King’s for A Penny Drink

Chapter One: Granny’s Attic.

It’s wartime and Dover has been nicknamed “Hellfire Corner” on account of its front line position. Even so some things don’t change like the raucous calling of the seagulls and the robust sound of a honky-tonk pub piano bashing out ” Doing the Lambeth Walk”.
Above these localised sounds can be heard the distant hooting of vessels in the harbour nudging each other to secure a berth and the intermittent blast of the foghorns.
,Two small boys, one ten the other younger, up in granny’s attic, feet to head in a single bed, playing tug of war with the covers, giggling in the dark.
There’s a sudden urgent knocking from downstairs; hushes, subversive, this is granny’s attic and they mustn’t wake her.
A bed, a mat, a chair, a chest of drawers on spindly legs, one window in a sloping ceiling.
On tiptoes on the chair, they pull themselves up, whispering, feet dangling and look out across the roofs to see Dover Castle bathed in a hazy moonlight, majestically hanging in the air. The boats in the harbour are still nervously tooting at each other and jostling for a safe anchorage. Outside the harbour the fog thickens in the channel. They hear the jolly voices of the last drinkers, late leavers from the Carriers Arms Public House in West Street.
The piano stops suddenly as though switched off. Doors bang and men call out in the street and some women, “Goodnight! See you tomorrow!”
Footsteps are heard that gradually fade away and then it’s still and quiet, apart from the foghorns in the channel and the giggling in granny’s attic.
The boys stir as they hear soft slow footsteps on the lino-covered staircase, it’s still dark and granny is up early, building the fire, and then making a pot of tea and breakfast for her “lovely boy’s”, which she pronounces in her broad Welsh accent.
Off to work, the colliery bus would be at the end of the street at five o’clock and it won’t wait, not even for the ‘lovely boys’.
There is early morning bustle in the small back room with the black grate and the kettle on the fire.
Big men move sparingly through an accustomed routine, preparations for the pit and a long day.
The little gigglers creep down stairs in their pyjamas and sit close together on the black horsehair sofa, it scratches the backs of their legs, swinging their bare feet and watching.
Granny hums a favourite tune as she clears away the breakfast things. The house is now empty of adults save for granny, who with red hands, strong arms and a stocky build, stands before the dark wood mirror over the fire in the black grate, in her wrap over pinafore with yellow flowers and shiny black shoes.
Two small boys gaze upwards, brows furrowed in concentration, as they watch while granny pulls her long strong white hair straight back into a bun behind her head. She keeps it there by a miracle; which involves something she takes from her mouth and entails the use of both arms with elbows high in the air.

But best of all, even better than this, is when she puts on her black hat to go shopping and she sticks the long silver needle into the hat, through her head, until it comes out the other side!
“Crikey!” exclaims one of the small boys.
And granny hums an awful lot and talks about Wales and the valleys and the old pits and about granddad left behind under ground
She sobs a little and hums some more as she lovingly looks down on her little charges
And then continuing her humming, she purses her lips and wrinkles her nose and puts her red hands into the huge pocket of her pinafore to bring out two sticky sweets for her two little ‘lovely boys’ who are cousins.
The front door opens as Uncle Ted and Doug and John arrive home on the colliery bus. Jack is home on leave from his ship and Keith who was at Dunkirk is there too, they wink and tell the boys, “This time things will be different, just you wait
little ‘uns. This time things will change”.
But the little ‘uns know better and think nothing should change.

The hours will be filled with cliffs and caves, chalk pits and dogs, bombed buildings, worms, penny drinks and nettles, mud and ropes, pebbles and giggles.
Just like last year and this year and next year …..and forever!
Wrummph, wrummph, whiz, are strange sounds coming from John-boy.
“What you doing John-boy?” asks Ronnie.
“Playing, making noises,” replies John-boy.
“You don’t wanna do that, that’s soppy, do you wanna come with me?” asks Ronnie.
“Where are you taking him Ronnie?” calls granny from inside the house.
“Down the shop gran”, replies Ronnie.
“Well mind you come straight back now, do you hear me, five minutes?”, says gran. “Yes gran” calls Ronnie.
Out of the back gate and heading down the alley for the open road we pass the bombsite at the end of the street.
“I’ve got a penny, what you got”? Said Ronnie.
“Nothing, honest,” said John-boy. “Don’t matter” replies Ronnie.
As the shop door swings open a bell mounted on a long spring, fixed to the top of the door, announces their arrival and continues to ring as they eagerly survey the goods on display in the shop.
Mrs King aproned and impressive emerges from behind a framework of stacked boxes and hanging buckets, she says “Well Ronnie Collins, how much you got?
“A penny,” replies Ronnie.
“One penny drink then is it? Asks Mrs King.
“Two,” said Ronnie, hoping to find her in a generous mood.
“Two? You’ve only got a penny,” said Mrs King
“Mum say’s she’ll pay for the other one on the way ‘ome” replied Ronnie with a cheeky edge to his scratchy little voice.
“Umm” sighed Mrs King as she set about pouring two glasses of lovely lemonade. Meantime the two ‘customers’ kept whispering little secrets to each other.
“Here you are then”, said Mrs King as she handed over the glasses.
John-boy took a huge gulp and coughed and spluttered as the fizz shot straight up his nose.

Chapter Two: The Girls.

