Bombsites and Lollipops: My 1950s East End Childhood Page 9

  Most of the time, it was just me and my mum. Imperceptibly, as I grew up, I absorbed many of her preoccupations: clothes, hairdos, make-up. And I also demonstrated scant interest in the things she wasn’t especially bothered with, like domesticity. Of course she cooked all the time – there were no ready meals or takeaways then, other than fish-and-chip shops in Kingsland Road, or jellied eels from Tubby Isaacs in the Lane or Cooks Pie Shop near Ridley Road, things we rarely indulged in – but to Molly, cooking was a chore, a duty, something you had to do. She was reasonably competent: there were never burnt or tasteless meals. But I never learned to cook. The kitchen was tiny, certainly. But she didn’t offer – and I never asked. As for cleaning, washing clothes, ironing, even making beds or washing up, my mum never enlisted me to get stuck in, learn all about being a housewife or homemaker. I had a very cushy deal.

  Years later, my dad would commandeer the pokey kitchen to cook his beloved bacon-and-egg breakfasts, neatly laying out the strips of bacon, tomato slices and sausages on plates well in advance, ready for the big fry-up, an obsessive Saturday morning pre-Spurs football ground ritual that developed when his life had taken a different turn. And at one stage, Molly did show me how to thread and wield a sewing needle to create a neat seam or sew on a button. But there was no attempt at teaching me the rudiments of chopping, stirring, baking or frying as I grew up. All I ever did was occasionally shell peas.

  Eating out wasn’t an everyday part of ordinary family life in the fifties: the highlight of an outing to the high street or to the West End with my mother might be a trip to a Lyons Corner House, the only decent chain of eating places that existed back then. You could get a cup of tea, a salad or a roll and butter – or a proper meal, depending on the time of day. What thrilled me about any Corner House outing was the chance to dive into a Knickerbocker Glory, a fabulous gooey confection of tinned fruit, jelly, cream and ice cream piled high in a tall glass. Bliss.

  Things changed in the mid-fifties when the Lyons Corner House in Coventry Street, Piccadilly, introduced an exciting new addition to the menu, the Wimpy, Britain’s first post-war attempt at a burger. It tasted gorgeous, a combo of fat, salt and ground beef topped with a big dollop of ketchup from the red squeezy bottle on each table. Very soon, even Kingsland High Street sported its first Wimpy Bar as they started to spring up, Starbucks’ style, across the land, gradually changing our eating habits. The birth of fast-food culture as we now know it.

  CHAPTER 13

  A WEDDING

  My dad was a genuine, 100 per cent cockney, born within the sound of Bow Bells in Whitechapel – and incredibly proud of it all his life. Part of that sense of pride came, I believe, from rubbing shoulders with all sorts of Londoners other than the Petticoat Lane locals: the posh City gents, the coppers, the well-heeled publicans, the bank managers and the journalists he drank with frequently in the pub: this kind of camaraderie linked everyone living and working around the City area (what we now call the Square Mile) itself, with its long trading history and traditions. My grandfather also took pride in his status as a true Londoner – his family had been running businesses in and around the Lane for well over a century.

  My mum, born in posh Kensington, with an aspiring Russian immigrant father, had had a much more genteel upbringing where the emphasis was on culture, music and art; as a tot she’d learned the violin and while she was not remotely bookish, many of her siblings were artistic and creative. So she wasn’t over-familiar with East End culture – pubs, rowdy knees-ups, that sort of thing – till my dad started courting her.

  Nonetheless, the cultural divide didn’t stop her from spending ages planning her outfits and getting dolled up to the nines for the big ‘dos’, mostly weddings, my dad’s friends and family went in for in the early fifties. I sported a frilly organdie bridesmaid’s outfit and a posy for a few of these – still showing the signs of a big bout of mumps on one occasion – and these mostly Jewish weddings would be pretty lavish affairs with hundreds of guests, live music, cash wedding gifts – and as much as anyone could eat in one sitting.

  In the early fifties, my dad’s brother, Neville, courted and married a girl almost half his age – Neville was thirty five, Barb was extremely pretty and nineteen (he’d told her he was thirty and she believed him, only discovering the truth after nearly four decades of marriage when she saw his death certificate).

