Transcript – OH – Maureen Waite - by Jackie

Could you tell us your name?

My name is Mrs Maureen Sylvia Waite.

Can you tell us a bit about your childhood growing up in Newham?

I actually was born in Plaistow, Denmark Street, and my mum came to live with her mother in Canning Town in 32 Barron Road, and in those days after the war you could choose any house if it was empty which he did. My nan brought all her furniture on a pram from Plaistow down to Canning Town, and then when my mum and dad separated my mum said could you come and live with my nan and her son, my uncle Eddie who were special needs.

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She lived with my nan all her life with us two girls, but my nan only let us have two rooms upstairs in the house in 32 Barron Road. When she had the rest of the house full up with all her furniture and her junk, which she thought was, some of it was good, some of it was more like old antiques as we know today, but she wouldn't part with anything and so my mum ended up with one room, a little off scullery, connected to a little small kitchen where in the kitchen we had one wooden table and I mean wooden just wooden table three wooden chairs and

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that's all we had apart from a bookshelf which was to hold books that never did, we didn't have any books. After the war we had nothing, but the bookshelves came in handy for my mum when she did the washing and ironing of our clothes. She would fold them up and put them on the shelves. So that would be the place to keep our place, our clothing nice and tidy and straight. She did her washing. She wasn't allowed to go out in the garden, which it wasn't a garden, it was a yard, so she had two lines in this small kitchen where we lived and the washing would be hung up there and the ironing would be hung up there airing. We had one

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open fire, and on that fire we had a brick and that brick was always there. The brick was there to keep water hot for anything that we needed, such as washing our hair or having a wash. We would take that into the scullery in a little small sink and wash down and we had a curtain going across the door so that we could have a bit of privacy. In the evening when it was time to go to bed, this was after the war, we had to sleep on the floor. So we slept on the floor in front of the fire. How we never caught fire, I'll never know.

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And that stayed like that for quite some time. And my dad tried to come back with my mum, they tried to make a go of it. And my mum accepted it and she said, we'll see how we go. His name was Sidney, Sid, we called him, Hitchie called him Sid. We'll see how we go, Sid. He came back, we explained this to Nan, and I don't think my Nan was very pleased with the idea. She knew more about my dad than any of us knew. My sister or myself, we knew nothing about the background why my mum left him because we were too small to know anything. It was only when we got a bit older that my mum explained that he was cruel in some way. I've got the papers that come from the Stratford Court where they were separated, legally separated it was called, a legal separation and it says on grounds of cruelty but we didn't know whether it was cruelty for mental cruelty or physical cruelty, it didn't state that but anyway so he came back for a while and still my nan would not let him have another room.  Whether she was trying to keep the two of them apart maybe that was her idea I don't know. But we never got the other room. We never got the other room until it came to Dad was sleeping on the floor, Mum was on the floor,

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and myself and my sister was on the floor with coats and old blankets. We went to the RO at Stratford, which is now, believe it or not, where I go to Stratford is the hub for Moorfields Eye Hospital and it makes me smile when I go in there to think that was where I used to go to with my mum to pick up her allowance money. Anyway,

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when he wouldn't pay her money at the allowance, it was called the RO, it wouldn't leave her money to keep us. My mum would shout and bang on the shutters because they were wooden shutters with a little door, a little opening, so you were called and you walked up to the counter, each shutter would open and you'd say your name and the lady would say, sorry Mrs. Morris, that was our single name, there's nothing for you and then bang the shutter would go and my mum would then start shouting and crying, ‘how do you expect me to look after these two children with no money?’

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Because there was nothing then, there was no giving money away then that they do today or giving out any help. So with that they said you will have the RO lady will come and see you, the assistance lady, she will do you a visit. And she did, she came on her bike, I'll never forget her name because it was such an unusual name, her name was Mrs. Orrs. So she came and when she came she sat and looked up at the mantle shelf above the fire and she said to my mum, they will sell Mrs. Morris and there was two vases up there and my mum said that's the last two vases I had left for my wedding presents, and she didn't have no more. When she moved there she had a big suitcase and in that suitcase

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was a few objects from her wedding and that's all she moved there with. She had nothing. So I think she eventually did sell the two vases because I don't remember seeing them much after that and they said right now I'll write you out some chits so that you could the RO shop which is right next door to the RO office and you went there and you chose what it was you were short of and she would say as the girls do the girls need shoes yes, but the thing was they were boys shoes they were all lace up either black or brown no other colour and later I cried.

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I said to my mum I'm not going to school in them.  So with that my nan went to a jumble sale, bought a pair of red tap shoes for me and I put them on and off I went to Star Lane school and you can imagine the noise as I walked along the corridor into the hall while they're all having their assembly and I'm in these red tap shoes and the headmistress called out, I'm trying to think of her name. Anyway, she called out, ‘who's making that awful noise?’ And I stood up and she sent me back home. So I danced in these tap shoes all the way back home, but I was upset

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because I had to go back in these shoes that were from the RO. And when I walked with them and there was people behind me, I scruffed my feet along the floor so they couldn't see in between the sole and the heel, because that's where it was printed, pressed into the leather, the name of where they'd come from.

So anyway, most of our clothes came from jumble sales, it wasn't boot sales then, it was jumble sales and sales that they had at a church.  So my nan would go through all the churches at the best jumble sales. She used to say, ‘I'm not going to that one this week, I'm not going to that church this week, their jumble sale is not very good’. So she would drag me along with her in an old push chair that she kept in the passageway. So I'd get to the jumble sale and she'd go right up the front and shout and holler to try to get me a toy which they held up, or a piece of clothing or whatever. But in the meantime she would take me to the old Rathbone Market, and I mean the old Rathbone Market,

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that was straight across the Barking Road and in a straight line, a street going straight the way down and there was a public house called the Rathbone Arms and right down the bottom there was another pub, I don't know whether it was called the White House, I'm not sure, not that we ever used the pubs but my mum did and when we'd go down there on the debris there'd be people selling clothes and all sorts of things and jumble, my nan would make me carry a big bag made out of like plastic. It was the plastic material things they used to put on tablecloths, on

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tables and she would pick up one piece of material, whatever it was on the stall, a garment and she'd say, how much is this love? And they'd say, oh a shilling that bit. ‘Oh I'm not paying a shilling for that’. So she'd put one piece of whatever it was on the stool down by the side of her, make me put it in the bag, ‘yeah put this in the bag’ she used to say, and I was terrified. I had to put it in the bag and she'd pay for one piece.

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I think she invented buy one get one free. She was a real character. I only hope I had some of her strength and character. But yes she did, she started buy one get one free. But I used to worry sick thinking, oh, if you steal things, you go to prison.

