Glimpses of childhood

My mother, for some reason I could not understand, decided that she wanted to move, enough of 241, having lived there since 1939. We had been the first tenants in 'Heaven'. Cautiously, asked  where she had in mind to move to, she,  more irritable than usual, more uncompromising, more petulant.   

Always thought my room would be for ever, lain there right through the blitz, praying to God  we did not get a direct hit,  air raid shelters  not a proposition, too risky to drag my sister from her cot and then run across the pavement with  shrapnel bouncing off the concrete. No one took any notice of what they were wearing, once things became aggressive, then really too late, besides the shelters,  nothing more than cold piss holes in every sense.

Became very subjective about my mother's projected upheaval. not wanting to leave my little yellow room with its wonky gramophone case, the broken table and the pink curtains, besides, where would I go? Never sat down and considered  doing something, actually getting out and buying a house, it simply never occurred to me. My last house,  still a sore on my sub-conscious. The word 'house' never registered in my head.. had eradicated it. 'House' meant a whole lot of things I wanted to forget.

Would I be forced into a little dirty room somewhere in one of the dark ugly houses ?.. victim of the equally ugly people who rented them? On the money I earned, anything self-contained would be impossible. It would mean I would have to work longer hours, less time to myself, or maybe no time for myself. Shoved the whole thing away from me. My freedom above everything ..I had nothing else . Tried to communicate with my mother over this, but she remained obdurate.

At about fourteen  had called her 'petulant', not too sure what it meant but she had a fair idea and proceeded to scream abuse for about ten minutes. She wasn't stupid, the fact of having to bring up all her brothers and sisters, precluded her from any kind of education, never letting myself and my father forget it. Finally she decided on a one bedroom flat, which made her position clear. Wondered why she was now openly against me. As a child she had stood me outside every pub in Hackney. "Wait there and be a good boy. Don't run away and I will bring you a glass of lemonade in a minute." Which had been the extent of our relationship. Topped everything when, after my sister was born, with the sound of approaching aeroplanes and gunfire, I waited with the pram and a bottle shoved in my sister's mouth, by the small pond at Clapton, conveniently opposite the pub. Didn't dare move. People hurrying by gave me rather long looks. Finally, with the bombers directly overhead, she and my father strolled unconcerned toward me ...

"Alright? Did you give Doris her bottle?" ... I was ten years old.

It had always been the same. When we lived in Morning Lane, slightly up-market from Brady Street,  my father on 'nights'   put me to bed, wait the appropriate time, assuming  I had gone to sleep and creep out, down to the Pub, after having locked all the doors behind her. Of course, I was never asleep, would lie petrified, listening to the shuffling footsteps punctuated by the rumble of lorries and buses directly by the window.

Hours later, would hear the key in the lock and immediately fall asleep. She always wondered why I was never able to wake up in the mornings. Could see her attitude - left alone in a dingy couple of rooms, factory at the back, woodyard in the front, stuck with a kid,  always ill, always dreaming. When I had diphtheria the doctor told her ... a million to one chance.  Feel  I have lived to regret  it came up.

My mother's life regulated  quite simply by the opening and closing times. She would usually go  an hour after they had opened and never leave till the last call of 'Time gentlemen please'.

Sunday, if my father wasn't punching a scammel up to the Great North Road, was the day we all ate together. The food would go into the oven ... they would go to the pub ... I would push my sister in the park.. Dinner not until after three o'clock, after they had strolled up from the 'Woodman', a little tipsy perhaps. Preferred that to the constant nagging and fighting. After lunch, after the ”News of the World”, after the afternoon nap, After the tea, after the sliced bread, winkles and watercress, my mother would start to get restless, looking into the mirror over-hanging the tiled fireplace. Patting her thick hair, she would have on a black two-piece suit,which made her look good.  My father always moaned, "Why wear black? Going to a funeral?" Possibly perhaps that looking so smart other men may get ideas.

Casually she would say to me, "Now, if the sirens go, get Doris and go over the shelter straight away ... do you hear me?"

She would prepare a bottle, wrapping it in a napkin,

"If she wakes up, give her this".

