(Simon)I have extracted clips up to the following time in the interview - 00:44:15 (end)
Mother evacuated to Bradford from house in Old Woolwich Road.
Not sure how old she was when she moved back. After the war, people went round looking for empty houses. Council requisitioned houses for homeless. Found a house in 31 Humber Road. Lived in Flat 2. Just before the end of the war in 1944.
Father was stationed in Cornwall. He was a carpenter and was deaf so couldn’t join up and be in the regular army. Was in Home Guard and mended boats. Went down with Mum to visit occasionally. Bomb damage in Greenwich was considerable. Gradually cleared and pre-fabs built. Quick to do. Some sites stayed empty for a long while.
Earliest Memories
Halstow Road School. Early memories are sometimes nice, sometimes horrible. Empire Day dressing up in uniform. Wore Brownie uniform to school on the wrong day! Traumatic! Chosen as May Queen one year. Chosen by class. May Queen from year before came down from the Infants School and crowned her Queen of the May. Maypole dancing. Took it up to the ‘new’ Invicta School which was a prefab. Unusual for urban school? School had a maypole, others didn’t so it was taken around. Country dancing as well at school in P.E.. She was very small and ‘fairy like’ when little! Had to have sun-ray treatment at Chevening Road Clinic along with others (and mother). For children that were under-nourished. Came out with red faces. Red-haired children were even worse. Had to have spoonful of cod liver oil and malt free every day. No free dinners. Mother wasn’t allowed to pay. No brothers and sisters. Father decided they couldn’t afford them. Always wanted one. Distant cousin used to stay. Linda Susan. She was 9 at time. Mother was not in hospital so father brought her but didn’t say he was going to leave her. Cousin was a lot younger. Lived with the family for three months. They didn’t get on that well. Had to pretend to go to bed so that she would go to bed, but allowed up afterwards. By this time Flat 5 had become vacant so moved up to top floor flat. That’s when she stayed. Remembers having mumps in Flat 2. Mum made tripe soup. Father had made a trolley with a glass top and shelves and lift-up sides that locked. Not locked properly on this occasion and so the side collapsed and covered her in tripe! Cat had kittens on her bed and made a mess. Strange what you remember! Could play in street which was fairly but not allowed to. Not danger of cars - there were none, just that it wasn’t safe to be out of sight of Mum & Dad. Very large garden though. Played with girl across the road from pre-fabs. Didn’t have many friends. Pre-fabs had a gas fridge and back-boiler located in the middle. Very modern. Coal man used to deliver. Ordered by the ton or half-ton at the beginning of the season. Some houses had them in the ‘passage’.. not the ‘hall’. Some had coal holes outside the front door and coal tipped in to the cellar. Had to count the bags - delivered in hundredweight sacks. Only had heating in the sitting room. Bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom were cold. Wrapped up warm, with lots of blankets and hot water bottles.
Local Area
Humber Road was reasonably affluent. Larger houses. Private or rented? Post code was Blackheath SE3. SE10 was considered ‘less well off’. Shops on Woolwich Road. Grandmother lived on Isle of Dogs. Mother walked there with pram through East Greenwich, Greenwich Village and through the foot tunnel. Don’t remember going to Greenwich much otherwise… not to cinema on own. Halstow School visited Blackheath Standard Cinema (Roxy?). Saw Edmund Hilary climb Mount Everest. Never visited the Peninsula as such. Could see a long way over the Peninsula to the gas works and gas holders from the top floor of the flat. British Oxygen bottles clanging all day when being loaded and unloaded. They were located just behind the East Greenwich Library (Lewis’s Coach Garage?). Also could smell the Molassine factory. Used to go home from school to lunch most days. Monday was washing day. Had ‘Workers Playtime’ on the radio. Steam trains? Not old enough.. electric trains.