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And I thought, me and my nan's going to end up in a prison cell together somewhere. But we never did. And she would try every piece of goods on the store. If it was fruit, she would take a piece of fruit and eat it and try it. And they would moan at her and say,’ come on, Ma, you can't do that. It's not right’. She said ‘I have to try it to see if it's any good’. So, long story, and I played in the street every night of the week as soon as that school was over and out

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that was StarLane when I was really small, my first school. You couldn't get out quick enough to come home to play in the street and that was our freedom. Get all the children in the street, let's play a game and the games were games that you had to have all the other children with you whether you had a fight with them the day before, or the boys had been fighting them the day before oh go and get little Johnny, we need him to make the game up

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but when you think back, that's how we learnt to give and take, that's how we learnt to socialise. That's how we learnt to accept you have to get over these things but this is not happening today. They've not got the chance to give and take and know what it is to share or to give in and say okay maybe we've had a fight yesterday but let's make it better today and let's have a game, let's have a game together because you needed that person. It's just a shame that life's not like it today.

Anyhow, I'd play in the street till about nine o'clock at night and then my nan would come and get me because mum would be up the pub, and if I weren't out there playing on the debris playing in the street I'd be on the debris, all the bombed down buildings. I loved climbing on the bombed down buildings. I loved rubbish. I still love rubbish. I would be out there making a house and it was better than the house I was living in.

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I could sit at the table in my little kitchen and look down and I could see the yard beneath me because the wall and the wainscoting never reached together. There was a big about an inch and a half gap between the wall and the wainscoting and I used to think how does this stand up? How does the wall stay up without the rest of it being connected? But there you go and that was our house. So I used to make these houses on the bombsite, which I loved. I'd get the tin cans, put the wild flowers in, you know, and go home and get a piece of bread, if you can get it, a piece of bread, put some sugar on it,

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add a bottle of water, and go back to my little house. And I would be there sometimes till nine o'clock at night. And then me Nan would always have to come and find me. And she was strong. Sometimes I wonder things may have worked out better for Mum and Dad if Nan had been different and allowed us to have more rooms. It may have worked out, who knows. But it didn't, so that was that. But she was always the one, if I needed to be took to hospital, it was Nan. When the floods were on in the 50s, I went paddling with my dress tucked up in my knickers, I cut all the bottom of my foot open, I had

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half my foot hanging open and I was in the middle of the debris, and a dustman came round one of the corners where the water wasn't reaching and he could see me and he had one of these push on carts and he's shouting out to me, get nearer to me or I'll come to you anyway. He did get me and he put me on his dust cart and he wheeled me all the way home down to Barron Road, 32 Barron Road. When I got home, mum was at the pub.

So Nan had to accept that this dustman took me up, put me on the bed and I'll never forget he wrapped this big bed cover, it was an eiderdown they called them, then, around my foot and he said you've got, ‘she's got to go to hospital’, because the bottom of my foot was hanging out. And so my nan went over to a neighbour across the road and he was amazing. He came across and he put me on his back and he piggy-backed me up to the bus stop, because there was no traffic on the roads,

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and in the end he ended up walking me to Poplar Hospital, which was quite a distance from Canning Town to Poplar Hospital, a real, quite a long way. But he got me there. So we got into Poplar Hospital, I'll never forget, and there's a boys end, a man's end to the hospital and a lady's end. I don't know why, but it was. So they couldn't get me in the women's end, they put me up the boys end to be stitched, men's end. And when I got in there, I was laying on the bed, and he said, how long's this child been left like this? And the man who took me said I'm not sure, he said

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I've only been asked to bring her here. He said because all the wound has been curled, it had curled around the skin, around the cut. Anyway, they strapped me down, gave me all needles and they sewed up my foot and he got me back home. Don't ask me how he did it but he got me back home and there was no traffic on the roads at all because of the floods, it all stopped all of the traffic. That man, their name was Sorenson, I'll never forget. He was the one of the boy's uncle, Sorenson. It's funny how you remember names of people that are important

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to you. But anyway, that's where you helped each other in them days. Well, I grew up to the age of about 12 and I remembered so much. When I got older I started to write down all the lots of things that we did and we didn't do. We played games in the street. I organised shows with our pennies. We put them together and bought crepe paper and made outfits. I was the one that would make their outfits for them, the children. We'd put a curtain across from one house to the other house on the windowsills and we'd ask the children if they want to come

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they've got to pay tuppence, it was tuppence then, and you've got a small little drink of lemonade or cream soda and a biscuit which was reasonable then and I would be doing all the acrobats, I wish I could do it now, I'd be the one, I was so little and thin I'd be doing all the acrobats standing on their shoulders, they was turning me inside out, but they would all be laughing and enjoying themselves. But if it rained, all the crepe paper, especially if it was red, would be running down their faces, all down their legs, and hilarious. It would make a good

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carry-on film. But they were good games, they were games that cost nothing. And we spent most of our time in the street and I couldn't wait, even when I got older into the second school. You know, when you're older, 10, 11, 12, I couldn't wait to get out into the street. The freedom, the freedom of being able to do what you wanted to do and to play and invent games and we'd go to the post office, pick up all their leaflets, make out we wanted something, take all the leaflets that we wanted, come home and make up a post office game with an old cardboard box and we'd be post office or we'd be libraries.

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I'd put all the tickets in the back of old books and we'd play a game of library. We used our imagination, this is what's wrong today. We've taken away the children's imagination and I remember working somewhere, I've always worked with children under fives and I hope I gave them some imagination, I think I did, I know I did, and helped them to use their imagination, because we've took that away from them. We've given them a plastic gadget to hold in their hands and use, and they don't have to use their minds at all, they don't have to use their imaginations.

I had a job, at one of my jobs, there was a person in charge when they were writing out all at one of the... we had a conference sitting talking committee and she said actually I can't believe she said’ oh someone's put down here imagination do we really want this imagination’ and I said ‘do we really need this we do need this, we need this more than anything’.

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We need imagination, we've got to boost it, we've got to get it into these children, while they're small, while they're under 5. Let them use their imagination, because that's where everything starts, with imagination, from mathematics, from writing, from reading, from everything, everything starts from imagination. So, it's crazy to ask, do we need imagination?

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To me, I think it's everything. It's what keeps you going. We all need our imagination. So anyway, I've always played on that. Start when these children are young. And of all things, give them two things that are so important, and that's social skills

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and humanity skills. If you don't learn them that, then you're not doing right by them. Because it doesn't matter how clever you are. It doesn't matter how brainy you are, or what sort of pieces of paper you can show what you've done. If you haven't got good social skills and can get on with anybody, or humanity skills that you can help somebody when they need help, verbally or physically, then you've not learnt them anything. You've not given to them what they need to know.

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Anyway, I ended up with under fives, worked with under fives for 25 years, and special needs, and I loved it. It wore me out. There were days when you just want to run out. My daughter's doing it now, my youngest daughter. She's not that young, she's 60 coming up, but she said, Mum I don't know you did it for 25 years, she said there's times I don't know, you'll find times you want to just run out, just if I had enough, then you'll find one or two of the children will do something that makes you feel yes it is all worthwhile, and she's finding that now with these children you know that she's helping that have got the needs to be helped, she said they make me laugh, they really make me hearty laugh and I said good that's what you need and they need. I said if you've got them to smile at least and if you get them to laugh you've won them because they'll want to be with you. They don't want to be with

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someone who's pointing their finger in your face and and domineering you. They want you to feel, they want to feel comfortable with you. So I said you've got it Jackie, you've got it. It's something you can't find in books. You've either got it or you haven't. You'll never find it in a book.

