All East end children did their bit to help the family coffers. Depending on whether or not they enjoyed school would decide whether they “jobbed” after school or played truant to earn a few extra coppers. Steve, my elder brother was a quiet, bookish boy, who enjoyed his studies. He would, however, go up to Blackwall Tunnel after school to sell newspapers and bring in a few extra shillings a week.
Toshing or dragging the river for odds and ends was very popular. All the children would go down to the causeway and collect driftwood and chalk. They would then go door to door. selling their wares. Giggy‘s barrow was a real boon for this work. The chalk was used for whitening the stone steps that led up to the front doors. Everyone was very proud of their white steps.
Another job the children did was “scurfing”. For this boys were employed to crawl into ship’s boilers that had become encrusted and chip away the deposits with a special hammer. A local rhyme about toshing ran:
So help me Bob
My Father’s a snob
My Mother takes in washing
My brother drives a carriage about and I go out toshing.
Giggy and I would often accompany Mum on the Green Line bus to Rainham for pea picking. We would get between 9d and a shilling for filling a 56lb sack. which was money hard-earned. At one time when Mum was ill, Giggy then aged 10 and me aged 8 boarded the bus by ourselves and went to pick the peas alone. We were quite confident as we had done the journey a number of times before. The work was back-breaking as all day we would be bent over the plants, plucking the pea pods from the stalks and filling the canvas sacks. These in turn became very heavy as we began to fill them and Giggy and I had to drag them down the lines. The sun beat down upon us the whole day. We were both happy though and in our element, preferring to be out in the fresh air rather than being in class. Pleased that we were doing our bit to provide for the family.
Other fruit picking jobs included apples and berries, plus potato and hop picking. All were hard work for little reward but as children we considered ourselves to be lucky to be able to do it. Of course, there were perks to he had, like filling your own basket with whatever you had been picking. This meant a supply of fresh fruit or vegetables, which could also be made into jams and pickles. One of the “jobs” that Mum did was to collect “parcels” from the neighbours and take them to the pawnshop for them. She had nothing left to pawn for herself, but most people had a little something that was worth a “few bob”. They trusted her and would give her a few pennies for taking the parcels for them. The pawnshop was still a stigma even for the Eastend folk, so it was worth giving someone a few pennies to do the job for you.
So every Monday morning she would carry the parcels up the Leamouth Rd to Willets the Pawnbrokers shop in Chrisp St. with its three shiny brass halls hanging outside. There she would pledge the goods for her neighbours. Mrs Wallington always gave Mum her husband’s gold watch for which Mum got her fifteen shillings. She would return on Saturdays to redeem the goods once the housewives had received their pay from their husbands. This was repeated most weeks and was the way the poor managed to survive and have enough food for the week.
The type of things they would “pop”, as pawning was known, would be best clothes or out of season clothes, shoes, jewellery and ornaments. If desperate it would be their wedding rings (substituting them with a cheap “Woolies” ring, so that their husbands didn’t notice). For some people, their personal possession spent more time on the shelves of the pawnbrokers than they did in the home.
Everything had to be wrapped up in a parcel and tied together. If you were lucky you had a sheet of brown waxed paper and string, which you would use over and over again. Otherwise, it would be newspapers or old rags that held your worldly possessions. When you gave in the goods the shop owner would write out a ticket. Willet had a special pen that had three nibs on at pole and he would write the tickets simultaneously. One was attached to your parcel with along straight pin, you were given another ticket, the final one being kept for his records. The shelves in the shop were stacked with an assortment of parcels of all shapes and sizes. They were stacked in numerical order. Set sums were paid according to the contents. If you got more than you expected, the joy was short-lived, as you had to find more when it came to redeem the goods.
Sometimes goods stayed pledged for a longer period. especially if your husband was at sea or working away. These then became harder to redeem as time went on and funds became harder to find. After six months if the goods were not collected the parcels would be unwrapped and the goods were sold in the Pawnbrokers shop. So it paid to keep a track of your tickets and to remember what was in each parcel. Another popular pawn shop was Pappernouies, down the marsh in Victoria Dock Road, Canning Town.
Mr Aspinall had a boat which he kept tied up on the Rivet Lea. next door to Fowler‘s factory. Every Sunday he would go shrimping at Leigh on Sea, at the estuary of the River Thames, taking some of the local men with him to help out. When my Dad was in Orchard Place he would go with Mr Aspinall and the crew to help catch the shrimps. On the way back they would boil the shrimps and as the boat came in a crowd would gather to buy his catch, as a special treat for their Sunday tea. Not only would Dad get a little cash for helping out on the trip but we would also enjoy a “shrimp tea” whenever he went out with the boat. Many locals had boats that they used for dredging for coal on the foreshore or salvaging timber from the river. Some had been made by their owners from condemned barges and lifeboats. Fishing was still one of the local occupations.