“Do yer like it then? asked Ronnie. ” Bet you never tasted Bing before”.
“It…It’s alright”, spluttered John-boy.
Bing, made my eyes water.
Outside, eyes still smarting…we met ‘The Girls’!
“Why’s ‘e crying?” said one of the girls.
“He’s not, it’s the Bing”, said Ronnie defensively.
“E’s crying,” insisted the girl.
“We’re going to the railway…you coming?” said Ronnie.
“It’s dangerous,” said the girls.
“It’s great,” chipped in John-boy.
“My mum say’s it’s silly playing there,” said the other girl.
“Well we’re going,” said Ronnie.
“E’s still crying,” said the girls.
“Shut up…you’re daft,” said Ronnie.
“‘Es crying…’Es too little, “insisted the girls.
“I’m not…I’m going,” shouted John-boy.
“OK we’ll come, but you must promise,” said one of the girls.
“Promise what?” said Ronnie.
“To show me yours if I show you mine,” she said.
“Don’t be soppy…I don’t wanna see yours…I told you before,” said Ronnie.
“Then we’re not coming,” said the girls.
“Good, come on John-boy, said Ronnie.
“Oh please…Ronnie, I will show you mine!” pleaded one of the girls.
“We can just see one of the big green engines if we go now,” exclaimed Ronnie as they made their way toward the railway.
“I hate you Ronnie Collins,” called one of the girls.
I had watched trains before, but never like this. Hanging over a sooty black bridge; feet off the ground, shoes scraping the wall, watching them emerge belching smoke and noise from a tunnel.
The huge green and black engine passed directly underneath and left us in a cloud of grey steam which swirled over the wall and dropped onto the road, where it scattered and evaporated almost as quickly as it had arrived.
There was an age of noise and the ground shook.
When it was gone, the roaring stayed in my ears and the smuts in my eyes, and then warm sooty drops like light rain settled on my face and hands
Another young railway enthusiast who lived just below the bridge in the greengrocer’s shop joined us. “Did you get its number?” he shouted from across the other side of the bridge.
Bertram had been a train spotter for many years on account of living so near to the railway.
“Sorry, couldn’t see for smoke,” said John-boy rubbing the black smuts from around his eyes.
“God help me…where have you been?” said a shocked granny. “Where did you take him? She said anxiously.
“Nowhere gran,” said Ronnie.

“Oh my little love” said granny, ” What has he done to you? Are you all right?
I thought I had lost you”.
I was grabbed and gathered up into the folds of her pinafore. Gasping for air, eyes wide open, and nose pressed hard into an only to be guessed at area. She swung round on Ronnie taking me with her. “I’ve got you, how dare you, you wait till I tell your mum”.
“But gran” cried Ronnie. ” Don’t you gran me, get out of my sight”, shouted gran.
“But gran”, said Ronnie.
“Out! Out! She screamed.
The door slammed as Ronnie made a swift and unceremonious departure still exclaiming “But gran!”
“Now lovely you shall have a nice drink of milk and jam tarts and you shall soon feel better, you wait there” said granny. ” Yes gran”, said John-boy full of expectancy, for he knew that he was about to spoiled rotten.
Standing on tiptoe on the tin bath in the back yard, Ronnie was just able to see into the room.
He grinned at me through the lace and glass, and ducked down again as granny returned.
I slid a jam tart inside my sock, intending to give it to John-boy as a token of friendship and as compensation for his misfortune
Saturday was a day of comings and goings, at night my mother and father went dancing or to the pictures. Left alone gran would invariably find me something to do, like shelling peas for Sunday lunch or sorting out the dirty clothes for the Monday wash.
All tasks finished she would sink slowly down on the horsehair sofa and ask me to turn out the lights and then switch on the wireless and together we would listen to all kinds of music and plays.
A world of sounds would fill our imaginations, except that within a few minutes gran was often asleep. Although she could tell you exactly what had happened in some very complicated play.
“Why it’s perfectly obvious, the Inspector did it”, granny would say.
About nine o’clock, I would try, unsuccessfully, to curl myself into an invisible ball.
“Bedtime for you young man, you need all your sleep to make the hairs grow on your chest”, said granny.
Despite hours of enforced sleep none of us found a single hair on any of our chests, whilst my dad and Mr Herbert next door, “who never spends a waking night in his own house” according to granny, were covered in hair!
I would fall asleep dreaming of giant hairs sprouting all over my chest and covering me from head to foot.
And then suddenly it would be Sunday, and roast beef, Sunday school, and at least one visit to church.
And then the week would start all over again.
The wireless in the back room is playing ” Hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line, have you any dirty washing mother dear?
We’re going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line, cos the washing day is here”.

The familiar rattling and squeaking of the hand-operated mangle comes from the back yard, as granny puts the rinsed clothing through the mangle rollers to squeeze out the water.
Monday is wash day.
Mrs Herbert lived next door to gran.
Mrs Herbert was famous for being the mother of Bertie Herbert, who got nosebleeds.
Mrs Herbert was very big!
“How’s it going Mrs D?” called Mrs Herbert from her back yard.
“Nice wind Mrs Herbert, good drying weather,” replied gran.
“Another half-hour and I can bring all these sheets in…Kettle’s on!” called Mrs H.
“Ooh! Thank you Mrs Herbert I’ll be round presently” replied gran.
“Boys, I’ll be ten minutes, would you like to put these small bits through for me?”
“Use the chair to stand on” she says as an afterthought as she makes her way next door for a nice cuppa.
Socks and pants, woollens and shirts, I knew how to tuck the edge gingerly between the lips of the huge white rollers and heave for all I was worth on the handle.
Watching each article disappear, ballooning slightly at the end, the water gushing out and running down the grey metal tray into the bucket on the floor, I became engrossed until…”You little devil, wait till I get my hands on you” the high-pitched harsh voice came from over the back yard wall.
I turned quickly, something was wrong, first Mrs Herbert’s purple face over the back yard wall, and then I spotted the muddy marks on Mrs Herbert’s crisp cracking sheets.
I couldn’t see Ronnie, I panicked, head down I ran in the back door, sped through the house, out onto the pavement and without looking leapt three feet into the road……. straight into a passing lady cyclist.
When I came to, gran and a number of neighbours were standing over me and arguing with the lady cyclist, who they said had no right to be cycling in our road.
“There my little lovely,” cried granny, “granny’s coming, we’ll soon have you right as ninepence.”
Soon I was in the rocking chair by the fire; wounds bathed and bandaged, toffee in my mouth within minutes.
I never heard anymore about Mrs Herbert’s washing, never did find out what happened to the unfortunate lady cyclist.
But Ronnie had an idea!
“No.Definitely not Ronnie Collins, insisted Brenda.
“But Brenda” pleaded Ronnie.
“I paid a lot of money for that bike, I worked hard for it and you are not to touch it, do you hear? said Brenda in the sternest voice she could muster.
“But Brenda,” said Ronnie yet again.
My cousin Brenda was Ronnie’s older sister.
“Leave it alone…bikes don’t grow on trees you know,” added Brenda.
But they do get left in the shed when their owner goes off to Folkestone on the bus for the afternoon with a Lance Corporal of the Black Watch.

Chapter Three: Learning To Ride!