Did you go on holiday anywhere? A memorable holiday?

 Yeah. The first time over, we never went anywhere. The only thing we ever did was have one day at Southend,

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if we were lucky, once a year. We went with Nan and four or five bags of food because we couldn't have money to buy stuff when we were there. So we took all that with us and we had a train ride, steam train, which we loved having our heads out the window and when we got there our faces were black as soot from the front of the train blowing along and when we got there we'd be on the beach, we had no swimming costumes when we first went there.

My nan started to buy us a woolly swimming costume ftom the jumble sales. But we loved it. We loved that, getting the steam train there and back. So I remember that, that was Southend once a week, once a year. Once a year we did that. And then when I met Fred, if you got to Laysdowne you were made in those days in 1950s, and I got to Laysdowne with my friend and my sister and my mum wasn't going to let us go, and I begged her I said please mum the three of us going we'll be safe and I was 18 just coming up to 18.

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I met Fred in the town down in Leysdown. We went in a pub and I wasn't supposed to be there, I wasn't in quite 18. All of a sudden somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said

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‘hello, how's Canning Town, how's Barron Road?’ And we were terrified, I was. I thought we were going to get followed and raped. But it was Fred and his two friends and I was with my sister and another friend from where we worked.  She let us use a caravan that was her aunt's caravan and I'll never forget it was called Valerie 505, a tiny little caravan and that's where I met Fred because I thought how does he know we come from Barron Road? When I looked round and looked at him He said, ‘I see you every morning’. I said, ‘you see me every morning?’ He said, ‘yes, I

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see you every morning going to work, you and your sister’. And we was wearing white turbans and white overalls, because we worked in the flour factory at that time. And he could see us and he said, I ride through your street every morning. And I thought he had a car and I thought, wow, he's got a car. There's only one person in my street had a car then in the 50s, nobody had cars. And there was one man who had a little car in the end of the street. So I thought he had a car, but it wasn't, it was a bike.

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So he'd obviously seen us coming out of that turn in and gone round to walk through to see where we'd come from. So it was meant to be. It was meant to be, that was meant to meet Fred. So that was it, after meeting him there he came back down to see us and then I came home from there and that's how our romance started from 1959

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and it lasted for 60 years. I can't say any more, too much. And I've had a wonderful life and three beautiful girls, four wonderful grandchildren and a great grandchild. What want what more could I want?

Thank you so much.

So if you could just tell me your name.

I'm Eddie.

Okay Eddie, was you born in Newham?

Yeah.

And you went to school in Newham?

Yeah, custom house to start with, then moved to Canning Town. Okay, so what about your childhood, where did your parents work? Well my Dad was a stevedore, I think my mum worked in a sweet factory to start with, if I can remember, down at Greengate, used to be a sweet factory down there. Yeah, but my dad was a stevedore, but he used to fix cars as well, so I used to help him. And he was a lorry driver, he's the jack of all trades, my Dad. Always lived in East End, came to town and then we moved to Stratford. Yeah, I'm just an East End boy, I'm not going to move nowhere.

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Can you remember going on any trips with him in his lorry?

Yeah I used to go, back in those days you could, I used to go and yeah I did, I used to go all over the place, but when I could, you know during school holidays and that, if he was driving I'd go with him. One of the best ones was when he went to Trebor Sweets and we got half way round and he said ‘What sweets do you like?’ So I said, he said, ‘Do you want pear drops?’ So I said, ‘Yeah’ and he just accidentally dropped a jar of pear drops and I literally fell off the back of a lorry. Those were the days when you could do that. You

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could do it now. Yeah, he had a motor scooter as well, he used to go on the back of that sometimes. Remember the trolleybuses? Nearly got run over by a trolleybus.

So you went on them?

Yeah, I could add to a little clippy ticket, a penny or eight mil, whatever it was. Yeah, used to run trolleybuses. Woolwich Ferry, you used to like the Woolwich Ferry because you could see the engine on the old pedal, one of those old pedal boats. You could see all the engines moved up and down, so being a kid I loved all that.

Was that a hop on, hop off, you used to just go over?

Yeah,

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used to go over all these sometimes with my mum. And yeah, that was it, then we moved, that was custom house, but I needed to go out and buy a bus, then we moved to Stratford didn t we?

You had holidays abroad?

Oh yeah, we went abroad in 1959 I think was our first holiday abroad. We went camping, two families in one car. I was ten so that was an adventure then. Slept in the car, went camping, all the way down to Italy. I remember me dad and his mate spent weeks going over the maps of planning the route long before we had sat in houses. And the day we got halfway through Baptist Channel they said, sorry we forgot the maps, but they

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knew it off by heart, they put us on the railway to Italy just from their memory. It was brilliant.

Wow, that s fantastic.

Yeah. All my mum s family were in Canada. I can't remember much about it because I was on a 14, 15 but then we got older. We took Vicky to Canada didn't we? Yeah we went over Victoria Falls. Yeah oh yeah we went to Niagara and done that when I went to Canada. I know we drove 65 miles to go to an ice cream parlor in Canada which that's what you did then not right now. My first McDonald's was in Canada, so long before we had them here. I was quite lucky really because my dad worked hard, so reasonably well off at least then I suppose.

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But it was just that, my dad working all the time. But I used to fix cars for people and I used to help him as I got older. Then when I was old enough to have my own car, I used to fix my own car, but I can't do it now, too complicated. So yeah that was it, I started work, worked up the city for the water board, done different jobs, got put out of work the week I got married, that got most redundant, on Wednesdays we got married on the Saturday didn't we, that was a good start to our marriage, not the first time I was put out of work. But yeah I mean, Canning Town hasn't really changed much. I mean, the main

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part of McDonald's is where the tobacco place used to be. I remember the coffee used to stand in the middle of the road doing a point duty. I remember that. Main high street's just the same, isn't it? I mean, Coen's has been there forever, hasn't it? The Opticians. Murcroft's. Murcroft's the ice cream. Everyone loved Murcroft's ice cream. That was a real treat. Always used to be where Iceland is didn't it? You'd be on the corner where the bookies is, go and they used to test the light bulbs when you bought them.

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Yeah happy days. It's a lot nicer now, well it's different, you see it for kids. Yeah, Sasperella, down the market. When Rathbone Market was a proper market, there was a treat in the winter if you got hot Sasperella. Not very hygienic, this is just don't be covering a bowl of cold water to rinse them, but who cares then? It's still there. It's all man be pampering now, and it don't do this, can't do that. I don't think I've done bad while I was a kid. I can remember when we lived down the next street in the Nissan up the round ones, we lived down there for a few years. I remember

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the road got flooded once, it did flood our house but the road got flooded. Didn't know anyone's kids. Just went out and patted their necks because they didn't know you did them old penny sweets, Cills corner shop, used to get his sweets. So then we moved to Stratford, so I suppose we were posh now, we live in Stratford. I mean back then East Ham was the posh bit of West Ham, now East Ham is just nothing is it, but if you lived in East Ham you would sort of think it was posh. But yeah, that's it really. Happy days really.

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That's fantastic. Thank you Eddie.

Okay. Thank you.

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Hello, can you tell us your name?

