Polly (6 page)

M
y father was a porter in Stratford Market, then one of the most important fruit and vegetable markets in London. He was pretty good at it too and on one occasion he held the record for the number of baskets he could carry at one time. The fruit used to be packed in flat, circular, baskets which stacked on top of each other, and the porters used to carry them, piled-up, balanced on their heads. Of course it was hard work but it was steady and he was allowed a sack of vegetables every week as part of his pay.

Apart from the obvious holidays, like Christmas, Dad only got one day off a year and that was Derby Day. The whole market would close for the workers to have their day out to see the Derby. Dad, though, never went on the outing but instead used to go up to the Borough Market to see his old friends there. It was quite a day for him, and he used to get dressed up in his best suit for the highlight of his year. The only trouble was that Mum didn’t trust him not to get thoroughly drunk, so to restrain him a bit each year she insisted that he took me along. It must have cramped his style, but I thought it was wonderful, because I too used to get dressed up in my best clothes and was taken off on an adventure up in London. We used to visit a succession of pubs and at each one he would disappear inside for varying lengths of time. I suppose he must have been a bit of a ladies’ man in his time, because all the women used to
make a tremendous fuss of him. Each one used to give him a great big kiss and wild exclamations of ‘glad to see you Wally,’ ‘how are you Wally?’ ‘what’s the news?’ and so on.

Much more fun to me, though, was the fuss and attention that I got. Of course I had to stay outside the pub, or very occasionally I could stand just inside the door, but this endless succession of women would come out to see ‘Wally’s girl’, ask me how I was, buy me a lemonade and sometimes give me a sixpence. I thought I was in heaven and could have stayed there forever. I could certainly drink as much lemonade as they could buy for me, it was wonderful.

I used to make a big profit on the day and, more to the point, I was allowed to keep it. On the bus home, Dad would ask me how much I had got and what did I want to do with it. Usually I would take a halfpenny a day to school and buy myself sweets on the way home. Just once, I bought a quarter of a pound of toffees and I sat on the wall round the corner from home, where nobody would see me, so that I could eat them all myself. Getting back to Derby Day, the most important question was then, did I have somewhere safe to keep the money I had collected? The answer to that was yes, the corner of my drawer. Dad would always finish by saying that ‘Yes, that sounded alright,’ but perhaps I should not tell my mother how much I had or where it had come from. I never needed to be told twice.

L
ike all families in those days we more or less lived in the kitchen. Along one wall of the kitchen was a large dresser which was where all the kitchen hardware and that sort of stuff was stored. Up the back of the dresser were three shelves and these were used to store and display the china. On the bottom two shelves were the everyday bits and pieces, but the top shelf was Mum’s pride and joy. There, carefully displayed, was the best china. I don’t know where it had come from, maybe Grandma had bought it as a wedding present because she was quite well off by then, but it was clearly a class better than the rest. Of course, we never used it. In fact we never touched it, or even dared to touch it. It stood untouched and unmoved on the top shelf, just like a museum display.

Our house was the last but one in Carpenters Road. Beyond the next house, which was the last, there were factories all the way through to Hackney. One summer’s day, and it must have been just after the war [Editor’s note: First World War], Mum was standing on the doorstep watching the world go by. That was quite the usual thing to do then. Everybody used to leave their doors open and when you had time to spare you would stand in the doorway and chat to your neighbours up and down or across the street, and with anybody passing by. If you were particularly relaxed, or in the evening, you might even get a chair out and sit there.

Well, Mum was standing there when two nuns appeared coming down the road from the factory end. I suppose they had been round the factories on the scrounge for donations. Now Mum enjoyed a bit of religion – although Dad didn’t. In fact he could be pretty brutal about it when he wanted to upset Mum. At Christmas, sometimes, he would express his views on the true nature of Jesus’ parentage and ‘virgin birth’ in no uncertain, or delicate, terms. It used to send Mum off in a spin and I think she was genuinely worried that a thunderbolt would strike us all. I got the impression that Dad had seen too much suffering and death in the war to have time for any platitudes about peace and love. Anyway, Mum was always on for a spot of religion so when these nuns got nearer she greeted them with a most respectful ‘Good afternoon, sisters.’ They returned the greeting, and went on to ask if they might possibly have a drink of water. Mum got ever so excited and promptly invited them in for a cup of tea, which they graciously accepted.

When we got home from school we were immediately suspicious, because there on the table were two of the best cups and saucers from the top shelf. We couldn’t believe it; we had thought that they would never, ever, come off the dresser. So Mum put on her most dignified voice and told us how the nuns had visited and sat at our table to drink a cup of tea. To be honest, we felt sorry for the nuns! Mum was a wonderful cook, she could cook anything even if she had never done it before, but there were three things she could not do: make jelly, make custard and make tea. You wouldn’t have thought any of them were difficult, but they were beyond Mum. Her tea was undrinkable. It must have been a tribute to the nuns’ Christian humility and charity, as well as desperation for a drink, that they sat at our table and drank her brew.

