by Alf Townsend
They loaded up an old pram to overflowing and trudged off through the rubble-strewn streets, all the way to one of her Mum’s sister’s place on the Crown Estate just off Albany Street, near Regent’s Park. Again, while staying there, they took to using the communal shelter in the courtyard every night. Luckily for them, the only night they didn’t visit the shelter it received a direct hit from a German bomb and many of their neighbours were killed. Like many other families, her Mum thought it would be safer to make the nightly trip to Euston Square Tube station. It was a bit of a drag, but well worth it. After many months of sharing an overcrowded flat with her aunt, they were finally given their own place on the Crown Estate.
These lorries were not going anywhere! (Islington Libraries)
Nicolette and Rosalie again. (Author’s collection)
While I was away, moving around the Cornish towns and villages, Nicolette and her family endured the worst of the Blitz. Her Mum tried desperately hard to keep the family together, but it was becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous. Nicolette’s Mum was a dressmaker by trade and was forced to go to work in the rag trade centred around Great Portland Street, simply to feed and clothe her kids. By this stage of the war, Hitler was playing his last terror card against innocent and helpless civilians. He launched thousands of rockets – firstly the V1s, then the V2s. ‘V’ was for vengeance, as the Nazis christened them, but they were nicknamed ‘Doodlebugs’ by the chirpy cockneys.
Not even churches were safe from the V weapons. (Islington Libraries)
More casualties and destruction in Islington. (Islington Libraries)
The V1 was in effect a flying bomb with a guidance system and a ton of high explosives packed into the front and propelled by a rocket. Some 7,000 of these flying bombs were aimed at London during the summer of 1944, with about 6,000 civilians being killed and many thousands injured. But the V1 had an Achilles heel. It could only fly in a straight line and even though it could reach speeds of 300mph, the British ack-ack batteries were shooting many of them down. The RAF, with their new Meteor jet fighters, could easily match their speed and destroy them. The young RAF pilots actually perfected a scheme where they would come alongside the V1 and give it a nudge on the wing. This had the effect of sending the V1 off course and hopefully making it crash into the deserted countryside.
The Nazis eventually produced a genuine rocket as a missile, the ‘Vengeance Two’ or the V2. The V2 had no military objective, it was set to come down anywhere in the London area. It flew at over 200mph and could reach its target in just four minutes. In November 1944, one of these V2s landed in the heart of New Cross, resulting in the loss of 160 innocent civilians. Eventually, after the successful invasion of Europe, the V2 sites were overrun and London and other British cities were finally safe. With the benefit of hindsight, it was just in time, because the Nazis were in the final stages of producing the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile, the A10. This had a range of 3,000 miles and could well have decimated all the American cities on the Eastern Seaboard or any other chosen targets of the Nazis. That would surely have necessitated negotiation.
Nicolette recalls how she and all the other London kids would be outside in the streets, happily playing on a fine summer’s day and suddenly look up to the sky when they heard a deep, threatening roar. Then someone would spot the black shape of the V1 moving speedily through the cloudless sky, with the bright red flames belching out from behind. She remembers being almost mesmerised watching the rocket moving through the clear, blue sky and listening to that roar, a bit like a powerful racing car with a loud exhaust, she says. Then suddenly, a deadly silence ensued as the engine cut out, followed seconds later by an almighty explosion that shook the ground and rattled all the windows for miles around. Somewhere in the London area, dozens of innocent men, women and children had been killed or maimed by that terrible blast. The V1s and V2s really were terror weapons against the civilian population of our cities, simply because they weren’t programmed for any specific or strategic target. They were just set to explode at random anywhere over the target city. I still remember how angry I felt after the war, when the Americans and the Russians were competing with each other to get the services of the best of the German rocket scientists to come and assist them with their space programmes. It still rankles me that these German scientists were fêted and treated like national heroes following the conquest of space. The Americans and Russians have short memories, mind you, they never had to endure these rockets crashing down on their own cities. To my simple mind, these scientists were responsible for the deaths of many thousands of innocent civilians in the terrible Blitz on the United Kingdom. Their inane excuse carries no more weight with me than the facile excuses offered by the major Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg Trials that they were ‘only carrying out orders’. How can perfectly normal human beings obey orders to liquidate six million Jews by gassing them?
