Pie 'n' Mash and Prefabs (12 page)

We had a number of other street traders in those days who would drive round the streets, selling their wares or offering their services. The other common trader was the ice cream man, who came round on a tricycle with a large freezer on the front. His range was a bit restricted as he only carried vanilla and strawberry ice-cream bricks as well as wafers and cornets, plus a few choc ices – no lollies.

There was the knife grinder who would call, asking if we had any knives or blades that needed sharpening. I believe he also provided a service in banging out dents in saucepans but we never called on his expertise in this field. The other fairly common trader was the rag and bone man, who used to cry out something that sounded like ‘Anyolraganombrey?'. It wasn't until years later that I realised what he must have been trying to say was: ‘Any old rags and bones?' He was one of the last people I ever saw using a horse and cart for his means of transport.
A stout, shortish man, he sat perched high up on a bench at the front of the cart, holding the reins of his horse. He always looked very scruffy, as if wearing the cast-off clothes that people gave him – and perhaps he was. Usually, he stopped in the middle of the street waiting for people to come out to him – no problem with holding up the traffic because mostly there wasn't any. In the days before charity shops, it was a good way of getting rid of old clothes and many's the time Mum, along with a number of the neighbours, would bundle some up and take them out to him. He would give her a few pennies for her trouble. We never gave him any bones, though.

Occasionally, a fishmonger came round the streets in a small van; he had a reasonable range of fish, but we preferred the fish stall in the market as it always seemed to be better prepared and there was a wider selection. Like everyone else, we had our milk delivered every day by the Co-op milkman in his hand-pulled float. He used to knock once a week and, because it was the Co-op, we had to give him our number so we could get our ‘divi' paid. I heard that number so often I can still remember it to this day – 522782. ‘Divi', as it was universally known, was short for dividend and as long as you joined the Co-op by filling in the membership form you were entitled to a share of the profits because the Co-op was (and still is) owned by its members. Every time you made a purchase, whether it was milk from the milkman or in a Co-op shop, the amount you spent was entered into a small passbook and twice a year you had to take your book along to a Co-op shop – our nearest was in Mare Street – and you would get a rebate based on how much you'd spent.

At one time, we had bread delivered by a baker's van, but this
was a short-lived phenomenon as he used to turn up quite late and Mum wanted the bread delivered early. The funny thing was that he used to deliver in a small four-wheeled van. The week after we stopped using him, we noticed he'd been reduced to a three-wheeled van.

During our Sunday tea, we usually watched children's television as the times coincided nicely. In my younger days, I saw
Muffin the Mule
with Annette Mills, my favourite programme. As I got older and ITV began in 1955, I began watching Vincent Ball introduce programmes such as
The Adventures of Robin Hood
starring Richard Greene and
Roy Rogers.
After tea and television, there was a bit more time for play, usually while
Down Your Way
was on the wireless, and then it was into the bath, ready for bed. After my bath, I listened to
Dick Barton Special Agent,
which had an especially exciting theme tune called ‘Devil's Gallop' and, in later days,
Journey Into Space
with Jet Morgan, Doc, Mitch and Lemmy. When I got older and bedtime became later, I'd watch a bit more television.
What's My Line?
with the grumpy Gilbert Harding, David Nixon, Lady Isobel Barnett and Barbara Kelly and hosted by Eamonn Andrews and
Sunday Night at the London Palladium
became favourites of ours.

Then it was off to bed. And so ended the weekend and I was all ready for school again the next day.

E
aster saw the first visit of the fair. Just across Lea Bridge Road, next to North Millfields, was a fairground used three times a year: Easter, Whitsun and August Bank Holiday. For a few days before it was due to open, we'd see the showmen turning up in their gaudily decorated caravans and lorries bringing their own particular ride or sideshow along. It always seemed to me that these people led the most romantic way of life, going from place to place, travelling the country, setting up fairgrounds. What a life they must have led!

