Read an Excerpt
Bagels & Bacon
The Post-War East End
By Jeff Rozelaar The History Press
Copyright © 2011 Jeff Rozelaar
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-7212-6
CHAPTER 1
Starters
I don't remember the first day of my life. I have never forgotten the eighth, though, when I was circumcised. My mother Nancy always treated this claim with disbelief, my future wife Susan with amusement. I retain a vivid picture of male figures, one of whom was my paternal grandfather, clustered around an operating table. They were observing the skills of the mo'hel (the semi-medical, quasi-religious individual) who traditionally removes the foreskin from the tiny penises of protesting Jewish boys. A trick of memory? A snap of my snip! Hampton Court was where I made my debut. Not the royal palace but the Bearsted Memorial Hospital, an establishment of lesser majesty a few yards down the road. Witty friends would tweak its name, claiming my parents never married.
This suburban sanctuary was chosen since in 1944 it was raining V1s on E1. The Second World War even had pre-natal influence on my formation and an edgy disposition may well have been implanted in the womb. A pregnant Nancy bravely, but perhaps unwisely, volunteered to conduct London buses through earlier air raids. As her 653s motored along the Mile End Road, dodging falling bombs, my frenzied foetus must have twitched at every explosion. The spiral staircases of her double-deckers and the sudden pings of her ticket machine may have further damaged my nerves.
Legend has it that, early in her career, at one 'request' stop, the sirens sounded an alert. The passengers were divided as to what the next step should be. Abandon the vulnerable vehicle and seek the nearest shelter, or turn a deaf ear and, with luck, arrive home on time. Nancy suggested that they put the options to a speedy show of trembling hands. Her customers agreed to my mother's proposal. She then proceeded to conduct the voting. The result favoured the brave, and fortunately a god of transport sheltered the travellers under a divine hand. The bus completed its scheduled journey without a scratch on its bright red paint. On hearing the saga in the canteen depot, Nancy's fellow public servants raised chipped mugs of dark brown tea in professional admiration. In this small way, my mother's telling action had proved that a tiny flame of democracy could burn alongside the larger flames of the Blitz.
My father Henry's war record, however, contained no such heroic tale. I recall a photograph of him in a standard private's uniform with a forage cap tilted at a rakish angle. Beside him, at ease, stood a self-conscious group of grinning squaddies. Blobs of snow blurred the image but, in spite of the absence of greatcoats and gloves, the evident icy temperature appeared not to bother them. Henry's employment within the army was to act as batman (personal servant) to a lieutenant. Henry was mildly amused that the officer's peacetime occupation had been to 'floor walk', in a supervisory capacity, the aisles of a Woolworth's store. How well-shined his shoes were as he passed the counters of cheap goods is not known, but Henry assured me proudly that his military boots never lacked a sparkle.
Ironically it was his feet that ended Henry's service to his king. He had flat ones. These misshapen body parts prevented him being shipped to Singapore in 1942. There he would have been part of the huge garrison that was later to surrender. He candidly admitted that he would not have survived the ordeal of imprisonment by the Emperor of Japan. When I gaze down idly from time to time at my own inherited and identical 'plates of meat', I realise that I owe my very existence to what I stand on daily.
Back in Civvy Street, Henry joined the Rag Trade. My birth certificate registers Henry as a tailor. This cut little dash in the wartime property market and my first 'at homes' were in consequence in my maternal grandmother Rebecca's council flat – No. 5 Herbert House, Goulston Street. This was not the healthiest environment for a newborn babe as its front door stood beside a communal dust chute. Behind its noisy door, a metallic container received the chuckable waste of five storeys of inhabitants. This second, if not malevolent, bombardment further nuked my nascent nerves, as well as fine-tuning my sense of smell.
A photograph found in the effects of a recently deceased uncle fuels speculation about my appearance at that time. My grandmother and her youngest daughter, my Aunt Kitty, are standing above my seated mother. The latter is gazing fondly at something in her lower arms out of shot. One assumes I am the missing item. Why did the photographer leave out the newborn babe? Was this a deliberate comment on my appearance? Was the unknown cameraman distracted at the crucial moment? Or was he simply bad at his job?
Independent living for my parents and me started a few years later. Just a short distance away in Stoney Lane stood the impossibly named Barnett's Mansions, where Henry had the key to No. 4 at seven shillings and sixpence a week. Whoever conjured up the building's title had a wicked sense of irony, for it was far from a palatial residence. The flats were built above Barnett's, a kosher butcher's shop with a high ceiling, tiled walls and saw-dusted floor. Our kitchen and living room at the rear overlooked the factory part of the premises. From there an aroma of manipulated meat wafted up daily in clouds of oddly scented steam.
Through the vapour three other tenement blocks were visible. These bore a more accurate description. During Benjamin Disraeli's premiership a long-gone parliament had passed an Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act. A mason had inscribed the details on a foundation stone, a history lesson on a grimy wall. Our accommodation was a fraction superior. Those residing in Dizzy's domiciles had to share their kitchen and other conveniences.