Yeah, my name's June. I was born in the old Plaistow hospital, what we used to call it Howard's Road and I've lived in Newham all my life so far. I remember old Rathbone Street when it used to be the old Rathbone Street and it used to stretch for sort of to me as a child really really long and my mum told me or my nan I can't remember who, told me that when I was in the pram, I must have been a real little baby, my mum went shopping down to Rathbun Street, we lived by West Ham station, and obviously she'd done her shopping and she went all the way home and then my nan said, well where's the baby? The baby was still outside the shop, you know, but so I mean mum had to rush back and I was still there. Obviously nobody wanted me

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to walk off with a pram and a baby inside so, but that wasn't also the only near miss I had. My family used to go hop picking, the whole family used to went, so I had older cousins and obviously I might have been probably two or three or something and it must have been a bit of a pain because my cousins tried to put me under the cart horse so that I would get flattened in the process. So there you go.

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So that was two lucky misses I had of being finished basically. As a child we were really quite poor, we lived with my nan and also my mum's sister and the husband so there was you know quite a tight-knit family and so we stayed there by West Ham station until I was about eight. My mum had given birth to my brother. It's a six years difference between us. So then she managed to get a council flat in Canning Town,

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so we moved there. But not long afterwards, my dad died. So, you know, my mum was a widow. But while I was still living sort of near West Ham, there used to be some sort of company, some, I don't know, quite know what it was, but they used to take the children to Kettering in North Hants. I think it's still there, like a fun fair. So the job of the kids was to go round to

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the people who knew that had these tickets and sort of beg some tickets. But when it arrived we used to meet at the old Beckton Arms and the coaches would turn up. And I remember that we had none of this plastic bags or foil or anything wrapped up for our sandwiches. It used to be the bread paper that would be wrapped up in sandwiches but we didn't expect anything else. That's how you wrapped your sandwiches up in the old bread paper. Yeah, we used to have a lovely day out at Kettering, you know,

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to go to a fun fair was something that we weren't used to doing. And I'm trying to think what else. Yeah, my uncle sometimes managed to have a car. Previously, that used to have a sidecar and a motorbike and he might take us to Southend for the day so that was another like treat to go to Southend and go to the Kurzal and go on the amusements there. Trying to think and then

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to say my dad had died so me mum had a you know quite a hard job really bringing me and my brother up. She used to work at Aluminium Foils but originally before she met my dad, well while she met my dad actually, they both worked at Tate and Lyle. I mean that used to be the big factory that everybody would end up working at and I remember going, they used to have a party, a Christmas party, and I remember going once and my dad was working because I could remember him in his overalls, you know, and he came up and like said hello to me and everything so

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Yeah, and then when I left school I left school at 16 I stayed on an extra year of school and I started I had a job at Bloomsbury Square and I worked there for ages in an office and then when I got married we actually moved to um Custom House. Custom House, Stortford. Yeah and um and then we saved up um where we joined the young married couple scheme so that we used to uh we went into a council flat, actually it was the block of flats that they had to clear

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out when Ronan Point went down. We were in the next block to Ronan Point, we were in Merritt Point. And you had the council flat for three years and you paid, as well as you're paying a normal council rent, you paid money on top to save for a deposit for your house. And that time Newham Council were building, it was called the Young Marys Couple Scheme and they were building different places around Newham because they found then that most young people were actually moving out of the borough so they wanted to sort of you know keep some, not make it an old

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borough but lots of young people in there as well. And yeah so then an opportunity came up to buy one of the houses in Stratford on this scheme and we've been there ever since. We've been there 51 years this year and all our children were born in Newham and you know two of them were born at the same hospital that both I was born in and my husband was born in and the other two was in Forest Gate which was the hospital down off of Water Lane, isn't it? Forest Lane, Forest Lane. But that closed. So when my daughters had their children,

12:59

they went to the new hospital, Newham General.

Did you go on any holidays, June, or was it...?

Not when I was small, we didn't go. I vaguely remember going once with my dad when he was alive. I've got to think that his mum had paid for us to go away. We went to Valley Farm Caravan Park.

13:24

I remember they used to have horses there and for sixpence you could have a horse ride on there. So poor horses now when you think, you know, these kids getting on them all day. But I didn't actually go abroad until I got married and that's when we went to Italy. That was my first trip and my first ride on a plane or, you know,

13:45

and my husband wasn't a very good passenger on a plane, so the look on his face, it was terror. And there's me on my sort of, actually first flight, looking at him thinking, what's it going to be like but yeah and yeah that was my first experience of going abroad. Thank you. Is that okay? Because you know there's loads of things that you'll go home and we'll remember that we wanted to say.

14:25

It's all a dismay all through.

14:26

Yeah, it is, but if you think of things and you want to record again that would be perfectly Yeah, it is, but if you think of things and you want to record again that would be perfectly fine.

Transcript - OH - Lunch 1 Puddings - 11 Dec 23 - Judy Lourdes by John Tsang

I want to ask you another thing, when you are talking about the food, and we have just talked about the food you have in Kenya, and how about when you moved to London? Do you want to, do they have any Kenyan food?

0:17

I had to cook myself, so it was rather difficult for me and the life over here was very hard for me, not having anybody to look after my son, because I had a full-time nanny in Kenya who did everything, housework, looking after my son, even did a bit of cooking for me, so I didn't have to do anything,

0:38

just go to work and come back. So it was very difficult when I came down here, but I managed to cook from recipes that I had, and that's how I improvised, actually. So I can cook anything now.

So you actually started cooking when you moved to London?

0:54

Oh yes, when I came down here I had to cook. I mean, you know, there's no slaves or servants or anything to do anything for you. You've got to do it yourself. Like go to the launderette on a Saturday, which was difficult for me. So life was very hard when I came down here, very hard for me personally.

At that time, yes, it was also very political, Mrs. Thatcher.

1:21

Mrs. Thatcher came into power in ’77.

I remember there were these mining strikes in the northwest.

1:26

We had a lot of that. It's a long, long history of things that we had. It was a good time. It was a very good time. It was more peaceful in those days than it is now. Much lesser people as well. I've got a book which I used to write because my husband used to give me the money and I used to make a note in the book what I was going to buy. When I look at it, two pence for a bus ride. Oh my god! Two pence for a bus ride! And things like that. Now you're paying about two pounds, I think, for one bus, right?

2:05

Oh, I can't imagine how much it is to buy a house then, compared to nowadays.

2:12

Yeah, in those days it was very cheap. It was very cheap in the 70s. Not that... well, yes, now the prices have shot up.

2:21

It's ridiculous, yes. And also, you mentioned that you just take this bus 69 to work? Is that the bus you used to use?

2:37

Yes, 69 from Plaistow Station. I had to walk to Plaistow Station because I had to live on Plashet Road. So I had to walk to Plaistow Station to get the 69 to take me to North Woolwich where I was working at STC.

And apart from the buses, at that time were there tubes?

 We did have a train, no tubes. No tubes? No, we had a little train that used to come from Stratford, I think it was two carriages, past Canning Town, not where we are now, it was on the opposite side,

3:11

looking station. Okay. And it used to go right up to North, on Silver Town and then to North Woolwich. Two carriages. Oh, okay. Yes.