Suspicious sounds come from within the garden shed, “Shut the door otherwise me mum might see us, go on quick shut it” said Ronnie.
“Oh! Alright,” replied John-boy.
It was a lovely bike, shiny black with a leather saddle, not that we ever got to sit on the saddle, with arms raised above shoulder height we gripped the handle bars, straddled the chain with our legs and shuffled forward in an attempt to gain momentum.
Once this had been achieved, the next objective was to stand on the pedals and wobble along for a few yards until the machine took on a list to left or right and then we had to jump before the bike hit the ground.
“Ouch!” cried John-boy as he landed heavily in the middle of the road.
After a while we were able to travel the length of the alleyways, preventing ourselves going out into the road by steering into one of the concrete bollards across the alley entrance.
“I’m going round it this time” said Ronnie, “and then coming back the other way”.
His approach was all right, but at the vital moment he lost control, wobbled between the bollards and shot out onto the street.
The street slopes steeply to the right and this is the direction the bike took.
I dashed to the end of the alleyway just in time to see John-boy, legs on pedals, head just able to see over the handlebars, gathering speed towards the bottom of the street.
He veered to the left and swung out of sight past Kings shop, over the Railway Bridge past Danson’s the greengrocers to the bend at the bottom of the hill.
“Oh my god” gasped Brenda as she came out of the fish and chip shop and saw her precious bike whiz past her on the hill, being ridden she said later, by a “huge pair of eyes”.
“Ah! Ah! ” Cried Ronnie as he finally came to rest in an undignified heap at the bottom of Tower Hamlets Road. He was saved from any lasting damage by a pile of rubbish that was awaiting collection outside the Eagle public house. He looked a mess, but Uncle Ted said it was only “surface damage”.
The bicycle was “a right off” declared granny.
“But gran, he shouldn’t have been riding it in the first place,” complained Brenda.
“Well I don’t care, it was irresponsible of you to leave in the shed like that, you should have locked it up,” gran replied.
“Poor little Ronnie, he might have been killed”.
“Chance would be a fine thing” snapped Brenda.
“Brenda that’s not very nice”, said granny.
“Oh! Gran, sighed Brenda,
Good old gran.

“One potata, two potata, three potata, four, five potata, six potata, seven potata, more. There was Billy Wingnut, whose real name was Eric. But as Ronnie said whoever heard of a cowboy called Eric?
Billy was a bit dull and had ears that stuck out at right angles from his head. He was easily led and Uncle Ted said Billy was our cannon fodder, whatever that meant?

We had found a new cave, high on the cliffs below the castle.
“There used to be a gun here,” said one of our gang.
“How do you know?” someone else queried.
“Me dad told me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Who’s going first?”
And so the banter went on.
“Not me agin, I’ve got me new plimsolls on” insisted Billy.
But Billy was urged, cajoled and finally bullied.
“Oh! All right I’ll go…”Ever so dark in here” his voice sounded a long way off and echoed off the walls of the pitch-black cave.
“It’s all wet…I don’t like it…I’m coming back!”
“Don’t you dare come back Wingnut,” somebody shouted. “No Not yet”, yelled another. “No way…get to the end, ” shouted other members of the gang.
” I don’t want to”, cried Billy, his distant voice trembling with fear.
“Scare de cat, we’ll nobble you if you come out,” said the gang leader.
Billy gradually edged his way back to the entrance of the cave.
He started to explain that “Soldiers used to dig ‘lavs here at the end of the caves, in case they got taken short on duty, my dad told me,” hoping to divert attention from his predicament. But it didn’t work and someone gave him an almighty shove back inside.
“Aaargh! You rotter what will me mum say?” he shouted as he landed heavily in thick mud and slime.

The 86 bus pulled up; it’s diesel engine throbbing and clouds of black diesel fumes swept around the boarding platform.
“All aboard please…Town Hall…Isolation Hospital and Grammar school.
Plenty of room on top, both sides please, move right along now.
Cor blimey! Flipping heck! What is that?” said the bus conductor.
“I’m with them,” said Billy.
“I don’t care who you’re with, I’m not letting you on my bus like that.”
“But it’s not fair,” Complained Billy, “I even gave that lot money for the bus, what shall I do?”
“Start walking if I were you son…any more fares, hold very tight please”.
And so the 86 pulled away from the bus stop leaving poor Billy in a swirl of diesel fumes to add to his misery.
“But it’s not fair” coughed and spluttered a dejected Billy as he dragged his mud encrusted unfortunate self homeward.
Cannon Fodder!
And then there was Peter.
“Poor Peter, there’s a love, talk about starting out under a handicap” said granny.
Peter had a glass eye and a limp.
One of Ronnie’s best tricks was to borrow Peter’s glass eye and stick it to his forehead with chewing gum. Then he would walk around showing himself to any soppy girls he could find. The results were often spectacular! A soppy girl screams in horror enough to awaken the dead and granny yells out, “Ronnie Collins, now give Peter back his eye at once, do you hear me”

One potata, two potata, three potata, four, five potata, six potata, seven potata, more….
And there was Herbert Herbert, Bertie, famous for nosebleeds, son of Mrs Herbert who was big, very big!
Bertie, round and soft, wearing glasses which were held together by yards of grubby ticking tape, but appearances can be deceptive for Bertie had a grossly over optimistic view of his own physical prowess.
A painful imitation of Tarzan’s jungle call came from somewhere up a tree.
This particular ‘jungle’ tree was halfway up a steep bank of the chalk pit that stood behind the houses in Tower Hamlets Road.
“I don’t know it’s ever so steep, I didn’t realise it was that steep” said one of the gang.
Bertie, eager as ever, shouted at the top of his voice, “I’ll do it”.
It says something for the enormity of the drop that we hadn’t simply stuck Billie on the end of the rope and given him a shove.
“Please let me…I don’t mind,” said Bertie as he grabbed the rope from Ronnie’s hand and launched himself into space.
We watched with interest as the rope straightened and pulled against the branch, and Bertie swung towards the tree in what seemed like slow motion. Unfortunately the rope didn’t swing past the tree but started to wrap around it, once, twice, on the second time around we glimpsed the look of horror on Bertie’s face as he sensed what fate held in store for him!
Oh! Ah! Help! Screamed poor Bertie as we scrambled down the bank to where the body lay. Bertie’s nose was bleeding more profusely than we had ever seen before and his glasses were round the back of his neck, the frames buckled and bent.
“You alright” we said. Bertie mumbled something unintelligible as he lay writhing on the lumps of chalk at the foot of the steep bank
“That’s good…right we’ll shift the knot along the branch in a minute, then you can ‘ave another go! Said one of the comedians.
Bertie’s glasses needed miles of sticking tape to piece them together and Mrs Herbert was so cross she slapped his face and made his nose bleed all over again.
And then there was Robin Kerslake… ” He’s not here! He, he just went!” said a scratchy little voice as a fire engine tore around the corner with it’s bell going like the clappers. Firemen came in two fire engines and drained the muddy pools in the field near the railway line. There was a Police car and an ambulance as well, Ronnie and I sat together on the wall as men in uniform gathered round a small bundle on a stretcher, before it was put in the ambulance and driven away.

