Constance Street

by Charlie Connelly

  Sometimes being surrounded by water made her feel safe and protected from the wider world, at others she felt hemmed in and claustrophobic. Much of the time these days, she just worried. She was also feeling exhausted from being in charge and keeping all the plates spinning for so long. She’d made a decent life for the family in the circumstances, but how much longer would she go on? Two weeks shy of her fifty-third birthday and with a seven-year-old daughter as well as a business to run, there was no sign of any respite for a while yet.

  As the party thundered away, she stepped out into the chill of the back yard. It was a clear night and the stars were out. She felt guilty when she questioned her lot. Things could be a great deal worse. She had a good husband and eight daughters of whom they could both be very proud. Norah, industrious, hardworking Norah would be married four years this coming year, to John, and Nell had helped set them up in business. The grocer’s shop next door had come up for rent and she’d borrowed the money to take it over.

  It was only a few months after the general strike when old Mr Parker announced he was packing it in. He was nearly 70 by then and had never really taken to keeping shop; it had just been a way out of the cable works, especially after he’d seen his friend Sam killed in front of him by a snapped cable that whipped out of the machine and slashed his throat. His daughter had moved out to Southend to run a confectionery business on the pier – she’d worried about him running a shop at his age with all the long hours and lifting, and finally, after the strike, he’d been persuaded that seeing out his days watching the sea seemed a better prospect than working himself to his grave.

  When he told Nell of his plans she’d been straight round to see Leadbitter about taking over the lease. It was exactly the kind of thing she’d been thinking about after the strike: whatever happened at the docks, people would still need feeding and a good grocer’s shop should never struggle in a tight-knit residential community like this one.

  Norah had always been the one who’d shown the most aptitude for business, and she was a worker, was Norah, a proper grafter. Norah would be perfect for the shop. She couldn’t run it on her own, though, and she’d been courting John Giles for a while. John was a good man, reliable, sensible, perfect for Norah and, thought Nell, would be a big help running a grocer’s shop.

  ‘Now, John,’ she’d said to him one day. ‘I’m thinking of taking on the lease at the shop next door.’

  ‘Righto, Mrs Greenwood,’ said John, wondering why he was being trusted with this information.

  ‘The thing is, I want Norah to run it. To live in it and run it.’

  ‘My Norah? She’d be ideal for that, Mrs G. What’s she said?’

  ‘I haven’t told her yet, and here’s why,’ said Nell. ‘Hard as she works she can’t do it on her own. You’ve been courting for a good while now, so I want to know if you’re going to make an honest woman of her.’

  ‘I … I …,’ struggled John.

  ‘Because if you do, and I hope you do, then I’d be happy to entrust you both with the grocer’s shop and you could live above it. But obviously you could only do that if you’re married. So think about it, and think about it quickly because I need to know soon.’

  They were married before that summer was out, and John and Norah Giles were installed in the grocer’s shop at 13 Constance Street, Silvertown. Not only that, a year prior to this New Year party they’d presented Nell and Harry with Jack, their first grandchild. That had been a party and a half, Jack’s christening. Harry had cried just as he had at the wedding and couldn’t get through his speech, and the whole street had turned out for a hell of a do.

  Win was married now, too. Their eldest surviving daughter, she was tougher than she looked, Win. Harry was responsible for her meeting Jim Mitchell: he was a lighterman on the Thames but was often sent out to Tilbury by the Port of London Authority. He’d been on one of the pilot boats that had taken Harry off a departing ship on one of the regular occasions when he’d refreshed himself with the sailors on a laundry run, and the two men had hit it off immediately. When they both ended up in the same train carriage one day the coincidence had happy repercussions. Jim lived at Tidal Basin, not far from Silvertown, and Harry invited him down to Cundy’s a couple of times. He’d brought him home to meet the family and Jim had taken an immediate shine to Win. A real lady, he’d thought, proper genteel. They’d married at Silvertown and, again, the party was long and loud in the true Greenwood tradition.