It was a very exciting time and the Easter Fair was one of the highlights of my year. The official opening date was Good Friday, but we always used to go over on Thursday evening on the pretext of seeing if they were ready yet. They always were and, gee whizz, what a sight met our eyes! The coloured
lights, the smells of hot dogs, doughnuts, candy floss and petrol generators, the barkers (especially ‘Ol' Billy Fairplay all the way from Holloway') bawling their attractions out to the crowd and the screams of people on the rides created an atmosphere that took me completely away from my everyday world. For the hour or so we stayed, it was like being in Paradise. There were the rides such as the dodgems, the waltzer, the Brooklands speedway racing track and, the centrepiece of the fair, the large gaily painted carousel with its golden galloping horses and the organ playing in the background; there were the game stalls, the coconut shy, roll the pennies, hoop-la and fishing for ducks; and sideshows like the boxing booth, where the ‘Champion' challenged all-comers, the fortune teller and even freak shows with ‘The Bearded Lady', ‘The World's Smallest Man' and ‘The Rubber Man'. Dad used to take me on the dodgems and we would also have a go at some of the games, quite often winning a goldfish or a cheap china fairing. Candy floss was a must and sometimes, if Dad was in a particularly good mood, a doughnut as well.

The fair stayed for about a week and then they all moved off to their next location. We usually returned at least once over the Easter holiday but nothing was quite like that first visit; the lights, sounds and smells never seemed the same again. To me it was second only to Christmas morning as the best day of the year.

Dad loved the fair and all that went with it as much as I did. In fact, he used to help Grandpa operate a fairground stall on Hampstead Heath in the 1920s. It was a game stall called ‘Cover the Spot'. The aim was to cover a large coloured spot
entirely with five smaller discs. The shape and size of the spot and the discs was such that there was only one way the large spot could be covered and, unless you knew the secret, it was almost impossible. To encourage people to part with their money Dad and Grandpa had a little routine worked out. About every half an hour or so, Dad, who was only a young boy then, would wander past as if by chance and Grandpa would shout out to him, ‘Sonny, you look like a clever lad! Do you want to have a go?' Dad, who of course knew how it was done, would then complete the puzzle and walk off. Everyone would think that if a young boy could do it then it had to be easy, so they would line up to try it, making Grandpa lots of money as he rarely had to give out any prizes. It was only those who stayed watching for more than half an hour who ever suspected anything odd!

Whenever we won a goldfish, it was given to us inside a small plastic bag full of water. The first time this happened, we had nowhere to put it when we got home so we had to make do with a large dish we had. As soon as we could, we went out and bought a large bowl. We then thought it looked a bit lonely so, the next time Dad went down the Lane, he bought an aquarium and some more goldfish and brought them home on the bus. A little while afterwards, I went to the River Lea to see if I could catch any fish myself to put in the aquarium and managed to catch a few sticklebacks. The next morning, they had all disappeared – we could only assume the goldfish had eaten them.

From this small beginning, we kept fish for many years, topping up our collection at regular intervals with prizes from the fair.

Easter was also the first holiday of the year when John came home, so I was able to spend some time with him. Being a sporty household, we had a number of games we could play. We had a dart board, a small billiards table and we also extended the dining-room table to play table tennis. John and I used to take each other on at all these, though I didn't stand much chance against him. Nevertheless, it was brilliant having my brother home for a while.

On one of his early visits home, he introduced us to the wonders of coffee. We had never had coffee in the house, Mum and Dad always preferring a nice cup of tea, which, of course, in those days was made with real tea leaves – we always had Ty-Phoo – scooped out of the caddy with a teaspoon, one for each person and one for the pot, put into the teapot and boiling water poured over them. The teapot then had a tea cosy placed over it to keep it warm while it was brewing – none of those new-fangled tea bags then. John had discovered coffee at school and persuaded Mum to buy some for the house. His favourite brand was Bev, which was a liquid coffee and chicory essence sold in a bottle. I can't say their first taste impressed Mum and Dad much and, in spite of John's protestations that it was a great new drink, they continued with their tea and left him to finish up the bottle on his own.

