Life in London 1940 - No schools

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Living in Deal just had to end. The school was commanded to return to London in May 1940, after nine months of evacuation to Deal. This time the journey was entirely by bus - or coach – the word used was ‘charabanc’ . The approach to London was memorable. The sky was clear. I saw through the front window of the coach the sky over the eastern suburbs of London decorated with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of barrage balloons – great silvery blimps held fast to the ground with long hawsers. The evening sun shone a golden light on them. They decorated the sky, optically diminishing in size towards the horizon. They were indeed a splendid sight. It was decided that the school would re-locate to Devon, to the town of Torquay. My mother decided that I would not go. I must stay with her whatever the consequences. She felt that my brother’s education (he was 13) was more important than mine. But her baby –me- must remain with her.
For my brother began some weeks of torment. I never knew the reason why he was unhappy. I guess he was ill-treated in some manner, and I believe the hurt was hurt indeed. My mother was deeply angry and her anger caused her separation from the Roman Catholic Church. I remember the meeting with Father McKenna sitting in our front room. The embarrassment on his face was matched with the fury of my mother. We never went to mass again. My mother had been a convert to the Church. That ‘conversion’ must have occurred more or less during the year of my birth. My father was bankrupted. We were penniless. My father had no work and there were three boys to feed. She, at that time turned to pray at the nearby R.C church and sought help from the Church. The Church gave her money. My mother used to say to me frequently, ‘Pray! – more things are wrought by pray than this world dreams of.’ That is a quotation from Tennyson. She loved poetry and she had been awarded a prize at her school at the age of 13 of a book of his complete works for ‘proficiency in Religious Knowledge’.
My brother had to return from Torquay but there were no schools open. I did not go to school for many months, perhaps for a year. My brother also would have no schooling if he remained. It was decided that he should go to live with my mother’s brother in Glasgow. So he was put on a train, by himself, and sent to Scotland. I suspect that he came from Torquay by himself also. From thereon his life was not smooth. To his last day he claimed that his mother had deserted him, had sent him away. A feeling of persecution grew in him.
As for me, I just whiled away the idle hours. My mother tried to teach me a little. I could read from before the age of four. A friendly neighbour had some popular encyclopaedias for children and I was fascinated by the stories of ancient civilisations and much more. But the time of the Blitzkrieg on London was approaching. Frequently we three; father, mother and child; crept at night to try to slumber in the narrow cupboard below the stairs while exploding shells and drones of planes were resounding in the skies above.
The docks at Woolwich were ablaze. It was a September day in 1940. I was outside in the morning and looked to the North and saw huge clouds rising beyond the woods of Shooter’s Hill. My mother came to the door and in astonishment said to me ‘ Can it be gas?’ Her fear transmitted itself to me, but I had no answer. I had no fear in myself. To the young what happens, happens. Fear is frequently (though not always) the consequence of thinking into the future. If pain and misery has flowed from a past experience, then fear may well be engendered if that experience is encountered again. But for me at this time, each new wartime experience was just that, a new experience. I did not listen to the wireless and hear Churchill say ‘whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender’. But after that speech my mother expressed her fear to me. I was in the arms of my mother and we sat at the window of the bedroom looking across the road which was the main road from London to Rochester and the Kent ports. ‘What will we do if the Germans come?’ she asked of me. I did not know and gave no answer. ‘I expect that many of them are decent people. They are sons and fathers too. If we treat them well, then they will be nice to us, I expect.’
In time some schools re-opened to serve the increasing number of children who had filtered back from evacuation. I went – possibly as it happened for only a few days – to Deansfield School. No young male teachers existed. Most women teachers were themselves evacuated with their schools. The teachers at Deansfield were elderly and recruited back from retirement. The image of an elderly man with a grey stubbled chin bringing his face within inches of mine as I sat at a desk, trying to make me recite a multiplication table, still comes upon me. That frightened me! This was a new experience which brought immediate dread. That same lesson was interrupted by the wailing sound of an air raid siren. That sound for many years filled me with dread. I did not follow the others to the air raid shelter. I ran home. I did not return to that dread school. I never did discover if the school noticed my absence!
At some time later Henwick Road School re-opened. I joined its classes and some different experiences came with it. I repeat, I have so very few memories of ever having learnt anything in a classroom. The acquisition of knowledge generally has been incidental. Hideous reminiscences as retold above were also rare. As for my multiplication tables, they have always been dodgy. I have had need too often to ask my wife ‘What is six times eight?’ or whatever. Yet my abilities in mathematics is not poor.
It seems to me that a kind heart and love for the child is more important than the impulsion of teachers to impart knowledge. If the child respects and admires the teacher, the child will imitate the teacher. This was my experience at Henwick Road.