No tubes then?

No tubes at all. Okay. It's all more, it's more in the central London then, for the tube service. Even central London

3:31

I don't think we had that many tubes. If I can, when I think back, I can't remember. Not in this part? Not in here, no. It was more buses because I went on the bus ride even to Fulham where I worked and it was 26 stops for me.

To take the bus?

Yes and I had to walk from Wandsworth Bridge Road into work.

Can we come back to food?

4:04

We have just talked about this transport, right? When you come to London, you have to start working. Can you tell us what are your favorite dish you like to make?

 Because my husband is more of a meat eater.

4:17

I used to buy a lot of mutton or beef on my way down. I used to cook it or buy chicken and I used to bake it. So that was the sort of lifestyle. It was hazardous for me because I hadn't done all that work before. I had a full-time nanny. So it was very difficult for me.

4:39

But between 8, 7, 8 months later I was very ill. Very ill due to the pressure I was putting myself into. Because I had not done that sort of job before. Working in an office, coming back and cooking, picking up my son, going to the launderette on a Saturday. It was too much for me. I was very ill. They diagnosed me with, I had severe migraines.

Oh dear.

And the doctor advised me I should relax as I come home and not get into cooking straight away and things like that. That lasted for 10 years. Oh dear. 10 years I was on medication.

5:30

Okay, so did you have to go to the clinic often?

No, they didn't do that to me. No, they just gave me the medication that I had. It was like an effervescent sachet that I used to put in the water. It was quite instant that it would stop. But I was always violently sick after I came back from work on a Friday. It allowed me to work from Monday to Friday. But when I came home on the Friday, I think my adrenaline ran away. And Saturday and Sunday was the worst time I had. I was sick. I couldn't even stand. So I had that for a long time.

6:06

Can I also ask, you know, at the time in the 1970s, it's quite different.

Oh, it was very different. We had, where I was on Plashet Road, there was only one Indian shop and they were from South Africa. Ah, okay. Yes, and we had very close to where I used to live there was an Englishman with his little shop but on a Sunday he never worked. It was only a little grocery shop sort of thing, you know. So if you really wanted to do shopping we had a Tesco in Upton Park and they had two floors, ground floor and upper floor, because now I think they use them for offices but not in those days. So there wasn't that many, much of a choice. But I used to go down there because the money was so low. With a five pound if you went

6:54

to Tesco you could probably get about four bags of shopping and still have a pound in your hand when you got back. Because two pence was a bus ride. So it was very cheap and salaries were not great. Salaries were not great at all. Not at all. And I could have got probably better salaries had I left STC. But I loved working in the shipping department with all men. And they liked me. And I worked there for six years before we were made redundant.

7:25

So I have got very happy memories of everyone I know from that department. Because we were cables. We do overland cables and underground cables. Yeah, STC, standard telephone and cables. We moved to Newport in Gwent, the whole thing.

7:44

So at that time, do you have any difficulties of finding the right spices?

7:51

Well, we had loads of little Indian shops, so there was no trouble, not that difficult to find. Not that difficult. If you went to Green Street, I think you could achieve quite a bit. By then, all the Indians from Kenya had already established themselves and they had shops

8:09

over here. So we had no problems. But if I went, which I did, after I arrived here in 71, my first trip to Goa, because my mum had already immigrated to Goa back, I went there, I went there in ’74, and every time I went there I used to get the spices from there and bring them back, because they're far better quality than we have here. You know, and the flavour of the spices, like cinnamon and cloves and things like that.

8:41

Okay, right. And one thing about this at that time, and do you, apart from going to work, you will have to take the buses. And when you shop, do you take buses or you just walk?

8:57

From my place I could get a bus right opposite to where I was when I was living in Plashet Road. Right opposite to me we used to have an army and navy club. And there was a bus stop right out there. So we could take it to Green Street. And outside my house we had to go down to Stratford. So it wasn't a very long journey for me to get on a bus to go.  It was quite convenient.

9:23

And how about off work, like the weekends, and do you go where you normally go

9:30

Well, weekends, well, catching up with the work of going to the launderette, because we only had the one bedroom flat originally. But then even when we went up the top, we didn't have a washing machine there. We had a fridge, freezer and cooker and all that, but not facilities for washing, a washing machine given to us in those days. So I had to go to the launderette. So that was another cumbersome job to get down to the road, not very far from the house, but that was another job that I had on a Saturday.

10:04

Sunday, of course, I cooked and went to church and that was my day off. If I was all right without my migraines, and then started work on the Monday again.

10:14

It's a different world then, isn't it?

10:16

It was. It was a tremendous shock to me when I came to this country, absolute shock, because I lived in Nairobi, which is an upmarket place in the 70s and 60s. We used to wear the best of clothes we went on a Saturday to work and we went to restaurants and I used to live in a hotel. You know life was completely different, completely different to here, completely different.

But you get used to it, you settled down here.

Yes, I got used to it, I've settled down, this is my home, I consider this my home.

10:52

I've got grandchildren now, two grandchildren, one is 19, one's just completed 17. Yes, life has gone by, I don't repent one bit of coming here, not one bit, because I've had a very colorful life.

Yeah, definitely.

11:08

In my jobs as well.

11:09

No matter how difficult it was then.

11:11

Yes, it was very difficult when I came and I was much younger then but I managed. I managed. You sailed through it. And I'm happy to be here. It wouldn't have been the same in Kenya because I had already made up my mind not to stay there because when one of the ministers passed away there's a lot of upheaval and I'd already said to my husband I don't think I will stay down here long. We'll try and get out even if it is Dubai or wherever through the bank to work. But it never came to that because we had British passports. And they were giving vouchers. We even had to wait for a voucher despite the fact we had a British passport to come here, which we did. And that's how we came to this country because of our birthrights, actually.

12:03

Right, okay.

12:04

Because Britain ruled Kenya.

12:06

Right, yes, it's a colony?

12:09

Yes, a colony. Yes, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, the three territories.

12:15

Right.

12:16

Yes.

12:17

And I think we are going to put an end to this interview, and the time is 14.07. Today is 11th of December, 2023. Thank you Linda for taking this interview.

Judy.

12:36

Sorry, thank you Judy.

That's alright.  That's okay. That's okay. We all make mistakes.

Transcript – Mavis – by Henry

36:40

Henry Wilson voice recording interview with Mavis regarding transportation in the Redbridge area and other places. So Mavis, let's go all the way back in time to your school days.

0:15

Oh crikey.

How did you get to school on a daily basis?

0:20

Sometimes I walked and sometimes I got on the bus.  If I got on the bus I’d have to spend the penny and if I walked I spent the penny in the little shop getting a not a bun a bread roll.

So who gave you this money? Your parents?

My dad yeah.

And did you ever tell your dad that some of it some time went?

No no no no no he would have stopped the penny and he said ‘you walk every day’.

0:51

How long did he get to from your house to the school?

0:55

It was quite a long way.

0:58

So from where to where?

1:00

Well I lived in Chigwell and I went to Chigwell School, Girls School, a church school it was.  I think it was St Mary's, I'm not sure. No I can't remember.

What sort of time would it take on a bus?