Secondary School
Kibrooke Comprehensive. First girls comprehensive school in the country. Year she went was the first year of first years. Older girls there from other secondary schools. Enormous. Took a while to find way around. Very proud of it. Had a ‘Technical’ block. Taught catering, millinery and tailoring. Also a ‘Secretarial’ block that did shorthand and typing. Just did ‘general’ education. Favourite subjects? Didn’t really like school or enjoy it until the Sixth Form when she made some good friends. Didn’t do well academically or socially. Personal reasons – would not discuss on recording. Came out of school with nothing. Geometry test. Passed that. Did technical drawing with teacher Mrs. Lockyer. She had worked in the aircraft industry.
Work
Worked for Johnson & Philips (industrial cable-making, switchgear, etc.), but in New Cross, not in Charlton. Became a ‘tracer’, who were nearly always girls. No apprenticeship for girls. Only boys did this to become draughtsmen. Only stayed there for two years. Wanted to work in town, so got a job in Victoria Street with F. H Wheeler (electrical contractors). Not long starting there, they moved to Morden, so had to travel on the ‘drain’.. the Northern Line all the way from Greenwich. Then moved to a site in Waterloo. Worked with all men. Nicknamed her ‘Fred’. Supposed to moderate language, but didn’t! Visited Shell Building and had drawings to check the electrical fittings. 20 at this time.. early ‘60s.
Social Life
No regular boyfriend. Very shy. Didn’t push herself. Eventually asked if she could go out with her friends. They said that they hadn’t asked her as they didn’t think she wanted to go. Went to Chislehurst Caves. In each little area there were lots of different bands. Jazz, rock and roll, etc. Just paid to go in. Dad’s collected them and took them home. Dark! Lost touch with school friends once she went to work. Difficult to pal up with work friends. Not the best type of place to work. Some of the men would ‘try it on’!
Got a fiancée so wanted to work nearer home. Elliot Automation in Lewisham. Walked there over Blackheath. Could do things other girls couldn’t do. Should have had more money but didn’t. Elliot’s made machines for measuring mixtures of things. Each machine had a weighing scale. She had to draw out a new one of these for each machine with the appropriate measurements, but basically each one was the same. She suggested producing a standard ‘template’. They thought that was a good idea, so it was implemented.
Got married. Was expecting a baby. Ran for bus and lost baby. Was hospitalized for a while and never went back to work, so never had a leaving party as such. Not a good way to leave. Married from Vanbrugh Fields where her parents had moved to by then. Moved back to large house in Humber Road when she got married. Husband was an apprentice who she had fancied when at Johnson & Philips, her first job. Planned to go on a first date with a friend under clock at Charing Cross. Didn’t turn up. Later she rang and asked why he didn’t come. Arranged another date with his brother and other friends. Friend got together with the boy she fancied and she with his brother. Both got married and both are now divorced.
Shops in East Greenwich
Lovely Woolworths. Now a motorbike showroom. Pounds hardware shop. Lovely smell. Knew where everything was in little drawers. Woolworths was bigger than other shops. Separate counters. Cheap. Row of shops in Westcombe Hill. Bakers on corner, greengrocers, butchers, Co-Op. Tin cheques. Given with change. Looked like money and made of tin. Had a value on them. Twice a year they could be cashed in. This was your ‘divi’. All customers were shareholders. Shops were ‘posher’ than they are now. Also stalls in side roads. Patricia suggested interview with one of them (Chrissie). On the buses there were punched tickets and a cord to ring bell near the roof. Kids couldn’t reach them. Trams? Only remembers end of trams. Tram scrap yard at Charlton. Could buy cushions from the old trams when they were broken up. Dad bought some. Could add legs to make a stool.
Next pregnancy was a little girl. Had three girls. Worked as a child minder for 8 years. When youngest was 2. One of the teachers wanted a child minder. Enjoyed it. Taught them how to use knife and fork. Lost patience with it eventually. Like gardening. Parents had a greenhouse.
Never used to visit Greenwich much. Now surprising to find that the cottages down in East Greenwich are worth more than those higher up on Blackheath. Still looks to be working class. Present owners don’t support local shops and area.