by Alf Townsend
We must have safety on the King’s highway, look right, look left, look right – and look left again
And off we go when the coast is clear, safely home to Mummy ’cos there’s nothing to fear
Lovely old memories – and it beats watching the television all day!
Even I, as a ten-year old, realised that the war in Europe was quickly coming to an end. Grown-ups were constantly saying things like ‘Jerry’s on the run’ and ‘the Yanks are near Berlin’. And all the old biddies around our manor – well, they seemed old to me at the time – were forever going on that ‘our boys will be coming home soon’. Then, soon afterwards, a strange thing happened. I heard all these sirens howling and hooters blowing and suddenly, all the street doors opened and people started running out into the road and hugging and kissing each other. They had obviously been listening to the wireless when they had announced that Germany had surrendered and the war in Europe was finally over. Not so the fanatical Japanese in the Pacific. It would take the total destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the dreaded A-bomb before they surrendered. But I was too young to comprehend what the grown-ups had had to suffer through the war years. The dread, coupled with the sadness of losing their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters or loved ones in the terrible battles. The daily and nightly fear of the German bombs, landmines and Doodlebugs raining down on their houses, the constant knot in their stomachs that Hitler and his Nazi hordes could well have invaded Britain. All those years of anger, anguish and pent-up emotions were released by that mad rush out onto the streets and wildly dancing around kissing and cuddling anyone you saw. As for me, I thought they had all gone a bit potty!
Then it was time to help organise the VE Day street party. That was the joy of being part of a ‘street family’ in London after the war. For sure you didn’t get on with all of your neighbours all of the time, but there was a feeling of warm security that permeated right through to every member, from the very young to the very old and infirm. And woe betide any outsider who had the audacity to take a liberty with any person in our street. Our top men would get it sorted a bit lively! This is how the retribution was handed out in the case of violence – or a liberty taken to one of our own. Find out the age of the perpetrator, whether he was a teenager, in his twenties, or even older. Then carefully select someone of the same age from our street who could handle himself in a punch-up and dispatch him to beat the shit out of the guy. A bit like the Mafia I suppose! Sadly, all these close-knit communities were completely decimated in the 1950s and ’60s, long after I had moved away from the area to get married. Our local council decided to level the whole area to the ground and replace all the quaint, but solid, Victorian terraced houses with ugly flats and maisonettes that unfortunately have not stood the test of time. This massive building programme was particularly evident on ‘our’ side of Caledonian Road, starting from the canal bridge, right through to the dreaded Pentonville Prison, a distance of around half a mile. Strangely enough, the opposite side of the road, what we peasants termed as the posh side, was hardly touched. Those houses were somewhat larger, but many still needed to be replaced. In one fell swoop, whether by coincidence or deliberate design, the planners had completely decimated many close-knit communities that had lived together for decades. With their massive building project they had inadvertently created two completely diverse communities of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, with Caledonian Road separating them. Now, some sixty-odd years down the line the council side of the divide is looking decidedly scruffy and dilapidated, while the posh side is looking even posher after having been ‘gentrified’ by the mass arrival of professional people in the 1960s. Yet I find it a strange scenario whenever I take a fare in my cab to my old manor, albeit to the posh side of the divide. Even though these professional people have lived there, maybe for a generation or more, and lovingly cared for their houses, they can hardly be termed as part of the local community. I mean you’ll never see them up Chapel Market buying their fruit and veg, or looking in some of the rather tatty shops up the Cally. But hey, I’m just telling my story, I’m not a social reformer!
But let’s return to my helping to organise the VE Day street party. We Londoners are a strange lot – there’s no doubt about it. The capital had been battered for five years by the heaviest bombing the world had ever witnessed, but never ever into submission. The whole of the population had existed on an almost starvation diet, with the growing kids never getting their proper vitamins from fruit and the like. But, give us the opportunity of a street party and the chance to cock a snook at ‘Jerry’, and the hidden goodies saved for a rainy day, suddenly appeared like magic. I remember our VE Day street party in Twyford Street as if it were only yesterday – probably because it nearly killed me – and I mean that literally. The tables and chairs were lined up half the length of the street and everybody wore home-made party hats and each household had to donate some sort of food. We had jellies and blancmanges and custard, loads of sandwiches and home-made cakes and fizzy drinks, while the grown-ups drank beer and cider.