The summer holiday was always a good time. Mum would arrange lots of outings to places like Epping Forest, which was only a bus ride away. We used to go to the Rising Sun pub in Woodford, not in it, but in the grounds, because they had a boating lake there and we'd take out a small boat and row round and round the lake until we heard the familiar cry, ‘Come in,
number seven, your time is up!' Sometimes we went to Whipps Cross lido, which, when it opened in 1932, was the largest open-air swimming pool in the country, with a 20-foot-high diving board, racing lanes and a paddling area. Sadly, it fell into disuse and in 1983 was filled in. I have to say I wasn't much of a fan of the lido as I once cut my foot there and remained a bit wary of it after that.

We always took a picnic with us and would venture a little way into the forest itself to find a clearing where we could have our eats. One day, on returning to the road to catch the bus, Mum got her foot stuck in some mud. She started to panic a bit and I didn't know what to do. I tried tugging at her arm but it didn't do any good and it looked as though we might be trapped there until night-time – I had all sorts of visions of wild animals coming out of the forest and eating us. I got really scared so my poor mum not only had to try to get her foot free but also to calm me down. Eventually, she managed to wriggle her foot out of her shoe. Gosh, was I relieved when I saw her foot squelch out of that mud! The shoe itself was stuck fast and, although we both tried yanking it free, it just sank further in so she had to get on the bus and come back home with just one shoe on and the other foot caked in mud. Goodness knows what the conductor and the other passengers must have thought about this strangely attired woman with the black leg and only the one shoe getting on their bus.

Another fine-weather activity was to go to the putting green at the back of Millfields and play a round. There were also some tennis courts there but we didn't have racquets so we never played. Near to the putting green was an old bandstand
surrounded by trees, which often played host to a mobile cinema during the summer. This was a large brown van in which all the cinema equipment was kept. A big screen was set up outside the van and the films projected onto it from the van itself. There was no seating provided and the audience was expected to stand or sit on the ground to watch. Laurel and Hardy shorts were the staple diet. The trees gave some shade but on a very sunny day it was a bit difficult to actually see the flickering black and white films, though that didn't really matter to all the chattering children that flocked to these shows as it was something different, a bit of an occasion and one where you'd get to meet all your school friends again during the holiday.

In the summer, we went a bit further afield for our shopping, travelling by the number 22 bus from the top of Chatsworth Road to Mare Street to visit the big shops, Marks & Spencer, British Home Stores and, best of all, Woolworths. Woolworths was much more my type of shop as it had plenty of toys and other interesting items for sale, unlike M&S and BHS, which only offered clothes. I could spend hours in Woolworths gazing in awe at all the goods they had on offer – skittles and quoits, jigsaws, model cars, toy soldiers, carpentry sets, Meccano, train sets. It was a little boy's paradise, and I loved our visits there. Woolworths also had their own record label, Embassy, which were cover versions of the hits of the day. Occasionally, when we went there, Mum risked Dad's wrath by buying a couple of these, the Embassy versions of two big hits of the day, Tab Hunter's ‘Young Love' and Pat Boone's ‘April Love'. Given Dad's views on modern music and his insistence that we only have
classical music, especially Gilbert and Sullivan, in the house, I thought this was very brave of her but I don't think she ever cared too much what he thought as she was very independently minded in that way.

Mare Street was the place for buying shoes as there were two big shoe shops there, Dolcis and Lilley & Skinner. I always preferred Dolcis because they had an X-ray machine. After trying on a new pair of shoes, you walked over to what looked like a large wooden box, stood up against it, put your feet in a hole at the bottom and looked through what seemed like a pair of binoculars at the top. You then waggled your toes to see how much growing room there was inside each shoe.

