Books, Reading and First School Days

To begin this subject properly and start from my very earliest memories we have to travel back a few years from where I left it yesterday.
When I was still a tiny child, I vaguely remember my mother musing to herself, as she was apt to do, 'I think she's old enough for Grimm's Fairy Tales now'. And sure enough, soon afterwards, the book in question appeared in my life. Very quickly it became quite indispensible to my emotional well-being in the evenings. In fact, without at least being read two stories before going to bed, I would feel absolutely cheated.
It is just as well that my mother enjoyed reading aloud as much as I liked listening. Sometimes, however, she would be impatient to get on with something else or just be plain worn out, so I would be handed over, complete with long flannelette nightie, slippers, teddy bear and very often a crumbly biscuit or jam sandwich, to my grandmother's lap. She had a softer voice than my mother - my mother's could shatter windows at fifty paces if she put her mind to it, and somehow the stories sounded gentler too.
Grimm's fairy Tales took me into a different world. Jung, the 19th century psychologist called it our collective unconsciousness, and likened it to an immense, underground cellar that stretched below all the insividual houses which represented our individual, conscious thoughts. This world was inhabited by witches, dwarfs. fairies and dragons, who played out their stories against wide, wild tapestries of, dark, impenetrable forests, enchanted houses, vast subterranean palaces and magic, mysterious mountains.
How colourless and mundane the modern equivalents of television and early computer games, seem by comparison, that are dished up so frequently to today's young children. But I must admit, at this point, the only woodland I knew back then, was Kenwood, and that somehow didn't quite live up to how I expected a forest to be. As for witches, Mrs Brown downstairs, was not a bad substitute, and I always regarded her rare gifts to me with great suspicion.
Our particular edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, by Dent and Dutton, was filled with the most wonderful illustrations. I eventually became so familiar with the contents of the book that just by looking at the pictures, I was be able to recount the story they illustrated. Even now, in my mind's eye, I can see the evil old witch beckoning Hansel and Grethel into her house made of bread, cake and barley sugar, or the prince climbing up to Rapunzel's tower with the fearful thorns below.
Choices of stories were rarely left entirely up to me as I would invariably choose the longest ones. But as soon as we had agreed on a compromise, I would settle down, gazing at the flickering fire behind the bars of the kitchen range, and be prepared to be transported to another world.
It was no wonder that, afterwards, when I had been finally put to bed, that I made hobgoblins out of the patterns in the curtains of my bedroom and believed the dark cupboard in the corner housed all sorts of malevolent beings after dark. No matter how many times my mother opened that innocuous cupboard for me during the day to show its innocent, mundane contents, I did not feel reassured when I was alone once more, in the semi-darkness with a head full of fairy tales.
Following hot on the heels of Grimm's came a small volume of some of Hans Christian Anderson's best known Fairy Tales. They were somehow more realistic. I instinctively snuggled closer to the warm fire as we read about the unhappy 'Little Match Girl', or the wicked snow Queen, and I could hardly bear to listen when the little Mermaid had her tongue cut out by the old sea witch in payment for her human legs, or when Karen, who couldn't stop dancing in her new red shoes, had her feet cut off by the old woodcutter in the forest.
Other books that I remember enjoying in my early childhood was a volume about Winnie the Pooh and his friends and Milly Molly Mandy stories, a girl who lived in a little cottage in the country and had little friend Susan and Billy Blunt as her friends. That was the first book that I borrowed from St Pancras public library.
Reading was a part of family life. Both my Mother and my Grandmother borrowed books from the library on a regular basis, and were often to be found reading when they were not knitting or sewing, or cooking or cleaning or ironing or reading me stories. So I suppose it was inevitable that I would take to the world of books too, like a duck to water.
I remember the reading scheme we had at infant's school, it was all about two children called Dick and Dora. They had a dog too, but I have forgotten his name. The first step up the ladder of this particular reading scheme was to master twenty reading cards of increasing difficulty. I remember being stuck on card four and not being able to decipher the word 'There' for absolutely ages. Then suddenly it all fell into place and I raced through all the remaining cards, finishing first in the class. They all gave me a clap as I returned to my seat.
I enjoyed Infants School from day one. In the nursery class I remember that we all had to wear floral button-down overalls nearly all the time, and that it was sent home on Friday's to be washed and ironed during the weekend ready for Monday. I remember doing rather a lot of painting too, outside, if the weather was nice, on upright easels with extremely watery paint. Paint, which no matter how careful you were, always ran down the picture in vertical ribbons of colour. We all loved making aeroplanes in that class, out of two bits of wood fixed at right angles to one another with a big nail knocked in the middle. Both girls and boys would run around the asphalt playground, providing what they considered were the fitting sound effects for their aeroplanes as they swooped, dived and engaged in the Infant equivalent of dogfights.
The most tiresome bit of the day was our afternoon rest. It was all right if you were a rising five who was still used to an afternoon nap, but I wasn't and never had been, and I just used to lie there, bored stiff, in my canvas, metal-framed bed, looking at the picture by my clothes peg, which was an engine, and wishing with all my heart that nap time was over.
It was in the next class that we had a lovely teacher who I still remember with affection. She took a group of us out once to Trafalgar Square, and we all had drinks and iced buns in a Lyon's Teahouse, which was a wonderful treat.
It was in her class that I made such a good start with my Beacon Readers, and we did such delightful things in the afternoon such as draw with pastels on sugar paper and play with plasticine. I became the class expert at fashioning plasticine sheep on a small board. I would dig the elbows of my home-knitted cardigan into them until they had an extremely realistic-looking woolly fleece, but I never did get round to telling my mother what I had been up to.
Apart from the percussion perfomance and learning a couple of words of French, which I have already written about, that is practically all I can remember about Brecknock Infant's School. I do recall actually while in the class of the French lady, having to spend a morning on the bottom table 'The Snowdrops' rather than my usual top table 'The Roses' and how 'The Daffodils', 'The Primroses' and 'The Buttercups' all thought that my mishap was screamingly funny. Teachers - think twice before you humiliate even a small child, because the chances are that they will remember the incident all their lives.