Mum is listening to Vera Lynne singing on the radio “When the lights go on again all over the world” and humming along to the tune. ” Mum can I have thruppence?”
“Thruppence?” she said in surprise, “Why do you want that much?”
” I want to go down King’s for a penny drink”, I replied. “Well you won’t want thruppence then, will you?” said mum. “One for Ronnie as Well! I said.
“That’s still only tuppence…so what do you want the other penny for?” asks mum.
After a considerable pause, I replied, ” I …don’t…. Know” and not very convincingly.
“Well in that case I’ll look and see if I can spare tuppence” she said turning to look for her purse. “There you are, one, two, but that’s all for this week mind” said mum.
I’d done it!

Chapter Four: “That’s not one of mine!”

Ask for more than you need, Ronnie said and sometimes you’ll end up with what you want. His dad, my Uncle Brian told him that. So next time he wanted money Ronnie asked for half a crown! And Uncle Brian clumped him for being cheeky.
I…had…tuppence! A penny drink that we would share and a penny left for a box of matches!
If the bombed buildings and the Castle, the cliffs and caves were our favourite places then our favourite toy was a box of matches.
“Wow! Exclaimed my playmates. We’d make fires out of rubbish on bombsites, out of mattresses and old chairs thrown to the bottom of chalk pits, from seaweed and driftwood at the foot of Shakespeare Cliff.
If we could get apples we’d cook them and then allow Ronnie’s dog Rex to lick off the black bits round the outside before we tackled the soft warm yellow insides
We were always very careful, but sometimes things did get out of hand.
A couple of fire engines rush past as I ponder the wisdom of our latest escapade and decide it is time to head home.
“Ronnie, what have you done to your eyebrows, they’re all singed, what’s left of them?” said granny.
Once we even found a fire on the hills that was nothing to do with us.
“Go on dial 999!” shouted the one with the scratchy little voice.
Nine.Nine.Nine we all said as the dial on the telephone whirred around and “shout fire” piped up the scratchy little voice.
“Hello” said the operator and in unison we all bellowed out “FIRE”.
“Well done lads, it was a good job you were around to give us a ring, could have been a nasty one this, now then where do you live,” enquired the fireman.
“We’re cousins, he’s from the same house,” Ronnie said.
“I’m half a mind to pop round and let your parents know that they have lads they can be proud of,” the fireman said.
We blushed with pleasure, our chests swelling with pride.
“Why do you want a ha’penny lovely, you can’t do much with a ha’penny these days,”
said granny in her strong welsh accent.
“Here look I’ll see if I can spare a penny” “I’d rather have a ha’penny gran,” I said.
“Alright lovely you know best, now there you are, two ha’penny’s…go on now” she said handing over the coins. “And be a good boy.”
“Yes gran” I said excitedly.
The steam train whistles as it emerges from the smoke filled tunnel signifying its pleasure in regaining the open air again. It thunders past us so close that we can feel the heat from the engine and the roar of the clattering wagon’s rings long in our ears.
We lost a lot of ha’penny’s, when we did find one, thirty yards up the line flung into the long grass it was still roundish and flat but it was considerably larger than the penny we had hoped for. And both sides were worn as smooth as one of granny’s
Welsh pancakes. Bertie Herbert was not enthusiastic.
“I suppose you realise you can be arrested?” He said. “What for?” asked John-boy
“De-facing the coins of the realm and insulting His Majesty by flattening his face”, Bertie declared with an air of authority.
In spite of threats to break his glasses, Bertie went off to tell his mum about us and I lay awake for two nights waiting for the knock on the door.

“…Ten green bottles hanging on the wall and if one green bottle should accidentally fall, there’ll be nine green bottle hanging on the wall…
The cash till in King’s shop rings out. Bottles were cash. Pulled out of the nettles
and hastily cleaned of soil and spiders by wiping on a trouser leg. Some only fetched a ha’penny but a Bing or Tizer bottle, complete with screw in rubber bung and metal clasp fetched a penny at Kings shop!
” I don’t know where you found that revolting thing Ronnie Collins but it’s not one of mine, you’ll ‘ave to take it somewhere else!
“‘Tis” we both argued. “It definitely is not, ” countered Mrs King.
” Old bag” How did she always know?
But mostly they were from King’s shop.
“I don’t know where you got those Ronnie Collins but you’ll have to take them somewhere else,” said Mrs King.
Now this was a bit of a shock, we knew they were Mrs King’s because we had just taken them from a crate in her back yard.
Beer bottles required a different technique, this involved being outside The Dewdrop or The Carriers Arms at opening time to accost the first customer to step in across the threshold.
“Uncle Ted can you get the money back on this for us,” we shouted.
With good luck we shortly heard the till behind the bar open with a ring and we knew we had scored!
Back home I listened to a funny song being sung on the radio, ” So give me me shovel and me pick Nellie, I’m going down the hole to get the coal. With me shovel and me pick, me lamp and little bit of wick, I’m going down the old coalhole.
Granny’s coal allowance from the pit is delivered on Thursday; it was shovelled off a lorry in the back alley, a pile of black rocks and we all helped to get it into the cellar under the house. Ronnie and I would carry individual lumps under our arms and sent them spinning down the metal shoot to crash on the pile in the dark below.
“Oh! Just look at you two now, black as soot. Granny laughs heartily, ” What am I saying it is soot,” and we laughed every time.
“Over there by the sink in the scullery and we’ll get some of this muck off you, then you shall have a penny each for being such big boys and for working so hard.”
And every Thursday as she cleaned us up granny would tell us that Uncle Jack was the sensible one.
“Now your Uncle Jack, he’s the sensible one, he got out of the mines and he’s Royal Navy now, Battleships!
She always stressed the Royal by rolling the ‘R’ in her broad Welsh accent.
And as always I went to look at the photograph that had pride of place on top of the small pedal organ in the front room. “And your cousin Tom, he’s too smart to get stuck in the pits, your cousin Tom is on the ferries” She said proudly.
The ferries…now that was glamorous work!
“Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack! I said.
“Umm! Went jack.
“Tom’s working on the ferries, I said.
“I know, at least he had the sense not to go down the pit.
“Uncle Jack…what does Tom do on the ferries? I said.

