eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780752480145 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 11/30/2011 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 22 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Growing Up in Wartime Uxbridge
By James Skinner
The History Press
Copyright © 2012 James SkinnerAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-8014-5
CHAPTER 1
The Pre-War Years
On a bleak, midwinter day in January, 1928, a cross-channel ferry from Calais was riding on a storm-tossed sea, carrying my mother back to England. And she was carrying me. After living in France for eighteen months, she wanted me to be born in this country, but was obliged to make the journey alone as my father could not leave due to work commitments.
After serving in France during the First World War, my father returned home, not to the 'land fit for heroes to live in' as the politicians had promised, but to a country reeling from mass unemployment, widespread strikes, food shortages, lawlessness and a general feeling of despair. The unemployment figure soon topped the one million mark – over two thirds being ex-servicemen. With no prospects of a job, he went back to France, finding employment with the BRCS (British Red Cross Society) Mobile Unit and the War Graves Commission. He worked around Lille and Arras for eight years, during which time he met my mother in Uxbridge on one of his leaves.
I first saw the light of day at No. 6 Cleveland Road, the nursing home run by sisters Hilda and Maud Franklin, before being taken home to How's Road, where my mother lived with her parents. The twenty Edwardian terraced houses in the road and eleven others in adjoining How's Close were built in 1906 on the site of a large apple orchard. They were the 'three up, three down' type with bathrooms (but no hot water); tiny gardens with outside toilets, and no electricity. Heating was provided by fireplaces in every room.
Both roads and paths were gravel surfaced, prone to potholes that became quagmires in winter and dust bowls in summer. They stayed that way until 1936 when tarmac surfaces were laid along with paving slabs on the paths.
Living with parents and grandparents was an enjoyable experience, even if it meant being spoilt. My father had returned to England soon after my arrival on the scene, and I have fond memories of him and my grandfather joining in my childhood games, especially when I careered round the living room on a baby tricycle followed by one of them on a wooden horse and the other on a similar toy on wheels.
My grandfather, Walter Turton, a keen musician, had played the bass euphonium in the Uxbridge and Hillingdon Prize Band for thirty-seven years. One of their regular engagements was a twice-weekly concert in the Fassnidge Recreation Ground. He was also a respected member of the Uxbridge Volunteer Fire Brigade for fifteen years, and became something of a local hero, when in April 1924 a mystery fire broke out at the top of a 450-ft aerial mast at Northolt Post Office Wireless Station. Appeals for assistance were made to several local Fire Brigades who, according to The Evening News report, felt obliged to decline, considering 'that it was a job for steeplejacks, not firemen'. Nevertheless, when the Uxbridge Brigade arrived on the scene my grandfather volunteered, along with two colleagues, F.C. Wright and R. Crook, to make the ascent. To quote again from The Evening News, 'With fire appliances on their backs it took them nearly an hour to climb the mast, and on reaching the top they hacked away the burning wood support – it was well above the aerial wires – with their axes'. Shortly afterwards the three volunteers became the proud recipients of letters of commendation from the Postmaster General, and their photographs appeared in the Daily Mirror with the caption 'Steeplejack Firemen'.
In view of his 450-ft climb, it was cruelly ironic that seven years later he should lose his life falling from 35ft up – and even worse – that it should be during a practice fire drill. It was the evening of 28 May 1931, and a dozen members of the brigade were engaged in a routine escape drill at Kings Mill, Denham. Suddenly my grandfather appeared to lose his footing at the top of the ladder and while reaching for the Davy escape apparatus, fell to the ground. On arrival at Hillingdon Hospital he was examined by the then head, Dr 'Jock' Rutherford, who found a fractured pelvis, arm, femur, and several broken ribs. He died on the following morning, and the coroner's report indicated that he had remained lucid and never lost consciousness.
