Shadows of the Workhouse (37 page)
Read Shadows of the Workhouse Online
Authors: Jennifer Worth
There were never enough air-raid shelters for such large numbers of people. In other parts of London people went into the Underground stations, but Poplar had none. The nearest underground was Aldgate. The government provided corrugated iron for people to build Anderson shelters in their gardens, but most Poplar people did not have a garden. Fortunately, many houses did have cellars, where people slept. The crypts of churches provided shelter for hundreds of people, and whole communities lived day and night in the churches. More than one baby was born in All Saints’ crypt, as I learned from the Sisters. The overcrowding was terrible. Each person had just enough room to lie down, and no more.
There was always the fear that plague or disease would sweep through the shelters. Water and sewage pipes were frequently hit, but somehow they were always repaired, at least enough to prevent the spread of disease. Gas and electricity supplies were often hit too, but they were always patched up as well.
Mr Collett said to me: “Looking back it seems impossible, but everyone worked day and night, with amazing good spirit.
“When you are living in such conditions, close to death, every day is a gift. You are happy every morning to see the dawn break, and to know that you are still alive. Also, death was no stranger to us. Poplar people were used to suffering. Poverty, hunger, cold, disease and death have been with us for generations, and we have just accepted them as normal, so a few bombs couldn’t break us.
“We were used to overcrowding, so the shelters didn’t seem too bad. The loss of a house or rooms was no worse than eviction, and most people didn’t have much furniture to lose anyway. A family would just move in with neighbours who still had a roof over their heads.
“It was an extraordinary time. Suffering and anguish were all around us, but so too, in a strange way, was exhilaration. We were determined not to be beaten. Two fingers up to Hitler, that was the attitude. I remember one old woman we pulled out of the rubble. She wasn’t hurt. She gripped my arm and said: ‘That bugger Hitler. ’E’s killed me old man, good riddance, ’e’s killed me kids, more’s the pity. ‘E’s bombed me ’ouse, so I got nowhere ’a live, bu’ ’e ain’t got me. An’ I got sixpence in me pocket an’ vat pub on ve corner, Master’s Arms, ain’t been bombed, so let’s go an’ ’ave a drink an’ a sing-song.’”
There was even more devastation when the firebombs came, and it was these that were responsible for Sally’s death. Both Mr Collett and his wife had had a premonition, sensing that one of them would be killed, but they didn’t know who, or when. The firebombs were small, and burst into flames when they hit the ground. They were easy to put out – it could be done with a sandbag, or even a couple of blankets – but if the fire spread it could set whole buildings alight. The government appealed for volunteer fire-watchers who would go to the top of tall buildings to keep a watch on the area around them. They gave the alert when a firebomb fell, and the men with sandbags rushed to the spot at once to put out the fire. These fire-watchers had to know the area well, and were mostly old people who didn’t have the physical strength to deal with all the digging and heavy lifting required in the streets. Sally volunteered. He said: “She and others went up the highest buildings with nothing but a tin hat to protect them from the explosives and firebombs. One night the building Sally was in got a direct hit. I never saw her again. Her body was never found.”
After telling me this sad story he paused, and stared into the fire, for a few minutes, then said softly: “She knew the risk. We both did. I’m glad that she was taken first, and not left on her own. Death is kinder than life. There is no more suffering beyond the grave. We will meet again soon, I hope.”
He said the words “soon, I hope” a second time, and I didn’t know what to say, so I asked him about his daughter.
Shirley’s skills in Morse code and telegraphy were classed as a “special occupation”. She joined the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) in 1940 and entered the Intelligence and Communications Corps of the RAF. Her father saw a little of her when she came home on leave, but mostly he didn’t even know where she was stationed, because all her work was highly confidential, and secrecy was tight. She had never married, and had always been very close to her parents. After her mother’s death she threw herself into her work.
Mr Collett, too, found that hard work was the only remedy for unhappiness. After Sally’s death he worked day and night, not bothering much about food or sleep. As an ARP warden he did anything and everything that needed doing: helping ambulance men, digging away rubble, carrying water, filling sandbags, and mending burst pipes. He went out at night when bombs were dropping all around, not caring if he was killed. He helped people out of burning buildings, got them to shelters, carried babies, pushed prams. “It was a hard time, but satisfying,” he told me, “and all the while I fancied Sal was looking down on me, and sharing the experience.”
Many of his experiences from those days he could still vividly recall. He told me about one little boy, about six or seven years old, he said he would never forget. The wardens had dug him out of the rubble he had been buried under for several hours. He was underneath the body of his mother. She must have thrown herself over her son in order to protect him, when the bomb fell. She was quite stiff and cold, but he was safe beneath her. One does not know the psychological damage that such an experience can inflict, however. He said the boy’s name was Paul. Mr Collett mused: “He would be in his twenties now, and I often wonder how he has grown up, and if there has been any lasting mental damage.”
He continued his tragic story. “During the next five years I saw Shirley occasionally. She was flourishing. War has that effect sometimes. The unusual circumstances bring out the best in some people. All her intelligence and leadership qualities placed her in positions of command, and she thrived on it. I was so proud of her.
“In 1944 it seemed that the war was ending and we dared to plan for her demob and picking up our life again. But it never does to plan ahead in wartime. The VI and V2 rocket attacks started. At Christmas 1944 I was told by the RAF that a rocket had fallen on the staff headquarters where Shirley was stationed, and that she had been killed. I have been alone ever since.”
THE SHADOW OF THE WORKHOUSE
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in . . .