” Ha! Ha! I expect ‘es starting out like the rest of ’em, first class spew boy!”
After a moment’s reflection about Uncle Jack’s answer, I said, “gran, what’s a spew boy?” Uncle Jack sniggered in the background.
“Now don’t you two go asking silly questions, she replied. “What am I supposed to ask then?” I said.
“I…I expect it means he’s very good at it,” was gran’ s final response.
Later we learnt what Tom’s work involved.
The Maid of Orleans cross channel ferry rolled and dipped its way across from France in the midst of a force ten gale.
“I say steward, I don’t feel terribly well,” complained a lady passenger, “in fact I think I’m…” at this point the lady vomited all over the First class passenger lounge.
“Oh dear, oh dear madam” said the steward looking thoroughly fed up, he turned and shouted, “Spew boy! Spew boy to the First class passenger lounge”.
A first class spew boy!

Saturday mornings were different. Saturday mornings we were guaranteed sixpence.
Saturday morning pictures, thruppence to get in downstairs and thruppence to spend.
The doors opened at half past nine, but the queues started forming around eight o’clock.
Those in first would get the best seats on the front row, heads staring up at the towering screen, where all the action and every scratch and blemish on the film could be seen to gigantic effect.
First the cartoon, if we were lucky, it would be Donald Duck or Tom and Jerry,
if luck was out, Felix the Cat or Betty Boop!
And then! To the accompaniment of a rapidly rising crescendo of sound came “Flash Gordon” episode thirty-six, the Revenge of Ming.
Each week a ten minute action packed package repeat of the previous week, part of a
larger canvas whose origins we had long ago forgotten, and always ending with Flash facing certain death at the hands of crazed hordes in swimming caps and army capes driving space ships which looked like granny’s kettle flying backwards belching smoke from its spout.
We gasped, anxious for the action to last for just those important few more seconds, but then relaxed secure in the knowledge that our hero would be back next Saturday morning as certainly as we would and how was he going to get out of it this time
providing us with a talking point for a whole week, but nobody ever got it right!
The interval! Now a chance to spend some of the change burning a hole in our pockets.
“Come on lovely, make up yer mind, yer holding up the line. Look its easy either a red one or an orange one and only one each.” Scores of ‘little ‘uns’ just like us would mill around the usherette, poking and pushing and unable to make up their wretched little minds.
The lights would go down for the big film with half the audience still wanting their lolly’s.
A huge cheer would go up…oh joy! A cowboy film. You always knew where you were with a cowboy film,
The baddies had one gun and needed a shave; the goodies wore two guns and clean clothes.

Chapter Five: Run Rabbit Run.

Amidst all the shooting, galloping and wrestling, we cheered and booed and stamped our feet. And during the soppy bits we lost all interest and talked among ourselves or looked for cigarette cards and lolly sticks under the seats.
And then suddenly it was all over and we were back outside blinking in the daylight.
But we’d had our monies worth and still had change to spend at Kings corner shop on the meander home.
Also we knew next Saturday it would all be repeated and that it would always be there
…forever.
An American big band was playing on granny’s radio” You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey…”
The big mantle clock ticked noisily in the background and hushed whispers were being exchanged between my mum and dad. “It’s time,” said dad.
He’s too young, far too young,” said mother. “You like it like that don’t you lovely” interjected gran.
He’s beginning to look like a flipping girl,” said dad.
I needed …a haircut!
“First time eh! Sonny Jim! Right up you get then”.
She hummed “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine” as she clipped away at my hair. ” There, wasn’t too bad was it? Anything on it young sir? The hairdresser said.
“Please daddy” I said. “Oh! Go on then, little dab of Brylcream…first time you know” he added.
Back home mum exploded as I walked indoors, “How could you!” She exclaimed.
“He didn’t need to have it like that, not the first time!
“It’s only a short back and sides” dad said.
“Oh! Poor little love ” sighed granny.
“His ears are sticking out,” yelled my mother.
“Everybody’s ears stick out,” countered my dad.
“Why didn’t you go the whole hog and invite the man to shave it all off,” mum cried.
“Now you’re being unreasonable,” said dad.
“Unreasonable! You call what they did to him today reasonable,” shouted mother.
And so it was…all the way home.
No one thought to ask what I felt!
The foghorns sounded in the distant channel and dad creeps softly into my bedroom.
“You asleep?” He asks gently.
“Sometimes people can be very difficult to please, no matter how hard you try you end up upsetting someone, anyway no need for you to worry about it, and your Uncle Ted say’s the only difference between a good hair cut and a bad one is about ten days,
Here” He hurriedly pressed two coins in my hand then slipped out of the room.
I quickly slid out of bed and went to the window, where I could see the coins in the light of the street lamp “Two half crowns” I gasped excitedly.
“What’s up!” Moaned my cousin, stirring from a deep sleep.
” Look, one each, ” I said. “No!” he replied.
“Why?” I asked. “I don’t won’t it…go back to sleep,” John-boy said.
The sound of the foghorns continued to waft over the rooftops, two half crowns under my pillow and I was fast asleep again. I dreamt about one of ‘the girls’.
“I like coffee, I like tea, I’d like Phyllis in with me. One, two, three, four, five, six,
I like coffee, I like tea…”