  Neville’s wedding was a huge bash, paid for by Barb’s family and held at a north London hotel. 350 people sat down to a sumptuous five-course meal, followed by dancing to a live big band.

  Jewish wedding receptions, by tradition, though often quite extravagant, are not, generally speaking, an excuse for everyone to get well and truly drunk. Alcohol, of course, is available, but most people tend to have one or two drinks, the odd glass of wine and no more.

  So on hearing that his son’s wedding was in the planning process The Old Man had a major concern. A few of his big-betting punters were, of course, on the guest list. And they liked Scotch, especially Johnny Walker Black Label. This, of course, was both expensive and not readily available in the austerity days.

  ‘I’m definitely not paying for the Black Label,’ said Mary, the bride’s mother, a woman renowned for her iron will – and open dislike of alcohol and public houses.

  ‘Nah, I’ll provide the Black Label for the reception,’ said the Old Man obligingly. And so, courtesy of the black market and his group of ‘anything, anytime’ contacts, the Black Label bottles were sourced for the wedding reception, costing him a sizeable wad of crinkly fivers. He then generously suggested using his contacts to get Barb a really fantastic engagement ring at a very good price. And indeed, once procured, the ring was a superb sparkler; Barb loved the big diamond as she proudly showed it off to her girlfriends.

  But once valued, months after the honeymoon, she discovered the truth: the ring was worthless, a paste fake (yet another typical Petticoat Lane con trick of the times, passing off worthless jewellery for wads of cash). Of course, neither she nor her new hubby dared say a word to The Old Man.

  At the wedding, The Old Man, his punters and Ginger emptied the Black Label bottles with alacrity. For some reason, no matter what he drank, The Old Man never showed obvious signs of drunkenness: you never saw him actually fool around or get lairy, though we all knew that in private he could be very stroppy. And the punters and their wives, somewhat garishly costumed, like most of the female guests, in long beaded satin dresses and fox-fur stoles, thoroughly enjoyed themselves, the men holding their drink well.

  But not Ginger, alas.

  I am seated at a children’s table in my frilly bridesmaid’s dress with all the other kids. We are just finishing off our ice cream and fruit salad when it happens. My parents are with a group of relatives at a nearby table. And my dad, well-oiled by now, decides to serenade his brother, the blushing bride and the assembled guests. So he climbs onto his chair and spontaneously bursts into loud – and very pissed – song.

  ‘AALL of me … why not take AAALL of me, cantcha see, I’m no good wivvaaht ya,’ he croons, well out of tune. I am instantly uncomfortable, trapped with this embarrassing evidence of my dad’s unruly behaviour. I squirm in my seat and avoid the eyes of the other kids. A few older kids are giggling and nudging each other, they’ve seen it before at dos like this. The bride’s family, on the top table, are stony faced, clearly not at all impressed. Even the band doesn’t dare tune in and back him.

  This outburst, of course, confirms what Barb’s family, respectable and comfortably off, have already suspected about Neville and his family: they are a rowdy mob of Petticoat Lane ne’er-do-wells. They may be flush with cash – The Old Man’s largesse with the Black Label had been anticipated, even if still frowned upon. But their Barb has definitely Married Down. (It’s a good job that at that point, they didn’t know about the worthless sparkler.)

  OK, it’s a wedding with the usual jokey speeches and noisy toasts. And later, when the dancing gets going, the guests
will all take to the floor to link arms for the usual raucous versions of the Hokey Cokey and Knees Up Mother Brown. It’s a far from subdued gathering. But this solo, very pissed person’s version of ‘All of Me’ is definitely not relevant to the occasion.

  It’s way out of order: you just don’t do this sort of thing at this kind of bash. But as I sit there silently praying he’ll finish, longing to get up and run away, wishing it wasn’t my dad who was making all the noise and making people tut and titter, I look over at my mum. Isn’t she upset?