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
Leigh Hunt
Poplar was destined for change. Town planners had a new broom with which to sweep clean, and they were so successful that they swept virtually everything away. Poplar had survived the war, the blitz, the doodlebugs and the V2 rockets. The people had picked themselves up, brushed off the debris, and formed themselves into a community again, almost indistinguishable from the communities of their parents and grandparents. What finally destroyed Poplar was the good intentions of bureaucracy and social planning.
The tenements were to be demolished. In 1958 and 1959 notice was served to thousands of tenants and alternative accommodation was offered. This could be as far away as Harlow, Bracknell, Basildon, Crawley or Hemel Hempstead, which might as well have been the North Pole, as far as most of the older people were concerned. Social workers and housing officers buzzed in and out of the tenements all day with sheaves of forms and good advice and forced good cheer. The residents were not taken in. Most were wary or apprehensive. Some were distraught.
This was the time, and the only time, when I felt sympathy for Mr Collett’s neighbour. She came up to me one day as I entered the court of Alberta Buildings and said piteously, “Vey sez we go’ ’a go. Go where? Somewhere we don’ know, somewhere a long way off. Somewhere no one’ll know me, an’ I won’ know no one. It ain’t right, it ain’t. I’ve always paid me ren’, you can look a’ me book. Never a day la’e. I keeps me flat clean, like me mum used ’a. You can see for yerself. Can’ chew do somefink? Ve Sisters ’ave a lo’ of say in fings round here.”
All the Sisters experienced scenes like this. The idea amongst the older generation that the Sisters would somehow intervene and help them save their little homes was touchingly persistent, but quite erroneous, of course. We tried to comfort the people as best we could, but I doubt if it did much good. The community was doomed. The people who had seen off Hitler by sticking two fingers up and carrying on were themselves seen off the premises.
Then the demolition men took over. The land became valuable. Big business stepped in. The ordinary people didn’t stand a chance. Tower blocks were built, which were supposed to be so much better than the tenements. In fact they were the same thing, only far worse, because interaction between neighbours had been stripped away. The courtyards had gone, the inward-facing balconies had gone, walkways and stairways had gone, and upstairs and downstairs neighbours were strangers, with no obvious points of contact. The communal life of the tenements, with all its fraternity and friendship, all its enmity and fighting, was replaced by locked doors and heads turned away. It was a disaster in social planning. A community that had knitted itself together over centuries to form the vital, vibrant people known as “the Cockneys” was virtually destroyed within a generation.
But this was all in the future. We did not know, in 1959, that the effects would be so catastrophic to the Poplar people. We only knew what was happening at the time – namely that the Canada Buildings were to go. We discussed it endlessly over the luncheon table, and one of the nuns said, “Well, if the tenements go, it won’t be long before we have to go, because we won’t be needed here.”
We all looked at each other with sadness, but Sister Julienne said, without a trace of regret: “For more than eighty years we have served God in Poplar. If we are no longer needed here, He will give us other work to do. In the meantime, I suggest we stop speculating on the future and get on with the job in hand.”
When I next visited Mr Collett, a social worker was just leaving. She looked harassed, poor soul, and was besieged by women as she stepped across the courtyard. I felt sorry for her. What a job! You are on a hiding to nothing, I thought as I watched her go.
Mr Collett’s legs were almost better now, and as he was quite capable of dressing the superficial wounds himself, I called only once a fortnight to check that there was no deterioration. His walking was much better and he was able to get about easily, which was entirely due to simple, regular treatment. Nursing is one of the most satisfying jobs in the world.
He was silent and thoughtful as I undid the bandages. I think we were both wondering what the other was thinking.
He was the first to break the silence. “You’ve heard, I suppose, that the Buildings are being closed? Yes, Of course you know all about it. I don’t understand why. These buildings are sound. They were still here after the Blitz, when thousands of terraces went down like packs of cards. The Canada Buildings will last for centuries, yet they want to pull them down. All my ghosts will be cleared away with the rubble. Will they be laid to rest, I wonder? Will I?” His words sounded like a premonition.
“What are they offering you?” I asked.
He started, as though I had interrupted a dream. “Offering me? Oh, I don’t know. Several things: a flat in Harlow; another in somewhere called Hemel Hempstead. I’ve got to think about it. I must say, it’s very good of them to offer me anything at all. When I was a boy, if a landlord gave notice to quit, he was not obliged to offer you anything else. So I’m grateful for that, and I told the lady social worker so.”
I smiled at his generous disposition. There can’t have been many social workers at that troubled time who heard an expression of gratitude. “How long have you got to decide?” I asked.
“A few weeks. Perhaps a month. No longer. It’s all very sudden.”
It was indeed sudden. The sound of children playing was the first thing to go. Flats were vacated, and removal men were in and out of the courtyards; windows were boarded up; the stairways were left dirty and increasingly derelict; dustbins rolled across the cobbles. The constant hum of human activity was replaced by empty echoes as the courts picked up the sound of a single voice and threw it backwards and forwards, till it fell silent in the still air.
I wondered how much more I would see of Mr Collett. If he was going miles away to the countryside of Hertfordshire or Essex, how often would I be able to visit him? Our cosy evenings of sherry and chocolates and chats seemed to be coming to an end.
I popped in on him about a week later to ask if he had come to a decision. He had.
“I’m going to St Mark’s in Mile End,” he said. “When I was young, it used to be a workhouse. But that was a long time ago. Now it is a residential home for old codgers like myself. I think it will be for the best. The lady social worker tells me I will be well looked after. I’m going next week.”
I was shocked and alarmed by the news. The shadow of the workhouse had darkened the lives of countless people for more than a century. Although officially closed in 1930 by Acts of Parliament, workhouses had merely lingered on under another name. I feared for Mr Collett, but I did not like to express my doubts, or even to sound negative, so I simply said: “I’ll come and see you, I promise.”
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