Nearly everyone has heard something about the great smog of winter 1952. It must have happened just a couple of weeks after I returned home from Tangmere. It lasted for several days, because according to my grandmother, there was just not enough wind to blow it away. So we just had to keep the lights turned on at midday. as we huddled round our coal fire to keep warm. Probably families all over London were doing exactly the same, which did not exactly help matters.
It was a fact of life in those days, that almost all adults that lived in London, suffered from bronchitis during the winter months. My mother and grandmother were no exception and would bring up great gobules of green phlegm at regular intervals, while we sat round the fire in the evenings. Nobody thought anything of it. There were no paper hankies either, so the winter wash would always feature a separate container, being boiled on the stove, for snotty hankerchiefs. One of the last questions I was always asked as I started out for school in the mornings were 'Josephine, have you got your pocket hankerchief?' Indeed I had a whole selection of them - children's ones with bright prints and cartoon characters on them.
In spite of all the bronchitis around nobody ever spat in the street. That was regarded as the height of bad manners. The London underground did not have to feature the English equivalent of the Parisian 'Ne pas cracher' notices. They were totally unnecessary. Not so today! I think our footballers have a lot to answer for in that respect. Don't they realise, that whatever they do, there are hundreds and thousands of kids trying to emulate them!
The appearance of fog and smog over London in winter was as predictable as the fact that it would always rain directly my grandmother had hung up her washing outside in the garden downstairs. Mostly, the fog was mostly more or less white, like the shirt or socks of the unfortunate child in the old advertisements whose mother didn't wash with Persil. I used to enjoy how it would envelope everything I was usually so familiar with, and impart an air of mystery and isolation. Even sounds would seem muffled, and landmarks like letter boxes with GR embossed on the front in elaborate letters would suddenly and unexpectedly pop up right in front of you.
But the yellow flashing of the spherical, lollipop-like belisha beacons on either side of the new zebra crossings was reassuringly visible from some distance, which was just as well really, as the cars that were still about, few as they were, had time to slow down and look if anyone was crossing. But even the swish of their tyres on the road surface was more subdued than normal as if they were all trying to keep quiet. In fact that was how it was in London during a bad fog. It was just as if there was an gravely ill person trying to sleep upstairs, and the world was making a huge effort to be as quiet and as unobstrusive as possible. It was peaceful.
It was not so peaceful, however, in the late afternoon of December 5th. I'm afraid I cheated here and looked up the exact date. I just remember, that it was that miserable part of the year when the excitement of Guy Fawkes was over, (and I had used up the packet of sparklers that I was allowed for the occasion,) and we had not yet started putting up Christmas decorations. It was four-thirty and time for us to go home from school but the fog had been getting steadily thicker all day. By mid-afternoon all the lights were turned on and by the end of the afternoon it was dark.
Just off the hall there was an area with a polished stone floor where we had our milk in the mornings and where the locked library cupboard was kept. All the kids who usually walked home by themselves and had no-one to fetch them huddled together here, feeling like little orphan Annies. We were not going to be allowed to go home on our own, that was definite. I remember my pleading fell on deaf ears.
Eventually, a father who lived further at the bottom end of my long road, and had come to collect his own daughter, found himself in charge of a whole group of us, and was instructed to see us all home safely.
I can see myself now. That winter, and the next one too I would wear a grey wool coat with a velvet collar, that my grandmother had sewn for me on her hardworking treadle machine. Scarves, hats and gloves were always knitted by my mother and this time, she had knitted me a fair-isle beret which had a very complicated pattern with many differently coloured wools, that had taken her ages to make. Brown lace-up shoes and knee-length socks, secured with an elastic garter under the turnup, completed the ensemble. I was a well-dressed child, and in those austere post-war times, when it was very hard to find good-quality ready-made clothes, to be well-dressed in inner London, was the exception rather than the rule.
It really was a pea-souper this time, and it was a novelty, even for us, to put your hand up quite near your face, only to be able to see the vaguest outline. Apart from stumbling up a kerb and nearly bumping into a doorpost I got home safely. Even my own house seemed unfamiliar and unrecognisable, until I had actually opened the low, wooden gate and had started to climb the eleven stone steps that led to the double front door. The little party of the remaining children continuing on its solitary way, was soon enveloped in the fog. As I turned to wave goodbye, they were already gone.
I can't remember whether we had school the next day, but we probably did. School went on, come rain or shine.
That fog lasted four days, during which time public transport practicallyground to a halt and the hospitals were overflowing. Over four thousand, mostly elderly and vunerable, Londoners died of of bronchial and related illnesses during that time.

I shall endeavour to continue at the same cliff-hanging spot which I had reached, when I was yesterday so rudely interrupted.
I believe I was pondering on the delights of having carpet on the stairs on the way to opening the door for the doctor. Doctors always wore dark suits and ties on home visits in those days, and really did carry large black leather bags. I watched the elderly doctor as he opened his bag, revealing all manner of shiny instruments and a rubber snake-like thing. I didn't get to see much more, as everybody seemed to remember at once that I should have been at school, so I was duly sent on my way.
My grandmother had had a heart attack and was to spend the next three weeks in St Pancras Hospital. She was already gone, by the time I got back from school that afternoon. I evidently had not thought to tell anyone in authority at about what had happened, so I just walked home with my friends as usual.
The nice lady upstairs with the baby opened the door to me and explained that I was to stay with her until my mother got home. It was quite a novelty look out of the windows and see the street below even further away than it was from our windows, the floor below. It was also a novelty that they had a television. I remember there was a very interesting programme about the sun on children's television, but the baby kept on crying and I couldn't hear it properly.
I knew all about televisions of course. My aunt who lived in a nice house in Hatch End had one, as well as carpet on the stairs, and the three of us had gone there to watch the Queen's coronation, the previous summer. A few years later, we were to inherit that particular television set, that unfortunately could only receive BBC, and not ITV, which rendered it redundant at Hatch End.
When it arrived in our narrow kitchen, it looked even more enormous than how I had remembered it. It was a huge, solid, wooden cube-like structure, with the end of the cathode-ray tube protruding another six inches or so from the back. In the front, was a (by today's standards) a tiny twelve-inch screen with a couple of bakerlite control knobs
underneath. New, this contraption cost £64 which would have represented more than two months' salary for my mother. But, of course, we didn't pay anything like that amount.

How did I get on to televisions, when I was meant to be talking about heart attacks? My grandmother had indeed had a heart-attack that morning, and she was lucky to have survived it,she was told afterwards.
It was a long walk to St Pancras Hospital, even further than to the library, which was also a long way away and in more or less the same direction. My mother and I used to go to the hospital every evening, and I got to know it quite well. Visiting times were very strict though, and at the end of the allotted hour, a bell or a buzzer would sound, at which all the visitors would obediently troop out. The ward where my grandmother lay, like all the others in those days, was one long room, with big windows down one side and the nurses' desk in the middle, where all the patients could see them and feel reassured, unless of course, the floral curtains round the bed were pulled.
Some people used to stay in hospital for an awfully long time back then. In the bed next to my grandmother was an elderly lady who had been in that ward for over five years, and the woman in the bed in the corner had been there so long that no-one could quite remember any more, when she had arrived.
During my childhood, the nurses wore smart, white and blue striped dresses with rolled-up sleeves hidden under lacy arm-bands and lacy hats to match. Their aprons looked so white and stiff that they could have been made out of best quality shiny paper, and they always wore black stockings and flat, black, shiny shoes. The wards were kept spotless and smelt of a mixture of disinfectant and soap. They smelt clean. You felt that it was safe to be as ill as you liked in such places. The sister in charge wore a darker, plain blue dress, and although she always seemed to be rushing about, she was always very nice to me.
After a couple of weeks of trying to fulfil three functions at once, being a dutiful daughter and a regular hospital visitor, being a full-time employee and trying to look after me at the same time, my frazzled mother packed me off to Tangmere, where my uncle lived in the airmen's married quarters.
It was fun playing with the other kids in the underground air-raid shelters. We found a sack of carrots in one once. It was at Tangmere that I learned to find the Plough in the unpolluted night sky, and it was there that I went to a tiny village school with only two classes, and all taught in the same room. It was also there that I came to the conclusion that I was not on the same wave-length as my aunt, and my uncle seemed frighteningly strict. With the insight of adulthood, I would realise what great people they were, and they truly tried to do their best for me. But back then, I felt like an evacuee, and I all I wanted to get back to London.
A few weeks later I did just that. It was lovely to be home again. My grandmother was still recuperating, but her personality had returned to normal so I felt reassured and safe once more.
For the first time I was given my own front door key, which meant that my grandmother would not have to come traipsing downstairs to open the door for me several times a day, and I could let myself in.
I was also sent out more frequently to the Brecknock to do bits of shopping, and it was my job to keep the coal bucket filled up. In the course of this last job, I made a new friend. He was a little brown and white mouse who used to do back somersaults out of the coal bucket. I began leaving him crumbs and to regard him as my secret pet. I have forgotten what happened to him. He probably ended up in the mouse trap which my mother regularly put out , and she didn't have the heart to show me his mangled remains.