In the yards between these building blocks, I later joined other boys in a number of improvised games. On one memorable occasion, we chalked an oval circuit to simulate a speedway track. The idea was inspired by the visits of older lads to Wembley. Their attention had been gripped, not by the roar of a football crowd, but by that of racing engines. This soundtrack was accompanied by a visual spectacular of thrills and spills. My friends and I attempted to simulate the whole event by frantic running and barging, while our inadequate voices vainly tried to convey the noises of the bikes without brakes.
An occupant of the most distant block was Brian Albert. He resided unusually with his mother, uncle and grandmother – the latter a famous victim of the locality's love of nicknames. She was only ever referred to as 'Sarah Sideways'. The unflattering description was used unashamedly (but not to her face) and referred to her inclination to sway from side to side with every attempted forward motion. The movement was clearly due to a disability, but in those days the disadvantage gave rise to ridicule rather than compassion. People were not deliberately cruel, but seemed to have no qualms about using such hurtful labels.
Brian himself was short of inches but he and his family gained enormously in stature every Bonfire Night. The uncle, who acted as his surrogate father, used to go out and annually spend a fortune on fireworks. An enormously appreciative crowd would gleefully gather for the free show, in bemusement as much as in delight. They marvelled at so much money going up in smoke. Brian's family was granted a kind of unofficial royal status during the proceedings. Among the starbursts, no begrudging eye could be detected as the uplifted heads dutifully honoured their very own Prince Albert.
In 1955, my awareness was elevated from a prince to a king. It was on the entry step to block two that a girl called Elaine regarded me with undisguised scorn when I admitted to not having heard of a singer called unbelievably – Elvis. My taunter was to maintain her tenuous connection with majesty as she later courted and married a guardsman stationed at the Tower of London. His most important role was the protection of the Crown Jewels.
Although we regarded ourselves as East Enders, our homes were geographically, though fractionally, in the prestigious City of London itself. Not that tourists would have wasted their Kodaks on our premises when the Mansion House, the Bank of England and other more worthy edifices were so close.
The Monument, another famous historical landmark, was not accorded the respect it deserved. This cylindrical edifice was erected on the spot where the Great Fire of London started. It was open to the public and had a circular viewing platform at the top. If one succeeded in climbing the spiral staircase, overcoming breathlessness and vertigo, one looked down directly on passers-by hundreds of feet below. The inevitable boyish antic could not be resisted as my friends and I found ourselves one day the sole occupants of the launching pad. The usual attendant was nowhere in sight and a Niagara Falls of a peeing contest resulted. The ultimate pleasure was to see the unfortunates below looking upwards. They appeared totally mystified by spots of 'rain' falling from a cloudless sky.
One piece of local history still remains etched in the national psyche: the morbid fascination with the never caught, or even identified, Jack the Ripper. In today's East End, countless thrill-seekers pay for the dubious privilege of a guided tour. They appear to relish visiting the spots where his pitiful victims met their horrific deaths, walking in the footsteps of arguably the world's most infamous serial killer. The grim events constituted, for my friends and I, a chilling backdrop to our childhood games, blood having been spilt on the very streets on which we innocently played.
A far less melodramatic history lesson was given to me inadvertently in a park. I was idly watching council workmen cleaning a statue. Once the bird droppings and other encrustations had been removed, the figure of an imposing Victorian male appeared. When the borough's employees left with their tools, I approached the memorial and read the inscription. The man portrayed in stone was General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. This brave and determined man conceived the idea of forming a military style organisation to wage war on 'Sin'; of this commodity the East End has never had a shortage.
Learning from books, other than those supplied by school, came courtesy of the Whitechapel Public Library. This stood alongside a far more important beacon of culture, a famous gallery that periodically displayed significant items from the world of art. Perhaps its greatest short-term acquisition was Pablo Picasso's Guernica. How sad and fitting that such an iconic painting should be hung in another town that had similarly suffered from bombing.
The Tower of London itself provided at times an alternative playground, and an invaluable history resource. I had read that on its infamous hill Sir Thomas More and many other unfortunates had taken their last look at this world. Nowadays visiting children can learn about the past in more graphic ways. One of the gift shops has on offer executioner's masks and 'bloody' toy axes. A mock severed head could become a best seller for a generation addicted to violent computer games.
My earlier 'hands-on' experience with a real historical artefact was more sober. Along the Tower's embankment overlooking the Pool of London stood several cannon captured by the British Army when Sebastopol fell to it at the end of the Crimean War. They stood on immovable (for us) wooden trucks that we loved to clamber up. Allegedly, one such melted-down weapon provided the metal for the first Victoria Crosses.
We also played Pooh sticks around Traitor's Gate. Dropping little bits of paper or cardboard over the little wall we hoped to see them float through the fearful portcullis. The beefeaters were largely a friendly, chatty and certainly informative bunch. In later life I regretted never having seen a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Yeomen of the Guard on the green sward of the dried-out moat.
The spectacular Gothic Tower Bridge was a source of fascination, above all because in the 1950s its moving bits still actually moved. This allowed even large vessels into the watery part of the City. We loved to stand astride the pavement's great divide, staring down at the narrow split through which a fraction of the river could be seen.
