King's Cross Kid (2 page)

The lady who lives above us is Mrs Dakin, who Mum calls Elsie. She lives with a black man and Mum says she’s Welsh and comes from a place called Cardiff which is a long way away. Elsie is my mum’s friend.

3

Prospect Terrace School

In September 1924 I was five and the time had come for me to enrol in the local infants’ school. The night before I was due to go Mother pressed my shirt and trousers, made certain that there were no holes in the heels of my socks and cleaned my boots. Our boots always had hobnails hammered into the soles.

In the morning, it was only when we were cleaned and scrubbed and Mum was completely satisfied that we were ‘not going to show the family up’ that we were allowed to have our breakfast. Mum made us sit up in the correct manner, saying, ‘Get yer elbows off the table and sit up properly.’ Our breakfast was usually the same every day – a mug of tea and a bowl of Scott’s Porridge Oats with a spoonful of Tate & Lyle’s Golden Syrup.

Then down into the street with brother John holding tightly on to Mum’s arm and off we trot. First into Wakefield Street, then down the slope into St George’s Gardens where, ahead of us, stood the imposing red-brick building that was Prospect Terrace School.

Everything about the building had an air of authority. At either end of the roof stood make-believe turrets complete with battlements. I thought the place looked more like a castle under siege than a school. We went in through three stone archways, one for the infants, one for us boys and the third for the girls. The names of each group were carved above the arches, very imposing: INFANTS, BOYS, GIRLS. This building was where I was to start my schooling.

Mum says ‘Good morning, God bless’ to all the other mothers she knows. On the way to school, we come under the scrutiny of the ever watchful Mr Reid, the chief gardener of St George’s Gardens. You can’t miss him, always shouting, ‘Keep off the grass you lot, what do you think the pathways are for?’ Which of course attracts the good-natured jeers of the mums who, true to type, take no notice of any authority.

John was a year younger than me and still clinging to Mum’s ankles. She had a folding pram that she used to strap John into. ‘Quicker this way,’ she used to say, ‘can’t dawdle around, too much to do.’ Mum always seemed to be doing something.

As I walked along beside Mum everything seemed to be right with the world and then, without warning, I was through the arch being shuffled into a line of kids who were complete strangers. Mum had vanished and we were all escorted along a tiled passageway that was the entrance to the infants’ school. This was a strange new world and some of the kids began to cry their little eyes out for their mothers.

All of us in the small group of new arrivals were ushered into a large room where there were two ladies dressed in a sort of uniform, all in blue, complete with funny little hats. Then another elderly lady came in and told us that our mums would collect us at the end of the day and that everything was going to be all right. She calmed us down by telling us we were going to have plenty of toys to play with, the usual eyewash. Eventually, after the troubled children had been soothed with the help of a mouthful of sweeties, we were sorted into groups, Red, Blue and Yellow. I don’t, today, know which one I was in; it is too long ago and my memory comes back only in fragments. I do sort of recall, or at least have a vague feeling, that along with the rest of the new recruits I didn’t really enjoy being parted from my mum and brother John but I don’t think I was at all frightened so I must have felt safe in my new world. What I hadn’t expected was to be given a hot dinner at midday, including pudding with a helping of custard. The puddings changed according to the day of the week but the custard was a constant and appeared in front of us every day without fail.

That infants’ school period lasted for two years, from five to seven, and it was the only time during my schooldays that the sexes were mixed.

The most vivid memory I have of my early years at infants’ school is of the time I toppled the treasured maypole that stood in the corner of the main hall. The maypole reached almost to the ceiling and was a very impressive piece of equipment. One day it was dragged into the centre of the hall ready for some event where we were all to dance round it holding on to the long coloured ribbons that hung from its top.

The whole infants’ school paraded into the hall, girls in one line, boys in another, and we were each told to hold one of the ribbons, then the girls were to start dancing round the pole, followed by the boys.