Grandmother's illness (part 1)

I cannot leave the subject of medical matters without mentioning my grandmother's health problems. I remember that traumatic morning as if it were yesterday. I can still bring to mind the taste and the colour of that day.
By the time I was seven I could dress myself more or less, although I still needed help with things like buttons and sashes, positioned, as they mostly were, inconveniently at the back of my dresses, and having my long hair put into two neat plaits. My grandmother used to do all of this for me in the morning as my mother had to start out quite early for work. Although we lived in central London, it would still take her over half an hour to get to the West End.
But this particular morning was in winter, and a cold, dark, grey morning it was too. Suddenly the bedroom door opened and I hardly recognised the old, grey woman who shuffled in, holding on to the arm of the settee for support, as she spoke to me in a voice a little more than a whisper. "Josephine, get dressed, get dressed" She repeated, without really knowing properly what she was saying, I suspected.
My world had fallen on its head and I didn't recognise it any more. It was to happen to me again, years later under different circumstances, and in both instances, things would never quite be the same as before. Both occasions were seismic faults in my life.
As my grandmother sat slumped on the settee, trying to catch her breath, I decided that finding another adult was probably the best course of action. These were the days before most people had private telephones, but that was a minor detail, beause there were at least half a dozen adults in the neighbourhood, indeed, in the house, that I could call on for help.
The landlady of the house, Mrs Brown, was no special friend of mine as she didn't like children much, and except on very rare occasions, made no secret of it either. Nevertheless, she was in, whereas the friendly lady with the baby upstairs was out. It was not without a certain amount of trepidation that I knocked on her door. The 'Dragon's Den' would have been a good name for her part of the house in my opinion. But on realising that something serious was afoot upstairs, she was with us in minutes, wearing her floral overall and still wiping her hands on a tea towel and she climbed the two flights of stairs to our flat.
It was at this stage, that my seven-year-old self was sent on a very important mission. I was given the Doctor's telephone number and told to go to the phone box round the corner, about five-minutes' walk away. Standing on tip-toe, I lifted the black, heavy receiver and put four pennies in the box. The dialing tone seemed endless but then a voice answered. It was at this point that I had to press button A, not button B, otherwise I would have been cut off and my four pennies would have clattered into the little recepticle below.
Somehow, I must have given the doctor's receptionist at least enough correct information, for the doctor to be with us half an hour later. Maureen, next door had also been sent to phone the doctor, I learned afterwards, just in case, but the doctor was already on his way.
And sure enough, a few minutes after she had got back, we heard a knock on the door. We hadn't told him that it was two knocks for our flat, three for the flat at the top of the house and one for Mrs Brown. But it didn't matter. I was sent down to open the door. My legs were the youngest, was the reason given. So I went running down the eighteen stairs covered with brown, cracked lino,and down the hallway which was also covered with brown lino. How I used to long for carpet, like my aunts had in their nice houses. For me in those days, carpet on the stairs represented the very height of luxury.

This has got to be continued tomorrow as I have been told in no uncertain terms by my beloved husband, that he wants his tea at six (it is now five-thirty) and I should 'Blog off'

Mostly Feet

There has been a bit of a pause because all the reasons why I should not be writing this Blog gained the upper hand for a few days. Self criticism is all very well, but it should never get to the stage when you ask yourself 'What is the point of what I am doing?' or even worse 'I'm making a bit of an idiot of myself.' Did I have these feelings as a kid? Probably, but I've just conveniently forgotten about them. But having said all that, if I could have a few comments about how relevant or interesting it is, (or isn't) I would redouble my efforts.
In spite of the last section being called 'Doctors and Dentists' I had so much to write about dentists that I didn't get round to anything else. Actually, apart from my teeth I must have been a fairly healthy child. It is just as well, as on the occasions that we did visit our local GP, we had a very long wait. I just remember there being a gas fire, one of those old-fashioned zissy ones, and that I learned that you could not throw bits of paper into it, the way we could with our kitchen range at home.
I was lucky, in that the only childhood illness I had was chicken pox. In those days there was still no defence against potentially dangerous illnesses such as measles and whooping cough, although I had been innoculated against killers such as diphtheria and scarlet fever. My mother remembered till the end of her life, when she was in hospital with diphtheria as a tiny child, and how she was forced to eat a huge lump of fatty gristle. Her older sister was in hospital with scarlet fever, an illness from which she not only survived but lived on until she was only two weeks off her hundredth birthday. All through my own childhood, I was most disappointed that I was never ill enough to justify a stay in hospital , and have a red blanket on my bed.

Probably the worst thing that happened to me healthwise, was a verucca on the ball of my right foot. For ages I thought I just had a splinter in it, and apart from giving it a periodic poke with a needle that had been put in a gas flame to sterilise it, I just put up with the discomfort.
My favourite shoes for playing out, were black lace-up plimsoles, when I was allowed to wear them, which was not very often. There were no elastic-sided plimsoles or ones with velcro fastenings, back then. In fact, I don't think that velcro had even been invented. It was necessary to learn to tie laces as early as possible.
My winter shoes were always brown, lace-ups too. But I had my special method to deal with the difficulty of a shoe-lace coming undone while I was out. That was to tie a loose double knot and then poke the ends through the middle of the knot. I could do this as long as the ends still had the stiff bits in them, but if not, the loose double knot invariably became a very tight double knot by the time I got home.
Yes I had two pairs of shoes a year, and a pair of plimsoles. The shoes were Start-Rite, the best my mother could buy. She always suffered dreadfully from a painful bunion, caused by her shoes not being fitted properly as a child, and she was determined that the same was not going to happen to me. I've inherited her rather large feet, size 7-8, depending on the fit of the shoe, it is true, but thanks to her care I have never had any corns or bunions and my toes are straight.

