Pie 'n' Mash and Prefabs (25 page)

As we sat there on the bed, God knows how much I wanted to kiss her, but she was looking downwards and just a bit out of reach and I was feeling quite frustrated. Suddenly, she turned her head and looked up at me, gazed into my eyes and then both together we kissed. Neither of us was first, it was a simultaneous reaction and it was just the most wonderful moment. We lay back on the bed for some time with our mouths and tongues firmly entwined.

I didn't want to spoil this moment at all but I was wondering whether I should try going a bit further and what her response would be. She was wearing quite a loose-fitting, low-cut dress and, in the position we were in, I could see quite a lot of the top of her boobs. I just really had such a strong urge to touch them but I was worried about how she would react so very slowly I moved my hand up her body to see what she would do. She did nothing to stop me but carried on kissing, so I decided I had to take the plunge and I cupped her breast with my hand. It was so soft – exactly like Terry Gregory had told us in the playground all those years ago. It was just the most beautiful feeling, being so intimate with this girl that I fancied something rotten. She still didn't do anything to stop me but I felt I didn't dare go any further as I didn't want to lose what I had, so we just stayed like this.

Sadly, not for long though, as suddenly this idyllic little cameo was rudely shattered by a loud coughing outside the
door and her father's voice saying, ‘Have you got that Norman in there, Maggie?'

She sat up quickly and replied, ‘Oh yes, we just came back for a coffee.'

‘Well, I think he'd better go now,' came the response from outside the door.

I got up quickly, gave Maggie a peck on the cheek and opened the door. ‘Good night, Mr Steele,' I said as I hurried down the stairs.

Going home that evening, I was in a daze. This was my first real sexual experience and my mind was just reeling. It had been such a wonderful feeling and I couldn't help but think where this could lead to.

Sadly, the sequel to this marvellous evening was that it didn't lead anywhere. I saw Maggie a few more times but, as far as sex went, that was as good as it got. We never went back to her house again, nor did we ever come back to mine. And the opportunity didn't present itself again. A couple of months later, she went to university and I never saw her again. She didn't even write to me. I felt a bit down in the dumps that it had ended like this as I really liked her and didn't really know why she didn't want anything more to do with me but by this time there was so much else going on in my life that I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it.

M
y last year in the prefab was a traumatic year with so many events happening. I suppose it could be said to have started in March 1964 when Grandpa died. He had been taken into hospital suffering from a stomach ulcer. The following day, Dad received a phone call at work from Nan, saying that the hospital had rung to tell her that she needed to come in straight away. She sounded very agitated so he went straight off to Chingford to pick her up. Not having a telephone at home, Mum and I knew nothing of this. I had arranged to go ten pin bowling that night with the West Ham Supporters' Club so I left to get the bus to Leytonstone Bowl and had a good evening with the club.

I returned home about 10.30. Dad was already back. He took me into the big room and simply said, ‘Grandpa died this
afternoon.' I didn't know what to say; I had never experienced anything like this before. No one close to me had ever died before. I knew you were supposed to feel very sad at news like this but I didn't really feel anything, so I just said, ‘Yeah?' Dad nodded. In a way, it didn't seem real to me and I couldn't really tell how upset Dad was. He was putting on a brave face for my sake, I think. I suppose it didn't come home to me until the following day when we visited Nan's house to make arrangements for the funeral. Keeping up the Jewish tradition really meant he should have been buried within twenty-four hours but, as he hadn't died until late in the afternoon, there hadn't been time to organise the funeral for the next day, so it was arranged for the following day.

When I arrived with Dad, Nan was almost inconsolable. She just sat in her armchair, staring into space and every now and then bursting into tears. I kept looking at Grandpa's armchair, half-expecting to suddenly see him there, but, of course, he never arrived and it was that empty chair that really brought home to me what had happened and that I would never see him again, never discuss boxing with him again, never have him call me a ‘dancer's labourer' again, never have him try to knock my loose teeth out with a rolled-up copy of the
Daily Mirror.
For the first time since Dad had told me the previous evening, I felt quite sad and upset.

The funeral was held the following day. A number of relations I'd never seen before turned up, including my great-aunt Sarah, Grandpa's sister. As can be imagined, it was a very sad day, but I was struck by the beautifully clear singing voice of the cantor at the burial service. It is normal at a Jewish burial service for
the eldest son to say
Kaddish
, a prayer for the departed, but, as this is spoken in Hebrew and Dad couldn't speak any of the language, Uncle Albert did it instead.