On 2 June, after a Requiem Mass at the church of Our Lady of Lourdes, his coffin, draped with a Union Jack together with his fireman's helmet, axe and bandsman's cap, was carried by colleagues from the Brigade Messrs Bodger, West, Finch, Pearce, Harvey and Horan, while the hearse was driven by Fireman Burrows. It seemed that almost the entire community had turned out to pay its respects and witness the funeral procession as it proceeded up Lawn Road and along the High Street to beyond The Greenway. Traffic came to a standstill as the long cortege slow marched past the crowd lining the High Street. It was headed by a body of the Metropolitan Police, followed by over fifty firemen in full dress uniform including Chief Officer Harry Gales and Hon. Sec. G.J. Crook. Then came the Silver Band led by Mr A.B. Sims, playing my grandfather's favourite hymn 'Days and Moments' and the 'Dead March' from 'Saul'. Following the band were members of the RAF Central Band, representatives of twenty neighbouring brigades, local dignitaries Alderman H.S. Button JP, Maj. R.W.C. Flavell JP, Mr R.W. Hudson JP and others, close friends including Messrs Bell, Finch, Gardiner, Sopp, Worley and Brown, and finally the hearse and family mourners' cars. At the municipal offices the flag flew at half mast, and council officers stood to attention as the procession passed in what was a fitting tribute to a greatly respected member of the community. Being so young I was spared a lot of the grieving, although I don't think my grandmother or mother ever really got over the shock.
I did not know him for long, but later I gathered that I was the apple of his eye. This probably accounts for the inscription on my parents' second wreath, 'His best boy, to Grandpa'.
Two years later, on 12 June 1933, my schooldays began at St Mary's, Rockingham Road – a small, Victorian brick and slate building with only three classrooms, each with an open fireplace. The school roll numbered about 100, and the teaching staff comprised the head, Elizabeth Hoey, and sisters Molly and Madge Smith – a formidable trio who collectively chalked up over 100 years of service.
We were fed a strict diet of the three R's and the headmistress, a strong disciplinarian and brilliant academic, also displayed her generosity by treating us to a seaside outing every summer in addition to educational cinema visits.
Molly Smith not only included maths, English, history, geography and nature study in her repertoire, but also taught needlework, country dancing and physical training. Additionally she ran the girls' netball team, and because of a great interest in soccer originating from her Geordie background, the boys' football team as well. All this on a salary of £195 per annum. After she died in 1996, I felt honoured when her family invited me to deliver the eulogy at her funeral service.
During the 1930s, the majority of pupils walked to school. Some had a bus or train journey as well. Bicycles were a luxury few could afford. Those who lived nearby, as I did, went home to lunch; the rest brought sandwiches. No canteens in those days! A ha'penny bottle of milk – a third of a pint – was available during the morning break, when the playgrounds became hives of activity. Boys and girls were separated by a wire fence and no one dared to cross the frontier.
The boys' main pastime was football played with a tennis ball but non -players found numerous other interests. 'Fag' cards, marbles, 'five -stones', conkers, 'bung the barrel' were all in evidence while a thriving trade existed in swapping anything from cigarette cards to 'tuppenny bloods' such as Hotspur, Wizard, Adventure and Rover comics.
On the road to school, by Rockingham Bridge, stood a small, shack -like, corrugated-iron sweetshop called The Bon Bon. Owned by Charles and Avis Rashbrook who lived nearby, it housed a treasure chest of goodies displayed invitingly under its glass counter top. A ha'penny could purchase a sherbet fountain, liquorice pipe or bootlaces, 'everlasting strip' toffee, aniseed balls or gobstoppers – and prices started at a farthing. Only the poorest children – and unfortunately there were several – could pass the shop without buying something.
Two months after I started at St Mary's, a new teacher joined the staff of Frays College, the private school in Harefield Road. He was Eric Blair, who would achieve fame later through his books Animal Farm and 1984, written under his pseudonym George Orwell. Mr Orwell was one of a number of distinguished residents of Uxbridge over the years. Anti-slave campaigner William Wilberforce lived at Chestnut House, Honeycroft Hill from 1824-1826, the renowned Victorian actress Ellen Terry used a medieval house at the western end of the High Street as a weekend cottage during the 1880s, and T.E. Lawerence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a recruit at RAF Uxbridge in 1922, using an alias – John Hume Ross. His book The Mint chronicles his stay at Uxbridge. In addition, stage and film actor Bernard Miles was born and bred in Hillingdon.