I used to enjoy my visits to the shoe shop. They would have an x-ray machine which I found absolutely fascinating. I would climb the two steps up to it, put my feet underneath, as far as they would go, then look through the top. Magic! My bones and the outline of the shoe would show up white and everything else would be green. It was even better when I wriggled my toes, or tapped my feet a bit, and I would always make sure that I would have at least one unsolicited visit, if not several, while the grown-ups were busy doing boring grown-up things like paying for the shoes. They probably cost half of my mother's week's wages, but I was oblivious to such details. When I think, however, how much unnecessay radiation I subjected myself to I become quite thoughtful. Those x-ray machines in shoe shops have been gone for a long time, and there must have been a good reason.
But, back then, as we emerged from the shoe shop clutching a brown-paper bag containing either yet another pair of winter, brown lace-ups or a pair of red or brown summer sandals, such thoughts were far from my mind. Summer sandals did not have peak-toes in the fifties. Instead, mine had lots and lots of little diamond-shaped holes on the front, a T-shaped strap and metal buckle fasteners. The crepe soles were much better than the leather soles of my winter shoes for outdoor activities that i particularly enjoyed, such as tree-climbing, hop-scotch and running, so they mostly met with my approval, especially if they were red.
I always remember the Start-Rite advertisement in the London underground - a huge poster, stuck on the opposite side of the tunnel, which you looked at while you waited for the train. A small boy and girl, with knitted pointy hats would be wandering up an endless, tree-lined road that stretched to its vanishing point in the distance; both shod in Start-Rite of course, but not an adult in sight. Even as a young child, I found this advertisement strangely disquietening, although I could not have told you why.
Anyway, back to my verucca, which by this time is about a year old and has reproduced itself enthusiastically on both feet. The trouble was, that not many people had heard of veruccas in those days. They had tried cutting it out but that hadn't worked. For that procedure I had gone to the little outpatients' hospital in Camden Town. It is long closed down now, and I can't even remember where it was exactly. But I do remember what a novel experience it was to have my foot frozen with ice so it wouldn't hurt, and afterwards, limping home with my foot swathed in bandages. That put me out of action for a few days. And actually the cure was so simple, only we didn't find this out for a few more months. Once we did and we had bathed my feet every evening in hot water and afterwards, painted on the magic tincture, I was completely cured in a matter of weeks. The original verucca, and all its offspring did not stand a chance, and came out leaving numerous holes of varying sizes, all over the balls of my feet.

Doctors and Dentists

I remember, the teacher who marched the school choir, as we were called, was suffering from very bad toothache on one occasion, and she tried to speak as little as possible because the cold air would hurt her tooth even more.
I could sympathise with that sad state of affairs extremely well, as I had suffered from a similar affliction on several occasions. Eclampsia during my mother's pregnancy and Delrose Syrup had a lot to answer for. I had lost both my front teeth before I was four, and my back ones were not much better.
As a small child, I got to know Great Ormand Street Hospital extremely well, where my dental treatment was always carried out by a very nice dentist who didn't hurt much. And afterwards they usually gave me a small children's book, so early visits to the dentist were definitely not a negative experience. On the contrary, on leaving the great hospital I would always look up where I could see the children who were actually staying there, and wished that I could stay too. I loved the bright red blankets on their beds, and I wanted one as well.
The negative experiences with dentists came later, when my second teeth startedto come through. On at least two occasionsI was taken to the emergency department of University College Hospital to have a painful molar removed.
I think injections were around then, but I always had gas, which was a horrible experience, that I feared with all my heart. First, a huge black rubber object with a shiny metal chain on it, was wedged between my teeth, then they would put a black rubber mask over my face and I was told to breath deeply. SuddenlyI was transported into a terrifying, spooky world, where the dentist and the nurses in their white coats, and me in the dentist's chair, were all caught up somehow in a horrible grey spider's web and we were all spinning round in it accompanied by unearthly whistlings and hummings. Only then, would I finally become completely insensible. It seemed hours later, although in reality, probably only a few minutes, that I started groggily to come round. I remember being glad that it was over, but feeling so ill and so sick that I couldn't really enjoy it. The yellow stuff that they gave me to drink was meant to make me sick, and it did. Then after half an hour or so I was pronounced well enough to go home.
I remember three things about the ENT waiting room at that big London Hospital, The walls were glazed bricks, I used to give myself headaches trying to count them; the people sat and waited on long wooden benches; and there was a huge, realistic rocking horse at the front. When I was younger, and obviously not feeling so ill, it would be a wonderful treat to ride on this wonderful rocking horse, although of course, by the time I was having my back molars out I considered myself far too old for such unsophisticated pleasures.
Almost as bad an experience as the gas at the hospital, were visits to a certain dentist, when I was about ten or so, who lived on one of the streets just outside Regent's Park. It was a tall, imposing house, and I entered it with dread. The only reading matter he had on his highly-polished waiting-room table were copies of Punch magazine for adults, of which I quite liked the picture of Punch on the cover, and a German book of Salutary Tales for Children, featuring such horrors as thumbs being cut off by a huge pair of scissors and a boy expiring from hunger after not eating his soup. Neither the poems themselves nor the graphic illustrations which accompanied them did much to enhance my mood as I waited to be summoned into hell.
This particular dentist did not believe in injections, so I had to suffer the full gamut of pain which he could inflict on me with his cumbersome, noisy drill. He would select the bits for it with care and I had learned which ones hurt the most.
In his defence, the actual fillings he gave me lasted many years, and were well done, but there should have been a law about subjecting a child to so much pain, fear and suffering. But times were different then. You just put up with things as stoically as possible.
I always remember the beautiful walks home through Regent's Park. It always seemed to be Autumn with red and golden leaves swept up in huge piles. I used to love walking through these crisp rustling leaves and searching for shiny conkers. Even now, I associate conkers with happiness and I find them beautiful.
It is strange, that in spite of such unpromising beginnings, I still have my own teeth, over fifty years on, and people still sometimes compliment me on how neat and even thay are.

Earliest School Memories

Music in school

The highlight of my Infant's school time was taking part in a class percussion performance in a real theatre, where the audience, although shrouded in darkness applauded very loudly indeed, as we marched off the big stage. But I have no idea where this was. All I have is a vague memory of wearing my best green dress with the wide shiny sash, and having to travel by bus to get there, but that is all.
How I had longed to play one of the drums or even a nice jangly tambourine, but instead I was landed with the sticks. Yes, just sticks, which i had to hit together to make the required noise. I was so disappointed. And we had what seemed like absolutely hours of rehearsals too. Woe betide us if we dropped anything for we were not allowed to pick it up. Playing with two sticks was bad enough, but playing with one was well nigh impossible, so on one occasion, after the offending slippery stick had clattered on to the wooden floor, I just had to stand there, mute and incapacitated.
Our teacher at that time was a dark and lively lady with frilly petticoats and a foreign name beginningwith Z. Among other things she taught the 'top table' which was 'TheRoses' how to count in French up to six. It was quite easy, 'Under twa cat sank the sea' We chanted, giving our own slant on the unfamiliar French vowels and consonants. That would be my one and only encounter with foreign languages for the next six years, apart from sometimes hearing the Greek Cypriot kids who lived upstairs next door, rattle away in their own language. Societywas pretty homogeneous in those days, even in central London.
During my primary school time, there were two occasions where the person in charge had to give us all a little talking to before the child arrived, during which we were urged not to stare or make unkind remarks. The first time was when a little African girl arrived in our Brownie Pack. Her name was Bommie, or something like that, and we all found her tight curls and dark complexion absolutely fascinating. Actually, it didn't occur to us seven year olds to be unkind, but she was a novelty nevertheless.
The second time was years later, when an enormously fat girl was put in our class. I remember, she had a lovely singing voice, and she was one of the ten of us were chosen to take part in a Christmas Carol Concert. I enjoyed the rehearsals tremendously, and learned for the first time lovely carols like 'O come O come Emmanuel' and 'Il est ne, le petit enfant' (another brief flurry into French which I had forgotten about) But all these rehearsals involved walking about a mile down York Way to reach Kings Cross. Poor fat Rhona could not keep up. Perspiration would be running down her face and her breathing sounded positively alarming. I have forgotten what happened, but she only attempted the walk on that one occasion. Fat children were a rarity in those days. Rhona was by far the fattest in the school, and the cleverest, I hasten to add. She could beat us all hand down in every subject except anything which involved physical activity. But unfortunately, she was too young to take the eleven plus with the rest of us so she had to stay down a year. I didn't really hear much about her after that.