After Grandpa's body was committed, we all came back to Nan's for a cup of tea and some sandwiches. Nan and the children then all sat round in a circle as this is the next part of the Jewish custom when the closest family members sit
Shiva
for seven days. Formally, it meant they had to stay in the house and do nothing while other members of the family and community were supposed to look after them. However, because they weren't really part of any Jewish community and other members of the family had their own lives to get on with, they looked after themselves for the week, preparing their own meals and so on. I knew nothing about this seven-day mourning and hadn't realised that Dad wouldn't be coming home with us, but he stayed at Nan's for the whole week. As John, Mum and I left, we had to go round to each of the mourners, shake their hand and say, ‘Long life to you.' It was a very difficult experience, especially having to say it to Nan, as she was still in tears most of the time.

Once Dad had returned from mourning, life continued much as it had done, though not for long, as later in the year we received our first indications that our time in the prefab was coming to an end. When they were first built, it was envisaged that they would just be temporary dwellings and certainly for no more than ten years. By 1964, my parents and John had been living there for eighteen years. Strangely enough, the first intimation came when we received a postcard from the Ministry of Works, which said that, if we moved, they would buy our
fridge. It was a bit mystifying so the next day Mum asked our rent man when he came for his weekly rent collection if he knew anything about our moving. He replied that we would be receiving Notice to Quit early in the New Year and that we would be given six months to leave.

Although we knew that at some time we would have to move, it nevertheless came as a bit of a shock to us. Personally, I was overwhelmed by the sad news. The prefab was the only home I had ever known. It might not have been so bad for Mum, Dad and John as they had moved around plenty, especially during the War, but for me I felt devastated. All my life had been invested in that house; all my memories were there, everything I had ever known or done was tied up in the prefab. In all honesty, I felt much more heartbroken than when Grandpa had died. This time it was as though a part of me had died too. And we hadn't even been told anything official yet.

‘God knows how I'm going to feel when the day we have to leave actually comes,' I thought to myself. I was not looking forward to it one bit.

It was on Monday, 8 February 1965 that we were officially told for the first time. A representative from the L.C.C. called personally to let us know we had six months to leave. As we were Council tenants, it was a matter of moving to another L.C.C. estate and he mentioned Debden, Loughton, Chigwell and Hainault, all of them in Essex, as possibilities. He said we would be hearing from him again when he had any definite houses to offer.

The first to receive an offer of a house was No. 1, who were offered a nineteenth-century council-owned house in Debden.
After going to view the property, they complained to us that the bedrooms were too small and there was no room for a wardrobe, it stood in two acres of its own ground in the middle of nowhere, obviously had a mouse infestation and was most probably haunted. They added that they had accepted the offer on the spot. On 22 March, they became the first of the original seven to leave their prefab.

By May, three more of the occupants, Polly, Bally and Copper, had moved and, three days after my eighteenth birthday, the Council pulled down Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Where there had once been three loving homes housing families we knew as friends and neighbours, who had shared our happy times living in a prefab on Millfields, all that was there now was a pile of impersonal rubble. Their loss left a big hole in our little community in more ways than one.

The sad and inevitable end was rapidly approaching and there was nothing I could do about it. As it happened, we were the last to receive an offer, when, on 2 July, a letter came, informing us there was a house available on the Debden Estate in Loughton. Dad immediately made arrangements to view it and, on 6 July, Mum and Dad returned from seeing the house to tell me that they had accepted the offer and we would be moving on 3 August. Although I had, of course, been expecting this news, having an actual date came like a hammer blow and I felt in utter despair.

As if this wasn't a big enough trauma in my life, there was still plenty to come in the month before our move. Just over a week later, a policeman came to our door one evening to tell Mum that Nanny Sinnott was dangerously ill in Guy's Hospital. As
it happened, Dad was at Nanny Jacobs's house, so Mum had to get a bus to the hospital. When Dad arrived home at about half past nine, I told him what had happened and he said he would drive up to the hospital. I said, ‘You'll probably pass Mum on the way back.' But he went anyway and did pass her on the way as she arrived back home at about half past ten. She told me that Nan was taken into hospital at four o'clock that morning with a cerebral haemorrhage and had been unconscious ever since.

The following day, Mum went back up to the hospital while Dad went to work and I went to school as usual. As the next day was our last day at school, I had arranged to go out with some of my friends to The Approach that evening to celebrate the end of school life, so I didn't return home till about half past ten. When I walked in the door, Dad was sitting in the armchair with his arm round Mum, who was sitting on the arm in tears.

Dad looked up at me and said, ‘I suppose you can guess.'