Sometimes we played the girls games, especially in the evening in the street outside granny’s house.
We played girls games because we’d had our supper and were allowed out for half an hour before bedtime with the warning, “Don’t go too far away mind” from granny in her broad welsh accents.
Girls’ games seemed better adapted to being in one place, while we would travel miles to find the perfect spot, a little dip in the hills, a mound of oily pebbles piled up against the harbour wall, a disused air-raid shelter. Girls’ games could be played in the street and they were better at them than we were.
Crash! “Was that you again Ronnie Collins? Shouted Mrs Herbert from her front room with the newly formed gap in the window.
” It wasn’t us Mrs Herbert, it was Ronnie Collins,” replied one of the girls with that sing song sort of voice that suggested she was pleased to confirm who the culprit was.
“You did that deliberate, Ronnie Collins,” said the girl,
“I didn’t!” He replied.
“You always spoil it, you’re not playing anymore,” she said.
“You’re soppy,” he countered.
Hurt, we would sit on the wall swinging our legs, pretending disinterest but hoping they would eventually relent and sometimes they did.
Crash went another window and we all made a hasty retreat. “I’m telling yer mum on you this time Ronnie Collins” said the girl.
On very rare occasions we let the girls play our games. But away from the civilising influence of the street they were forever lifting up their dresses.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours? Said a cheeky girl.
“They got tanks up in the barracks; come on,” piped up the lad with the scratchy voice and as this appeared to be a vastly more interesting proposition, the boys left the girls to get on with things.
We lay in the long grass peering down at the parade ground, the soldiers, our enemy, had left and the vast concrete plain was deserted.
“Gone for a cup of tea I expect!” said a lad with a rather posh accent.
” Huh! Glass of water more like ” said the lad with the scratchy little voice.
” Our Uncle Jack in the Navy, says soldiers should only be allowed to drink water
‘cos anything stronger made them piddly.
“Tiddily” said the posh’un. Oh! Tiddily it is then said the lad with the scratchy voice.
On one side of the parade ground stood a long high brick shed, its several wide green doors left open. Just inside the doors we could see rows of armoured cars.
All morning we watched soldiers in overalls painting these, covering the familiar brown and green with dull yellow.
“What they doing that for?” said one of our group.
“My dad say’s they’re off to Palestine next week” announces one lad who seldom speaks.
“Palestine? Where’s that? Asks John-boy’
“You mean you don’t know” squeaks the lad with the scratchy voice, only this time more squeakily that ever.
“Neither do you “
“Do”
“Where then?” “Not telling” “And you don’t know why there’re being painted yella!

“Because people in Palestine probably don’t like brown and green tanks, probably like yella ones!” replies the squeaky one.
We sneaked down the hill and sped across the hot concrete towards the sheds, peeking round the doors we could see that there was no one about.
Brushes and open tins of paint stood on benches where they had been left. I pressed my hand firmly onto the wing of an armoured car, the paint was still sticky and my hand made a lovely imprint. So I did it again and stood back to consider my work.
I moved round the whole car, pleased with the effect I was creating, meanwhile Ronnie and the others had picked up brushes and were setting to with a will.
“What the hell you lot think you’re doing.” The immense figure of a Sergeant Major was silhouetted in the doorway, legs apart hands on hips.
He had found us!
“Well! Doing a spot of overtime are we? I’m surprised your union let you work during your lunch break! Growled the S.M.
Ronnie smiled…”We’re helping,” he suggested.
“Helping!” the S.M.bellowed. “Helping! you little toe rag, you aint helping you are mucking it all up, what are you doing? Repeat after me, I am mucking it all up…Sir!
“What are you doing? “Well?”
“I don’t know,” said Ronnie in a solemn tone of voice.
“You don’t know…you are splashing paint all over His Majesty’s vehicles like it was a Cairo karsy and you don’t know what you’re doing?
Being particularly sensitive to atmosphere, I could tell that things were not going too well and I slowly began wiping my hands down my trouser leg in an effort to destroy the evidence.
As one, we started to edge slowly towards the other open doors; eyes riveted on the sergeant’s face.
“Stand still! Stand still! You little begger’s, he bellowed. ” You bunch of blithering hooligans…STAND STILL!
“Let’s go!” we all cried in unison and fled through the open doors.
Run Rabbit Run, Rabbit, run,run,run………..
We flew, headlong across the open parade ground towards the long grass of the hills.
At the top and exhausted, we dared to stop and look down, the Sergeant Major, a tiny figure now, was striding toward a group of soldiers his voice a distant manic shriek.
“Blooming soldiers, I’m a good mind to go to the Navy now instead” quipped the lad with the scratchy little voice.
“Serves ’em right ” said Ronnie, blaming ‘the girls’ who had been lurking in the background all the time and had probably given the game away.

Every day we heard the names of places we didn’t know, Cairo, Pearl Harbour,
El Alamein and of ships lost at sea.
Suddenly gran become distant and remote, she wouldn’t notice us creeping down the stairs for the morning ritual of tea and toast. She seemed hardly aware of us at all.
My parents would share her sense of silence and we knew it was something that really mattered to them.
Ronnie who was always full of explanations said he had heard that ladies in a certain condition became ‘difficult’.

One of the girls living in our street had lost her mother in the London bombing and she had come to Dover with her father, a small man with long legs.
He was away a good deal and then one day he simply didn’t come back again
Gran said he’d been on minesweepers. “He’s been lost at sea and we must pray hard that he comes home,” she said. But we knew he wouldn’t.
Ronnie told us that Lucy Jennings was now…an orphan!
It sounded almost unpleasant, then Bertie informed us that it meant she didn’t have any parents, that’s what being an orphan was.
Ronnie declared he was having nothing to do with orphans, and besides she was still a girl.
“I want someone to play with! It isn’t fair!” cried Lucy.
I had come home early from school and walking into the house, overheard Lucy and gran talking about orphans.
“I do understand my lovely, it’s only in your heart that you will find your mum and dad, when your mum died you tried to remember her, and now you must do the same for your brave father,” said gran kindly.
“Why do they hate me being an orphan? Asked Lucy.
“They don’t hate you, no, they just feel things have changed, you’re not the same to them, but you are exactly the same,” said gran.
“Will you be my grandma too?” begged Lucy.
“Oh! Lovely, lovely, you’ve got grand parents,” said granny.
“I don’t wanna leave here, they want me to go back to London to stay with them, I wanna stay here!” And she begins to sob.
“Look,” says granny, “This photograph is of my husband, he died too, oh years ago before you were born. But he is always with me wherever I am. We were on holiday in Barry Island, so happy and then two months later he was gone.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“No” sobbed Lucy.
“All his friends, all our relations stopped coming to see me, they felt embarrassed you see. They didn’t know what they should say to me after the funeral, they left me alone,
I think they expected me to cry and dress in black and go into mourning.
But he wouldn’t have wanted that, so what did I do?”
“I don’t know ” sobbed Lucy.
“I opened all the doors and windows, put his photographs around the house and invited everyone to a party. By six o’clock the front room was full of people singing and I was in the kitchen crying.”
“Why?” asked Lucy.
“Because…I was so happy, he was alive again, we were talking about him, remembering” and she wiped a tear from her eyes.
“Shall I tell you what we are going to do?” said gran.
“We’re going to organise the biggest party we can and invite everyone from the street
…would you like that?” Said gran. “Will they come,” asked Lucy.
“Oh! They’ll come, especially if you tell them I’m baking one of my special cakes.
We’ll have to fight to keep them out,” gran added.
I saw Lucy run from the room, the start of a smile on her face.
A few moments later gran came into the hall wiping tears from her eyes with her apron.

