up a tram into the City, but the electrical supply had somehow failed, and when the tram finally appeared it was pulled by a horse.
Dorothy Scorey
Mother said we all had to have a trade, because she was left a widow when she was in her forties and she said that if we were ever left like her, you have to have something you can put your hand to. She was so blooming strict with us. ‘Any of my girls bring trouble home to me, the workhouse you'll go.’ That's what she used to say. She wouldn't let us out after ten o'clock, and if we were talking to a boy, she'd come up and say, ‘I don't thank you boys for keeping my girls out at night time!’ I always used to say, ‘We'll never get married, any of us!’
Ernest Hugh Haire
We had a servant who lived in. Her name was Bridget and we used to call her Biddy. She was a delightful Irish person who kept us in order as children. Her husband was a sailor with the Cunard Line. He lived with us too when he was home from sea, and did odd jobs for Father. He made all sorts of toys for us. They were marvellous people. We had another woman there for a time who was paid £8 a year.
Mary Keen
My father was a very hateful kind of man. None of us liked him. He ruled us with a rod of iron. We were afraid to speak or laugh. He thought we were a lot of dummies. He always rowed with my mother for no reason at all. We'd be sitting at the table, having our meal, and he'd glare at her, then he'd start swearing and cursing and he'd fling up the window and shout out, ‘I'm going to let everyone know what you are! You're a so-and-so and a so-and-so!’ His language was filthy. Then he'd go out for a walk and he'd come back and he'd be as right as rain. I think he was a bit mad. One morning we woke up and found that he was gone. We were rejoicing, but he'd only gone hop picking in Kent.
Jack Brahms
I was twelve when my mother died and after that I had to fathom for myself. Father couldn't do much for me. He used to make me go to the synagogue every morning and evening but apart from that he wasn't interested. He might have made a meal at the weekend but most of my meals were a ha'p'orth of chips from Phillips, the fish and chip shop in Brick Lane. I'd sit on my doorstep and eat it. Or else, I'd go to the soup kitchen to get a can of soup and a loaf of bread. I used to go to McCarthy's lodging house because they had a fire burning there and I'd have a warm-up. I had to bring myself up.
Daniel Davis
I had an aunt in Rothschild Buildings – Aunt Bessy, and she was very orthodox. Her eldest son was a cripple and he used to sit on a settee all day. He used to sleep there and eat there and everything. It was terrible to go into that place because he used to do his business in the room. You used to think twice about going up there.
William George Holbrook
On Saturdays I worked for my grandfather. He was a mean man. He was a greengrocer with a ginger beard and he used to pay me a shilling for the day. I had to walk to his house about four miles away through the fields. In those days there were no houses beyond Romford. So I spent Saturday making deliveries in his greengrocer's van to the people he knew in Romford. And when I went back to his house at night, he gave me a shilling. He used to keep his money in a bag that he kept in the scales. So I would say, ‘Grandfather! A lady would like to see you!’ and while he was gone, I used to pinch his money. He didn't know. When I got home, I shared it with my older brother and sister. Once, I bought fifteen shillings' worth of fireworks with it. When I left the job to start work on a farm, my younger brother took it on. When he came home the first Saturday, I said, ‘Tom, he keeps his money in a bag in the scales.’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know.’ Tom worked it out on the first day. I took a year to find out. The funny thing was, just before he died, I went to his shop in Romford and on his deathbed he gave me a gold watch. And I was the one who stole from him.
Bill Smartson
Every Saturday, before I started at the quarry, I used to go over to Ravensworth golf course caddying for the golfers. I got on caddying for a chap, Mr Nixon, he got me to wait every Saturday, and I carried his golf clubs, and I used to clean them after the match with emery paper. He would come out the golf house and say there's four shillings, take that home to your mother and there's sixpence for yourself. Well, out of that sixpence I could go to the pictures for tuppence, buy a bottle of pop for a penny, and get a three-ha'penny paper of fish and chips. I used to give my mother the four shillings on the Saturday. Many a time she was waiting on me coming back, and as soon as she got the money, she was away off to the butcher to get a bit of meat for the Sunday. There was about nine of a family, I was the eldest of nine. Hard days.
Harry Matthews
Pretty nigh every morning when we got to school, first thing the master used to say was, ‘Come out the boys that have been on the breeze lumps’ – picking over rubble for small pieces of coal to burn. There'd be about four or five from Oare and some from this way, and we used to go out and stand in front of him, and he used to send us home to have a wash and clean up, because we smelt so where you'd been on the breeze. Whether you'd been on it or not, when he said that, you went up, because that meant we never used to go back to the breeze till after dinner. Pretty nigh every morning, out we used to troop. I always used to be there.
I've been out here before it was daylight and I can remember raking the snow off once to get some breeze to have indoors for a fire. I've been out there and got that before breakfast of a morning, the firing what comes out of the breeze what they used to burn the bricks with. A policeman caught two of us getting this coke and we had to go up over the market in the court house – but we got off with it.
Kitty Marion
Strange how one learns the bad parts of a language most easily. I came home one day, having taken the baby for an airing, and cheerfully hailed my aunt with, ‘You bloody bugger!’ She was shocked and horrified. Where had I heard such dreadful language! I didn't know it was bad. I had passed two men in the street and one slapped the other on the shoulder laughing, using that expression. I thought it was something nice and friendly.
Ethel Barlow
I remember the Penny Bazaar. We called it the bazaar. There was nothing over a penny. You could get a lovely silver bracelet, a silver ring, earrings. When I bought a pair of the earrings, my dad used to say, ‘Take them out your damned earholes and put one through your nose. You see! She ain't ours! She's come from the gypsies! They've changed her!’ He always swore blind I came from the gypsies. I had long curly hair when I was small, but then I had concussion of the brain and they cut off all my hair.
Once my mum and dad were invited to a ball, because my dad worked on the railway. My dad had to buy a rubber collar and a V-front that looked as if he was wearing a white shirt. My mother bought a straw boater that cost sixpence. She bought a black veil and a pair of gloves. Her blouse was years old with a collar of lovely lace. She had a lovely long feather boa round her shoulders. I don't think she had any pants on because she hadn't got any. None of us had. She curled her hair and she looked beautiful. All us kids were left behind that night with no food, so we raided the cupboard to look for all the dry crusts of bread. We found some sugar and we dipped the crusts in hot water and then dipped them in the sugar and we had a feed.
Helen Bowen Pease
On my eighteenth birthday, Mother walked out on us. It was pretty shattering. She was an odd person. She stuck to Father as long as she stuck to anyone. Father was only just forty and it was all excessively upsetting. I had six younger brothers and sisters and it was extremely difficult to explain to Father's friends that the last thing we wanted was to be handed over to our mother. Father was our principal protection. Mother was as hard as nails – or diamonds – because she had a certain brilliance. We had to fight it out in the law courts