The other shop we always visited was Sainsbury's. Like the other grocer shops at the time, it wasn't self-service and you had to go to the counter to ask for what you wanted. But this was much bigger and posher than the shops in Chatsworth Road and looked quite palatial inside, with its marble counters, mosaic floors and white-tiled walls. The staff even wore a uniform. It also had its own cooked meat and cheese counters where we could buy fresh produce. Mum normally bought Summer County margarine to go on our bread, but when we went to Sainsbury's she would buy half a pound of butter as a special little luxury.

It was always a treat for me to see the shop assistant carve out a wodge of butter from a big mound of the stuff they had behind the counter and then pat it out with two grooved wooden paddles into an oblong shape. Although they worked fast, it took them some time as they were at pains to get it exactly right. The butter was then wrapped in greaseproof paper, put in
a paper bag and handed to us. When we got it out at home and unwrapped it, the marks of the grooves in the paddles were still very clear.

We also bought sugar from Sainsbury's in loose bags rather than the prepackaged type we got from our local shops. The sugar was scooped up from a large bin, poured into a blue conical bag and then weighed. The top was given a twist and handed over.

Another commodity we always bought on our visits was salt. This came in a large block, which was cut from an even bigger block by the assistant. When we got it home, we had to grate it ourselves into a glass jar. Sometimes I made models out of the salt block – it was very good for snow scenes.

When the weather was not so good, we would go to the cinema, mostly the Plaza in Leyton High Road, to see the cartoons. The Plaza used to put on programmes showing short cartoons, no main feature film, just a number of Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker or Tom & Jerry cartoons plus the obligatory Pearl & Dean advertising feature and Pathé News. We'd also visit other local cinemas if a good film was being shown. Over the years, we saw all the big Disney feature films, such as
Snow White, 101 Dalmatians
and
Lady and the Tramp.
We also saw the latest ‘blockbusters' and perhaps the biggest of these was
Davy Crockett – King of the Wild Frontier,
starring Fess Parker.

Davy Crockett
had begun as a very popular television mini-series in the United States but, when the film was produced off the back of it, Disney launched it in a flurry of publicity and marketing to cash in on the UK market as well. There was
an enormous merchandising campaign, something we take for granted nowadays with big films, but was quite rare then, and all sorts of toys and clothes were produced to coincide with the premiere, the most iconic being the Davy Crockett coonskin cap. Every boy my age had to have one and, sure enough, when we came out of the cinema I said to Mum, ‘Can I have a Davy Crockett cap?' So we stopped off at Woolworths and bought one. I wore it on the way home and for a couple of days it was the envy of my friends until they all bought one as well.

As well as going on days out with Mum, I played with my friends. Quite often, it would be just Andy. Being very keen on sport, we also used to watch Test match cricket on television. I can remember we saw Jim Laker perform his remarkable feat of taking nineteen Australian wickets in the fourth Test of the 1956 Ashes series, a record that still stands to this day. As he bowled out more and more of the Australians, we both got very excited and jumped up and down every time a wicket fell, which is actually more than Laker or the England cricketers were doing. Whenever a wicket fell, there were no celebrations as there would be today. Everyone on the pitch just remained calm and carried on as though nothing was happening. When the innings was over, there were just a couple of handshakes for Laker and that was it. I can't imagine everyone being so restrained today; there'd be mass celebrations, high-fives, everyone surrounding the bowler, thumping him on the back, throwing him up into the air. The bowler himself would probably be jumping about and punching the air and there'd be spectators running onto the pitch. None of that in 1956, but that was cricket in the fifties for you.

As we got a bit older, we started going to see cricket live at Leyton, where Essex played county cricket. At that time, Essex used to play their county cricket all round the county, normally playing two matches at each ground. Today they are mainly based in Chelmsford and, if you want to see them play, you have to go to them rather than have them bring cricket to you.