Through the 30′s habits started to change at a snail’s pace, but it was so smooth one wasn’t aware of it. In the bigger shops they had those lovely wooden balls containing money or receipts, rising the full height of the shop at a twitch of a string, then rolling gently along metal tracks, with points and stations, one of which was the cashier in a bird cage half way up the building. As a kid I hated shopping, but made an exception if we were going there. Progress spoilt it all, the vacuum pipe system was introduced and your cash set off for the cashier with a thump and a hurstle like an asthmatic. As for cards – where’s the glamour?

This was a period when the man in the street hadn’t discovered germs to any extent and not in the millions which are allegedly battering us today. We had carbolic soap which was an attractive red, and women wasted their money on scented stuff. We carried hot water upstairs to have a standing wash, went to the Public Baths for a swim or a bath as we chose, and the WC was either attached to the back of the house or down the garden, thankfully open to the breeze. Of course we were risking all sorts when we ate, we had bought food from Coster stalls, thoroughly handled, bread unwrapped and no tongs to lift it, and Sainsbury’s, in most high streets, handled everything, and to my endless joy, took butter out of a box in huge chunks, set it on the counter, cut it with wooden hand moulders, then proceeded to club ounces of water into it as it was moulded into pounds etc. The speed, precision and dedication the counter-hands portrayed with the patter and the water had to be seen to be believed. – how did we ever manage to stay so healthy?

Of course there was not the same amount of kissing that goes on today. We were the hangover from the stern Victorian era when one showed little emotion. Also we had to risk the odd bout of the trots, we had only a ‘safe’, no fridge, It was a wooden cupboard residing out doors, with a perforated zinc panel in the door, covered with a wet towel in summer in which perishables were stored, and the system was not fool proof, as this fool can testify.

What with riding like sardines in public transport, eating in unsupervised cafes, ice cream off pedalled carts, put together by the cyclist from a tub, muffins and crumpets carried on the head of a bell-ringing-vendor – they tasted marvellous toasted on a Sunday over a wood fire, and on and on.., I believe we built up an immune system second to none – nature’s way.

When we first heard the King’s speech on the wireless, it was really a celebration of the Empire and its reinforcement, tightening the ties. My first recollection of Empire Day, although I know it was celebrated in most schools in England, was when it was celebrated in Livingstone. Unsurprisingly it was a ‘great day’, which started with some form of military ceremony presided over by the Governor of Northern Rhodesia, followed by presents, games, and finishing with a bun fight for the children.

There was no doubt the early indoctrination of patriotic ideals and the strength of the bond between most of the population and the Crown was a feature of English life before the war, and never more so than in 1935 when we had The Jubilee, the Royal Funeral and then the Coronation of George VI. On the actual days of celebration there were sporadic street parties, and all the towns and villages were decked out. The papers had a field day with special editions and school children were involved up to the hilt. All the Crowned Heads of Europe and the potentates of the Empire were assembled and London was agog. Souvenirs were on sale everywhere and the LCC gave every child a commemorative EPNS spoon and an embossed or painted mug for both occasions and, in the case of the Jubilee, there was a separate parade by the King and Queen and all the panoply down The Mall at about midday. Public transport and special coaches brought the children there. Stalls, toilets and first aid stations had been erected in the Park and the youngsters had to be in place quite early. I was there, in the front row halfway down the Mall and  constantly there was something to watch. For the first hour the excitement was enough but then we would see troops of soldiers on horseback, police on horseback and other people passing and re-passing, and each time a cheer would go up. The trees, lamp standards and the streets were decorated with flags and bunting from the real celebration and the atmosphere was electric. For whatever reason, patriotism was tangible.

On a purely personal level I regret the advice given to the Royals to come off their dais and try to meet the commoners on the same level. Their own history should have warned of the pitfalls awaiting them and if they had only followed the progress of the Continental Press, after all they are fluent in the languages, they would have seen where it would all lead. Changing course, no matter how or when, will never retrieve what, in effect, we have all lost. The Dutch achieved the change, but I suspect their press is either more controlled or less aggressive.

In the ’30s, youngsters thought they were being terribly secretive , and of course, clever, by talking a simple ‘back slang’. I haven’t heard it for years, but perhaps I now move in the wrong circles. It was simple enough, you took the last letter or syllable of a word, made it the first, added ay and that was it. A common usage was ‘scram’ and because ‘m’ in front was difficult it became ‘amscray’

However, that was for children, in the real world, the world of my great grand parents, some of whom were poultry men, they spoke ‘Butchers Back Slang’, where whole words were reversed, ‘old’ became ‘d-lo’ and so on. A moments thought will reveal the problems this system had, ‘th reversed is tricky and ‘h’ became ‘ch’, so it really became a language with short cuts. My mother learned it as a child. I doubt it has stood the test of time, I never hear it at the meat counter in Tescos.