  But no. Molly’s fine. She’s smiling. Noisy, loud, raucous and embarrassing as my dad is, it just doesn’t seem to bother her. As Ginger finishes his wailing and attempts to step down from the chair, he stumbles and falls over. Oh no. More shame, more embarrassment, though by now people are ignoring the whole thing, talking and laughing as if it hasn’t happened. Unsteadily he picks himself up. ‘OK, Mol,’ he winks at his spouse, practically falling into his chair, reaching for another glass. Mol just leans back, gives him a half smile and a reassuring pat on the shoulder – and carries on chatting to the person next to her.

  This kind of behaviour, boozing until you fell flat on your face, was somewhat at odds with the perceived behaviour of Jewish people: Jews aren’t exactly renowned for their love of heavy drinking or pubs. But the Lane, though very much a Jewish enclave then, was also a bit of a cultural potpourri. It wasn’t like the somewhat posher suburbs where everyone behaved according to type. In the Lane, you earned money however you could, regardless of traditional stereotypes. So there were pubs around the Lane that were run by Jewish families who’d been there for decades. And gambling, of course, brings in all comers, all backgrounds: so keeping punters happy with Black Label or whatever else they wanted to drink was far more important to my dad and grandfather than worrying about observing certain social norms.

  Hackney and the adjoining areas of Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill were, back then, heavily populated by Jewish families – though the drift away of upwardly mobile, more successful Jewish families to the smarter areas of north-west London and the outer suburbs had already started back in the thirties. So while we lived very much in a Jewish milieu, my dad wasn’t interested or involved enough in Jewish culture itself to follow any traditions.

  Not long after he’d returned from India, my mum laid the table for dinner one Friday night, setting out the traditional Jewish Sabbath candles on the dining table. When Ginger came in from work, she lit them, something she’d learned at home, as a child. While it had not been possible to observe this ritual regularly through the chaos of wartime, this was one thing which, to her, spoke of normality – and family tradition.

  Ginger was having none of it. ‘We won’t have any of that,’ he snapped, dousing the candles and removing the candlesticks from the table.

  ‘Ging, I thought it’d be nice,’ said my mum, knowing already that her case was hopeless.

  ‘No, not in this house,’ was the response.

  So I grew up in a home where being Jewish was a fact of life, living our lives around other Jews. But it more or less stopped there. I never learned Hebrew, went to a synagogue or celebrated any Jewish festivals in the traditional way. Nor was there any pressure to learn more about the customs, what they meant. And my mum, despite growing up in a Jewish family where the customs had been observed, didn’t seem to really mind the absence of these traditions. She cooked certain kinds of Jewish food, like lokshen soup (chicken-and-noodle soup) and chopped liver, because she knew how to – and my dad liked eating them. But he also liked eating the things Jewish people weren’t supposed to eat: bacon, eggs, pork sausages, that sort of thing. That was how he’d grown up.

  Talk about mixed messages. Now, of course, I know that there are many non-practising Jews all over the world; we weren’t that unusual. Yet, like most children, I shrank in fear and embarrassment from my dad’s drinking because it made him ‘different’; I didn’t see other people’s dads getting drunk and making a mess of themselves. Later, of course, I understood that anyone, from any background, can be an alcoholic, junkie, adulterer, crook, you name it, they’re human beings with frailties, the same as everyone else. But back then, my dad’s heavy drinking in the midst of a seemingly non-drinking Jewish environment created a somewhat confusing situation for me.

  For instance, I became a bit of a swot at my girls’ primary school, Princess May on Kingsland High Street, and didn’t like the idea of missing a single lesson. So the first time the big annual Jewish holiday came round, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (the day when all Jews must fast and cease all normal activity for twenty-four hours), and it coincided with a school day, I rebelled. I didn’t want to take a whole day off from school. Yet it was one day my dad did take off from work, probably because many of his punters were Jewish and subsequently, most of the East End betting fraternity did, once a year, observe their cultural heritage. So he insisted I stay home.

  ‘She’s gotta stay home, it’s the Black Fast,’ he told Molly. (I never did find out why he used this phrase, nor did I ever hear anyone else use it.)

  But I too insisted, stamping my tiny foot, doing my ‘Wanna go’ number. And, as usual, they gave in.