That period of the bridge's story provided a spectacular moment which caught the nation's attention. A bus driver was too late to heed the warning given when the bridge was about to open. With the gap widening before him, he decided to press on with his foot on the accelerator. The land-based vehicle then for a dramatic second took to the air. When paying their fares, those passengers on the top deck could not have anticipated a ride on a Big Dipper! They were not, however, the only ones to fly around London's iconic bridge. It was not unknown for light aircraft and their brave and skilful pilots to fly under the, what could have been, unforgiving ironmongery.
My parents Nancy and Henry twice paid for me to have voyages on the river. A paddle-wheeled steamer, The Royal Sovereign, took us all the way down the Thames Estuary to Southend on a memorable summer's day. I relished scaling the steps, looking over the side at the bow wave or the churned water of the wake. The funnel appeared enormous and, when it unexpectedly emitted a great hoot, we all jumped and then laughed at our own fright. The surprisingly permitted view of the engines was a real privilege. I will always remember the all-pervasive smell of oil and the giant metal arms moving rhythmically as they drove the paddle wheels.
The second venture was in 1951 to the Festival of Britain, held on the South Bank. I have one distinct, sad and lasting memory. Henry, after much pleading on my part, had bought me one of the many commemorative badges to mark the event. On our return passage, as I was attempting to pin it to my lapel, it slipped out of my fingers and over the side of the boat. I was devastated to lose something I would have worn with childish pride. Its corroded remains still, I assume, rest on the river's bed. Will some future marine archaeologist find it and puzzle over its nature and how it came to be there?
The Square Mile thus became another part of my playground. During holidays, my friends and I would nip along pavements filled with bowler-hatted gents wielding umbrellas and smart young ladies who were employed in the offices of what still purported to be the world's financial centre. On summer nights and at weekends, the City streets between the concrete canyons emptied and the area became a ghost town.
On both sides of the border that was Middlesex Street (overlooked by our two bedrooms after the Second World War), there were enormous gaps between the buildings. These reminded me of missing teeth, the aerial dentist being the Luftwaffe. The bombsites were great cavities of rubble and debris. Most of the broken homes of those days were the responsibility of Hitler. This dismal playground was a treasure house for the pre-teens. One site was grandiloquently described as 'The Jungle' because of its profusions of weeds. Defying our parents' warnings about jagged bricks and broken glass, we amused ourselves there for hours.
One day an old bedstead was converted into a stretcher during a re-enactment of the recently ended campaign in Malaya. The largest boy, Barry Pack (whose father was unbelievably named – and not nicknamed – Wolfie, making him the butt of many jokes), was accorded the label 'seriously wounded'. He was instructed to lie down on the carrier. Four bearers then raised it but, within seconds, his weight had removed the rusty mesh from the fragile frame. No real major injury was incurred but the story was recounted innumerable times to Barry's discomfiture.
Sometimes on Sundays in the warmer months, my parents treated us to a trip to Hyde Park. Going to a place 'Up West' always held out the prospect of posh spice. A Central Line tube train would take us from Liverpool Street to Marble Arch. Years later, I was to learn that the latter was positioned on the site of Tyburn, in earlier and crueller times the scene of public execution. Thereby hung many a tale!
We entered the park close to Speaker's Corner. As a boy, I viewed it as a peculiar place where loud-voiced somewhat crazy-looking men shouted at jeering crowds who stood before their soap boxes. Later, as a youthful student of history and politics, my perception changed slightly. It clearly had a small paragraph in the story of British democracy and the accompanying tradition of free speech. I came to enjoy the rhetoric of the fanatic even if I didn't always agree with it or understand it. I was impressed with the power of the voices unassisted by microphones and the flow of their words. They seemed to avoid the 'ahs' and 'ers' that punctuated my first efforts at public speaking. They knew the script and rarely fluffed their lines.
The highlight was the heckling. An apt comment from the floor which publicised a self-contradictory point mistakenly made by the orator always got a big laugh. If the victim countered with a telling and perhaps humorous response, the same audience would approve with equal encouragement. I greatly admired the ability to think on one's feet – effective repartee, in my case, being conjured up long after the moment had passed. The range of subjects and points of view enriched the proceedings. 'Workers of the World Unite!', 'Keep Britain White!', 'Africa for the Africans!', 'Prepare to meet thy doom!' Despite the angry words, fights rarely occurred. One solitary policeman, standing at a distance, seemed sufficient to maintain public order. Was the behaviour as good in the House of Commons?
The open-air forum wasn't intended to provide entertainment – that was the purpose of the Easter Parade. My family witnessed some of the last of these innocent fashion and beauty processions which marked the arrival of spring and the celebration of the Christian festival.
Further progress into the park required the crossing of the sandy bridle path. This was sometimes delayed to allow the passage of horse traffic. The riders always seemed to possess an upper-class aura, expressed in the fine cut of their habits, the sparkle of their boots and the upward tilt of their noses. One had the feeling that they were literally looking down on the lower classes.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Bagels & Bacon by Jeff Rozelaar. Copyright © 2011 Jeff Rozelaar. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