Granny Nichols did her hit to help us. using the huge mangle in her wash house. She would take in peoples sheets, boil them in the copper until they were brilliant white. Then pass them through the mangle. The pressure smoothed the linen sheets. so that they were wrinkle-free. Hung out immediately to blow in the wind and a final run through the mangle when dry, avoiding the tedious task of ironing them. At 2d a bundle, she would have a little cash to spare each week for Mum.
The highlight of the year for most people in the East end of London was the annual exodus to the hop fields of Kent. They would go for 3 weeks during September/October and it was always looked upon as a holiday. It was certainly with holiday mood that the residents of Orchard Place would pack their tea chests with all they would need to make their hop huts feel like home. Children and animals would be filled with excitement running under everyone’s feet. When we had first started going hop-picking we had taken the train from London Bridge to Yalding. Specials were run late at night. You had to take your bedding and cooking utensils and of course, no one could afford luggage so there were bundles or sacks of bedding and clothes and pails or old boxes stuffed with frying pans and pots. Men wore old work clothes and caps and the women long black pinafores and shawls. The trains were old and the long passages leading down to the platforms were dingy and dimly lit with gas flares. The fare was cheap. but costly enough for the unemployed with a family. Local myth had it that some mothers hid children under their pinafores to avoid paying for them and that some ticket collectors were armed with long hat pins. These were supposed to be passed through the pinafores, the assumption being that the screams of the young illegal travellers would reveal their presence.
Later we became better organised and hired lorries to take everyone. Grandpa Nichols would organise a lorry, selling off the spare places – he would, however. always make us wait until the very last moment before letting us know if there was room for us. It was cheaper by lorry but we have all crammed aboard like sardines. The old lorries had canvas roofs and high tailboards against which most of the youngsters sat.
If the men had jobs they stayed behind, but the unemployed, wives, children and dogs all clambered aboard, with their luggage packed tightly in tea chests obtained from the East India Docks. Much shouting, waving and cheering ensured the lorries had a good send off and the excitement began to mount especially for the children. Once we had driven up Leamouth Rd we came to the East India Dock Rd which would lead to Blackwell Tunnel. By now the boys would be scaring the life out of us girls with horror stories about driving under the River Thames and leaks in the walls! Whilst driving through the tunnel they would point out rivulets of water running down the walls, we girls would be squealing, Dolly and l clinging to each other for comfort convinced we would never see daylight again.
Once through the tunnel, however, the girls would brighten up and irritate the boys by whispering secrets about them. We would drive up Westcombe Hill and along with the A2 to Wrotham. Here excitement would mount as we neared the town as we always stopped at the pub there, the Bull and Birchwood. The kids would run free while the adults satisfied their thirsts with good Kentish beer. The holiday spirit continued with us as we drove off down Seven Mile Lane which eventually led us to Yalding, our destination.
Though not a long journey by today’s standards it took an absolute age as the lorries trundled along the narrow roads at 25 miles per hour. The Kent countryside was much admired by the EastEnders, who live surrounded by bricks and mortar found the greenness a pleasing change. Many East Enders aspired to live in Kent and certainly, even then there was evidence that the sprawl of London was encroaching well into the Kent countryside.
Yalding was a lovely town on the River Medway, where a narrow bridge spanned the river. This had inverted V-shaped inlets to allow pedestrians to escape the approach of oncoming vehicles. A weir formed a pool upstream and this became a popular recreational area for Londoners. As we crossed the river all the children yelled with delight as we knew our long journey was at an end. We would drive down the narrow lane which led to Upton‘s Farm, owned by Mr Reeder. Mr “Will” as he was called by the pickers was there to meet us and show us to our hop huts, before retiring to his large farmhouse at the top of the lane. It was common for groups to return each year to the same farms.
Our hop huts. known as the Blackwall Huts, were rows of brick huts with tin roofs that contained large, four feet wide bunk beds. Faggots (piles of twigs tied together) formed the base of the beds. These were supplied by Charlotte Broom who was in charge of them, we called her “the witch”. You then got bales of straw to stuff your tick mattress covers and pillowcases, to place on top of the wood. Sheets and blankets were brought from home to keep you warm. The September nights were very cold and I remember that I often woke up absolutely freezing, but then I would move closer to whomever I was sharing the bed with, and snuggle down to take some of their warmth. This was one advantage of cramming a lot of bodies into the same bed. Water came from a standpipe that used to be in the compound but was later moved up the lane because people were wasting water. To collect water we had a long stick on which hung three pots, to save keep walking up and down to the standpipe. Rows of wooden septic toilets provided the only sanitation.