Now, of course, it was time to wash up. Normally we kids did all the washing up, but not the best china: that was far too precious. Mind you, even then she did the least she could without us kids actually touching the china. She sat at the table and called for a bowl of water – you always washed up in a bowl on the table, nobody ever used the sink. She called for an ordinary cup to collect the dregs in so that we could then pour them down the outside drain. She carefully emptied the first of her best cups into the dregs-cup, went white as a sheet, and exclaimed ‘Oh my God!’ She reached for the second cup, drained it just as carefully, looked into it and with a voice wobbling in emotion said again, ‘Oh my God.’ Then she sat back in the chair, and looked far away into the distance beyond the wall. We kids were stunned, then gathered the courage to look into the emptied cups. In the bottom of each was a collection of pins, needles, a razor blade, a thimble, buttons – all the things that you found laying
around when you tidied up. Because the best china was never used Mum had got into the habit of dropping these odd bits and pieces into one of the cups whenever she came across them. She had been so excited about entertaining these nuns she hadn’t thought to look into the cups as she poured the tea! Those poor nuns, to have to drink Mum’s tea and then find the cups full of odds and sods – mostly sharp and dangerous ones. They must have wondered what sort of test was being given to their faith!

Of course, we kids thought it was hilarious. Nothing was ever said to Dad, but after that we always called the china on the top shelf ‘The Holy Cups’.

W
e never had much money, especially when I was a little girl just after the First World War. I suppose we were lucky to have any money because there were plenty of people around us who had nothing at all, and I mean literally nothing at all. Anyway, one year I qualified to go away with the Ragged School Union Country Holiday Fund. This offered a week away in the country for just 10
s
. To be honest, I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t a very adventurous little girl and, I suppose, I was pretty insecure. I didn’t want to leave Mum. But she said I would have to go, and how lucky I was to qualify, and how exciting it must be for me, until I thought I would have to go or there would be trouble. So I kept my mouth shut and just went.

The holiday was in a big house in Letchworth. I had no idea where Letchworth was; in fact I never came across it again until well after the Second World War. As far as a little girl from the East End of London was concerned it could have been anywhere – we were taken there in the back of a lorry, and by the time we arrived I could well believe it was on the other side of the world. I had never travelled so far in my life, I wasn’t even sure you could travel ‘so far’ and still be in England.

We arrived in the late afternoon at this great big house just outside the town. As soon as we arrived we had to take a bath and a dose of Liquorice Powder to open the bowels. Maybe it was the excitement of the journey, maybe an
attack of nerves, but my bowels remained firmly closed. The next morning, though, when I woke up I was absolutely bursting to go to the loo but that didn’t matter to the ‘powers’ that were in charge. As soon as we got up the first task was to wash our hair and all my requests to go to the loo were ignored. According to their rules I couldn’t possibly want the toilet at that time and that was the end of it. As they worked their way through us all doing our hair I got to feel worse and worse until I finally shouted out that I ‘had to go!’ The matron looked down at me for a couple of seconds, probably trying to make up her mind whether I was just trying to destroy their routine or whether I was afraid of having clean hair. Meanwhile, I could feel that my belly was on the verge of exploding. I had my legs wound tight together to try and contain the explosion until the last possible moment and was rocking my whole lower body backwards and forwards in a sort of desperate effort to encourage the muscles to hold together for a little bit longer. After looking at me for some time I think she had decided that I was being awkward and just wanted to get out of being clean, while getting a bit of attention at the same time. Her strategy must have been to humiliate me so as to teach me not to make a fuss. Instead of sending me off to the loo she said something to one of the staff who quickly went out through a door and reappeared a couple of moments later with a chamber pot. She put it down in front of me and matron ‘invited’ me to use it! To be honest, I didn’t need any invitation. Normally I would have been terribly embarrassed and nothing would have made me use the loo in the presence of anybody else, but as soon as that pot touched the ground I had my knickers off and was on it. And my bowels just emptied and emptied and emptied. The stink was awful but I didn’t care. At that moment I didn’t have a care in the world, all I wanted to do was sit there and let my belly empty. Slowly the pain went off and my tummy relaxed. When I finally stood up the pot was full almost to the brim. In fact, it was so full they couldn’t trust me to carry it away without spilling it. Instead, one of the staff got a cloth, which was carefully laid across the top of the pot, and it was carried ceremoniously away. The matron kept a very stiff upper lip and continued to look straight across the top of our heads, but I think it must have taken her aback. Especially when she thought how close she had been to disaster.