Sunday 9 October 2011

Life before me

I was born on 28th March 1945 – just in time to miss the bulk of the Second World War. I was always told that my birth marked the cessation of the German V weapon attacks on England. Reputedly the last V2 fell on 27th March and the last V1 on 29th March. However, from my investigations it seems that this information is true. Maybe Hitler thought that I would reap enough damage without him joining in. 

Looking back on the history of the 20th Century and how my parents lived through the bulk of it, it seems that they had very hard lives with little spare money. However, neither of these facts was apparent to me in my youth because my parents were good honest hard working folk that came from a poor background and would die if they ever showed it.

I am know in the family for being able to place events in their time – Mother-in-law often asks me to tell her when an event took place. I seem to be able to relate events to times quite easily. However, I am useless at birthdays except for my immediate family, hence at this time I cannot give you exact birthdays for Charlie, Ivy or indeed my brother Charlieboy. Some time on the Internet should resolve that but for the moment let us stay with the facts that i do know. Dad was born in November (or was it October) 1905. Mum was born in February 1910 and brother Charlie was born in October (or was it November) 1935 so is just short of 10 years older than me.

Alfred Charles Pennington

Dad always told me that he was brought up in Bermondsey, which tied in with everything I knew as I visited relations. One day whilst driving him and Mum over to our house in Gidea Park, we were coming up the Barking Road and Dad suddenly says – "I used to live in that Street". Well it shook me so we drove up there to see. It turned out that Dad was sent to live with an Aunt when his Mum ran out of room for all the children at home. Then later on, when I received my inheritance from Elsie Ellerby, the family tree showed that he was actually born in Walthamstow. 
 
He did live most of his childhood and early adult life in Bermondsey and went to what was, and still is, one of the best schools in South London. He was very proud of the fact that he won a scholarship to St Olave’s Grammar School which at that time and until recently was situated on the south end of Tower Bridge. Remember that this was in the middle of the 1st World War when times in Bermondsey were extreme to say the least. Little money and the lack of men folk off at the war with a great chance of not returning made life extremely difficult and unsettled. 

I don’t know either of my father’s parents and have no names for them. As I understand it, his mum married Dad’s father – known to me as a Ship’s Steward by trade. After a separation – I assume that he ran off and never came back because a normal divorce would not have been possible at that time. There was a story in the family that Pennington was not the birth name of the children – that Dad’s mother gave the children the name of the 2nd husband. However, I have seen Dad’s birth certificate and he was born a Pennington. I must have seen the rest of the names but I can’t remember them. Also, I don’t know when the separation came in the family.

I do know that he only had one white shirt for school and that this shirt had to be washed and dried every evening for the next day. Sometime during his time at school during the 1st WW, he was caught out during a bombing raid and was blown over a fence. With a broken back, he was unable to get help and lay there for 2 days until he was found. This resulted in him being hospitalised for some time. During that time, his teachers took turns in visiting him and continuing his education. This education was first class and I never found my Dad wanting in terms of understanding or knowledge. However, the incident left him with a pronounced stutter which was with him for the rest of his life. It only became apparent when he was under stress. This, unfortunately, had a serious effect on his life once he was at work.

Leaving school at 15, he went to work at The Royal Exchange Insurance company in the Royal Exchange Building opposite the Bank of England. His skill at figures was of great benefit to him but the crunch came when the ‘new fangled’ telephone was installed. Unable to speak on the telephone due to his stutter, in the way of those times, he was sacked. As all offices were converting to the phone, Dad realised that his options were limited and he went to work in a factory, ending up at the Cowes rubber goods factory opposite Streatham Common.
Dad was one of four children to my knowledge although there may have been some child deaths as was common in those times. Aunt Cis (Cicely I assume), Aunt Mil (either Millicent or Amelia, I am not sure) and Uncle Frank were the sisters and brother that I knew. Aunt Cis lived in Bermondsey all the time I knew here, firstly in a ‘tenement’ in The Jamaica Road and then in a rather nice modern flat in Southwark Park Road. Married to George, she had two children –Georgie-boy and ??. Aunt Mil moved out of an even worse house in Bermondsey to a council flat on Denmark Hill – married to Tim, she also had two children, Tim and Kathy. Incidentally, Kathy ended up living not far from us at Park Side in Romford. Lastly, Uncle Frank always lived in New Cross when I knew him. He seemed to be the well to do one of the family as he had a rather nice semi in St. Donatt’s Road, backing onto the Goldsmith College sports field. He was a district councillor in Deptford and, as became apparent at his funeral in around 1967, he was a long time Freemason. Uncle Frank was married twice. I only knew the second wife – Aunt May. He had one son from the first marriage – Terry, and Aunt May brought Colin along with her. He subsequently hyphenated his name to Colin Pennington-whatever-can’t remember.