Partly relieved that they were going out. Having the place to myself.  Could fiddle about doing the things I wanted.. to be undisturbed, or I would play the piano. For some reason my father had really put himself out on my behalf and bought a very good piano. We had gone with Uncle Joe, who was quite adept on the ivories ..had bought the piano for what must have been a year's wages for my father, who played by ear. His fingers, so thick and battered  they hit two notes at a time.

But my piano lessons were dogged, the same as my patchy education. My music teacher, who lived  in Northwold Road was, with her brother and her house, blown to Kingdom come by a flying bomb. I had liked her and the comfortable gas lit room with its tassels, drapes and the big piano, had helped claw away the rubble, listening obediently when they blew the whistle for silence… any cries for help may be heard. .. there had been no cries, only silence in the drizzling rain, smouldering smoke hanging in the air.

After my school was hit  never  attended for a long time, realizing  I did not like school, it's violence, not any part of it. Then I was moved in quick succession to other schools. Fortunately the bombs followed. When that failed, decided to play on my 'weak chest' that my mother was always on about, preferring to be alone, quite alone, much easier. All I ever did at school was read and write, read everything voraciously. One astute teacher went so far as to buy books for me out of his pocket. This immediately went against me with the rest of the class and they would lie in wait for me. After a few months of harassment,  decided to forget school, only going very intermittently until I was twelve,  then deciding to be very ill and call it a day. Nobody, to my knowledge, ever inquired to see if I was ill or anything else, pleased to be left, finally, in peace.

Spent most of the time hanging about the boat house at the bottom of the park, provided I did not have to mind my sister.  Didn't like pushing the pram down there. I was all ears then, nobbly knees in my short trousers.  weighed about four stone I guess. Always fascinated by boats of any kind,  More than taken back when one day invited by some giant to cox.    Christmas day,  found myself guiding these eight giants down the winding river. Knew every twist and turn. we had an oil lamp on the bows, the river shrouded in thick, swirling mist.

We stopped unceremoniously at the 'Robin Hood'. Everyone climbed out. "Come on Ginger",  Up to the pub on his shoulders. Had visions of my mother rushing up and demanding that I looked after Doris. She was not beyond doing that or anything else which came into her head.

During our few weeks of our 'evacuation' at Stony Stratford, my father used to call in on his way up and down to Coventry. Country life had no appeal to my mother or myself, we were always called foreigners. Our sojourn there ending rather abruptly. My father called in offering some kippers. "Kippers" she had shouted

 "I don't want your consolation prizes ... I want to go home".

Then she hit him round the face with them. He spluttered something about the bombing being very heavy. She kicked the table over and then the chairs. He went North.

She shoved some things into a bag, picked up Doris and dragging me with her other hand, marched up the road. The third lorry to pass stopped at her hooked thumb.

"Where are you going lady?"  She smiled as if butter would not melt in her mouth.

"Are you going to London?".

We came down through Barnet, the road lit by intermittent gun fire. The lorry driver, no doubt feeling sorry for us, dropped us at the top of Springfield, to be greeted with a cacophony of gun fire off the marshes. Instinctively we started running, only stopping once we reached the porch. The psychological protection,  for some reason.  Always feeling safe once  actually inside the building.

All in bed when I heard my father arrive back from work. Heard him parking his bike in the passage. For some reason displeased after recovering from his initial shock of finding us back in the flat, started hitting my mother. Could hear the blows. Knew just how hard he could hit from the times he had turned on me. Have never forgotten those hidings. In retrospect, my Father with his hands  destroyed any self-confidence  I may ever have had.

The move my mother finally made was not far, just across to the other arm of the oblong, away from the ground floor, with the windows looking out really onto nowhere. Her new flat,  high and light, overlooking the rather smart houses of Jessam Avenue. Fred came to help with the move, finally finding a use for his estate car. He puffed up the three long flights of stairs carrying her bits of toot and puffed all the way down again, still wearing his heavy jacket, trilby hat and braces.

For the first time in my life I was homeless. My gramophone case and bed with the raised carving went trundling away in the Council lorry. She wasn't having any 'bloody rubbish' any more. She waved cheerfully at Fred as we drove away, with my few possessions in a carrier bag.

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