One of the teachers sat down at the piano and off went the girls merrily doing their first circuit followed by the boys, including yours truly, who, in a moment of exuberance, gave his ribbon a mighty tug. I was stronger than most of the others and the result was that the maypole started wobbling from the top and slowly the whole contrivance came crashing to the floor, scattering the screaming girls and nearly decapitating the hapless lady at the piano. Luckily for me it never occurred to anyone that the culprit was one of the small innocent looking boys.

I can’t remember much from those early years, just flashes, a lot of which are about my dad. Dad never seemed to be part of the household, disappearing before we were out of bed in the morning and reappearing in the evening and then more often than not out again. I never had a clue where he went. I remember the time one day, when school had finished, I was waiting outside looking for Mum and, quite unexpectedly, who turns up but Dad. I was very excited, I jumped up and he put me on his shoulders and carried me sky high. I wanted the world to know that this was my dad.

Another time he came home with a big pile of wood and Mum helped him sort it out. By the time the pair of them had finished, John and I had that big, two-tier bed. Up to then we had been sleeping in our blankets spread out on the floor. That’s when Dad strung up the blanket to divide the room.

Another memory which refuses to go away is of Dad lighting up his big paraffin blowlamp. Dad was a plumber and the blowlamp and another tool, a big wrench called ‘a pair of stillsons’, were the main weapons in his tool bag. The blowlamp served to destroy the armies of bugs, cockroaches and other vermin which infested the tenements and houses where we of the working classes used to live. Dad used to light up this blowtorch and, after giving instructions for us all to stand well clear, would train the flames that came out of the nozzle along the skirting boards, or anywhere else that offered shelter to the tormenting bugs. In those days it didn’t matter where you lived – Bermondsey or Bayswater – you had to do battle with the insects that lived in the lath and plaster from which the inside walls of our houses were made.

Every weekend we had the ritual delousing. Mum got us with our heads down over the kitchen table and, using copious measures of carbolic liquid (better known as Condy’s fluid), mixed with water and aided by the application of a fine-tooth steel comb, she did her best to rid us of the various types of vermin that bred so freely in our rat hole of a place. It was many years before I realised how hard Mother struggled to keep her offspring fed and looking halfway clean and presentable.

Another memory is of the time Dad took me to a football match. We went along with some of his mates. John wasn’t with us because he was too young. After the game we were on the tram, just me and my dad, coming home. He asked me about my friends and I mentioned Freddie Wilson who lived a couple of doors up from us. ‘What’s he like then?’ ‘He’s my friend.’ ‘What’s ’is mum and dad like?’ ‘’E says ’is dad is always ’itting ’is mum.’ Then Dad said to me, very serious, ‘Never ’it a woman, son, you can shout at ’em but never ’it ’em, they carn’t fight back, you must always love yer mum.’ Of all the memories of my dad – and there aren’t many of them – that one stays with me.

I can only remember one other instance where he behaved like a dad and that was when he turned up one sunny morning with a motorcycle and sidecar. The sidecar was enormous. Mum and us two boys sat crammed into it while Dad drove us expertly out into the countryside. This episode, more than any other, made my dad seem a real person, a dad like my mates had. These moments were so few and far between in our lives that when Dad finally departed from the scene we boys hardly ever missed him.

He was so tall that when he came into the room everything appeared to be small. Dad’s head nearly touched the ceiling and he used to bang his head on the doorway if he ducked a little bit too late.

I have no recollection that we suffered any ill treatment from my dad, neither can I remember there being any violence between him and Mum, so all in all it seems that when I was a little boy life must have been peaceful, happy and content.

One day when the three of us were sitting by the fire, my dad being out, Mum had John on her lap and she told us that Jesus was going to fetch us a little baby and if we were good boys it was possible that Jesus might let us keep the babe for always. This was a shield used by mothers to ward off the possibility of the baby dying at birth, something which often happened.