Junior School Lessons

But I suppose, at some point my patient or impatient teachers must have instilled a bit of knowledge into me, and I do actually remember a few bouts of enthusiasm. Even then I quite enjoyed writing, and when I was about ten I remember writing this long, long story about a shipwreck which ended with the hero sinking slowly into the briny depths and describing everything on the way down. I didn't appreciate the impossibility of the situation even when it was pointed out to me. Nothing would persuade me to change my poetic ending.
I used to like art too, and knew I was good enough to achieve mostly quite interesting results, even though I didn't always adhere strictly to instructions. Coming in from lunch time and seeing all the tables spread with newspaper and with a sheet of grey sugarpaper in each place, was a joy for me. I suppose we must have had some sort of timetable, but we never knew it, so each lesson was a sort of surprise.
We listenened to radio programs for schools twice a week. One was a geography programme with a booklet full of shiny black and white photographs which accompanied the programmes. the booklet for the nature-study programmes was in colour. Even now I can still see a beautiful picture of a red squirrel on the front cover and remember the smell of that new shiny paper.
Much of the rest of the time was taken up with grappling with the complexities of arithmetic. Children in these decimalised days do not realise how easy they have it, compared to us grappling with the old Imperial measures. We became experts at adding up £5 . 17s . 11d and £1 . 19s . 4d
for example, bearing in mind, that there were twelve pennies (d) in a shilling (s) and twenty shillings in a pound. And pennies could be slit up into half pennies and quarter pennies (farthings) just to complicate matters further.
Our problems were far from solved even when we lhad finally learned to divide and multiply with money. The measures of weights and lengths were waiting in the wings. Everything was measured in feet and inches in those days. Our wooden rulers which we keptin our cardboard pencil boxes under our desks, were one foot, or twelve inches long. Thank goodness we never had to get seriously involved in chains and furlongs, except for horse-racing, and we were definitely not into that. But weights, (not mass please note) were important. We used to buy our sweets two ounces at a time, and there were sixteen ounces in a pound. I remember my grandmother's old scales. I used to love helping her weigh the ingredients for cakes or sponges. All her cast-iron weights could be fitted into one another, with the large pound weight at the bottom and the small half ounce weight at the top and the tray where the ingredients went was all bent from the time I used to sit in it as a tiny child.
The first time I came across kilos was when I was sixteen and having my first holidy abroad. We were rash enough to ask for a kilo of plums from an italian street vendor, which he duly supplied us with, in a flimsy brown paper bag. Needless to say, half the soggy plums fell out through the bottom of the bag before we could eat them. A kilo was far more than I had anticipated.
But back to imperial weights, our weight was recorded in stones and pounds. I remember when I was about nine, weighing five stone four pounds, and my grandmother saying that I was too thin. There were fourteen pounds in a stone, and coal was delivered in hundredweight (cwt) and twenty hundredweight made a ton.
So by the time we had got our heads round all these weights and measures, learned our tables off by heart right through till twelve, and mastered fractions and decimals as well, we had arrived at the top of the school and it was time to take the exam that everyone had to take in those days,the dreaded eleven plus.
There were three papers, Arithmetic, English and Intelligence. I remember quite enjoying myself once the initial terror had subsided. It was the first exam I had ever taken in my life, and we all sat in rows in the school hall, all eighty of us. I say about eighty, because there were about thirty-five of us in class one, over forty in class two, and a fair sprinkling of kids that had stayed languishing in lower classes.
Twelve of us passed including yours truly. The exam was taken in Januaryand the results came out in May. I and my friends were on our way to grammar school.