Once the Doodlebugs started raining down on London, Nicolette’s Mum decided it was too risky for her kids – especially because of their close proximity to the prime German targets of Euston, Kings Cross, St Pancras and Paddington stations. So, it became a regular weekend treat for them to get on a train and be taken for a ride into the country. Little did they realise that these weekend trips had a more serious purpose. Nicolette recalls her Mum checking addresses and knocking on doors in many little villages with lots of different ladies speaking to her Mum and shaking their heads. On some occasions, she remembers the ladies would point to her little sister Rose and say in a funny country accent. ‘Oy’ll take the little ’un, but oye can’t take the two of ’em.’ So her Mum would shake her head sadly and say with a big sigh: ‘No, I’m sorry my girls are staying together – you either take them both or not at all.’ Eventually, the girls were evacuated together to Rodmarton, a sleepy little village in Gloucestershire, for eighteen months.
Nicolette recalls that they were quite happy days living with a ‘big fat, jolly lady’ whose husband was in the RAF. She could never understand why, when he was home on leave, he would keep lying on top of the fat lady, still wearing his uniform, while the fat lady giggled heartily! It’s an old country custom and very popular so I am told by ‘Luscious’ Liz, the receptionist at the History Press! I believe it’s called Gloucestershire body wrestling! The hygiene in the house must have left a lot to be desired and within a short space of time, the two little girls were admitted to hospital covered from head to toe with scabby sores. They were diagnosed with impetigo. When their Mum arrived and saw the sorry state of her girls, she whisked them back to London and that truly ended their short and unhygienic evacuation.
Luckily for me, Nicolette survived the war and grew up to be a beautiful and lovely girl. We met at a Christmas dance at the old Hornsey Town Hall and danced to the crooning of my old mate Terry Parsons: it was love at first sight. Terry was on the buses at the Archway depot and he always sang in the local pubs like the Boston Arms in Junction Road and the Favourite in Hornsey Road. So one night, all of us chaps were at the Hornsey Town Hall, boozing away on our pints of brown and mild. Then the band-leader – I think his name was Fred Davies – got on the mike. His singer hadn’t turned up and he wanted to know if anyone in the audience could knock out a decent song. So with plenty of pushing and shoving, we got Terry up on the stage. The rest is just like a fairy story. Terry had a great voice and was an overnight success. The famous band-leader Joe Loss signed him up and took him to a recording studio to make a demo tape. Luckily for Terry, one of the people involved in the recording was the very popular pianist, Winifred Atwell. She wasn’t keen on his name and didn’t think the tape would sell – even though she loved his voice. So they conjured up a stage name. The story goes that the sound man was called Matthew, so Terry became Matt and Winifred Atwell’s old dad was called Monro. So Terry Parsons became Matt Monro and the rest is history. He went on to become one of the most popular British ballad singers of all time. I went past Terry once in my taxi
as he was unloading his big flash American car outside Terminal One at Heathrow and shouted out, ‘You alright Tel boy? Long time no see!’ He looked up, smiled at me in a very special way and replied: ‘Cor blimey, what a blast from the past, I ain’t been called that name for years, Alf.’ Tragically, Terry died far too young from a terrible disease he picked up on a tour of South Africa. Many people reckoned he was possibly Britain’s greatest ever singer; even the late, great Frank Sinatra echoed those sentiments. Terry never thought he got the full recognition he deserved from the British public, even with his many hit records.