The tea chests which had been packed with all their possessions would be used as tables. They would put curtains up at the windows, an oilcloth (we called it American cloth) on the “table” and pictures on the wall. Using our own linen, crockery and cutlery we would make the hut as homely as possible. Families would squeeze together in the bunk beds.
The whole time a sense of adventure, excitement and comradeship abounded. Only a few Orchard House people would go hopping with Mum. Lena Woods (Parker) had hut number 4 – Mum’s old hut. We had hut 5 which was Granny Nichols old hut. Sophie and Patsy Hollis had hut 1 which they shared with their three children Pat, Rose and Harry, with whom we played. Aunt Rose (Mum’s sister) was in hut 9 with her husband Joe (no longer at sea) and our cousins Nellie, Rosie, Eileen, Elfie and Joey. Dolly and her Mum Mrs Chapman were in 13. Ivy Reeves and Lil Anchor (Dolly’s aunt) also had huts.
It was always a delight though when we rose on the first morning to dash out into the country air. There were hop fields on both sides and behind and you could see the oast houses rising above the vines as the thick mist cleared. The stream below Daddy’s bridge was sparkling, so clear and green, quite a difference from Bow Creek and the Thames. You could actually see pebbles on the bottom and the ripples it made as small waves broke over the larger boulders. Reeds and trees, I later learned were Willow and Elm, bordered the stream.
Every morning by 7 am, the women dressed in their overalls and scarves tied in turbans about their heads, armed with a loaf of bread, margarine, cheese and tea made with sugar and condensed milk all placed inside their hopping pots, would trundle off to the fields. To get to the twelve-acre field you crossed “Daddy’s Bridge” a wooden slatted bridge. There they would gather around their hop bins. These were great canvas cloths attached to poles in a bath shaped fashion and each day the women would fill them to the brim with hops plucked from the vines. The work was backbreaking and repetitive and gave us very little remuneration but everyone was happy to do it. While they picked they gossiped or sang.
The men would get the pole pullers jobs. They would be in charge of a “set” which would include about 10 hop bins. These would be in rows within the hop field. The pullers would unhook the vines from their supports and take them to the women at the hop bins. They would then strip the hops from the vines. We children would run around doing odd jobs and help with picking too, we would be closely followed by the dogs. If naughty we would get a whip around the legs from a hop vine, this really stung you, so we either ran out of the way quickly or tried not to get caught. About 12 noon a horn would blow to signify lunch. Sweet tea would be served and sandwiches were made from hunks of bread, layered with marge and cheese. This was all devoured very quickly as the fresh air made you very hungry.
About 4.30 pm each day the “measurer” Mr Stringer would come around to each bin to bag up the hops. He was accompanied by Harold who lived in the ‘dolls house’ next to the Big House He would hold up a sack to be filled with hops, to the brim. This would in turn be sealed and stacked, ready to be sent to the oast house for drying. Mum was a “dirty” picker in her haste to fill the bin she would include many leaves. She would, however, get us, children, to pick our hops on a separate sack as although slow, our little fingers picked each hop vine cleanly. Then at the end of the day, she would spread our hops across the top to improve the quality of her pick. They were paid one shilling for eight bushels.
Walter Reeder or Mr Wll kept a tally of each individuals crop picked and wages earned. Most of the time people went up to the house to get “subs” advances on their wages. which he also recorded into the book. The hoppers would often verbalise about what they would do to the weigher after the last bag had been weighed, before going home. A favourite was to stuff him in the fire of one of the oast houses, but they were concerned it might affect the taste of the beer. Toss him in the river was another alternative or push his head down the toilet. It was all good-natured banter with no malice intended, a cockney gift of accepting a situation and making the best of it. It was a sense of being surrounded by a hostile uncomprehending world but sticking together. Everyone has a good laugh and triumphs in their own fashion.
Doreen (Ivy’s daughter) with the Butler family
Margaret (Bill’s daughter) June (Ivy’s Daughter) Ivy, Johnny, Pat (my daughter) and mum
The evening meal would be cooked on a primus stove. usually consisting of something and mash. When they wanted to buy groceries the pickers would walk to Yalding or Laddingford, both about a 30 minute walk away from the huts. We smaller children would always go on these expeditions as we could be sure to get the odd sweet, apple or biscuit from the various shop owners, who were captivated by our cheeky charm, calling us cockney urchins. The older children were looked upon as potential thieves and were not so welcome. Not all shops welcomed the hoppers and some had signs up saying hoppers and gypsies would not be served. So most only went where they were welcome using just one pub and shop.