London 1944 - The Choice of School

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Before, during and after the War there were in the region of South London a multitude of ‘Grammar’ schools and minor independent schools, where able children could be educated. I could have attended:- Shooter’s Hill School (which my mother considered to be of inferior standard), Colfe’s, City of London, Eltham College, Emmanuel School, Haberdasher Aske’s, Archbishop Tennison’s, St. Olave’s and probably more. These were all for boys only. There were also Girls’ Grammar Schools such as Eltham Hill, and St Saviours – that being the female twin of St Olave’s. All were a channel of improvement for able children from poor backgrounds. Before the 1944 Education Act either one passed the Junior County examination which opened the door to these or if one was of borderline ability one might be able to go to a ‘Central’ school- as was the case with my elder brother. If you did not ‘pass’ then you might stay at school till fourteen and then leave to get a job, or apprenticeship.

This pattern for social improvement or ‘social mobility’ was destroyed by a later socialist Government, in the desirte to promote the impossible, - equality-. The socialist intelligentsia never grasped the notion that equality of ability is unattainable, though equality of opportunity is not.

My mother, with some idea of social enhancement for me, first proposed Eltham College. She and I went along for an interview with the head master. The broad wide acres of playing fields did not appeal to me. I was never a sporting type, indeed my physique was hardly inspiring to any one looking for a sportsman. When I had a ‘physical’ before evacuation, so later my mother informed me, I was described as ‘below normal’. The headmaster turned me down.

I ended up at St. Olave’s school next to Tower Bridge.

Some of the boys who attended with me were from even more impecunious families than mine. Example:- William Ainsworth. It was not until the VIth form (the last two years of schooling) that I understood his circumstances. At sometime around then, the headmaster put his name forward for an adventure holiday, fully paid, to Canada. Jealous, I inwardly wondered why he should be so selected. Later I realised the justification. I invited him to visit me at home and he came. I took him to Oxleas Woods and the long meadow beyond. These woods are the joy of Eltham. He spoke in the same terms that I had used when I visited Robin Angel on Shooter’s Hill. He felt that compared to his family, we were well-to-do. I visited his home. He lived in Peabody buildings. These flats were built by a charity for poor working folk in London. The toilets were on a communal landing, the flats were small and a pervading odour of rot or urine seemed all about. William later won a County Major scholarship to Oxford, where we were for some time close friends.

Now, sixty years later I am appalled at the political jealousy whereby the socialist system destroyed this pathway to a meritocracy which was well on the way to refashioning the brilliance and commanding position of Britain in the World. These accursed politicians still assert that prior to them only the middle classes could aspire to University. It is an absolute lie. In the years after WWII very many poor boys and girls went to the best universities at the public expense.

I digress! And look back in anger.

St. Olave’s and St Saviour’s Grammar School Tower Bridge was sited on a very small patch of ground near Tower bridge. In 1943 the school was for the most part in evacuation but some classes for new entrants had opened. Again, I suppose the staff had in some manner avoided the War. The war was still on. The doodle bugs had been replaced by the V2 rockets. These you did not hear coming. They were the forerunners of space rockets, sent up from Holland or Northern France and took a high parabolic trajectory before coming down vertically on London. There was no protection from them, nor was any warning possible.

I went to school by train from Eltham station to London Bridge station. On one occasion Eltham station had been blasted by a V2 between my going and returning in the afternoon. I saw one explode in the distance from the train window.

Four years of War had seriously modified London. I, with an exploratory mind, suggested to a friend that one day, instead of going home from London Bridge station, we should walk across Tower Bridge and traverse the City of London to Cannon Street Station and catch our train home from there. We did just that, encircling the ancient walls of the Tower of London, and passing across the bombed area of the City, we passed by small rough built brick walls protecting pedestrians from falling into the basement holes of buildings, whose remains had already been taken away. The rosy red fireweed blossomed from all the broken brick and stonework. It was extraordinary that so few important buildings or monuments had been destroyed. The Tower itself, St. Paul’s Cathedral, The single column of the Monument to the 17th century Fire of London are all still intact. Some renaissance churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren were seriously damaged, but he designed a great many, and some few were not missed.

The journey home was nine miles by train. The cost was entirely borne by the London County Council. I had a free season ticket. It enabled me to go to London at any time, and I used it to visit Museums and to go the theatre in later years with my mother.