George Orwell left Frays College after only one term due to catching pneumonia and spending time in Uxbridge Cottage Hospital during January 1934. Soon afterwards I had my first introduction to that same hospital when our family doctor Harold Vickers referred me for an exploratory throat examination followed by a second one at Guy's Hospital in London. The results of both proved inconclusive – the consultant at Guy's only succeeding in knocking out my front teeth!
During the 1930s, many tradesmen provided a home delivery service. Consequently, our road was often busy with milk floats, bakers' and greengrocers' vans. The Uxbridge Sanitary Laundry van made a weekly collection and delivery of washing. Cycles, too, played their part, used by 'Sooty' Wilson the sweep from Cowley Road, George Osborne who worked for Nicholls the pork butcher, Bill Kelly from Palmer's Ironmongers who occasionally stopped for a quick game of football or cricket in Rockingham Recreation Ground in between rounds, and the lamplighter who could be seen from our window igniting the gas lamp opposite, without dismounting from his cycle. Albert Marlow, the window cleaner from Chapel Street pushed his ladders and buckets on a barrow, and smartly uniformed postmen delivered parcels from a large, red, wicker barrow, in addition to letter deliveries three times a day. The Walls Ice Cream 'Stop Me & Buy One' tricycle was always popular, as was the alternative – the Eldorado man. Another welcome visitor was the Muffin Man (on foot), who announced his arrival by ringing a handbell while balancing a tray of his wares on his head. The horse-drawn dustcart came weekly, driven by a man called 'Moulder', obviously a nickname, and when his son joined him on the round, he inevitably became known as 'Young Moulder.' Coal carts and horses were a regular sight in winter, the coalmen wearing sacks shaped like cowls on their heads, giving them a monk-like appearance, albeit with coal-black faces, and another horse and cart trader was the rag and bone man with his familiar cry of 'Rag-bone'.
We were certainly spoilt for choice in those days, as apart from all the delivery services, there were twenty-eight shops all within five minutes walk away! The one we used most was Staniford's in Cowley Road – a newsagent and confectioner run with expert efficiency by Edith Weinberger, known to everyone as 'Edie.' Next door was Keyworth's bakers, who would sell us a whole bag of 'yesterday's cakes' for 1d or 2d, and another favourite at 39 Windsor Street was the small sweet shop established by Albert Webb and his wife in 1933. After her parents' death, the business was carried on by their daughter Margaret Walbridge until 2001. The street, which dates from the thirteenth century, was the location of several interesting shops, including Edwards and Simmonds (cooked meats), James Pond's bakery and Jack Hutton's fish shop – a new venture for the entrepreneur who had opened the town's first cinema, Rockingham Hall, in 1910.
Yet for me, the jewel in the Windsor Street crown was undoubtedly Hannah Baldwin's tiny toyshop, truly an Aladdin's cave – and almost as dark inside. It was a treasure trove of every kind of toy, with prices starting at 1/2d and 1d. Just to look around was exciting, as every bit of space was crammed full of goodies such as catapults, pea-shooters, cap pistols, toy soldiers, farm animals, model cars, fishing nets and, in November, Guy Fawkes masks, to name a few. One item, however, which struck a sour note with children, was a bunch of canes – the type used in schools at that time!
Apart from the shopkeepers, hundreds of tradesmen were employed by the South Uxbridge factories including the Bell Punch, Steel Barrels, Metesco Electric Co., and the Gas and Water companies. 'Clocking off' time was usually 5.30 p.m. (you could set your watch by their works' hooters) and for the next half-hour long crocodiles of workmen threaded their way along Rockingham Road and Recreation Ground into the town to catch buses or trains. They formed an integral part of Uxbridge's industrial history.