In Yalding the big shop was Prentis’ the grocer, who sold just about everything. There was the Two Brewers pub opposite the George pub and a Post Office come Bakers. Over the bridge down past the Bull pub was the Butchers. Prentis’s suffered during the “hoppers” visits. I can recall a Mrs Doll Taylor (no relation) of North London, who took down slabs of fruit cake while the owner was busy serving another customer and gave them to the children to take outside the shop when no one was looking. One time Giggy grabbed three boxes, putting them in his bag, It was only later that he found out what they contained. One had bubble gum, the other gingham pinafore aprons and the third bags of coconut ice. This was soon bartered with amongst all the huts and everyone was dressed in the same aprons, chewing gum and eating coconut as they picked their hops. One year as they were leaving Granny Nichols was asked to keep an eye on us. Giggy ran off and came back later with some ice creams for us all. When she asked him where he got the money from. he said he had earned it. She was angry with Mum because she was sure she had given him the money. It turned out he had gone to Language Farm where they had a window at the back of the house, from which they sold fruit and vegetables. They would put any takings into an Oxo tin. He had gone to do some last minute scrumping on their farm and on passing the window, seeing the tin lying there, had seized the opportunity and “nicked” it as well.
At weekends a festive air overtook the place as Dads and elder children would arrive. On a Saturday evening, a huge campfire would be lit, made with some of the faggots. After eating their meal, they would go to the pub for a few jars, then everyone would gather around the fire to crack jokes and for a good old east end sing-song. They would then retire to the huts, everyone squeezing into the bunks for a nights rest. One time the farmer came around complaining that someone had stolen his chickens. They all denied knowledge so he decided to search the huts. Mum had a pram full of apples that had been “scrumped” ready to take back home. So Johnny was placed on top of them and we had to take him for a walk while the search took place. The chickens were never found as they were already stewing in a cookpot somewhere and the feathers had been placed in the pond.
Occasionally we would get a special treat and be taken to the River Medway at Yalding bridge. Here we would go to the Anchor Pub and while the adults supped their beers we kids would swim and play in the shallowest part of the river. The waterfall would pound over the weir and form an inviting pool of water. While we played we would watch the coach loads of visitors arriving for a day out from London. How we envied these people as we were convinced they must be very “posh” as they obviously didn‘t need to work. In reality of course they too were having a day away from the trudge and toil of factory work.
Ivy (holding Michael) Lucy and Doreen on the Lees green with the Yalding bridge over the River Medway in later years (around 1957).
After our swim, we would sit on the Lees, the green in front of the waterfall and if we were very lucky we got a picnic. For those who could afford it, the cry from the local pie man as he came to sell his wares. was a heartening sound. “Kempton’s Pies all hot” would ring out around the green the tempting aroma encouraging people to queue up to savour the tasty hot pies. He would be followed by the Sweetman shouting “Lolly Lolly” and all the children pestered their parents for a treat. I would beg my mum to buy me some sweets and Mum always managed to spare a halfpenny each for us to have a lolly.
If Granny Nichols came hopping with us, she couldn’t tolerate the sterilised milk that we all drank. so I would go up to Mr Readers farmhouse to get her some fresh milk. I would peer into the friendly farmhouse kitchen with its huge wooded table and great cooking range that always seemed to be in use. The smell of the fresh bread being baked would drive me wild, my large blue eyes became even wider as I stood licking my lips, whilst savouring the smell, the cook. on spotting me, would always cut off the end crust and give it to me, I would then say “ta very much” and then wolf down the crusty knob with its soft doughy centre, while it was still hot. This made the trudge to the farm for milk more than worthwhile.
Sometimes the Salvation Army would come around to the huts to try to convert the “Eastenders” into their fold. They would bring a huge sheet which they would stretch across a fence and film a magic lantern show about Jesus. We kids would thoroughly enjoy the entertainment, but they didn’t get many converts. My friend Dolly and I loved hop picking. We enjoyed the countryside and ‘the freedom of running wild, rather than the discipline of the school. We relished being in the company of adults and hearing their tales. it was a time of bonding for many eastend families.
The Orchard House, which was where we lived, was part of a small enclave in the loop of the River Lea. As the river, which rises in Bedfordshire, nears the Thames it forms a horseshoe shaped loop called Bow Creek, before discharging itself into the Thames near Blackwall. A community was formed within the loop in the early 1800’s. The River Lea was used from Roman times to enable them to colonise such places as St Albans and Luton. One of the earliest references to Bow Creek was recorded by John Speed. cartographer and historian, who states:
The boys came out of their hiding and along with Mary shouted words of encouragement to get us to keep treading water and to head for the ladder on the side of the creek, Progress was slow and the boys were very worried at this point that their prank could backfire. So someone rushed off to get my Mum, while the others leaned over the wall of the creek ready to pull us to safety as we neared the edge. One of the boys who was a reasonable swimmer jumped in and swam out to haul the dinghy and Mary back to the boat.
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Down The Wall 