My mother’s refusal to take second best, and my dalliance combined to ignite an inflamed interchange in Butcher’s Slang. I was very young, and to me shopping was an opportunity to view the world in general at a gentle pace, purchasing was a necessary by product. On one occasion I produced, in lieu of a bag of groceries, a huge, plaster-of-Paris Alsatian dog, bought after long deliberation and a hard sell by the barker, from the tail-gate of a lorry’

On another day it was merely going, buying and returning – no diversions. However, instead of the regular butcher, who knew me, and more to the point, my mother Ellen, a young counter-hand served me, and because I was a mere boy he used his freshly acquired business acumen to pass off meat he wanted rid of instead of what he had been asked for. When I arrived home Ellen met me in the hall, the parcel was unwrapped, words passed, the apron came off with a flourish, the hat went on with a long hat-pin jabbed viciously into the bun. Arms were hastily thrust into an overcoat and with the slam of the front door still ringing in our ears, Ellen took off at the run, the parcel in one hand, me trailing like a kite on a string from the other.

By this time the shop was full, but Ellen, normally courteous, was roused out of her calm by righteous indignation. I tried unsuccessfully to remain in the street, but I had to stand in the footlights, scraping a tentative foot in the sawdust, while Ellen in her accentless English told the staff what she thought of their conduct. I indicated the miscreant, and it was at this point that the criminal made a fatal error, he referred to Ellen as a ‘D-lo woc’, (Old Cow) and a few other unprepossessing names in the same language. What the young aspirant to the Butcher’s Guild did not know was that Ellen had spent her youth in Deal, Kent, as the grand-daughter of a butcher and poultry man, with a shop which was festooned at celebration time with fowl of every description and of the very best quality, while he stood in the doorway of the shop, straw boater on his head, blue and white apron stretched across his ample person and a steel hanging from his waist. In this environment, Ellen had learned ‘Butcher’s back-slang’.
The rest is history, and predictable

A Comparison – The 30′s and Now

A little history gives a slant on what people say. We thought we were Middle Class, we had the social graces, the accent, the interests, but not the cash. We, my mother, brother and I, had just returned from Africa under the British Raj, where we had lived and, I suppose, acted like landed gentry, with a fleet of servants. We were part of an extended family, and from time to time, through difficult circumstances, farmed out round the family for periods ranging from months to years. So, we had no airs and graces, no strong drives, living took up most of our attention, but we did not feel deprived, we, the children, accepted and mostly enjoyed life. Those circumstances alone are rare today, with two bread-winners per household and few extended families.

At Christmas we all had fixed routines and protocols which seem to have gone, mostly through affluence and expediency. Then, indeed in our case up to 20 years ago, the children and often everyone hung up a stocking, either over the fireplace, on the end of the bed, or were given one on Christmas morning, even grannies. We knew we would get nuts, an orange of some sort, a piece of coal, carefully wrapped, sweets and three or four items. Today, the children have entirely different tastes and expectations. We have watched great grandchildren growing up and never cease to wonder, not only at the presents they receive from friends and relatives, from the moment they hatch, but the number, size and quality. They would never fit into a stocking now.

Granted we were married in wartime, but we thought our wedding was super and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Now there are hen parties in foreign countries and the men, not to be out done get drunk in another country as well. The wedding is in a remote romantic spot, and, what with the travelling and the presents, over recent years the exponential rise in these standards, because that is what they are – standards, has left me amazed – and that is only for the relatives and close friends. The honeymoons are also unbelievably lavish at a time when the young people are only starting out. I’m not being a Scrooge, nor a party poppa, although I sometimes can be, what people do with their lives is their business. I have just watched, and wondered where it will finish. Those Joneses, everyone seems to feel they have to keep up with, have a lot to answer for! With the rising cost of housing, weddings and life generally, one cannot be surprised the younger folk are cohabiting, if they can even afford that, and unlike our generation – not many of us left – marriage itself can be tenuous.

Existing posts, The Toboggan Run (Frivolity) Willie and the Suitcase(General)

The Very Poor And The Not So Poor I would like to relate the story of me and the beef dripping. Not far from my Grandmother’s house was a Victorian slum building known locally as ‘The buildings’. It was not unlike a poor version of the tower-blocks of the 60′s, though without balconies, bathrooms and air. A central, spiral, wrought-iron and concrete stair led from the street to four or five landings, and the roof seemed to be flat when viewed from street level. It was like a dirty cube of concrete, dumped amid single storey shops and lock-ups.

Inside this hell-hole lived our flotsam and jetsam, shadowy figures we never saw and some who were on display day and daily with their pitch and begging bowl. We hear stories of beggars who have fortunes in their mattresses and whether true or apocryphal, it was said that one of the tenants of the buildings died, leaving a mattress full of money. He was a poor creature in every sense. Whether he was unhygienic or not, he looked it, his pores seemed ingrained with dirt. He had lost his left arm and his left leg in some war or other, probably The Great War-to-end-all-wars. I was too young to distinguish war medals which he carried in full view on his chest. He carried something never seen today, a hurdy-gurdy, a rectangular organ suspended on a strap from the shoulder, which could also be set on folding legs. It was a development of the music box and one played a number of tunes by grinding a handle at one side. This man would stump, literally, on a peg leg, with his single arm grinding away and an enamel collecting cup attached to the front of the box. What was left of his left arm was held in a fold of his sleeve by his side.