Nearly all our leisure time was spent out in the open air. Being so close at hand, the Rockingham and Fassnidge parks were the most frequented places of amusement. Further afield, there were, however, many popular locations; Swakeleys woods where we climbed trees, made camps and picked blackberries, the Frayswater, generally known as 'the floodgates', where woodland and riverbank ran parallel with the branch railway line from Uxbridge High Street railway station to Denham, the Common, ideal for picnics, ball games and sailing toy boats on the pond, and Fountain's Meadows which stretched from the Grand Union canal to the back end of Denham Village. The meadows were bordered on one side by the River Colne and its suspension bridge and on the other by a shallow tributary that was perfect for paddling. Another stretch of the Colne flowing under Long Bridge on Uxbridge Moor was a favourite venue for youngsters who fished for tiddlers, armed with a penny fishing net and a jam jar. The adjacent meadow was the site of the popular Beach's Fair whose annual visit was eagerly awaited.
The RAF Camp was another provider of several sources of recreation. On summer evenings, I and a schoolmate, whose parents lived in the married quarters, spent many hours exploring what was, to us, an adventure playground. With the narrow River Pinn, or Pinn Brook as it was sometimes known, meandering through the wooded glades of wild flowers and the incessant cawing of rooks in the tall trees, it resembled a country park rather than an Air Force barracks. The camp was open to the general public until the outbreak of the Second World War, and the route from the St Andrews Gate off the High Street to the Vine Lane, Hillingdon exit, provided a popular walk for local residents.
Since 1923, the camp had been the home of Uxbridge Football Club, one of the oldest amateur teams in the country. Since its foundation in 1871, the club led a nomadic existence playing on fifteen different home grounds, but now enjoyed the luxury of a new stadium – at least until 1939. I watched many of Uxbridge's home games during the late 1930s, some from the height of a giant scoreboard used for athletics meetings staged on the perimeter running track. The club also had the use of the RAF Depot Ground bordering the Hillingdon Road for midweek evening matches.
Another entertainment facility offered by the camp was its cinema which began life in 1919 as a lecture hall, gymnasium and cinema for RAF personnel only. Eventually it opened its doors to the general public, and we enjoyed several visits until its enforced closure on 2 September, 1939. The films screened there were second or third time around and the seating very basic on a non-sloping concrete floor, but with a child's admission price of 3d, we weren't complaining.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Regal Cinema which had opened on Boxing Day 1931 was positively luxurious by comparison. It was built on Park Lodge Estate, which was said to include the largest oak tree in Middlesex, and was completed in twenty-two weeks by an army of 350 workmen. One of these was Ralph Rumble, who told me that he worked a seventy-seven-hour week from Sunday to Saturday for an hourly wage of Is 7d. He considered himself fortunate to have a job at the height of the Depression.
The Regal, which attracted 750,000 customers during its first year of operation, became a regular source of entertainment for us during the late 1930s. It was here that we attended the Saturday morning children's shows known for obvious reasons as the 'tuppenny rush'. The programme consisted of a cartoon and a sixty minute 'B Western', while sandwiched in between was a ten-minute chapter of a twelve-part serial. Each episode ended with a cliffhanger situation to entice us back on the following Saturday. All week long, we speculated as to whether or not the hero would escape from his desperate plight. Of course, he always did! Another item featured in the programme was community singing, accompanied by the Compton organ. To make it easy for us, the words of popular favourites like 'Red Sails In The Sunset', 'Roll Along Covered Wagon' and 'South Of The Border' were projected on to the screen.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Growing Up in Wartime Uxbridge by James Skinner. Copyright © 2012 James Skinner. 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.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements,Introduction,
one The Pre-War Years,
An Early Bereavement,
Schooldays,
Shopping Around,
The Outdoor Life,
Royal Celebrations,
The Munich Crisis,
two The War Years,
Preparing for War,
Evacuation,
The Miracle of Dunkirk,
The Battle of Britain,
Peril on the Sea,
The Blitz,
Families of War,
D-Day and Doodlebugs,
Peace at Last,
three The Post-War Years,
Victory Celebrations,
Life in the RAF,
Back in Civvy Street,
Wedding Bells,
New Beginnings,