Oh, a quarter of an hour on the bus.

 And walking with the pie in hand?

A good half hour.

Oh okay.

Oh I never got the bun until lunchtime, and they were baked and you could smell it, oh it was lovely. I can smell it now.

What was your favourite cake by the way?

1:41

cake

your favourite dessert then?

I used to have it at school I was school, have school dinners, because I lived a long way away, I think it was rice pudding yeah.  The only thing is they used to put jam on it, I didn't like that.

2:04

So what time did you have to leave in the morning to get via walking to the school?

After 8 o'clock.

Did you have to leave the same time you were taking the bus to do the cover story?

 Yeah. Used to meet me friends at the bus stop.

2:18

And what time did you start your homeward journey?

When did school finish?

2:29

I think that was about half past three, I think.

Thanks. I'd just like to move on to school trips. Did you have school trips at your school?

2:41

Yeah, yeah. I don't know how we got there, but we used to go, there was a thing called Britain Can Make It, that was after the war and we went there and it's quite interesting but I can't remember anything about it or how we got there, must have gone by bus anyway because there wasn't any trains up in Chigwell then.

3:07

So how did you get anywhere if there were no buses?

No I had to get on the bus

Oh you had to get on the bus

Yeah

Okay, did the school arrange your trips or did your parents?

Oh no, the school

And I presume that the parents had to pay for it wasn't free?

Oh, it's free yeah

Oh, that's excellent sure it was yeah

3:24

And uh did you have any overnight trips with the school?

3:27

No

Did you take any food with you on the trip?

Do I don't remember that, no.

Did your family have to contribute to the cost, well the answer to that was no?  So you didn't have to pay anything in advance or anything on tick, as they used to call it?

No, my dad wouldn't have paid anyway because he liked a little drink.

So is there any other school trips that you used to go on to or was that the only one that you remember?

4:01

That's the only one that I remember, yeah. Oh, sometimes they used to take us swimming.

Was that a weekly thing or...?

I think it was, or once a month, I'm not sure.

Which swimming pool did they go to?

Cathall Road, Leytonstone.

Is that still there?

4:18

Yeah, yeah, it is. I'm surprised, but it is.

And how did you get there?

It was blinking cold. Oh, it was cold. They said it was warm, but it wasn't.

4:29

Well, not for me, I like it hot. We must have gone by bus.

And did the school have its own bus, or did you have to pay for a coach or something?

We didn't have a... Well, I don't think we had a school bus. I don't remember that.

4:47

Were there any other trips that the school went on, such as a museum trip or anything like that at all do you recall?

No.

Okay.

No only Britain Can Make It and swimming yeah.

What was Britain Can Make It regarding what was that about actually?

Well after the war they started, I can't remember what we, I didn't buy anything there because my Dad wouldn't give me any money to spend, he'd say but that’s a waste of time.  It was what Britain was making after the war, but I can't remember anything what we saw there, I really can't, but I know we went.

Okay thank you.  What year did you leave school or what age did you leave school?

I think I was 14

And did you go straight into employment?

Yep, yep.

5:25

And who was that with?

5:40

Um... Well I'm now in Benfleet. Um, George Plant was the firm and it was a machinists, you know, making clothes. Yeah. And you used to get there by bus.  The bus used to turn around where the houseboat was.  I used to get on there and we used to go into Leigh on Sea for the um to work and I worked there till

6:13

when i think i was 19 when we come back to London

And you say from a houseboat?

yeah

so did you live on a houseboat and what can you tell me about the houseboat?

Not much really, because we didn't go anywhere, it was stationary, but it was a tidal, the tide came in twice a day, morning and night, or morning and evening. Yeah that was quite good.

And why were you on a houseboat, not the previous property you were at?

6:54

Well it was a funny turnout.  My sister got married and her husband was a sailor and he saw this houseboat down in Benfleet and they went after it and they said it wasn’t big enough. So they came back through the council got a house in Buckhurst Hill. So now my Dad said, ‘I'll have a look at that houseboat’, because he suffered with his chest and he thought the sea air would do him good. It didn't really. If you've got lung trouble, you've got lung trouble haven't you?  And he decided that he wanted to buy it, so he did.  so then I went there when I was about 12 I think. and then from there as I say I got a job in Leigh on Sea and went to work there.

And did you have any adventures on the boat like floodwaters or anything like that?

Yeah, dreadful, dreadful. I lived it for years. Every time I was dreaming, it was always, I couldn't get to the sea wall. It really did damage me, it did, because I couldn't get away from that, I can't reach it, you know?

 Was this a particular event that stuck in your mind?

Yeah, yeah, it was horrible, horrible.

What was it, if I can ask?

8:35

Well, the thing was, the boat floated, and it couldn't go in because of the gangplank. I'll show you, I've got a picture of it, and I just saw that it was a gangplank, it was a scaffolding pole.  I saw that when I was 13.  I was a little skinny kid like that.  My Dad was bigger than you, like him, Would he do it? No. ‘Get up there!’ he said.  

Why did you need to sort for a scaffolding pole?

Because the boat floated, and it couldn't get in because the boat was in, what I call a cradle. It was an oval shaped boat and here there was like two big poles the boat sat in there, and then you got steps in to get in, and steps from the water side to get in, but the thing is, once you floated

9:53

you was hitting the uh gangplank so you couldn't get in.  So, I had to saw those off to get in, otherwise the chains would have broken and you'd have just floated away.  It was awful experience because my Dad was one of them ‘I'm not going to do it, you are’.  Oh yes, very, very Victorian.  And there's this big man that wouldn't get out of that seat. My Mum's on the sea wall, because we thought it was going to float away. ‘Jack, will you get out that’... ‘No, no’, he said. ‘The captain goes down with his ship’.

10:42

Well, it's terrifying me, wasn't it? Terrifying me, honestly. And my Mum had made me a cup of tea, and I was shaking like this, I couldn't put it in the cup saucer.  Because we had cup saucers in them days, not mugs.  ‘Oh’ I thought, ‘I wish he'd get out of that boat and then I wouldn't care where the boat went’.  But I did saw it off and it did release it in a bit so that we stayed floated.

So why was the water so high?

That we will never know because it flooded Canvey Island, unbelievably, because people died on Canvey.

11:20

So, this is 1950s?

Yeah, yeah yeah.  I mean, if you ever go to Canvey, do you ever go?  If you parked up on the seafront or behind the sea wall and walk up and then walk down onto the walkway, they've got a mural of the whole of Canvey, and you've got this woman rocking this baby's pram, thinking that it was alive but it wasn't, it was dead. It was awful. People died.  I think the baby must have drowned I don't know.

 So when did your father decide to move, or did you move off the boat independently?

No no he decided that because, when the seawall got wet it got muddy and it really was muddy.  And he had big feet size 14, and he couldn't get his feet out of the mud.  And if he can't get to the pub he don't want to live there. And then my sister lived in the house that we left. She took that over.  Then they had a caravan in their grounds, because they had a lot of ground and

12:49

the caravan.  The two nurses, that worked in Claybury Hospital, they moved out, so the caravan was empty.   So, she said, ‘Dad, do you want the caravan?’ He said ‘yeah’, so that's when we come back to Chigwell.