Chapter Six: Ronnie’s Little Gesture.

“Can you keep a secret she said?”
I said I could. “Promise” she said.
She knew I might have been listening and she didn’t want me to spoil Lucy’s big day.
When Ronnie was at the party, mouth full of cake, he told Lucy he wanted to be an orphan as well!
“There we are lovely boys I think you’ve got everything, towels, costumes, sandwiches, all right?”
“Yes gran” we chorused.
“Oh! Now don’t you forget, if you go in the water watch out for them jellyfish?
Mrs Herbert said there was another notice outside the Police station yesterday, so you take care,” she said leaning heavily on her broad welsh accent.
“Portuguese man-of-war, Uncle Jack say’s they got long purple tails and they can
kill yer” shrieked John-boy.
I decided I would play on the pebbles.
Ronnie emerged from the water hair streaming eyes blinking. ” Can’t see one,” he said.
“What? John-boy said.
“Portuguese man-of-war, Can’t see one, if we catch one and take it to the Police station we might get a reward,” said Ronnie.
We sat together on the pebbles eating paste sandwiches, watching a group of prospective channel swimmers practising their lazy strokes going from one harbour wall to the other and back again, black capped and goggled.
It wasn’t something either of us had ever considered trying, we’d seen the stuff they had to be covered in, like a lot of under cooked chips Uncle Ted said.
“Arrgh! Arrgh! Came a plaintive cry a few yards along the beach as a man staggered from the water and fell to the ground clutching his leg.
“Bet he’s found one” shouted an excited John-boy. ” You alright mister?
The man lay on his back on the pebbles and stared up at us, he took his hand from his leg and we saw a long red vicious sting mark running the length of his shin.
“Get someone,” cried the man.
“It’s a Portuguese man-of-war,” shouted John-boy.
“I don’t care if it’s the whole German navy, just get someone” blurted the man.
“Shall I rub it?” enquired John-boy.
The man’s eyes rolled round inside his head. “Just get someone please,” he said yet again.
“Who shall I get? John-boy asked. “Just get any body.” ” Shall I phone the Police?
“Oh! My god, look just get some body, anybody I don’t care who it is but just get some body”.
“It is a Portuguese man-of-war ” claimed John-boy.
“We tore ever so gingerly up the beach, bare feet on pebbles. The nearest telephone box was in Snargate Street. It was occupied! “Hurry up lady…Please…this is an emergency,” shouted Ronnie.
“Get out of here,” said a very indignant lady in a posh voice. Then we heard Ronnie cry “Ouch!
The next box was on the seafront past the White Cliffs Hotel, it contained a huge Petty Officer, ‘minesweepers’, we left him there and headed inland.

Whirr! Went the dial.” Listen misses a man’s been stung! Portuguese-man-o-war! “Who’s that calling,”said the operator.” Me and me little cousin,” came the reply.
We dashed out of the kiosk, pausing only to press button ‘B’… just in case!
Finally back at the beach, the man was nowhere to be seen.
The by now familiar ring of the ambulance bell was heard rapidly approaching.
“Did either of you kids call the emergency services?” said the driver.
“Well where is he? The driver continued. “You don’t know…is this some kind of stupid joke, eh? Said the ambulance man.
“Excuse me!” piped up a smallish lady in the crowd that had begun to form at the scene. “Have you come for the victim of the Portuguese man-of-war?”
“Told you!,” blurted out Ronnie. “We came for a man, we were told he’d been stung”
Said the ambulance man. “That’s right…he’s gone” continued the lady.
“Gone? What d’you mean gone? Said the driver.
“Gone” said the lady, “He told me to tell you he got fed up with waiting so he said he’d make ‘is own way to ‘ospital. He’s walking, you might catch him up if you hurry”.
“He didn’t even say thank you,” said John-boy with deep disappointment in his voice.
And we had to walk home!. The conductor wouldn’t allow us on the crowded late afternoon 86 with our inner tube, we told him it could be deflated in five minutes by pushing a matchstick down into the valve. But he wouldn’t lend us a matchstick and he said he couldn’t hold up his bus that long anyway. With a “Hold very tight please!”
he waved to us as the bus disappeared round the corner. Ronnie replied with a different kind of gesture!
Following the Portuguese man-of-war incident everyone was worried about ‘snakes’.
“Oh dear,” sighed granny. I’d never seen a snake, but apparently the hills were teeming with them.
“Mrs Herbert say’s they’ve even set up a special unit at the hospital, it’s the warm weather” said an obviously worried gran.
“And adders are poisonous with instant or horrible death” added John-boy.
“Oh dear! Sighed gran.
“Bang! Bang! gotch-yer! That’s not fair!” We were playing soldiers when I got bitten.
Crouched down and silent in the long grass on the cliff tops overlooking the East Cliff Docks, I first heard the ‘slither’. Looking down I Saw a foot long snake carefully making it’s way between my sandals’ I gasped, I jumped up quickly and fell backwards. I felt the sting of the bite into the back of my leg and I knew I was going to die and instant, horrible death.
So I screamed and started crying. “What’s up?” Asked John-boy. Between sobs I explained. “Cor! You’re gonna die!” shouted John-boy. “It’ll be instant and ‘orible!”
I screamed again. “No you’re not, not if we get you to hospital quick” he said.
Stumbling, half carried, I was escorted down the hill, through the park, past the big houses in Castle Avenue to the casualty department of The Queen Victoria Hospital.
“Miss, me cousin’s been bit by an adder” said John-boy.
“Has he now, we’d better have a look then… stand up! Umm.. And where exactly was he bitten?” Said the nurse.
“On the East Cliff!” interjected John-boy. “Where abouts on his body?” said the nurse, who was becoming irritable. “Back of his leg” replied John-boy feeling a trifle foolish.