‘Jack the lad’ on the left. (Author’s collection)
The guys who worked down Covent Garden had come home with a nice cochell of fruit that I’d never seen before. As mentioned before, a ‘cochell’ was the slang term for the carrier bag full of fruit and veg that the market porters used to bring home at the end of the day. I think this practice went way back to the Victorian era. The guv’nors didn’t scream about it, in case they got a major strike on their hands and the ‘Beadles’, the market security, turned a blind eye! Can you possibly imagine a kid of today not knowing how to eat a banana because he’d never seen one in his whole life? One of my mates was seen attempting to eat a banana – skin and all! The festivities went on to well after dark and the organisers turned on the old-fashioned spotlights. As usual, I was right up the front making a nuisance of myself, that’s probably why one of the organisers said to me, ‘Alfie, turn that spotlight round to face the tables, will ya?’ So I went across and started pulling at this big old spot lamp and trying to heave it around. It probably wasn’t even earthed properly and most likely had been set up by an amateur sparky. And that’s all I can remember. There was just total blackness and I slipped into unconsciousness from a massive electric shock. More by luck than anything else, I eventually started to come round and I saw all these faces looking down at me. Someone was stroking my face with what I can distinctly remember was a cold, smelly flannel and I heard a man’s voice say. ‘Ain’t nuffing wrong with ’im, he’ll be alright.’ And that was that. No doctor, no medic, no ambulance, no check-up at the local hospital, no nothing. I was quickly ushered back to the party and given an extra large lump of chocolate cake. That’s obviously a very good cure for a massive electric shock! Medical researchers are now saying that an electric shock is good for the heart. Well, touch wood, up until now I am strong as an old ox! I recall that the next-door neighbour’s pretty daughter Betty Tulip, was somewhat concerned about me. It appears that Mrs Tulip and my old Mum had agreed among themselves that me and Betty would make a nice couple in the future. But real life doesn’t work out that way. I didn’t fancy Betty and I don’t think she fancied me! After I’d moved away from home I heard the tragic news that pretty Betty had died in a horrendous car accident. What a loss of a lovely young girl.
Alf the teddy boy, front left. (Author’s collection)
So, I had lived through some hair-raising experiences in the early days of the Blitz. I had survived some traumatic experiences as an evacuee. I had made it through the terrible rocket attacks and now I had survived a massive electric shock that could well have killed me. And with the same luck I could move on to manhood and a happy marriage with a lovely brood of kids and grandchildren. And that’s just what happened! Yet even after all these years of being happily married, I still can’t understand why a lovely convent-educated girl from a nice family should choose to spend her life with a rather pompous, loud-mouthed yob, d
ragged up in the post-war poverty of Caledonian Road. They say opposites attract and you just couldn’t get more opposite than Nicolette and Alfie!
But my story simply cannot end there. For sure, I’ve brought it up to the present day, but it just can’t end before returning to Newquay after over sixty years. I know the journey back in time will be painful and sometimes sad, and I know I’ll be thinking: ‘Is this the final time I’ll see Newquay before I kick the bucket?’ But hey, I’m always like that and my wife is fond of calling me an ‘old drama queen!’
So we made the decision together, I needed to go back to Newquay, just for a couple of days, to check out all the changes. My dear wife Nicolette would come with me for moral support and together we would research the town and record everything for the final chapter! And that brings me neatly to the popular old American ballad from the war.
Gonna take a sentimental journey, gonna set my heart at ease.
Gonna take a sentimental journey to renew all memories.
NINE
NEWQUAY: SIXTY-ODD YEARS ON
I didn’t really want to make the journey back after all those years. I was quite happy to bottle out and live with my boyhood memories – even though I had made them conveniently comfortable in my mind over the ensuing years. My dear wife, however, was adamant after I had changed my mind for the umpteenth time! ‘We WILL go to Newquay together,’ she snapped in a stern voice I hadn’t heard since she scolded our youngsters many years ago, ‘and the reason I will be accompanying you back to Newquay is because you have written a book that is incomplete and an incomplete book will not be acceptable to the publishers and will not be acceptable to the loyal readers of your first two books.’ I just sat there, eyes agog and nodding, because when Nicolette goes off on one, you don’t argue – in fact, you don’t even dare to speak!
The journey back in time even started with a strange coincidence. In 1940 all of us kids piled into the lift at Caledonian Road station, totally unaware of the terrors facing us down on the platform. And now, all those years later, this septuagenarian and his lovely wife were doing exactly the same thing in the lift at the posh Hampstead station. I suppose if I had thought out the journey a bit better, I perhaps would have chosen a station on the Northern Line without a lift! It was a bad start for me. Suddenly my hands were getting a bit sweaty and my socks felt as though I was wading through our garden pond. The lift whirred to a halt and I shuffled out on to the platform feeling a bit queasy. After fifty years of being happily married, my wife can read me like a book and promptly handed me a tissue to dry my hands. ‘This is as bad as flying for you luv, isn’t it?’ she said, trying to comfort me. I nodded nervously in reply. I hate flying – even though I was in the RAF. I hate lifts and I hate boats. In fact all I like is driving my own taxi!
I tried to bury my head in a newspaper and not look around. Even the pristine condition of the station wasn’t enough to wipe the demons from my mind because the smells were the same as all those years ago. I just knew that if I looked up, I would see those old double-bunks again and the hordes of people milling around. Then I felt the rush of warm air and heard the loud rumble of the approaching train. I would have been quite happy to have gone back up in the lift and called the whole thing off – booked tickets or no booked tickets! I waited until the train screeched to a halt and the doors clattered open before I put my paper down – thinking that if I didn’t look around it might help – and it did.
The journey to Paddington station wasn’t too alarming for me. Mind you, I must confess to having a wobbler when we had to change at Kings Cross. This wobbler was threefold: firstly I was still worrying about the Blitz; secondly, thinking about the terrible loss of life in the ghastly Kings Cross fire; and, thirdly, recalling the vivid images of the dead and injured in the terrorist attack at the station on 7/7.