  She missed Annie around the place, too. The first of the Greenwood girls to make it out of Silvertown, she was working in Devon, at Dartington Hall, a progressive school in a stately home outside Totnes. She was engaged to Albert Foote, who also worked there running a social club. Annie was always the spiritual one, the biggest thinker of the girls and the one most likely to think her way out of Silvertown.

  Kit was headstrong, 20 years old, and out as much as she was at home. Rose, Ruby and Joan were growing into fine girls. Harry still doted on Rose, they still horsed around like a couple of kids, but Nell worried about the youngest three in particular, and what the future might hold for them.

  ‘They’re calling for you, doll.’

  Harry had appeared behind her. She turned to look at him.

  ‘Is that my best hat? My wedding one?’

  Harry gave a start that suggested he’d forgotten he was wearing it.

  ‘Oh, er, yes love, it is. Sorry. I was doing me Marie Lloyd.’

  He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a piece of orange peel. He inserted it, pith outwards, between his top lip and gums in an approximation of the music hall star’s famously prominent teeth, struck a pose with one hand on his hip, and sang, ‘And suppose it makes ya fat? I don’t worry over that, ’cos a little of what ya fancy does ya good!’

  ‘You’re a daft sod, Harry Greenwood, and I’ve always said it,’ smiled Nell. ‘How long have you had my hat on?’

  He whipped the orange peel from his mouth.

  ‘Erm, must be about half an hour now, gel.’

  He thought for a second and winced.

  ‘Was just having a serious conversation with that Douglass fella who’s taken over the butchery from Frank Levitt. In this hat.’

  He started to giggle.

  ‘Imagine what he thinks of me. First time I’ve spoken to the fella in me life an’ all, and I’m wearing your soddin’ wedding hat like it’s normal.’

  He doubled up with laughter, his eyes alive and sparkling, and Nell couldn’t help laughing along herself.

  ‘You are a silly sod,’ she said.

  ‘I know!’ he hooted, bent over with his hands on his knees. ‘Bleedin’ hat!’

  ‘We’d better get back up there, Harry.’

  He wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

  ‘Yeah, we’d best,’ he said. ‘They’re crying out for Vesta Tilley.’

  He took her hand, led her towards the staircase, waved her up first and followed behind. She stopped at the top.

  ‘Harry,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, doll?’

  ‘You can probably take the hat off now.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The line of tables began in the middle of the street outside Cundy’s door and ran in an approximately straight line all the way to the junction with Drew Road. There were variations in width, height and sturdiness but the line was unbroken, the seating ranging from upholstered dining chair to packing crate.

  The women of Constance Street were busy laying cloths over the tables, anchoring them against the warm breeze with pins beneath the table tops, while the men put the finishing touches to the bunting. Harry, stripped to his vest in the sunshine, teetered on top of a ladder fixing one section of a zigzag of red, white and blue bunting that criss-crossed the street from one end to the other. Union flags hung from upper windows and excited children ran up and down in their many-coloured paper and tissue hats. It was 6 May 1935, the silver jubilee of King George V.

  They’d been planning this
for months, making penny collections and with Cundy’s overseeing a subscription. People didn’t have much but they gave what they could and nobody kept a tally of who had contributed what. Things were tough on Constance Street in the mid thirties, and in Silvertown as a whole. There were whole streets that were worse off, now that Tate & Lyle had closed their Plaistow refinery, turning out 2,300 workers, and shed 600 jobs from the Silvertown works, and the docks were not nearly as busy. Silvertown was full of unemployed men, wandering from gate to factory gate on the off-chance of some casual work, standing listlessly in doorways or whiling away the days on benches – or, if they had the price of a drink, their lunchtimes in Cundy’s. The time passed slowly in Silvertown in those days. It was still measured in the clank and rumble of production and the whistles of the ships, but any jauntiness that sound might once have feasibly contained was absent now.