Junior School

I can see us now, a long crocodile of little girls all with woolly hats and swimming hats, setting out for the weekly trip to Hornsey swimming baths. I suppose swimming costumes and towels were pretty important too, but I don't remember anyone not being allowed to go for the lack of either of those two items. But it was back to lessons if we forgot either of our hats.
This was in our Junior school, a three-storey red-brick affair with Infants on the ground floor, Junior Boys on the first and us girls on the second. That wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that the loos were downstairs, outside and right over the other side of the playground. We became experts at not only running up the many flights of shallow, concrete stairs two at a time, but also jumping down them two at a time as well, which required a certain amount of agility.
I don't think school halls have changed a great deal since those days. The strong smell of polish on their herring-bone patterned parquet floors still doesn't quite get rid of the more subtle undertones of disinfectant and saw dust. We had assembly every morning in the course of which we said the Lord's prayer and sang two real hymns, not the politically-correct nursery rhymes that kids are often subjected to today. The nine classes of little girls filed in crocodile fashion, arranging themselves lengthways down the hall, with the smallest in each class in front and the tallest at the back. I was always nearly at the back no matter which class I was in, starting in class eight and working my way through classes five and three until I achieved the dizzy heights of class one and I was at the top of the pile, so to speak.
I remember once, (I think I must have been in class three,) making an utter and absolute idiot of myself in assembly and coming out of that assembly hot with shame. We were asked who St Francis was and my hand shot up. I had been reading abook about Sir Francis Drake and thought I knew it all. 'He won the Spanish Armada' I said. Whoops! The whole school seemed to be laughing, although I am sure that the younger ones did not have a clue what they were laughing about, but I have never forgotten that particular assembly.
Handiwork was big on the agenda back then. They made sure we learned to sew and knit before we were eleven. I still have the handkerchief case which I made when I was eight or nine, painstakingly embroidered in coloured silks using at least half a dozen different stitches.
With knitting I was neither enthustiastic nor particularly talented. I remember, once we were making some sort of knitted ball thing, and how my triumph in almost coming to the end of the wretched thing turned into despair when a hole was discovered near the beginning and I had to undo most of it and start again. I never did finish that particular item. A year later we were making mittens, and having taken weeks to battle my way through the two inches of ribbing at the bottom, I smuggled my knitting home and let mother practically finish it for me.
I remember how old clever cuts in our class finished about eight items by the end of the year and I had barely finished two.
In the next class we made an embroidered bonnet in the winter months, and a check summer skirt later on. I must have been gradually improving as I finished bothe items and they were actually wearable.
These skills that I learned while I was young, no matter how reluctantly or imperfectly, have always been useful, and I find it sad that not more importance is attached to them nowadays in schools. My ten-year-old granddaughter for example, bright as a button in academic work and computers, hardly knew how to thread a needle until I taught her, let alone master the complexities of knitting.
Meanwhile, a floor below us, the boys would have been beavering away with their woodwork, which was also a useful skill that probably stood many of them in good stead later on in life.
We didn't see much of the boys. A prominent white line separated the two halves of the concrete playground. And at that age we were not particularly interested in going over it. They could keep their noise and their footballs to themselves as far as we were concerned. We had our own games.
Skipping featured prominently and with all the practice we had, most of us got very good at it. We used to have all sorts of rhymes and jingles that we used to skip to and they always used to end in dubs (short for doubles I suppose) when for every skip, the rope had to go under you twice, so you had to jump quite high, and you were truly exhausted if ever you got to fifty or above. I think the record was about ninety-two. The turners would be suffering from repetitive strain injury by this time as well.
We used to say and sing all sorts of rhymes as we juggled two balls against a wall. That was a game that amused us for hours, both at school and in the street. I haven't forgotten most of the complexities of the game even now, how we used to have to stand on one leg, juggle using just one hand, stand a long way away from the wall, turn around and still catch the ball. But when you dropped a ball you were out and it was the next person's turn.
Apart from the old standbys there were lots of games which seemed to come suddenly into fashion, but then, after a couple of weeks or a couple of months, fade into obscurity. A ball, preferably a heavy, rubber one, knotted into the end of a stocking was one such game. Within a week of its first appearance we we all standing with our backs to the wall bouncing the ball in the stocking behind us. The another time we would all be making collections of the tiny woollen bobbles that tend to appear on well-worn cardigans and jumpers. We would probably look a bit like a troupe of monkeys grooming one another for parasitic insects, as we swooped on yet another unfortunate victim with a particularly promising, colourful, bobbly jumper. Soon, that particular game had run its course, perhaps because the weather turned warm so the supply of woolly bobbles dried up.
In the summer, us girls were allowed to play in the 'field'. I have put that word in inverted commas because 'bomb-site' would have been the more apt description. The health and safely people of today would have literally had a field day! There were bricks and rubble everywhere, not piles of it, just thinly scattered, between which patches of clover and tufts of grass were bravely putting in an appearance. But that field was far more interesting than the one in my secondary school which was just covered with plain old grass, and gave rise to all sorts of interesting games. From the bits of bricks we would build houses, just one brick high I hasten to add. If you were lucky enough to get your hands on a whole brick, that would be a dressing-table. There were always plenty of bits of broken mirrors around to stand on top of the brick, probably glass too, but I never remember anyone falling and cutting themselves. We were a hardy lot, us post-war kids. There were daisies and a few dandelions too, so we could decorate our houses, as well as make daisy chains when the mood took us.
Then suddenly decorating houses was no longer the rage and we were all bringing wooden cotton reels to school, with four nails sticking out of the top. French knitting had come into fashion. I remember it was quite tricky getting started but once you were, and the round multicoloured snake of knitting began to emerge from the other end of the cotton reel it became great fun. The trouble was with french knitting was that you never really knew what to do with the increasingly lengthy coils, so you just kept on knitting until you had used up all the spare bits of wool that your mother was prepared to give you. By that time we had got a bit sick of it anyway.
Why is it that I remember so much more about games we used to play than my actual lessons. Probably that is why I never got a prize. Indeed, the only time I was called up onto the platform and given a clap was to collect my swimming certificates. The same theme went through all my junior school reports "Josephine does not try hard enough" But if they didn't pick me for their end of year plays because I was too tall to be a princess, and my hair was too long and curly to be the king, and I had to sit through hours of mind-numbing rehearsals of a play that I was not even in, until, in spite of myself, I knew the whole play off by heart, I didn't see why I should kill myself with work. so I just coasted along, played with my yo-yo under the desk and chewed my pencils until they resembled palm trees and I got splinters in my tongue.

Swimming and Things

It is nearly a week since I have written anything and I believe I was talking about London Zoo. It was often a destination for birthday outings as I got older, when some long-suffering parent took their courage in both hands and marched half a dozen of us round the zoo. If they managed to return with the same number of kids that they started out with, the outing was deemed a success.
I remember once I 'fell' into the penguin enclosure, and another time an obliging relative of a friend of mine took us round the back of the aquarium where we could put our hands into the tanks and actually feed the fish. I think it was from that experience as well as seeing every Hans and Lotte Hass film that they ever made, that awakened my interest in Scuba diving, much, much later in life.
It certainly wasn't my early experiences of swimming that mustered any enthusiasm. Why was the open-air Lido in Gospel Oak always so cold? Even the sanitized footbath that you had to go through was toe-curling freezing. The pool itself was huge and blue. All that was missing were the ice-bergs floating in the water and getting in, going down the steps one at a time used to take every ounce of my will-power. The changing cubicles were even colder and more cheerless than the actual pool, and waiting at the counter to exchange a metal disc on a pin for your clothes and towel, was the coldest of all. Chattering teeth, blue arms and legs, and lifeless, dead white fingers and toes were all par for the course.
But there were some fun bits. I used to enjoy the freedom that my green water-wings gave me. Water-wings were the nineteen-fifties answer to arm-bands, and gave you the illusion of being able to swim, even when you couldn't really. Everyone had to wear swimming caps in those days. When I was very young I remember I had a soft plastic one that did up in a bow under my chin. I don't think it did a very good job of keeping the water out, but it was better than nothing. Later I progressed to the rubber ones which were murder to pull on and had a strap under the chin. But I wanted to talk about the fun bits, and pulling on rubber swimming hats definitely was not one of them. Bathing costumes were mostly knitted affairs, that pulled almost down to your knees when you emerged from the water.
The circular water cascade afforded a great deal of pleasure to unsupervised kids before it was fenced in. You could climb up each roaring white-water step, until you eventually got to the top, where you were mistress of all you surveyed, until the bath attendant yelled at you to come down of course. This of course was when I was older, old enough to go to the Lido willingly and voluntarily. But going with like-minded friends instead of parents made all the difference. We would practise jumping from the high diving board, and counting up to ten until we hit the water. We would throw things into to the deepest part. which was about nine feet, and dive to retrieve them. Yes, by the time I was ten I had practically grown fins.
It wasn't only the Lido we went to either. We patronised enthusiastically both Hornsey Baths in Holloway and Prince of Wales Baths. I remember, my mother and I went for an actual bath there once, and took our washing as well, but that was later, when times were really hard.
As for Hornsey, we used to go there on the bus with the school. I remember we used to fight for possession of the long streamer of forty or so tickets, but apart from that, we behaved ourselves. Being allowed to go swimming was a privilege that we did not wish to forfeit.
I don't remember actually learning to swim. I think it was a bit like learning to read. Suddenly I could do it without really having to go into the mechanics of the matter. So by the ageof eight I was the proud possesser of not only my fifty yards certificate,but my hundred as well, which meant that I had swum twice right round the pool without stopping.
When we went to Hornsey baths on our own, we were officially only allowed to stay in the water for half an hour, but if it was not very busy the attendant, a large kindly lady, would turn a blind eye and let us stay until our fingers turned wrinkly. (Washerwoman's fingers, my grandmother used to say.) There was a series of tiered platformsat the deep end from which we used to practise diving. I will never forget the sense of achievement when I managed to dive off the top one.
To sustain us for the mile and a half walk back we would buy a halfpenny's worth of broken biscuits at the baker's shop in Seven Sisters Road. I would still be starving by the time I arrived back home, and I remember with what acute enjoyment I used to polish off my favourite dinner of fried egg and chips.
It is difficult to know whether to follow each topic until I was a child no longer, or to proceed strictly chronologically. But that would mean that I would have to constantly keep on returning to topics. So now, bear with me. We have returned to London, my mother and I and I am thirteen. But still on the subject of swimming pools, it really is saving the best till last.
I found my mother muttering to herself one day 'I wonder if that Ladies' Pond in Kenwood is still open, where I used to go.' So we made a point of going to find it. We walked past the pond where I had fallen in as a child and later lost my toy yacht, past the men's pond, and then skirting Kenwood, another ten minutes' walk brought us to the notice which banned all males of our species. We walked up a short woodland path and arrived at a beautiful, tranquil pool. I can see it now in my mind's eye, glinting in the evening sunlight. Families of ducks seemed to have no objection to sharing their pond with humans, and continued to swim peacefully across the sparkling, greeny-brown surface, leaving hardly a ripple in their wake.
A concrete platform, very civilised changing cubicles and a series of cork rings fixed at intervals over the pond, distinguished it as a swimming area. But you had to be able to swim. There was no shallow end.
That summer I went there many times. My school was only about a mile's walk over the fields, so we used to go after school and sometimes when the days were long and light, even before, and then go into school assembly with dripping wet hair.
There is one little postscript to this. Years later when I was living in South Africa for a time, I met someone who subsequently became a very good friend of mine. We had both grown up in North London, that was coincidence enough, but what really bonded us, was that we both knew and loved the Kenwood Ladies Swimming Pool.