  When my class teacher, Miss Hallinan, a kindly Irish woman, saw me walk in that day she stood there, aghast. What was going on? There weren’t that many Jewish kids at my primary school, but she was familiar with the Jewish customs – and the one day when all Jewish life in the area ground to a standstill.

  ‘Just what are you doing here, Jacqueline Hyams?’

  ‘Mum and dad said it was all right,’ I said, defiantly, though already unsure of my ground. ‘And miss, I don’t want to miss classes,’ I added plaintively.

  But she wouldn’t have it. I had to go home. Now. She even marched me across the main road outside the school. Miserably, I made my way back down Arcola Street, stomping up the stairs to our flat. My dad, of course, was vindicated when he opened the door and I ran into my bedroom.

  ‘See … that teacher knows what she’s doing,’ he told my mum later.

  But all it did was create even more confusion. To me, it didn’t make sense. Why should I take a day off school, missing out on learning, for something we didn’t really bother with? Why did this one day make any difference?

  I never got any coherent answers. They were, in their way, trying to instil a sense of the importance of Jewish culture in me. Yet it was too random and indirect for it to make an impact.

  A few years later, approaching my teens, I had a memorable conversation with my dad about being Jewish. I’d seen the books by his bed about the war – and what had happened to millions of Jews in the Holocaust and the concentration camps. No kid could ever forget the message of those terrible photos taken in the camps when the Allies marched in. I knew all about the gassings, the prejudice and the ongoing persecution of the Jewish people. Fascists like Mosley were still very active in the East End after the war, so I knew full well that people disliked, even hated us as Jews, simply because we existed.

  ‘Your best bet is to stick with Jewish people,’ Ginger warned me.

  ‘That way you’ll be safe, because you never know if – and when – the non-Jews might do the dirty on you.’

  ‘But … you’re friends with lots of people who aren’t Jewish, dad,’ I pointed out. ‘Look at Len from the café and his family, they’re not Jewish and they’re your friends. And Charlie Riley, you’re always out with him.’

  ‘That’s different,’ Ginger said. ‘I grew up with them, it doesn’t count.’

  Huh? I pondered all this later; I didn’t want to ask my mum because I suspected she’d follow the same unsatisfactory line. And I came to the conclusion that somehow, the logic of this was wrong, off the wall.

  Jews were a minority, a small group of people. Fine. Yet it didn’t make sense to me to stick fast to just that one small group. The world was made up of millions and millions of people. Maybe some hated your guts, wanted you dead; but they couldn
’t ALL be out to do you harm. Terrible things had happened to us, yes. But that was the past – and instinctively, I sensed that I didn’t want to be locked in thrall to the past in that way. It could hold you back.

  Essentially, I decided there and then that I didn’t want to limit my life to just one small group of people and avoid the rest out of fear, just to feel safe. The world was big – and I already knew I wanted to be out there, in the midst of it all, finding out about everything. If being Jewish was going to stop me from making my own choices in life, then I wasn’t having any of it. I never openly voiced this view, understanding all too well that it wouldn’t be well received. But for me the decision stuck fast.

  You could say I rejected my dad’s somewhat restrictive view of our background because I had an overwhelming curiosity about life. Or you could say I was just an independent thinker. Take your pick ….

  CHAPTER 14

  SCHOOL MILKs

  If there was one thing about being a post-war child that was virtually guaranteed to put you off milk for life, it was the free bottled milk we were given at school. It was vile, pale, watery, insipid stuff. On a bad day, you’d get one with a horrible creepy skin that had formed over the top; truly disgusting. Fridges didn’t arrive in ordinary homes until the mid-fifties, which didn’t help: in winter, the small glass bottles would be left to warm up on the radiators, making it taste even more horrible. And if you demurred, all you’d hear was ‘drink it up, it’s good for you’. OK, it was a good idea for the post-war authorities to boost the nation’s nutrition by providing free milk in the classroom. Many kids needed all the help they could get. But like many of the well-meaning intentions of the government, it had a drawback: it was virtually undrinkable. In my case it was the start of a personal lifelong revulsion against all things milk. As soon as I could, I stopped drinking it. Ever. Even now, if someone mistakenly stirs my coffee with a milky spoon, it goes straight in the sink.