the landing and THAT BUCKET. I was faced
with a whole bungalow. It was all white with flaky paint on it, a front door
that belonged just to us and a back door (two doors for one family! What had
the world come to? ) and, the most exciting thing, a garden in front, and a
path on both sides and a back garden with - wait for it - a tree. We even had
to open a gate to get into the front garden. The small apple tree never bore
fruit but it was the most wonderful plaything. Nan and I opened the back door
(which was actually on the side) and stepped into 80 Larkspur Road. My mother
was changing the baby on the table in a kitchen that was from other world.
Everything was made of metal, walls and cupboards. The wall opposite the back
door consisted of a sink, with hot and cold taps for real running water, a
copper (built in), for the washing (the forerunner of washing machines, it
heated the water and mum used a scrubbing board with it) an electric cooker,
cupboards, work top and.....a REFRIGERATOR. I had never heard of such a thing
let alone seen one. Point of interest: washing up liquid had yet to be
invented. Washing soda was dissolved in the water to aid washing up of greasy
dishes. (Try soaking oven bars in this solution - works like magic). |
| The
living room had a fire with doors in front of it, more cupboards and two
windows. There were two bedrooms, one for Laurie and me and one for our mum and
dad - more cupboards. Then the piece de resistance: a bathroom. A room with no
tin bath hanging on the wall, no bucket to be emptied at regular intervals, but
a china bath with taps and a china toilet with a chain. Hot water came from a
tap so mum didn't have to heat it on the cooker. HEAVEN! |
| The back
garden was quite long and covered with rubble. Beyond the small fence was the
railway embankment, there were just two rails - the train (a steam train) went
up and then back. The embankment on the other side of the track was,
eventually, turned into allotments. Beyond that there were fields of corn, rye,
barley, wheat as far as the eye could see. Just at the end of my road was a
tiny path leading to a stile, which, when climbed, led across the track to
another stile then a path through an orchard and into a bluebell wood. "Now
mind you don't go near the railway line" I can hear my mum saying - where did
she think I got the armfuls of bluebells from? |
| Each day a
lorry would arrive with German ex-pows. They were building more prefabs. (I
suppose, as this was 1947, that they had decided to stay in this country) All
of the children had their favourite man; we learned German songs and listened
to stories. |
| I am getting
ahead of myself. Back to the beginning of life in South Ockendon village. |
| Most of the
children did not start school until after the summer holidays - not me - mum
took me to the little village school two days after my arrival. The infant
school was one old building with wooden concertina doors dividing it into two
classrooms. I don't remember any thing of those few weeks before the holiday,
except that the teachers were Miss Smith and Miss Bun. |
| The
summer holiday of 1947 was one of newly discovered freedom and fresh air. I
used to wheel my baby brother about quite willingly. He was what was known as
"a sickly child" and the fresh, clean air was good for him. It was during these
holidays that I discovered the railway line and the woods. A new shop was
built, the Co-op, and my lasting memory of it was when rationing allowed a few
cakes to be displayed, locked in a glass cabinet. As a real treat, my mum would
get me a meringue - meringues have conjured up memories of that time all of my
life. There were Co-op shops in every town selling everything a family could
want - clothes, food, hardware etc. With every purchase a receipt was given
with your Co-op number on. At the end of the year the Co-op society would total
your purchases and pay a dividend, based on how much had been spent. My mum had
2 numbers whilst I was growing up, never to be forgotten The last one was
128213, etched into my brain since I was eleven. |
| The ice-cream
man would come along each evening and, if money allowed, I would have a
spearmint Frojoy, no ice cream has ever tasted that good since. We children
would wait by the pig swill bin for the van: this was a special dustbin, one in
each road, into which everyone put their edible scraps. The bin was collected
and sent to a farm to feed the pigs. Nothing was ever wasted. The coal cart was
pulled by a Shire horse, as was the milk cart, the horse would stop at the
right places all on it own. Everyone had a coal shed in the garden. Ours was
like a small Nissen hut (a corrugated iron, semicircular hut), someone always
counted the sacks of coal in to make sure we weren't sold short |
| When the rag
and bone man came, with his horse and cart, any old rags would be exchanged for
day-old chicks. We had two of these and Mum reared them with the aid of a hot
water bottle, confined by a mesh fireguard. |
| This was to be
the first summer I saw countryside fires. The railway embankment was lined with
short thick posts that held a line of wire (I suppose that this was to keep
people off the lines - fat chance!). When the posts and grass were dry, sparks
from the steam engine would set them alight. Nobody ever panicked; a bucket of
water would soon put them out. There were haystacks in the fields (bales of hay
stacked together to form. what looked like, a little house) and they would
often go up in flames. The embankments were a haven for wild flowers, lupins,
cowslips, popppies etc. Butterflies and grasshoppers galore. That summer was
full of exploration, elation and freedom. September approached and I was about
to enter the junior school. They weren't too fussy about dates and ages then, I
was still 6 weeks short of seven years old. |
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