Be a good boy... don't run away

We had all been down the 'Anderson'. Believe it or not, the whole family fighting, regardless of the bombs hurtling into the ground around us, one landed in the next garden, it failed to go off, we, unaware of this, the acrimony being very bitter.


Momentarily it quieted enough for us to hear the wardens shouting and hammering "everybody out", clambered into the flaming night and went across the road into a 'surface' shelter. Still everyone arguing the toss ... shrapnel bouncing.

Settled down, finally, mother holding my sister, myself leaning against her. Must have dozed off when us the most incredible bang enveloped us... walls and ceiling split. saw it quite clearly before we were wrapped in dust and darkness.

All this we had survived ... for what? All the promises never materialised. No visible compensation for people's suffering, rather the reverse, the screw being turned ever tighter. Only the rich, they really do persist in getting richer. No, the masses to be kept down, whatever the cost. Fear, coupled with soft psychology are weapons well tried. The poor must struggle harder to get less, relative to the Middle Classes, who have not been slow in latching on to the 'Welfare State'.

No, failure? success? ... what were they all about? Little intention of falling into that trap. The fact that my mother and I lived in comparative poverty went completely over my head. We had always lived hand to mouth ... butler sink, tin bath in front of the fire once a week, bread and tomato sauce for tea, forpenny and a pen'eth on Thursday when my Aunt Edie worked fourteen hours instead of twelve. 'Southend-on-Sea' for the day in the Summer. Cockles, jellied eels, my mother would say to me "You mustn't eat them. They will make you deaf" no doubt bearing the cost in mind. 'Kiss me Quick'. Rossi's ice cream the 'Kursaal' and as the evening grew dark I would prepare myself for the long stand outside the 'Hole in the Wall' with a glass of lemonade and a packet of 'Smiths'.

"Be a good boy... don't run away."


Such simplicity taken from us, derided. We should 'want' more, want more of everything. People are made dissatisfied. Television, not quite the ultimate weapon, used every moment of every day to promote discontent, to be watched, manipulated from behind, by unseen, unknown faces..

In 1938 we were better off. The word 'stress' had not been applied to human beings. My father had a couple of suits, a hat, a smart overcoat, walked on the 'right side' of my mother when they were out. My mother had a green leather three piece which she bought from the 'Times' furnishes in Mare Street, a chrome fire surround with matching tongs, brush and poker, a white heart rug, real wool, which I was not allowed to sit on, let alone stand.

Money had never been of any significance to me ... something that others possessed, it never stirred my imagination. Had seriously stopped to think once, when Virginia's mother had produced a cheque book, the first person I had ever known to possess such a thing. The particular occasion was six months rent in advance for our caravan, by way of a wedding present.


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