So how long were you on the living on the boat for?

About six years.

And then you went to the caravan.  How long did you stay at the caravan?

Not all that long, because me Dad died, and then, because I’ve got a lot of brothers and sisters, the other sister had a house in Wanstead and she had a flat upstairs that she rented out.  She bought it with the woman sitting in it. So, she said to me Mum, ‘Do you want you and Mavis to have the flat?’. So, she said ‘yeah’, because then, because I was working in Leytonstone then. So that suited us better because I could walk to work.

And where did you walk to work to? What was the employment?

13:37

The same, dress making.

Same company?

Oh no, no, no, this was a private one. Jack Kress, I don't think he is alive any longer because he was a lot older than me. And he got beat up badly, taking the money out the bank to pay the workers and they beat him up terrible.

14:30

So, was that the end of him employing you or was there somebody else that carried on the employment after he'd been beaten up because obviously he can't manage from hospital?

14:40

Yeah, no he didn't give up, no, but I had to leave, because my mother-in-law had the business here with the coal shop.  And said she was going off with some man and would I take over, and I said no, but I had to because it's all my husband was doing, the coaling.

So what did your husband do?

He was, well originally, he was a panel beater and welder, then he went in the army, done his National Service.  Then when he come home he went back to the coaling because of his Dad and granddad, they all had a coal business. Yeah.

15:22

And how did they transport the coal to the houses and stuff?

Oh by lorry. I've got a picture of them, I'll show you.

And the cost for going by bus, do you remember what the costs were or anything like that?

15:36

No, only something like a penny I think.

15:37

 And was smoking allowed on the bus or train or anything like that at the time?

I never smoked so it didn't worry me.

15:53

And do you remember anything else about the bus services that you used? Were they trams, omnibuses or what?

They was normal buses from Chigwell to Leytonstone, but in Leytonstone there was a trolley bus where you had the poles above the top, and they'd go around the corner it'd flip off so they used to get this big pole out, hook it back on and go off again.

So, what it stopped the traffic then did it while they were in?

Yeah, but it's only minutes, but there weren't the traffic like it is today

16:24

And did the driver have anybody to help him with the pole?

No, he had to do it.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, buses?

16:30

The buses was a number 10 and it used to go from Lane... I don't know where it went from, but it used to end up at the Crown at Crooked Billet, which is still there at Chigwell and really near the entrance to the hospital there. It used to be a mental hospital, Claybury, do you know of it?

Yeah.

That's where we used to terminate, nearly there, and I don't know how much I'd paid, maybe a penny or tuppence.

Which days of the week did you travel to work?

17:16

Oh, Monday to Friday.

Did you have the weekends off?

Yeah.

Excellent.

Did the work change over the period of time that you were working? Did you do different types of work or was it always along the line of garments and seamstress?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was a ticket or payment for the journey checked at any time by the clippy, the bus driver, the transport?

Well no, but occasionally the inspector get on and you thought ‘Aww, have I got the right ticket?’ but you had, yeah.

And what did they do with the ticket so did you buy it from a ticket office or buy it on the bus?

 Oh, you bought it on the bus and it used to have a oblong thing with all different price tickets on it and it would take it off put it in this machine click it and you'd get a ticket with a little hole in it yeah and that's what the inspector was checking

Did you enjoy the work you did?

Yeah I did, yeah.

And did you get any promotions to head seamstress or?

I did when I come back to London.

18:33

I went to work for Jack Cress and I didn't know the floor lady was checking my work. That don't bother me, you can check it. And then he said to me could I be a sample hand? That means when they got a contract you had to make a garment up and they used to cut it out, I made it up and then if it passed you'd get the contract for the job  for so many hundred.

19:09

Yeah, they checked my work and she said she liked it. So he come and said, would I be a sample end? And I didn't have the sense to say do I get a rise? And I done it for nothing. But it was different in them days. If you asked for a rise, you got a ha'penny an hour. We don't have a ha'penny now, do we?

No.

19:41

Did they have a pension or was there a pension you paid into at the time?

No. No.

The company, did they actually organise any days out for their work?

No.

And so there was no outings or Christmas events or anything like that at all?

No, no.

Is there any particular journey or particular job that you used to travel to? The journey that you remember that was a favourite of yours out of all the journeys you used to make?

One that you either enjoyed or one that was nice and pleasant and fast to get you where you needed to go?

20:15

Well occasionally when I went to live in Wanstead, my boss lived out further, and he used to come down and if he saw me he'd toot me up and give me a lift to work, so that was alright.

What kind of vehicle do you think?

20:39

Oh he had a lovely car.  It was an automatic. I just know he never had to change gear, just put his toe down and it went.

And what were the interiors like? Were they leather or? No I can't remember.

And what about the actual colour? Do you remember the colour of the car? No I don't know.

That was a memorable journey. Yeah. Saved you money as well I presume. Well that's right yeah.

So how many holidays a week or a year did you get from your employment?

21:14

Well only maybe one or two.

 Weeks or?

 Weeks, yeah.

And did you have any particular places you'd like to go when you were on holiday?

21:24

Well not in them days because you didn't have enough money.  Even though you was on piecework you earned good money but your overheads were, you know.   I used to have to give me Mum so much money to keep me and I used to buy my own clothes and just used to have a couple of weeks somewhere cheap and cheerful.

And what is piecework?

Piecework was where they give you say 20 garments to make up, you made up a certain amount of time and you got extra if you done them in that time.

So how many weeks holiday you used to get from the employer?

22:08

Oh about two weeks, no more.

 And for those holiday periods you just had a nice time at home?

22:13

Yeah sometimes.

Was there any particular space, place that you like to go to or travel to?

Well in them days, the travel wasn't as good as it is today. Now you can go anywhere, but in them days you couldn't.

Did you do any seaside trips at all while you were at work in the years?

I think I went to Margate. I went with my Mum, my brother and sister-in-law and his two kids We went to Margate, and then we used to have days out with me Mum to Malden or Clacton something like that.  But that was a day trip, and I think that was done through a church my Mum used to go to occasionally.  They’d say oh we've got a trip going to Maldon for the day and it was just a nice time yeah; get in the water a bit.

23:19

Is there any particular things that you like to get or eat when you're on the trips?

No

23:27

But the food about them days was still on ration more or less

Oh so we're talking 1950s?

Yeah.

Okay. In regards to shopping did you have a regular shop every week or a particular shop you like to shop at for your groceries or for other things?

No I never done it. Me Mum done all that.

And what about when mum was no longer around were you doing the shopping then?

Well, no I was married then.

24:06

So who did the shopping?

Me

Where did you go?

24:10

Oh well the next door but one was a little grocer shop and I used to go in there.

And did you buy everything cash in hand or credit card?

Oh no, no credit card all cash, all cash yeah

24:26

And did you travel to these shops on foot because at the end of the road or did you go to any other department stores or?

24:33

No only there, because when the shop was open you couldn't just fly off and go somewhere.  You had to be here to take the coal orders.

Did you have any nice shopping trips yourself? For yourself?

Mmm, not that I can remember So you made your own clothes I presume, being a seamstress?

