On one occasion a carrier bag broke whilst we were crossing a busy main road at Camberwell Green on route to Ruskin Park. With apples and oranges rolling all over the road a policeman came to our rescue and held up all the traffic - buses, trams, cars, lorries and horse drawn vehicles - whilst we collected all our bits and pieces. Policemen always seemed to be around to give a helping hand when required.

On three or four summer Sundays every year the whole family would travel by train from Waterloo station to Oxshott in Surrey to meet various uncles and aunts at a given spot on the Heath for a huge picnic and to play cricket or rounders or, in late summer, to pick blackberries.  Mum and our aunties seemed to spend hours cutting bread and making sandwiches whilst we played games with Dad and our uncles.  There were three aunts and uncles on my mother’s side and my father had a younger sister. I never knew my mother’s parents but my other grandparents lived almost opposite our flat.

These trips to parks etc were our sole family holidays throughout my boyhood except for the summer of 1935 when my mother rented a bungalow for three weeks on Canvey Island.

One of our favourite annual outings was a trip by paddle steamer from Tower Pier (adjacent to the Tower of London)   to Clacton-on-Sea or  Southend-on-Sea. We had to be up and ready very early for these trips in order to walk to Tower Pier and be on board by 8am. At that hour in the morning the first part of the journey down river was always very cold, even in August, and the engine room with its massive boilers was a favourite location. After spending the middle of the day at Southend or Clacton we would reboard the paddle steamer for its return trip to Tower Pier during which there was always a sing-song preceded by competitions for the children on board. In one competition my youngest brother, who shall remain nameless, won a penknife for being the boy with the dirtiest face.

At low tide in the river Thames there was a sandy beach exposed on the stretch of river-bed beneath the Tower of London where we often played. Also, during the summer months, there were trips to the London Zoo, the Serpentine, the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the various museums in Kensington, the outside swimming pools in Kennington and Brockwell Parks, Clapham Common to sail our model boats on the pond and, of course, St. James’s Park including the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and Horse Guards. Being a member of a large family, and having our own friends as well, there was always something to do. We were a part of London and London was a part of us.

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“Come on you kids, up you go”, said the dustman as we scrambled up into the back of his dustcart. It was May Day. The dustcart, which had two huge wheels, had been thoroughly scrubbed out and fitted with bench seats along the sides in the same way as all the other dustcarts at the Southwark Council depot in Manor Place. The brasses and leather harnesses on all the Shire horses were gleaming and the horses also wore coloured ribbons and rosettes.

We children had also been scrubbed and polished (well almost) and the girls wore ribbons in their hair for the crowning of the May Queen at the Town Hall followed by the ceremonial parade around the borough headed by a band. There were, I believe, proper four wheeled floats also in the parade but our interest lay with the horses and carts and the free icecreams and sweets which we were given.

Southwark Council also organised a day trip for children every year  to Southend-on-Sea or Margate (using coaches, not dust carts) with lunch and sweets provided. On the return journey there  was always a sing-song which included the local song:-

We are the Walworth Boyees
We know our manners, we spend our tanners
We are respected wherever we go
When we’re walking down the the Walworth Road
Doors and windows opened wi-i-ide
Eyti - eyti - eyti  eye
Hit a copper in the eye
We are the Walworth boys

In addition to the outings organised by Southwark Council there were others organised by church groups and a number of Social Clubs. For many children these were the only seaside outings of the year.

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Without electricity in the flat we did not have a radio until cable radio was installed throughout the whole block of flats. When, during the darker evenings and on rainy days, we had to remain indoors we played board or card games, or read or made models from any material available. Cardboard boxes were great favourites and I was rather proud of a theatre stage model with movable figures which I made from an old shoe box. As for reading material, the local library was  in the Walworth Road just at the end of our street and was well patronised by us. My heroes included  Bulldog Drummond and Sherlock Holmes.

One Christmas I was given a small hand operated cine projector with a battery powered light and about 25 feet of a Laurel & Hardy film. That one piece of film was shown dozens of times by projecting the pictures onto a sheet hung on a wall. Another Christmas I received a chemistry set with a bunson burner which could be fixed to a gas jet on the cooker in the scullery by a flexible rubber tube. One Saturday evening, when at least one aunt and uncle were visiting to play cards with Mum & Dad, I carried out an experiment which produced one of the worst stinks that I have ever smelt. It polluted the entire flat and was so awful that it stopped the adults playing cards for about an hour. After that there were no more experiments on a Saturday evening.

Christmas is normally a wonderful time for children and a family of seven children made ours even more wonderful as there was always at least one of my brothers or sisters whose belief in Father Christmas remained unsullied. We made paper chains and dad decorted the living room; there were parties at school, Sunday school, Boys Brigade etc.; shops were decorated and the stalls in East Street market also took on a festive appearance with artistic displays of fruit and nuts.  In addition to the normal daily opening from Monday to Saturday, East Street market also opened on Sunday mornings when it was probably at its busiest. Some traders, especially those selling fruit, would stand on their stalls and sell their goods by Dutch auction. The banana trader had huge stalks of bananas and, standing on his stall,  he would cut off bunches of 20 to 30 bananas saying :-

 “Now who will give me three and six for this  ?  Three shillings  ?  Half a dollar  ?  I’ll give it away for two bob. Sold to the gentleman at the back”

Whereupon he would throw the hand of bananas down to one of his many helpers who was ready with an open sheet of newspaper to catch it, hand it to the customer and collect the money.

Also at Christmas there were trips to pantomimes and, by courtsey of the London Evening News newspaper, free seats at the final Dress Rehearsal of the circus held every year at Olympia. Just before Christmas 1938, when I was 14 years old, I applied for, and was sent, five free circus tickets for myself, two brothers and two sisters. We were seated in the front row almost within touching distance of the performing animals and were joined at times by the clowns. That was another of those outings which will always be remembered.

Christmas dinner is an essential part of the festivities and, although we never had turkey or chicken because they were too expensive, there was always a huge piece of beef and a leg of pork. Food, apart from fowl, was cheap to buy  and we invariably had more than enough. On the other hand, alcohol within the house was almost unknown - a bottle of beer for Dad at Christmas and a half bottle of port which was shared with everyone and finally finished on New Years Eve. My mother was a good cook, especially with pastry, and her mince pies were superb. Like most other mothers she also made her own Christmas puddings and cakes which she decorated with a snow scene.

After Christmas dinner, when the crackers had been pulled and paper hats put on, we children were all expected to “do” our party pieces - sing a song, recite a piece of poetry or perform a conjuring trick. I was always asked to sing.

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Disaster almost struck the family one summer. Diptheria reached epidemic proportions and two of my sisters and one brother were taken to hospital with the illness.  We other children received injections. It was a very worrying time for both of my parents but, thank God, we were all stong enough to recover.

Illness in a family is always a time of worry for parents but illness of the bread winner could reduce families to the breadline because the working man, including skilled craftsmen like my father, was paid by the hour and there were no family allowances whatsoever in the 1930s.

Dad belonged to the “Oddfellows Friendly Society” and, on the very few occasions when he was off work through sickness, the Society made payments to the family. The local branch of the Society met weekly in a hall on the first floor of a public house and I well remember taking his sickness certificates, issued by the doctor on the payment of a shilling, to meetings of the Society and collecting his sick  money.