…I was going to be six that September and 1936 was quite a momentous year for our household. Very early in the year Mum must have discovered she was pregnant. Then while we were still at No:2 Frimley Road Seven Kings I got measles. I was in bed for a while with the curtains drawn. Then I got mumps. Steeds Store at Angel Lane Stratford had failed, due largely to the closing of the railway workshops nearby and the loss of a large part of their customers. So money was tight. Jobs were not easy to find and Dad finished up in south London at Caters provision merchants in Brixton. I remember going there later. It was in an arcade by the side of the railway over bridge just to the east of the London Road. So, we moved. 103 Gonville Road Thornton Heath I've always known as 'my home in England'. Don't remember anything specific about the actual event but yes, I do remember meeting the out-going people. They were a Mr. & Mrs. London. They had a son David who's age was about… well, he was a 'big boy'. The Londons had won a garden prize while they were there. 'Fraid it went downhill rather in the subsequent War Years but it was a very enjoyable place for a young 'un. There were masses of standard roses either side of the lawn and stepping stones down the centre to a rustic 'summer house' at the bottom. This was overhung by a rambling Philadelphus (mock orange blossom). Up by the house was a shed which cousin Jean and I called 'The Nook' or did we change it to 'The Nest'? It was overhung by a large prunus.
But I'm rushing ahead. Back to Frimley Road. In 1935 I had my fifth birthday party. My Mum was quite a goer. She used to play ‘Aunt Sally’, -hide behind the settee and pop her head up for us kids to throw soft things at her. Later she used to embarrass me by saying, -yes I fed him for a long while. I used to feed him through the railings of the school playground! Well, party on Sunday, the next day was the 9th. and I was dragged to school with ‘…I know I won’t like it… I know I won’t like it…’ But I did. Dad came to meet me at lunch time that day with a stick of chocolate, -for being a good boy and not coming home at playtime. I still visualise numbers up to ten in the groups they were on my classroom wall. Grandma Parker lived with us then. Mum worked. She was manager of Yates the dry cleaners. Then there was the time that Dad came off his motor bike and broke his wrist…
But, in June 1936, before we moved, Mum was heavily pregnant. It was near the end of my first, my only year at South Park school and I was sent for six weeks to stay with Auntie Mary and Uncle Mat in Barford Norfolk. Auntie Mary was Grandma Parker's sister and she, somehow, from Much Haddam Hertfordshire she had met a Norfolkman, married him and went to live in a cottage in the village seven miles west of Norwich. Mat was a hedger and ditcher all his working life for the County Council. A lovely, quiet man who gave Mary two sons and two daughters. By 1936 Albert was married to his Annie. Ivy was courting her David about this time. They married but David died within a couple of years, meningitis I think. Lilian was beginning to be sought by likely lads.. I remember one who had a coupé with a 'dicky seat' -to own one like that used to be a dream of mine. And then there was Harry, a handsome guy with very blond wavy hair, only nine years older than me. Cousin Jean was staying there with me too and Harry made us a wagon. There must have been old pram wheels at its base and there were cut barrel hoops over the top covered with sacking, a real covered wagon. There was no electricity at the cottage. We went to bed up a steep staircase with a candle. There was a sink in the kitchen, but only a rain water butt outside with a basin for hands and face. Water was also brought in from a well or was it a pump? The loo of course was a brick one at the end of the garden under a big old elder bush. It was Harry that taught me birds' names. Hedge sparrow and yellow hammer I remember from that time. Jean and I went to Barford school for a few weeks till the summer holidays. It was surrounded by fields. One was called Long Acre, on the corner of Cock Street that led down to.. 'The Cock'! Mrs Burton was head mistress but the teacher for us littlies was Miss Dann and she rode a large bicycle with lots of strings from the rear mudguard to the hub to keep voluminous skirts from tangling in the back wheel. Then at play time I learned to make a spear to throw, with a folded up metal milk top and a straw, and then, or was it lunch time, the ice-cream man used to come by, his cart pulled by a pony.. or was it a donkey? Just down the road from the cottage at that time, was Bennell's bakery and we used to watch George or Billy pouring sacks of flour into the long wooden trough. 12 ounces of yeast was mixed in and then bucketsful of water. Then came the interesting part. They, one or other, would roll sleeves up to the armpits, bend over the trough and paddle away steadily with fists and forearms to mix the dough. Billy used to get indigestion and when he found a small lump of yeast he might stickily pop it in his mouth. It was there behind the bakehouse that I first saw a sow suckling her piglets. And there too that I first saw a basket of kittens so young their eyes weren't open. Saw my first apples on a tree there too. A very impressionable time.
Back to London and I was taken straight to Grandma Steeds at 12 Empress Ave. Wanstead… And there, lying on a couch in Grandma's sitting room was my new brother. Born with dark hair and quite blond later, it was weeks later that, in our new house, -Julian having been toyed with, he was named Martin, Martin James, for what it's worth, born on St James' Day 25th July.
The rest of 1936 that I remember is of Gonville Rd. School, just 200 metres down the road from our house. I was put straight into the 3rd. class 'K3' with a very kind Miss Speller. Shall I bore you with how I can remember all nine teachers at that school! K1 had Miss Silvester, then there was Miss Bailley, -and, soon replacing my Miss Speller was Mrs Price in K3. She was alright I suppose... Then Miss Barr, Miss Hernaman, Miss Lloyd, Mr. Wood, Mr. Edwards, and Mr. Hurst who was also a scout leader. Mr Reynolds was Headmaster… I jumped Miss Barr’s K4 and in 1937 went to Miss Hernaman in Form1.
But it was November of 1936 that Dad called me into their bedroom one morning and we looked out to the east and saw the glowing sky that was a fire, and the end of the Crystal Palace…