24:56

Quite a few, yeah

Did you enjoy that?

Yeah

Did you ever go out just for a little walk or an amble somewhere and possibly stop for a treat while you were out and about?

25:04

No, there weren't the coffee shops like there is today. It's a different world.

What were there available to you if you had the money that it were?

I don't know. I never went out looking for it.  I knew I couldn't afford it so I didn't go out.

Very wise. Thinking of visiting friends, family or any hospitals you needed to do, did you have any experience that you'd like to share regarding such things, visiting friends or family or any hospital visits you had to do? Is there anything that strikes your mind?

25:48

No, I'd never had, I was lucky enough not to have no hospital appointments or anything. My friends used to come here because they I had the shop open, so they used to come here, and they used to like it in there because I had a coal fire.  She used to poke the fire and get it all flaring up.  And then when the kids come out of school they'd go back and collect them and go home.

And what about visiting family?

26:17

Well, we used to do that of an evening.

On foot or by bus?

 No, my husband drove he had a car.

Did he drive the actual coal van, or did he have a separate vehicle?

No, he had a car as well as the lorry, yeah. Otherwise I would have gone out in the lorry; I'm not proud.

26:42

How long was the journey to your friends? They came to you, how long do you think it took them to get to you?

Oh, only about 10 minutes, because they're on the way to school and then they used to come here in the afternoon. When they took them back after dinner, they used to come here for a couple of hours and go home.

And what about when you were visiting family?

Yeah, well, we used to do that of an evening because they're at work as well.

27:10

And did you have to travel very far in the car?

Well yeah, back to Chigwell Yeah, two of my brothers lived in Chigwell and one lived in Woodford Bridge.

Did you visit them very often or only occasionally?

About maybe once a week yeah, about once a week.

Okay.

27:39

Yeah.

We had an indoor shelter, I think it was called a Morrison, and it was sheet metal, and then you used to all go under it when the siren went off.

This is the Second World War?

Yeah.

And this is inside the house?

27:54

Yeah, yeah. and there was a wire netting, quite big like that, and it used to go all the way round, hook it on and we all used to lay under there until the air raid had gone off.  And then my Mum said ‘You can't cope with that’.  Oh no, first of all, we had an outdoor shelter, a round one, and it was dug in the ground and then of course it got flooded, didn't it?

Oh, this is the Anderson shelter?

28:37

Yeah. So that is when we got the Morrison, because that flooded, and I remember them carrying me out of there as a baby, and my Dad laughing at me because I was all floppy like this, otherwise I would have drowned I suppose I don't know .

And what sort of transport was available to you at this time, horse and cart, omnibus, minibus?

29:03

Oh, my Dad had a horse and cart because he was a greengrocer, and he used to go around, he had his own customers, and he used to go around every day of the week and whatever we could get, because you had to go to the market then and buy it.  I have to laugh because my brother used to be used to take a long while, one of them, ‘Where you been?’, ‘I had to queue up’, ‘You been down that snooker hall?’,  ‘I have not’, ‘yes you have’, ‘no I haven't’. They used to argue every Monday on that. So then one day my Dad went and when he got to Snakes Lane, you know Snakes Lane don't you? he dropped the reins and said ‘go on Ted’, and what did that horse do? Take him round into Waltham Road,

30:07

stopped right outside the snooker hall. He said’ I know who's down that snooker hall’. You see you think the animals are dumb, they're not.  

You had horses for the green grocers, yeah, and you had trucks or lorries from the coal?

That’s as I got older yeah.

I mean from my perception now the green grocers and also from a coal merchants as was they're quite good jobs they're quite well paid they're quite busy and but they're quite affluent yeah were you seeing did you think of yourself as an affluent lady?

Note: PARTICIPANT DOESN’T WANT THE BIT ABOUT HER BEING AFFLUENT MENTIONED.

No, no, because when my mother-in-law left here she left a little debt.

30:54

Okay, so do you think there was anything about the war that you'd like to comment on with regard to your period of time.  It must have been very strange to have been in the peacetime and then to a wartime total difference I would have thought?

Oh yeah, thank goodness.  I remember the war ending because my Mum said ‘Oh go down to…’ oh, I can't remember the name of the bloody pub now.  ‘Go down there’ she said, because Winston Churchill was coming round to raise his fingers up, so we all go down there because it was something really good. We'd never seen anybody like that before. But we did see him and he'd come round with the salute to say the war was over. Thank goodness for that.

31:53

Where was that?

Do you know the church on the green at Woodford Bridge?  Well don't go past there just go along the road what's that pub? I don't know if it's the same pub anymore. Crooked Billet? No no that's the top one it's down here.

So it was in South Woodford or?

No Woodford Bridge. Yeah well we've got all the conjecture about this Broadmead bridge being closed off at the moment

 Oh no, I don't know but it's opposite that estate that little pub it's not little pub anyway oh and did you you saw Winston Churchill? Three Jolly Wheelers. Oh. That's it. I knew I'd get it eventually.

32:53

Is it gone?

No, it's further down. Oh. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. The Three Jolly Wheelers, that's it.

And you saw Winston Churchill?

Yeah. Was he with his entourage?

Was his wife there?

No, no. Just him standing up in the back of his car, you know, with the roof off. and sadly, not that way, that way, yeah, the war was over, thank goodness for that.

Did the rationing have an effect on your dad's business?

33:23

No, I don't think so

Rationing on coal and things like that?

Yeah, there was rationing on coal, because when I lived in what I call, we called the jungle. When I lived there, well it was a jungle.

Where’s that?

 In the forest, wasn't it? Yeah, my brothers used to call it the jungle. But there's one house in the forest in Tomswood Road, not Tomswood Hill, Tomswood Road. You go up the hills from Barkingside, and on the left there was a forest, and it was right down to Manor Road the forest, that's where we had the caravan and I forget what I was going to tell you about that.

34:16

About the rationing and the coal?

We didn’t have the gas, we didn’t have the electric.  We had running water and the coal.  My Mum used to have to go up to a man called Parr, I don't think he's there anymore, at Hainault  Road, and ask for extra coal, because we had to cook by coal .

And was there an exemption for cooking by coal, as opposed to cooking for other things I mean. Did they accept that rationale?

34:49

Yeah we did used to get extra, we had a pay for it, obviously. but yeah, we used to get extra.

I mean just looking back on your life, well what's the best transport now?

Oh yeah.

The availability, the cost or both?

35:10

Because you can get anywhere.  Before you could only go so far. I mean occasionally when we come up from Benfleet, we used to get the train from South Benfleet to Leytonstone Midland and then we got the bus to go to Woodford Bridge. But and you still have to do the same ,but the buses are more frequent you know, much more frequent. I mean at one time it was only about I think every 15 minutes to Woodford Bridge. If you missed it hard luck. I know a few times where my husband-to-be missed the bus and had to walk home. It was a long walk from Woodford Bridge to here.

36:09

And what was it like living in the caravan? You talked about that but we only sort of just quickly scraped over. What was the caravan's condition like? Heat and ventilation and..

36:20

It was all old fashioned. James, can you get me me... you put it on the table, didn't you? It was only a little caravan. Like it was a little houseboat.