I know that the Second World War is almost ancient history to many people. But ask any person in their sixties or seventies who lived through the terrible Blitz in London what he or she remembers and the years will melt away, unveiling a vivid picture of the utmost clarity. Firstly, the really scary sound of the wailing sirens and the mad panicky dash for cover in the air-raid shelters. And then, the steady drone of the aircraft engines as you all huddled together, followed by the dull thud of the distant stick of bombs hitting the ground, creeping ever nearer and the acrid smell of burning that seemed to constantly permeate your nostrils. Us kids thought the grown-ups were so brave, yet they must have been more terrified than us. They were adult enough to understand the dangers and they knew that if Hitler had invaded Britain, with our limited resources in the early days of the war, he may well have made true his boast of ‘marching down Whitehall’. Yet they would stand up and sing all their silly little songs down the Tube and in all the pubs about Hitler being ‘a twerp’, with great gusto. Then it was a noisy rendition of ‘Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kitbag’, followed by all the Vera Lynn favourites, over and over again. If you had lived through those terrible, terrible times, it would stay clear in your memory until your dying day. Even now, while I’m bashing away on my computer late into the night, desperate to rid my mind of the demons from sixty years ago, the tears are streaming uncontrollably down my cheeks. It was all so horrific and the people of London were so terribly brave. I’m so proud to count myself as one of them. Please God, let the rest of the world wake up and react quickly whenever another ruthless dictator attempts to subjugate a whole race of people. Hindsight shows us that the Second World War could well have been avoided before Hitler got too strong and powerful. The policy of appeasement is fraught with dangers, as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his cabinet discovered to their cost. Waving a piece of paper signed by Hitler doesn’t mean a thing if it comes from a deceitful, lying person. The dictator needs a short, sharp lesson early on in the game to convince him that he can never win! That’s why Winston Churchill – even with a dodgy track record – proved so popular with the British public and our allies. He could read Hitler like a book, in fact he was often one step ahead of him.
EIGHT
VICTORY IN EUROPE
It’s hard to believe in this modern age of vehicle technology that my old Dad actually borrowed a coal cart to move all our stuff from our Nan’s place in Offord Road down to Twyford Street! We turned into our new street, with the old-fashioned, red-brick building that was the Caledonian Road Public Baths and Wash Houses dominating the corner. Sadly, it is now replaced by an ugly modern effort. How many thousands of times had I whacked a football against that old red-brick wall? How many times, with the aid of a grappling hook and some rope, had our gang climbed the steep sheer sides to watch the boxing without buying a ticket? I thought the old Victorian terraced houses looked quite homely and comforting, but just as soon as you opened our front door, it was obvious that they were literally falling to bits. The hallway or passage of no. 7 had a gaping hole just inside the door and all the time we lived there, it was never repaired! To the right of the passage was the front room or parlour. This had a wonky sliding door that connected to what is now called the ‘master bedroom’. At the end of the dark passage was the kitchen with a scullery and a door that led to an outside lavatory and a small, postage-stamp garden. Up the first flight of stairs was another small bedroom that I would share. But the whole place was dark, dank and dingy with no hot water and, would you believe, gas lighting! But, beggars can’t be choosers and it was better than nothing.
Upstairs lived the old lady who my Mum had befriended and who owned the property. The old lady really scared the life out of us kids. She always wore the same, rather grubby Victorian-looking frock with a high collar and little lace-up boots. She never went out without wearing a hat but even her hats were weird, funny little numbers that seemed to perch unsteadily on her matted grey hair. What made us kids laugh was the huge, silver hatpin that held it in place. It looked for all the world that the hatpin had pierced one side of her head and come out the other side! When she suddenly died, my old Dad swore blind she had kept all her money sewn in that frock and that the undertakers had nicked it! That was after he had illegally searched her flat of course! The missing money was his constant topic of conversation for many years after, but sadly he was just a dreamer and spent most of his life talking about when ‘his ship came home’ and when ‘he won the pools’!