  ‘Poverty and overcrowding are characteristic of the greater part of the Canning Town and Silvertown areas,’ said one contemporary report, ‘which make what is perhaps the largest patch of unbroken depression in east London.’

  The silver jubilee of King George V gave the people of Constance Street something positive on which to focus. Despite everything they were going to have a bloody good time celebrating the King, whose name was carried by the dock behind the wall a few hundred yards away, who’d expressed concern for his people during the general strike, and who’d waved to the children of Silvertown after their game attempt at the national anthem on the day the dock opened.

  Like his country, the King had been in poor health in recent years, but he’d fought back and the jubilee celebrations were tinged with the hope that the country could follow him back to rude health.

  The street was busier than it had been for a long time. The shouts of organisation mixed with the hammering of the bunting affixers; the excited yelps of the children – who’d been beside themselves with excitement for days – competed with the tinkle of trays of teacups. At the bottom of the street a group of men helped wheel the old upright piano from Cundy’s into the street, every jolt producing an echoing dissonance from its interior, while Charlie Smale and John Giles strung a rope across the junction with Connaught Road to dissuade any errant vehicles from entering.

  The sun was almost directly in line with the street by the time everyone sat down, but it struggled to filter through the tight lines of bunting that practically provided a temporary ceiling over the proceedings. All the food businesses on Constance Street had contributed: the Eid brothers had been working tirelessly since before dawn to ensure there were enough bread rolls and little cakes, piled high on dishes down the centre of the table. Huge, battered metal teapots were heaved out of the café to make sure everyone had strong brown tea to wash down their cake. Every cup in the street was pressed into service, some hauled from the backs of kitchen cupboards where they’d remained undisturbed for years. A few of the men, Harry included, gathered in the shade of Cundy’s holding tall brown bottles of beer. The air was shrill with the excitement of childhood, the age when a street party was the most magical thing in the world and chores could be forgotten for the day, when party dresses were worn and little shoes buffed and polished. Every child wore a paper hat and each found a little Union Jack in their cup when they sat down, and it was the most magnificent thing that had ever happened to them.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  When the eating had finished Kit plonked an old tea chest by the piano, sat down, lifted the lid and commenced playing everything she knew. ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ was roared out by the men of Cundy’s as Kit vamped away on octave chords, her tiny hands seemingly defying physics in their reach as they flew over the keys. She thundered out a thumping bass line on ‘Mademoiselle from Armentières’ that had couples twirling in the street, feet seeming to float over the cobbles.

  A crowd began to gather around the piano and a sing-song was soon in full swing. ‘Down at the Old Bull and Bush’, ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’, ‘Who’s Your Lady Friend?’, ‘Waiting at the Church’ – all the old favourites were given a lusty, heartfelt airing. Harry launched into ‘Nellie Dean’, dropping to one knee and spreading his arms wide while Kit tried to keep up with trilling piano fills and everyone joining in at ‘There’s an old mill by a stream’.

  Harry was in his element: a couple of bottles of beer inside him, a party in full swing and Kit at the piano. ‘Let’s give ’em a bit of Leslie Sarony,’ he said, leaning towards his daughter.

  Kit rolled her eyes. ‘Oh gawd,’ she said. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Lately there’s nothin’ but trouble and grief and strife,’ sang Harry, arms akimbo, hands clasped over his heart, ‘there’s not much attraction about this bloomin’ life. Last night I dreamt I was bloomin’ well dead, and as I went to the funeral I bloomin’ well said –’

  He raised his arms inviting people to join in.

  ‘Look at the flowers, bloomin’ great orchids, ain’t it grand, to be bloomin’ well dead. Look the coffin, bloomin’ great handles, ain’t it grand, to be bloomin’ well dead.’

  Nell stood to one side, hands in front of her, right hand clasping her left wrist, her lips thin and tight. She didn’t like this song. Harry loved it, it had become one of his party pieces and he always brought the house down, but Nell wished he wouldn’t sing it. She didn’t like the subject matter, she thought it tempted fate.

  Harry, meanwhile, built the song to its climax as Kit picked out the chords.