Our mum talked to us all evening, telling us how good we had to be and saying that as we were big boys now we would have to help her as much as we could. ‘Can we take the baby out in the pram, Mum?’ (the pram was a fold-up affair hanging on a nail banged into the wall on the landing, the same one in which she sometimes wheeled brother John). ‘Let’s wait till Jesus brings the baby first and then we can talk about things. Anyway, Granny will be here to help us so off to bed the two of you.’ She gave us both a kiss like always and we climbed into our beds. I didn’t give brother John a kick this time because I felt good about Jesus and the new babe.

A few days later our grandma from Kenton Street turned up and told me and John that we are going to be sleeping round at her house for the next few days. ‘Why’s that, Gran?’ ‘Well, Jesus might be coming with the new baby.’ ‘Can we see Jesus, Gran?’ Gran quickly put us in our place: ‘Course not, you’re too young to understand these things.’ There was never any argy-bargy with our gran, she was terse and to the point. She towered almost menacingly above us two small boys and if there ever was one who had to be obeyed it was our gran. But her stern exterior was only a façade; underneath it all she had a heart of gold and proved it time and time again over the following years.

4

'As Jesus Been Yet?

A few days later, Gran picked us up from school. At home we found that Mum had been in bed all day. Now I was sitting by the fire grate watching Gran hustling and bustling about. She had made brother John go to bed and to keep him quiet she had bought him a
Tiger Tim
comic, which had plenty of pictures, which was good because John was too young to read. All afternoon the room had been full of different people coming and going. One of them was a big black man who I found out later was our local doctor. His name was Doctor Dia and his practice covered the area around Compton, Wakefield, Cromer and the adjoining streets. His surgery was on the corner of Compton Street and Judd Street and if you had need to visit him you paid sixpence (if you had it) and sat in the little parlour-like waiting room until his wife, who was also the nurse, called out your name. Where he originally came from I haven't a clue. He was a large man and as black as the ace of spades and everyone thought the world of him and his wife, who, by the way, was as white as a stick of chalk.

I could see Gran was getting worried; she wanted plenty of pennies for the gas meter and spare gas mantles.

‘Where's our dad then, Gran?' ‘Never mind about 'im. I've sent 'im back to 'is mother's, carn't 'ave 'im 'ere when Jesus brings the wee babe.'

The next day it was Gran who picked me up again after school and took me to her house in Kenton Street, only about ten minutes' walk away but it could have been in another country. It was situated west of Judd Street, on the posh side. Brother John was already there. After giving us a quick snack of bread and jam and a cup of tea, Gran was off to attend to the needs of her only daughter.

Before she went she gave us our orders: ‘Behave yerselves and get up to no mischief, I'll be back in an hour to get yer granddad's dinner. If yer make the place untidy I'll give yer both a thump', and then she was gone. As soon as we were alone John started to crawl all round the kitchen, upsetting Gran's pots and pans which she kept under the shelf of what she called her Welsh dresser. We spent the next hour trying to put everything back in place but we didn't succeed. When Gran got back she forgot about the thump and instead gave us both a big kiss and a hug. We thought our mum and gran were the best people in the whole world. We were both full of excitement about the promise of the new baby. ‘'As Jesus been yet, Gran?' ‘No, Victor, probably tonight and we think you might be getting a little baby sister.' I didn't think much of the arrival of a sister: ‘Girls are always crying, Gran, carn't I 'ave anuvver bruvver?' ‘Don't be wicked, Victor, you get what God gives you and don't forget to say your prayers before you go to sleep tonight, ask God to look after your mummy.' ‘Yes, Gran, I promise.' ‘You're both going to sleep on the floor upstairs, if you make any noise Granddad will come up and give you both a thump.' With that ultimatum delivered she started to collect the things she thought she might need, then took us both up to the front room and, after reminding us about our prayers, left us to our thoughts and the darkness of a strange room. Brother John, who had been taught to learn his evening prayers by rote, put his hands together and started saying ‘Our Father', but he had forgotten how it went and jumbled up the words.