A short pause

All I managed to do today was to post a couple of pictures on to this Blog. Now I am going to have a short holiday, where I might not have much opportunity to write much. But I will start again the middle of next week.

More Outings

We could rarely afford a visit to London Zoo, although it was so near to where we lived, that you could hear the wolves howling at night, when the wind was in the right direction. But what we often did, was to walk along the side of Regent's Park that abutted on to some of the enclosures. You couldn't get right up close, but either by peering through the double fence from the gravel path at the bottom, or by climbing up the grassy bank and looking into the enclosures from the top, you could make the acquaintance of not only the wolves, but all kinds of antelope and deer as well. It was not as good as going inside, but it wasn't bad for free.
Everything about the zoo was expensive, the entrance fee and even the large, orange ice lollies, which were the only ones they sold inside. They were sixpence, which was twice as much as what we normally paid for an ice.
Afternoon rides on the animals were not cheap either. Elephants had a row of three seats slung on either side of their broad, grey backs. The world looked different somehow from the top of an elephant, as the animal lumbered slowly round its circuit, lead by a keeper in a peaked hat. Rides on bactrian camels, the ones with two humps, were also very popular. I remember, as a small child being seated on the bendy neck of one of them, and thinking what fun it was as I sailed off, the camel's feet, as big as dinner-plates softly and patiently trudging round the well-known circuit. There were also rides for the more faint-hearted, but which I found rather tame. You could trot round in a little cart pulled by a llama and probably there were pony rides as well. Or were they in the Children's zoo? - that exclusive corner with unfortunately a prohibitively high entrance fee, where you could cuddle the animals. I only went in once, and I didn't find it as interesting as the elephants.
Bruno the baby brown bear was all the rage when I was young, rather like Knut in the Berlin zoo. I remember catching a glimpse of him from high in the terraces, but he was too far away to be interesting, and anyway, the crowds were so dense, that we soon left to find a quieter part of the zoo.
You were allowed to feed the animals in those days. People used to buy packets of monkey-nuts at the entrance or bring bread and things along with them. I remember trying to coax sleepy-eyed owls to sample the nuts I offered them, but they never took much notice. The monkeys were much more rewarding from that point of view.
I suppose my favourite was the reptile house. I used to like talking with the snakes. It was only much later that I found out that snakes are deaf , so my efforts at verbal communication were in vain. But I found the whole concept of deadly venomous bites absolutely fascinating. The more deadly the snake, the more I was held in thrall. On one occasion, when I was about five or six,
I had climbed over the barrier so that I was literally inches away from an extremely dangerous puff adder. I remember even now, how that huge snake followed my finger as I moved it up and down on one side of the thick glass, while he slithered up the other, showing his beautiful cream underbelly while doing so. It was a wonderful game, and evidently I gathered quite a crowd round me. But then my mother, who had been frantically looking for me, suddenly arrived on the scene, and ordered me in no uncertain terms to climb back over the barrier and behave myself. She was so cross that she didn't even give me a penny to throw on one of the crocodiles' backs, which people did, in a vain effort to get them to do something.
Zoos have come a long way since that time. I remember, even then feeling sorry for the lions, leopards and tigers as they padded endlessly around their small concrete-floored cages. And I remember the hippos, in their murky pool, just patiently waiting for people to throw food into their permanently gaping mouths. Someone threw a rubber ball in once, and killed the hippo. After that notices began to spring up everywhere. 'Do not feed these animals.' But the public continued to feed the elephants, long after that. The huge animals would teeter on the edge of the high side of the dry ditch which surrounded their enclosure, stretching out their trunks for buns and suchlike which the public loved to give them. But I think even that is stopped now.
Paintings of ancient elephant ancestors lined the rounded walls of the tunnels which lead under the Regent's Canal to the part of the zoo on the other side. I used to love being in these echoey caveman tunnels, and used to love looking at the pictures of mammoths, mastedons and sabre-tooth tigers.
All good things eventually come to an end, and the moment would arrive when we would approach one of the tall black-painted turnstiles marked 'Exit'. Most probably, we would be walking all the way home, a distance of about two miles. But the walk home did have its compensations. After a quick visit to the playground near our exit of Regent's Park, there was always the fountain to climb on. This was a bronze lady atop a heap of most inviting dark boulders. She was great fun.
Then of course, there was the pet shop half way down Park Way, with its adorable kittens, puppies or baby rabbits in the window. I was a bit older now and was beginning to understand the power of persuasive arguement. But it never seemed to work at the pet shop, and I never was the proud owner of one of those adorable bundles of fluff. "They are probably full of worms anyway." My mother would mutter under her breath as we made our way down to Camden Town.
There, we could have got a bus of course, but my mother used to say, "We're half way home now, so we might as well walk the rest." So walk we did. At least, by this time, I had found quite a good way to make her slow down. I would complain of stitch, bend over, and grab my side in pain. Sometimes it was genuine, but at other times, it was the merest twinge which I exaggerated like mad. I remember once I even negotiated a penny ice-lolly out of the situation. I was getting rather too good at it, and my mother was anxious that we got home before it got dark.
That night as i lay in bed, I listened for the woves howling in the distance, but it couldn't have been full moon. All I could hear, no matter how hard I listened, was the occasional swish of a car and the reassuring chimes of the Market Clock.

Mainly Outings

To complete the saga of the carpet, I have to mention one last thing. Years later my aunt and uncle brought their vacuum cleaner along in the car, and proceeded to at last give that carpet a good clean. Three whole bagfuls of pure soot came out of it,and afterwards, it looked completelydifferent, a bit like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel after its restoration in fact.