I know that Dad was a keen motorcyclist and a very keen cricketer. He was a fan of football and supported both Milwall and Charlton often went to see their home matches. I remember being very pleased that he lived long enough to see both teams in the then 1st Division. Dad wasn’t one for hobbies. He was very keen on music – mostly 30’s bands. I have a story about that later. He read the Daily Mail for all the time that I knew about. He was very keen on crosswords, Ellery Queen and Earle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason) mystery novels.

His stutter never really cleared and he found both that and his inability to do some things – like woodwork, extremely frustrating. This frustration came out in one main way which would be seen by most as a bad temper. This is what I thought as a child but realised in later years that if the frustrations were out of his life, he was a very peaceful person.

Ivy Lilian Pennington

Ivy lived almost all he life in or around Streatham. She was born in 1905 in a part of Streatham known as Lonesome – a strange area between Streatham and Mitcham. She had lots of brothers and sisters. I know more about Mum than Dad purely because of the death of Elsie Ellerby, who turned out to be Mum’s Dad’s sister. From that I got a full family tree, although I seem to have lost it for now. Like with my Dad, I never knew my Grandmother or even her name. I did know my maternal Grandfather – one Sylvanus Webster. He was born in Kettering and was reputed to have run away to join a circus as a youth. Although this sounds unlikely, Sylvanus actually made a living during the early part of the 20th Century by playing ‘The Glasses’ on liners. ‘The Glasses’ are a line of high quality drinking glasses filled with varying quantities of water and tuned so that they can be played like a Xylophone. This appears to have come to an end when, as a result of an argument with his wife, she is reputed to have smashed the glasses!

Two facts I know about Mum from her early days are that she both left school and started smoking at 14 in 1924. She started out life as a waitress – a job she returned to quite often in her life. One of her waitressing jobs was as a respected ‘Nippy’ at a Lyons Corner House although I do not know which one she worked at.

Mum met Dad sometime before 1934 when she was working at a Café at the top of Greyhound Lane in Streatham when my Dad was working at Cowes which was just 200 yards down the Croydon road from the Café. That Café was still there when we last visited that part of Streatham in the late ‘90s.
Ivy’s enduring passion was knitting. She was never seen without needles in close company. Not only was she prolific but she was also very talented, providing Dad was there to advise on the more complicated pattern instructions. Mum’s lack of education meant that she only every did what would be called menial jobs nowadays but was an extremely hard worker. Often she had two jobs, one of which would be an evening job so she had a hard life one way and another.

I now know more about Mum’s family because I have recently been presented with a full family tree going back to 1850. However, I may know the names but I don’t know a lot of the details. For now, I will keep to what I knew prior to getting this information. For some reason, none of my Mum’s relations ever came to our house with the exception of Grandad and Uncle Stan. I don’t remember Grandad coming in his later years and I now know that he died on my birthday in 1962 – a fact I have no memories of at all, which I find difficult to understand. Uncle Stan used to call in every Saturday evening but I think he ran some sort of purchasing club so called in for a weekly payment. In addition to Stan, I knew Mum’s four sisters – Alice, Vi, Dolly (Dol) and Kath. Alice lived four doors down from Vi on the eastern end of Streatham near my school. I remember Aunt Vi’s house still having gas lighting – something that had gone in our house years earlier. Kath (I never knew her full name so was it Kathrine  or Kathleen?) was always a mystery. She lived somewhere in London but I never knew where and I think I only met her a few times. Aunty Dol’s husband worked for a national newspaper and she always had a little bit more money than any of the others. My first memories of here are of her living in a communal building in Earlsfield. She then moved to a council house in Putney Vale and finally to her own house in Worcester Park. There was an Uncle Sid but I almost never met him and know nothing of him. It turned out to be a more extensive family than I knew, but more of that later.

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