Some Bods Move On

Chapter One MY EARLY ARRIVAL I was born in a hurry, on the 10th of July, 1900, the hottest day of that year. My mother had been involved in a not too serious accident on a day’s outing in what was then called a brake, the fore runner of the vehicle we now know and use much more frequently, the luxury modern coach. The motive power of the brake, two horses, decided to have fun and games. My mother was badly thrown about with the result that I was born one month in front of schedule, eight months in the making instead of the usual nine. I have often wondered if this early arrival into a new century could be considered to have had a hurrying influence on my outlook on life, in a century of rapid change such as no other in history can boast. My mother at this time had to take in work from the city in the form of hat trimming, hat- making being her trade. Mother was born in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, where most of the female section of the community came to some extent under the influence of the hat- making industry from nearby Luton which in later years became more famous for the manufacture of motor cars. I was one-and-a-half years old when my brother was born, and no doubt with two very young babies requiring attention, the hat-making became more difficult, so I was sent to school at the tender age of two-and-a-half years. I can still recall the name of my first teacher, Mrs. Selby, a motherly body. As far as I can recollect the time was spent unravelling pieces of pretty fabric and playing with picture blocks and coloured bead counters. I well recall our little lunches being collected by the teacher, placed in a wastepaper basket, to be handed out at the appropriate time. My small lunch was neatly wrapped in newspaper, mother could not run to greaseproof or white paper. My father was unemployed at this time as were many, but father was not afraid of work and I have heard him recall his many jobs, window-cleaner, van man, church organ blower, etc., I cannot at any time in my childhood days remember any of us going short of basic essentials. At this time we lived in Orange Street, Southwark, our house being a part of a terrace named Winchester Cottages overshadowed by a church on the other side of the street, All Hallows. The church was in those days well attended, being very high Church of England, in fact, not far removed from being Roman Catholic in its services. As far as I can recall, my Aunt Polly, a widow, had always lived with us and the family always referred to me as being “Aunt Polly’s darling”—apparently I could do no wrong and my small brother could do nothing right. Aunt Polly also came from Ampthill and was a hat worker, and up to the age of sixty-five would walk every day to a workshop in the City of London, a distance of about three miles each way. She would, on her return from the city, bring home a quantity of hat material that she called buckram, a hard stiffened substance, for my mother to work on. Aunt Polly and mother would spend the evening making up hat brims or crowns, us children being regularly packed off to bed on the first clang of All Hallow’s church bell calling for evening service at seven o’clock— there was no nonsense in those days as we were not allowed to be any trouble to the breadwinners. I was about four at this time and had moved out of the infants class at school and had started to take lessons. Two incidents have remained imprinted on my memory from this period, the first being the early disciplinary method of my new teacher, a Miss Banner, whose favourite means of physical correction for misbehaviour was to roll up our sleeves and sharply smack our little arms between elbow and wrist. Need less to say, I often received this admonishment for talking instead of attending to lessons. The other incident was much more amusing, at least to all the family if not to myself! My Aunt Polly had mended my little trousers and made a rather clumsy job of the work and in school the next morning I could feel a lump in the sitting-down department. I was sure that I had had an accident and asked the teacher if I could go home to be cleaned and changed. Now as children went to school at a very early age, wetting and messing was quite usual and teachers took this unfortunate occurrence in their stride, but as I only had to go a matter of a hundred yards or so, teacher sent me home. On reaching home with my trouble mother promptly took off my trousers and found nothing except the lump of clumsy padding Aunt Polly had sewn in. 1 well remember the chiding I received from the family, who could not resist saying frequently “Who thought he had.” About this time I recall mother asking me to take a message to her sister, my Aunt Ada, whose husband, Uncle Fred, kept a small but busy grocer’s shop some few minutes’ walk along the same street. The taking of this message did not fit in with my playtime plans, so I told a lie and reported to mother that I had in fact delivered the message. Some hours later when I was caught out in my lie, my mother was about to deliver punishment with a cane and in endeavouring to dodge her, I ran across the room and stumbled, falling into the metal treadle of mother’s sewing machine, cutting my head badly. I was at once rushed to the Evelina Hospital for Children where the nurse applied a dressing. In those days bandages were applied liberally. The cut was near my right eye and I was taken every few days to the hospital Out-Patients’ department. It was with some dread that I waited for the nurse to take off the bandage, she was mostly in a hurry and whipped it off, making the wound bleed. No one seemed to be very sympathetic, they had not the time to bathe off the sticking bandage. This now seems far removed from today’s neat stitching and small but efficient plasters. In time the visit to Evelina Hospital became unnecessary, the cut healed but left a small scar. I was not allowed to forget that this scar was my punishment for telling a lie. The church hall belonging to All Hallows was called the Victoria Hall, situated at the end of a cobbled path, to my child mind a very large building. The Christmas teas and Sunday School prize-givings in the hail were something of an occasion, the very large Christmas tree being laden with glittering gifts to be distributed at the appropriate time to all the noisy excited children by one of the fathers of tile church. Here the early disappointments of life seemed unbearable, as a much desired toy would be handed to some other child and a less wanted toy came my way. The church began to play an important part in my early life. I was quite young when I was appointed to the role of boat-boy, entrusted with carrying the incense boat from which the officiating clergy would feed the incense burner, a receptacle that was charged with burning charcoal. When the incense was placed on to the hot charcoal it immediately discharged a volume of white smoke, filling the church with, as I remember, a pleasant but unusual fragrance—the brass receptacle containing the charcoal and incense was carried on the ends of four fine brass chains. The clergy would swing this burner towards the high altar, thereby emitting a large quantity of the white curling smoke, as though this action paid homage to the Cross or other special object in the procession round the church which was part of evening services. I had to walk beside the Vicar who would then swing the incense burner methodically high above his head, this action was very impressive, almost on a par with the throwing of the mace by a drum major. This procession was to my young mind very important, the clergy in white surplices embroidered with fine lace, other officials in bright scarlet cassocks carrying banners with Latin inscriptions on finely worked silk. Being a very small boy, it was with some difficulty that a scarlet cassock could be found to fit me, as it seemed that I must have been the smallest of small boys, the verger having to hitch up the bottom part with a pleat held in position with a tightly tied cord to prevent me from tripping over the long garment. Over the scarlet cassock I had a small white surplice embroidered as those worn by the clergy, and on my head a small red skull cap. I am sure my parents had eyes for no one other than their very small son in the splendour of red and white apparel. The procession terminated at the high altar with much swinging of the incense burner. I well recall my small self being so over awed on my first duty as boat boy that I forgot to watch the officiating clergyman with the burner. There I was rooted to the spot facing away from the clergyman, who was impatiently snapping his finger and thumb to attract my attention.

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