Now to get down to the title of this chapter. Living in more or less central London, wasn't a bad place to live from lots of points of view. But one misconception that I must put right for non-Londoners, is to point out that although we were only a few miles away from the West End, anywhere we wanted to go involved a lot of walking, and especially if one had a mother like mine, who would rather walk a mile than spend an extra penny on bus fares. It was a good ten-minutes walk to the nearest bus stop on Camden Road, and at least a mile to CamdenTown. It was even further to the shopping centre in the other direction, Holloway or the Nag's Head as my grandmother used to call it. Then of course, there was the endless Leyton Road leading to Kentish town. My mother often walked me all the way from Parliament Hill Field, up to the top of the hill and back, and then all the way home. It was a wonder that my legs were not worn down to stumps.
But I do remember travelling on the underground when I was still so small that the backs of my knees came nowhere near the edge of the seat making my feet stick out into the standing area, and when I still had the tendency to fall asleep on the way home. My mother would always take me out during the weekend. I remember, Kensington Gardens was one of my favourite places, with the Elfin Oak, (in those days not behind bars,) Peter Pan's statue and the Round Pond. And best of all there was big playground with lovely, but probably desperately unhygienic sandpits.
When I come to think of it, playgrounds in those days, were desperately dangerous all round, but they were probably much more fun. The solid child swings with an arrangement of pull-down bars probably weighed as much as the child that was put in it, and woe betide anyone who got hit by them! The ordinary swings were also made of solid wood, and there was just ordinary asphalt to land on if you fell.
Of the parks, I think Regent's Park was my favourite, with the 'Broad Walk' lined with huge banks of flowers and curly green-painted benches to sit on. Then, when I was older, I discovered the magic of 'Queen Mary's Gardens' or 'The Rose Gardens', as they were mostly called. Here was a magic bridge over the lake (which you could still go on in those days) leading to a, for me, enchanted island, where all manner or fascinating nooks and crannies could be found.
There was also in the Rose Gardens, a wonderful statue of writhing athletes, being attacked by huge snakes, with the water from the fountain, spouting dramatically all around them. This statue was surrounded by quiet benches and tall walls of ivy. My mother used to sit back on one of the benches and say "Who would think we were in the middle of London!" And indeed, there would be no-one there but us, and the only sounds to be heard would be the splashing of the fountain, birdsong and the gentle rustling of the ivy in the summer breeze. I do remember being the teeniest bit bored though, once I had circumnavigated the fountain, walking along its narrow wall, and not owning up to my sopping wet shoe and sock where I had nearly slipped in.
Something a little more tiresome, happened during one of our walks ove Parliament Hill Fields andGospel Oak. Where one ended and the other began, I was never quite sure. It was the same with Kenwood, which was also in that area. In the general direction of Kenwood are a series of ponds. They are the source of the Fleet River, which runs under Fleet Street and flows intothe Thames, so my mother used to tell me.She was always knowledgable about such things.
Two of the ponds had been turned into swimming pools, one for men and one for ladies. They exist still, and the ladies' one still has a very prominent notice 'No men beyond this point' A bit sexist for this day and age, but fun.
Anyway this pond where I was playing at about the age of three or so had a rather inviting tree, with a lovely, low branch jutting right out over the water. I couldn't resist, and soon I was clambering along it. I don't remember a great deal more except being hauled out of the pond by a very irate parent and a helpful passer-by. There was no danger involved, as the water was only knee deep near the bank, just mess, slimy green water weed and lots of mud.
But looking back,I realise how important these outings were for me. I grew up knowing not only how grass, flowers and trees looked, but how they smelt, what they sounded like when the wind blew or the rain fell, and how it felt to to lie flat on my back in the long wilder grass of Hampstead and Kenwood and see nothing but the sky and the clouds above, in short to have the privilege of knowing how it feels to be at one with nature during my earlychildhood when such impressions leave an indelible mark.

Fear

1.4.08
Even my dolls, sitting in an orderly row on the pink, brocade settee, assumed a rather sinister air in the half-light.
The very worst, was one night was when it had been raining, and my mother, without thinking anything about it, had hung her white mac up to dry on the upright handle of the carpet sweeper, which habitually stood just outside the dark, ominous cupboard. Never before or since, not even when charged by a rhino in South Africa, or had a cobra slung round my neck in Morocco, have I known what it feels like to have my hair stand on end. I did that night. I was too scared even to scream, not to mention get out of bed, and run through the dark passage way and the scullery to gain the safety of the kitchen. with sweat By the time they found me, hours later, I was still rigid with fear and my long flannelette nightie was quite damp with perspiration.
My vivid imagination was mostly my friend and my ally, indeed often the only source of entertainment and like-minded companionship that I had at my disposal. Through my imagination, my dolls and bears became alive. Each one not only had a name allotted to him or her, but a whole raft of personality traits as well. Most of them were not new. A largish bear and a rather politically incorrect doll called Topsy I inherited from my much older cousin. Topsy had little squiffs of black woollen hair poking out of three small holes in her dusky china skull, and Big Teddy had a rather more pointed face than is usual for bears of today. What remained of the fur on his tum, had to be brushed to the side on one side of his central seam, and straight down on the other. How is it that such trivial things are remembered for over half a century, whereas all sorts of much more important things are forgotten?
The linoleum, lino for short, in my grandmother’s bedroom cum general living room was of a blue colour with a vaguely ripply pattern on it. So I and my family of nine were able to take imaginary trips to the seaside whenever the fancy took us. I would adjust the clothing of all of them until I deemed it suitable for a bracing dip in the briny, and afterwards my grandmother would supply me with tea-towels to rub them all dry again. Then, with plastic dolls’ tea-set cups and teaspoons, we would dig in the sand. That probably did not do a great deal of good to the pile of the pinky-beige rug that was our improvised beach, but is was probably better than spilling a whole container of bubble liquid on to the big, sooty bedroom carpet.
It had been a pure accident, but I can see my mother and my aunt, even now, scrubbing away and remarking that they didn’t know where all the soap was coming from. The clean patch in that carpet was there for all to see, for months if not years afterwards. I could never look at it without at least a small twinge of guilt for giving everybody so much work and being the cause of my glamorous aunt getting down on her hands and knees and having a ladder in one of her new stockings. I wasn’t quite sure how she could have managed that. The ladders that I had seen leaning against the sides of houses would have been much too big. But they were all saying by this time, “Doesn’t that child ever stop asking questions?” So I had let the moment pass.
Two more points about that carpet, while we are on the subject. Firstly, that later on in life, eight or so, I found what an excellent way it was to shine up old pennies until they gleamed like new. I just had to rub them on the carpet until they were hot with friction. I used to love rubbing the Victorian pennies best, nearly as big as Ritz crackers, and worn quite flat from use. Yes, those were the days when there were 240 pennies in the pound, twelve in the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound. There were half-penny coins with a ship in full sail on the back, and farthing coins with a rather plump robin on the reverse. The silver three pence coins had already gone out of circulation. But my grandmother had a hoard of them in one of the copper containers on the mantelpiece (the stone shelf above the fireplace, for the uninitiated) She always meant to make a necklace out of them for me, but somehow, they disappeared before that little plan was ever realised. Silver sixpences were very much in circulation however, slightly larger than the 5p coins of today, they represented untold riches to me as a child. And each one I received as my weekly pocket money was buffed up with vigour until it shone and gleamed. It was a pity that I was too young to know about this after the accident with the soap bubbles, for I would have been able to quickly blend that accusing patch of clean carpet into the rest, with the aid of a handful of old pennies.