We walked briskly up the steps that took us to the middle of the station concourse at Paddington and the place was bedlam! One minute we were deep in the bowels of London with just the smell of the underground and the very next minute we had entered the hectic world of the morning commuters from all over south-west England! There were literally thousands of people around and apart from the lack of uniforms, it wasn’t unlike 1940. But the station had changed radically over the years and like many other mainline stations, it still had the huge Victorian arches covered with glass. But the many thousands of panes of glass were now certainly much cleaner without the soot and steam from the old engines. In fact, there were no engine smells or smells of any kind! There were shops and cafés all over the concourse and big, shiny escalators to take you up to another level of even more shops and cafés. Being an old-fashioned bloke, probably living in the past, I had a bit of a shock when our bill for a sandwich and a couple of cups of coffee came to over a tenner! Another shock came when I went into the gents toilet. There was an iron turnstile and a sign saying: ‘20p access to the toilets and £3 for a shower.’ I couldn’t help but think: 20p for a pee, that’s a bit strong isn’t it? Then it was into the ticket office to see if OAPs got a discount.
Obviously, all the passengers looked different from all those years ago, hordes of tourists lugging huge cases – probably heading for the Heathrow Express. And isn’t it easy to spot the mature American ladies? All rather on the large side with very prominent bottoms and all wearing their white trainers! There were lines of gents in smart suits striding past with a kind of glassy look in their eyes and lots of pretty young ladies. I paused to reflect for a moment before going nervously on to the platform. Hardly any of these passengers had even been born when me and thousands of other scared inner-city kids made our wartime journey down to Cornwall. The thought made me feel as though I was a stranger from another planet!
I chuckled to myself as I thought of Uncle Albert, the old sailor in the classic comedy, Only Fools and Horses. What if I was to grab hold of one of these glassy-eyed businessmen and simply say to him: ‘During the war …’, and then bore him to death with one of my stories?
Suddenly I was feeling a bit perkier and really looking forward to the long train journey back to my childhood. No sitting outside a stinking toilet this time around and the seats were booked. I had my notebook and my specs at the ready. We had pre-booked a charming little guest house – very close to Stanley Cottages and the harbour – our first home in Newquay, so everything was going swimmingly!
It was the morning rush-hour but luckily we were heading against it. But as we went on to the platform to board our train, one of the commuter trains pulled up on the other side and disgorged an amazing number of people. Suddenly we seemed to be facing a veritable army marching relentlessly towards us with the women seemingly holding their large handbags in an almost threatening manner! As for the pin-striped horde, they marched glassy-eyed – almost in formation. I had this vision of their umbrellas pointing forward like spears, holding their briefcases across their chests like shields! We moved nervously to the left well out of the way, otherwise we would have been squashed like ripe tomatoes!
Finally, we boarded our train pulled by a monstrous diesel locomotive. No posh names for these monsters anymore like ‘The Brighton Belle’ or ‘The Flying Scotsman’, just a workmanlike ‘Stroud 700’. And thankfully no more old-fashioned corridors, so no having to sit on a battered suitcase outside a stinking loo! Comfortable, open-plan carriages and tables and cosy seats were the order of the day. But what a drastic change of scenery since arriving at Paddington all those years ago! As we pulled out of the station I saw that the massive bomb damage had now been replaced by a multitude of huge towerblocks that reared their ugly heads either side of the track for miles. But soon we were speeding through the lovely English countryside. No more loud clanking over badly fitted track joints, just a pleasant humming sound that numbed your senses in a relaxing way. Bacon buttie and coffees in the buffet bar was enough to break the monotony until we reached Brunel’s coastal track at Dawlish. That was something special and not to be missed. The red sandstone
cliffs, the Exe and Teign rivers and the wonderful views of all the many ships bobbing about on the water, was a sight that brought back many old memories. Then onto the spectacular Tamar Bridge that separates Devon from Cornwall. I have to confess that it didn’t appear to be quite so high this time around. But hey, I was only about six the last time and everything seems extra big when you are so low to the ground! An added attraction since the 1970s was a two-tier road bridge running alongside.
We changed at Par for Newquay. But this time around no stentorian voice on a crackly old loudspeaker naming all the stations down the line in a strong Cornish accent. Just an announcement on the train intercom by one of the lady staff. We crossed the bridge for the Newquay train, just one small carriage with a handful of passengers and headed for our final destination. The deep cuttings and the sinister overhanging trees were as I remember them and the white ‘mountains’ still looked prominent – but strangely not quite as white. Mind you, having had sixty-odd years of vegetation growing on them, they wouldn’t look as white, would they? Then the train slowed down as we crept across the wobbly old Trenance viaduct. As I looked down I could recognise the tennis courts, the lovely flowerbeds and the boating lake. I’ve since learned that this whole area used to be flooded by the River Gannel at high tide and was called the Old Moor. During the depression of the 1930s, local unemployed men were paid dole money, some tobacco and a pasty per day to dig out the boating lake. At the end of each week their wives were given a packet of tea, not a lot, but certainly better than starving!