To digress for a moment, there was the case of the man and wife team who begged outside Woolworth’s. My mate at school was the son of a Water Board Inspector who was required to carry out enquiries at a house in a street near Woolworth’s. It turned out that the whole terrace of some five or six houses belonged to someone who was an absentee landlord and he, the inspector, would have to make an appointment to see the owner or owners, which he did. They were absent all right, they were at their work. You’ve guessed it! Imagine his surprise when he found that the little lady, respectably dressed, selling iron-holders, little squares of thick woollen material, bound together by an edging tape for holding the old fashioned cast-iron flat-iron, (I should know I made many of them as a child for presents for relatives) and her equally respectably dressed husband who sang in a quavering voice outside Woolworth’s for money. They owned the whole block.

To return to the matter of the roast beef dripping, On the second or third floor of the buildings lived a woman and her several children in conditions of squalor, and from time to time it was my duty to take to these people a huge bowl of roast beef dripping and a few other items. I hated those expeditions. Gran insisted, in spite of all protestations, and she was not unaware of the depths of my emotions. I hated the smell, the dirty, dark, dank hall, the awful stairs, and the embarrassment of handing over the bowl, not for myself, but for the woman. It all seemed so demeaning, which I’m sure it was, but nonetheless she was grateful. I believe it was an exercise designed to force me to see the other side of life, to rub shoulders with real poverty. Once I made Gran let me taste bread and dripping and, with a lot of salt, one could acquire a taste for it.

This was also the time when miners from Wales and the North East could be seen trawling along the kerbs of Suburbia, singing to support themselves while lobbying Parliament.

Livingstone, N. Rhodesia I write this to draw conclusions about psychological reactions in children, they and their adults are not aware of, but which have damaging long term consequences; not making a criminal, but disadvantaging and imprinting a permanent lack of self-respect on the child. The final paragraphs are extracts from a previous, general comment on my African experiences. I am not whinging, I’ve had a wonderful life, but those two years altered my outlook and potential, permanently. In retrospect, I can see the experience damaged my outlook, especially regarding my personal assessment of my intellectual standing, until I was 28 yeas old. This is not psycho-babble, it’s an awakening in old age of an experience which should not be repeated on anyone. I was dropped into a totally strange and false environment

It was false, it was play-acting, totally unreal, and unrelated to my previous six years. Some of the Civil Servants came from the landed gentry, with Oxbridge degrees and they set the tone. The rest, like my father were educated, but making their way, not backed by old money. With cheap labour; the housing, local schooling and welfare, all included in the contract, they lived miles above that required with a ‘Home’ posting. In consequence, from observation as a mere child, added to later analysis, based upon Imperial Civil Service experience, I realised that those on the lower rungs of the ladder were aping, or having to fall in with, the protocols of their richer masters. This was inevitable as the number of whites in Livingstone in 1928 was pitifully small, and this was borne out by so few who met together socially.

School, in Livingstone started very early and finished around midday to permit all to enjoy a peaceful siesta when the sun was at its zenith. I personally found it irksome to have to rest for at least an hour and often more. I have since discovered to my cost that those educational standards were very low, and this was probably the reason children were sent to the Cape – Capetown – or Bulawayo to be educated from about the age of eight until they were old enough to be sent even further afield, to boarding school in England. The poor wretches might not have returned home for years as the journey took so long and commercial flying was not the norm. I spent only two years in Livingstone. By the time I had returned to England, I had lost at least one year’s education and probably more, and this, above all else affected me for the rest of my life

My loss of education resulted in my appearing retarded. My self-appraisal was coloured by the comments of others and seemed, by test results to be irrefutable. When I came home and was judged by those doing the assessing in England, my capabilities were related to my age and size rather than to my intellectual ability. I was deemed backward and placed in a class accordingly and, indeed, I was 21 years old before I reached my full potential, and sixty before Sophie brought the logic of this train of events to my attention. It’s easy to believe you’re stupid when enough people indicate you are, either outright or by all the subtle implications which offer themselves in an academic career, starting from the beatings for not being able to attain certain standards, to being left behind when all your friends move on up the school, leaving you to lick your wounds and adjust yet again.

I sincerely believe that often the signs are there if only people will take the time to read them, and that misinterpretation is the scourge of doctrinal preaching and half-baked philosophy. For example if less attention was paid to the fact that a teacher gave a cuff round the ear and more to why it was needed in the first place, we might progress. I should know, I’ve been thrashed more than most for less than most. Bad behaviour within adolescents can often be due to reasonable frustration, or anger at one’s own deficiencies, which again is frustration.