By this time in 1945, I had been enrolled in Treaty Street School and was busy studying for the eleven-plus exam. Along with all the other working-class families in North London, we couldn’t get any coal to keep us warm through the bitter winter of 1947 and we were absolutely freezing in the old damp houses. Even attempting to bribe the local coal merchant didn’t do any good – there just wasn’t any coal available for households. So one freezing cold day my Mum got out her old pram and told me to follow her down to the coal base. This was in Camley Street, just off Goodsway behind Kings Cross station where the open-sided coal trucks were shunted into sidings. So, off we went in the freezing cold. Up Twyford Street, left into Bemerton Street and right into Copenhagen Street, with my school towering above the totally devastated local streets – razed to the ground by a massive mine on a parachute. Even this terrible explosion and loss of life had a sad twist. Many of the young soldiers who were ‘on the run’ used to frequent the local pub on this site – I think it was called the Red Lion. They had deserted from the army – only to be killed while having a pint with their mates! Then we went left into York Way, over the canal bridge and right into Goodsway. This area became the favourite haunt of prostitutes in the 1950s and ’60s.
The local coalies used to queue up alongside the trucks with their horses and carts, while railway staff loaded up the big, black smelly coal bags and weighed them before they were loaded onto the carts. Again, I was back to my favourite country pastime – another form of beachcombing. The cracks in the floors of the coal trucks enabled small pieces of precious coal to drop on the tracks and I would crawl underneath and attempt to fill my little sack before I was spotted. Mind you, I went to school with many of the coalies’ kids – especially the Armsby Brothers – so they knew me quite well and often turned a blind eye to my capers. Then, we would load up the old pram with the spoils and trundle back home again and enjoy a few cosy nights around a red-hot fire. I happened to be in the the Goodsway area recently in my taxi and decided to go round to the old coal base in Camley Street and try to put some feeling into what I was attempting to write about. That turned out to be a total waste of time. The once-scruffy sidings had changed so dramatically, I honestly thought I was in the wrong place. The massive gasometers were still there, but the old railway lines had gone and it had now been converted into a pleasant, almost rural retreat, pleasantly landscaped with large trees growing where the sidings used to be. This overlooked a very picturesque stretch of the once foul and stinking canal.
A teenage Alfie with sister Irene. (Author’s collection)
When our gang used to dive off the bridge in York Way on a fine summer’s day, we encountered the bodies of dead dogs, cats and sometimes human remains! How we never caught some awful disease like typhoid I’ll never know. How things change with the passing years! Even today, that area has again changed drastically with the massive, four-year redevelopme
nt of St Pancras station for the arrival of the new Eurostar Service.
Being kids we made our own enjoyment and we had some good laughs – especially rummaging through the wreckage of shops. One such shop used to sell toys and I fondly recall digging up dozens of penny whistles. So, what on earth did I want with dozens of penny whistles you may be asking? I flogged them to other kids! Then, one day my old Mum told me that all the major film companies were starting a Saturday club for kids. This was an obvious attempt to get more bums on the seats. So off we all went down to the bus stop, clutching our sixpence entrance fee and jumping on a trolley-bus up Caledonian Road to the old Mayfair Cinema – now a block of luxury flats. Hundreds of wide-eyed, scruffy kids sat back in awe as the lights went out. Then it was sing-along time as the words came up on the screen and a bouncing ball literally bounced over every word.
Centre stage in the Scouts gangshow. (Author’s collection)
We come along on Saturday mornings treating everybody with a smile
We come along on Saturday mornings knowing it’s well worthwhile
As members of the GB Club we all intend to be
Good citizens when we grow up and champions of the free
We come along on Saturday mornings treating everybody with a smile, smile, smile, treating everybody with a smile
This hearty sing-along was followed by a Laurel and Hardy comedy, then a corny old Western, before the lights went on for the interval. We settled down expectantly for the second half of the programme and rocked in our seats at the antics of Abbott and Costello. Then came the big finish, the very first sci-fi movie to be made, our hero Flash Gordon. The producers always left poor old Flash Gordon in a truly desperate situation at the close of every episode – just to make sure you didn’t miss the follow-up. I recall one time when Flash was locked in a room by the baddies and, at the turn of a switch, the room was getting smaller and smaller and crushing him. I remember I worried all the following week how he would escape! Finally, before the national anthem was played, another sing-song about road safety – again with the bouncing ball!