  ‘We come from clay, and we all go back they say,’ he sang, slowing the tempo, throwing his head back and spreading his arms wide as he went into the penultimate cadence, ‘So don’t ’eave a brick, it could be your Auntie May.’

  Kit sensed the pause and lifted her hands above the keys waiting for him to continue with the song’s final couplet.

  ‘Look at me grandma,’ he continued, ‘bloomin’ great handbag, ain’t it grand, to be bloomin’ well dead.’

  Kit produced a flourish, hand over hand all the way up the keyboard, and Harry collapsed into a low, sweeping bow and accepted the applause and cheers. Jokingly he held out his cap to solicit contributions, plonked it back on his head and picked up his bottle of beer. It was a tough act to follow, but people did and the Constance Street turns got a rare al fresco airing.

  In the late afternoon the shadows lengthened and a haze of contentment hung over Constance Street. Kit was still at the piano, but just improvising now as people sat at the tables in groups or lolled against the wall. Pots of tea circulated among the women while the men gathered around crates of beer, deep in conversation about how West Ham United had, two days previously, missed out on promotion to the First Division on goal average despite beating Oldham Athletic 2–0.

  ‘Next year,’ they murmured, ‘it’ll be our year next year.’

  Some order was brought back to the proceedings when radios were brought into the street or placed by open windows, ready for the King’s jubilee address to the nation. Children were summoned and anchored in place with firm parental hands on shoulders, and a hush fell over the street as a fanfare heralded the speech.

  There was a moment of crackly, poppy silence, and then the King spoke. Although he’d undertaken Christmas messages in the previous two years, this was the first time most of the street’s residents had actually heard his voice.

  ‘At the close of this memorable day,’ came the clipped, deliberate tones of the monarch through the static, ‘I must speak to my people everywhere. Yet how can I express what is in my heart? As I pass …’

  At this the King’s voice gargled hoarsely for a moment and he paused to clear his throat.

  ‘As I passed this morning through the cheering multitudes to and from St Paul’s Cathedral and as I thought there of all that these twenty-five years have brought to me and to my country and to my empire, how could I fail to be most deeply moved?’

  There were more crackles and a couple of thumping pops.

  ‘My people and I have come through
great trials and difficulties together,’ continued King George. ‘They are not over. In the midst of this day’s rejoicing, I grieve to think of the numbers of my people who are still without work. We owe to them, and not least to those who are suffering from any form of disablement, all the sympathy we can give.’

  As they listened to their monarch, the faces of Constance Street bore serious expressions. Some were red from the sun, or the beer, or both. The golden evening light picked out the lines in those faces, whether etched through age, scars, hardship, the outdoors or just through being quick to laugh. There were faces dark and weathered, pale and pink, moustaches tinged nicotine brown, full lips, thin lips, thin faces, long faces, faces that betrayed the very thoughts behind them, faces that gave little away. Faces lined with constant worry, faces that sagged with resignation, faces with jaw lines set in determination, faces that betrayed bereavement, love, happiness and loss – every face the story of a Silvertown life.

  Their eyes revealed much because they revealed nothing. They looked into the middle distance, or at a spot on the ground, a window sill, a piece of brickwork, the back of someone’s head. The people of Constance Street were united with the people of every street, everywhere, right up to the monarch who was now expressing his sympathy, his voice coming through the hiss and static right into their street, as if the man himself were in their midst.

  The children clung to legs, eyes raised, mouths hanging open, in wonder at the voice of their king, especially when he addressed them directly, reminding them that one day they would grow up to be the citizens of a great empire and when that time came they should be proud to give their country the best of their work, their mind and their heart.

  ‘From my heart,’ concluded the King, ‘I thank my beloved people. May God bless them.’

  There was a moment’s pause and then the opening bars of the national anthem emerged from the radios, echoing up and down the street, bouncing off walls and windows, shop signs and doorways. The people of Silvertown straightened their backs and stiffened their arms.