I went over and put my arms round Mum and gave her a kiss. All she said was: ‘Would you like a cup of Ovaltine?'

I said, ‘It's okay, I'll do it.'

But she got up and said, ‘No,
I'll
do it,' and went into the kitchen.

Dad said to me, ‘Let her do it, she wants to and it'll help her.'

The next day was another big landmark as it was the day I finally left school and then, as if all that wasn't enough, on the following day, Saturday, 17 July, at the age of twenty-five, John got married to his girlfriend, Barbara. I didn't know Barbara very well as they hadn't been going out together for very long and, because of this and the fact that John didn't live at home
and hadn't for many years, she had only been to the prefab on a couple of occasions. But what little I had seen of her I liked, so I was very pleased for my brother. As it happened, I nearly missed the wedding altogether. Mum and Dad had been on at me for a week or so to get my hair cut for the big day, but, what with everything else that was going on, I hadn't got round to it. On the morning of the wedding, Dad said, ‘You'd better go round to Frank's and get your hair cut.'

Frank was a barber in Chatsworth Road but I hadn't used him for years. I had been involved in a fight in there with another boy called Peter West when I was about twelve – I can't remember what it was about now – but I had vowed never to go back there and went to a different barber in Chatsworth Road. When I was about fifteen and becoming more conscious of fashion and the need to look good for any girls that might come along, I switched to another hairdresser in Well Street, which was a bus ride away, but he was a much better stylist. As far as Frank and the other barber were concerned, it was just a case of short-back-and-sides and that was it – Mod fashions still hadn't quite caught up with them! No chance of a Beatles haircut or a David Frost, or anything else.

The new hairdresser in Well Street was up with all the latest fashions, so I went there now since I preferred my hair a bit longer. However, it did mean that it was going to take some time to get my hair cut as I had to get the bus to Well Street, but off I went. When I returned home, Mum and Dad had gone in the car to the wedding, leaving me a note telling me to follow on by bus. I eventually arrived, having missed the actual ceremony but in time for the buffet.

Not long after I arrived, John came over to us and asked, ‘Why hasn't Nanny Sinnott come?'

Mum replied, ‘She's not feeling very well today, John.' She had not and still did not tell him that she had died two days earlier because she didn't want to spoil his big day.

Mum still had one more sacrifice to make, this time for my sake. We were due to go away on holiday to Italy together on the Monday. I assumed it would be cancelled, but Mum wouldn't hear of it. Although obviously not in any sort of mood to go on holiday, she insisted we went as she didn't want to spoil things for me. As always, she had put her two children first before anything she herself might be feeling.

It did, of course, mean that she missed her own mother's funeral. On the day it took place, we were in Venice, visiting St Mark's Square. Mum was wearing a black dress. At 12 noon, the time the burial was due to take place, the bells of St Mark's Basilica tolled out the hour. It was as though they were ringing out for Nan's funeral. Mum looked up at the church and had a quiet sob for a few seconds. Then she got up, shook herself and said, ‘Right, where are we going to have lunch?'

For a while, she seemed to be bearing up quite well, but a couple of days later it all got on top of her and she was really depressed and spent most of one day crying and not wanting to do anything. I think what brought it on particularly that day was that Dad and I, rather insensitively when you think about it, bought some postcards to send home and started writing them out. But I expect it was bound to come out at some time, for she had been so brave and selfless up until that point. Even then, her despondent mood only lasted for that
one day, and for the rest of the trip she tried her best not to let it spoil our holiday.

After all the traumas of Nan dying, my leaving school, John's wedding and a rather fraught holiday in Italy, we returned home on Monday, 2 August for what was to be my last night in the only home I had ever known. We got up early next morning and sat down to our last breakfast in the kitchen, looking out the window onto the large plane tree and Pete's off-licence, a view that had become so familiar over the last eighteen and a bit years. Soon afterwards, the removal van arrived and all our furniture and belongings were loaded up. Now the place was empty except for Mum, Dad, Spot the cat and me.

I walked round the house, taking one last look at each room as the memories came flooding back. Eventually, Dad said, ‘Shall we then?' The moment I had been dreading had finally arrived, it was really going to happen: we were going to drive away to a new home, never to set foot in the prefab again. We walked slowly down the path to the car. I got in and Dad started the engine up. As we drove off down Millfields Road, I turned and took one last lingering look at my beloved prefab till it was forever gone from my sight.

It had been an eventful year, culminating in an especially dramatic final month, but now my East End childhood was well and truly over and a new life in Loughton and at college beckoned.