“Turn Round” snapped the nurse. “Ouch!” went the patient.
“Well it’s a bit red but I can’t see any bite marks, are you absolutely sure it was a snake?” asked the nurse.
” Of course it was, an adder, you saw it didn’t you?
“Then what did it look like, this adder…umm? Asked the nurse. “Well speak up boy I can’t hear you!”
“Silver, about this long” he said. “Did you tread on it? Asked the nurse.
“Did you feel its bite, did it hurt much?” Said the nurse.
“Does it still hurt? Do you feel ill…? Ever been stung by nettles before?”
“Yea! Of course he has, millions of times,” chirped up John-boy.
“Do you know what a slow worn looks like?” Asks the nurse.
“That weren’t no slow worm it was an adder,” said John-boy.
“That was a slow worm and that is nettle sting” said the nurse with authority.
“Now get out of here all of you and don’t you dare let me see you in here wasting my valuable time again.”
“Hang on a minute, don’t he get no ointment?” John-boy said cheekily. “Adders are deadly poisonous.”
“He most certainly does not…now go away,” the nurse says angrily.
I hastened towards the door, all too well aware of the nurse’s cold eyes boring into the back of my neck.
“Hold on a minute” whispers John-boy. ” Don’t go so fast…limp…it’ll make her feel rotten.”

“Now then my lovely, what do you want string for?” Asks granny.
“A bow and arrow ” says Ronnie.
“A bow and arrow is it…that’s nice. Let’s see what we’ve got in here shall we?” Says gran. “There what about that then, will it do? I’ve been using the same ball of string for parcels all through the war. What do you think of that then?”
We made the bows from green springy wood ripped from bushes at the foot of the chalk pit. The arrows were thin canes, which we found stuck in the ground against the garden wall. The birds, we hunted for hours on the hills were never in any real danger
as our arrows described graceful arcs through the air reaching a height of at least ten feet before returning gently to earth behind us.
But on the way home…Ronnie…suddenly…stopped. “Look!” Ronnie whispered.
The target lay invitingly on the pavement twenty yards away, licking its paws in the sunshine.
Ronnie lay on his stomach on the pavement pulled back the bowstring and let fly!
The cat sensed the arrow’s approach a split second before it arrived; it let out a spine-chilling shriek and leapt three feet into the air and the arrow passed harmlessly underneath it.
“Wow! Did yer see that? Said Ronnie.
Cat hunting and cat aerobatics became the new craze, it lasted for several days and was fortunately brought to a sudden and dramatic end before any lasting damage was inflicted upon a single member of the local feline community.
“Watch this one then,” said Ronnie in a coarse little voice. It was a dozing Tom; flat out on the pavement.

The arrow was half way to its mark when the vast bulk of Mrs Herbert stepped out of her front door on her way to the Co-op. She screamed alarmingly and milk bottles on the doorstep were sent flying, concerned we began to rush towards her, and then we saw the look on her face.
“You little beggars, just you wait till I get my hands on you!” She shrieked. “Oh! My god, oh my ankle! Ronnie Collins you come back here.”
When we dared return home that evening gran was waiting for us, standing with her back to the fire hands behind her. Uncle Jack was sitting in the armchair his face hidden by the Daily Herald.
“Mrs Herbert got a nasty cut on her ankle you know,” explained granny. “Might have needed stitches up at the hospital! And you’ve ruined her best pair of stockings.”
“Jack” she said in an attempt to involve her husband. Uncle Jack ruffled his paper and gave a couple of nervous little coughs.
” I shall just say this” continued gran. “You are not my ‘lovely boys’ at the present, you are my naughty boys and that’s the way you shall stay until I tell you otherwise.”
She held out her hands, we slowly brought the bows and arrows from behind our backs and gave them to her, she carefully undid the knots and wound the string into a neat small ball and popped it into the pocket of her pinafore.
“That will teach me to lend you my best string, I shall know better in future, now up to bed both of you.”
“Yes Gran” we said together and with as much feeling as we could muster.
“Well go on quickly, I don’t want to see you again this evening” she sounded really cross. “Yes gran”.
“You’re Uncle Jack will have to bring up your biscuits and milk later, its going to be a long time till you and I can be friends again.” “Yes gran.”

The pair clomped their way up the stairs on the shiny lino.

A long time…but summer days were winter days only warmer. Winter days we played more indoors, with one major exception.

As the evenings drew in we took advantage of the darkness to play a ‘special’ game.

It required two ingredients, a reel of cotton and some traffic. The latter was a rarity on the streets of Tower Hamlets and the only reliable traffic was the bus. This meant that we had to move the location for our game to the nearest section of the bus route, which happened to be South Road.

One of the gang would ‘obtain’ a reel of cotton from an unsuspecting mother; we then made our way stealthily to the ‘play area’.

We used the shadows in the Co-op doorway to keep out of sight until we saw the 86 bus go up the hill towards the terminus near the Isolation Hospital.

One of the gang, armed with the reel of cotton would then carefully make his way up and down South Road connecting all the doorknockers with the cotton thread.

The task completed we lay in wait, in the shadows of the Co-op doorway, for the return of the number 86. Oh! What joy as the knockers rang along the street when the bus swept past and the inhabitants came out to greet their invisible callers.

We never invited ‘the girls’ to take part in this game, for one thing their incessant giggling would have given the game away and because they would probably have wanted to ‘enlighten’ us in the shadow of the Co-op doorway.

Nothing suggested to us the passing of time on a larger scale for that would have meant change…and nothing ever changes.

Then suddenly one-day granny and I stood on the front step hand in hand and watched as Ronnie moved off down the street, a small figure in new grey long trousers and brown sandals, a large leather satchel round his neck.
He kept turning to wave at us until he had passed King’s shop on the corner… and was gone… to big school… a bus ride away.

Granny took a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose. “There now,” she said “off he goes. Well, well, let’s see what shall we do now? I know we’ll have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.”

At night Ronnie told me everything but I understood little, as weeks rolled by tales of cabbage, figs and custard, drinking fountains freezing and little bottles of milk standing by a coke boiler in the classroom. Tables which you didn’t eat off and Miss Wilson who said Ronnie’s class had to make up for lost time and Miss Edwards who kept her hanky in her purple knickers!

Once I passed Ronnie’s new school, he saw me peering through the railings waving to him, he didn’t come over, I never went there again.

Something had happened.

Cousins more than cousins… feet to head in granny’s single bed in the attic.

Happy because things are as they should be…as they were…and will be forever.

“Forever and ever and ever…”

Anthem of the “Hamlets”.

We are ‘Tower Hamlets’ Boys!
We are ‘Tower Hamlets’ Boys!
We know our manners-
We can spend our tanners,
We are respected wherever we go.
When we’re walking down Tower Hamlets Street-
Doors and windows open wide,
When we see a ‘Copper’ come, over the hills and away we run.
We are ‘Tower Hamlets’ Boys!

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