Stories Of London

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To say that my father should never have married would be an understatement of the most mammoth proportion. Even as a child, I recognised the total unsuitability of my father for marriage and fatherhood. Does this sound insensitive? Cruel, maybe? Unkind perhaps, to say the least! Read on and I think that you will realise that I am not being overly critical of him, but merely stating a fact as I see it. I also believe that were he here today, he would most certainly agree with me.

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My parents met when they were both working at the Pie ‘n’ Mash Shop on Cambridge Health Road in the Borough of Bethnal Green. I say in Bethnal Green, but most people of the area thought of it as being in the Borough of Stepney. However, the shop was just eighteen inches inside the Stepney-Bethnal Green border and had known each other for a couple of years before they decided to get married.

Apparently, it was not love at first sight for either of them. Once they started talking, it seems that they must have gone-out together although my mother said that my father did not buy her an occasional bunch of flowers or some chocolates during their early days – mind you, I don’t remember him doing this later either. As they never had the same times off from work, they actually hardly went out together except for the occasional Sunday afternoon. However, despite this, apparently some deep affection developed between them.

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After walking out for a while, my father proposed sort of!!! It seems it did not resemble a union made-in-heaven It was not made in a romantic setting: neither after a long lingering candlelight dinner, nor during a walk under the moonlight! How and when was the proposal made?

My mother said that on one afternoon while she was laying down on her bed in a room above the shop, my father came in and knelt down beside the bed and produced a ring. Seemingly he had bought it from someone in a pub, which was the way things were done in those days! I am unsure if he used any romantic words in his proposal, but I do know that he dropped the ring when he attempted to place it on my mother’s finger and it bounced on the floor and rolled under the bed! Once retrieved, he placed on the correct finger and that was it!

I remember asking my mother why she had agreed to marry him. My mother, being most often in jocular mood, answered by saying that she felt sorry for him and so agreed!

Lloyd Price – I’m Gonna Get Married

I don’t believe her reason for marriage for a moment, as throughout their life together – in sickness and in health ……. for richer or poorer etc – I always believed that she loved him. My father was demonstrative whenever we spoke about their early days, but I always felt a certain lack of sincerity in his claims of love and affection. Seemingly, none of their friends were overjoyed at the news of the coming union.

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I often wondered about my parents past loves. My father was always very cagey when asked. My mother said that she only knew of one a girl friend called Violet. Beyond that, I know nothing.

As the reader will learn later, my mother had little time for the thing associated with the young: either she was working to earn money to keep her stepfather in drink or she was in hospital thanks to his violent behaviour. However, I do know one of her boy friends, Mr. Alfie (Alfred) Shooter, as the reader will learn about later.

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As is the custom with those wishing to marry, plans were made for each to meet the other’s parents.

My father never meet my mother’s father, as he was killed in the First World War. My grandmother married her second husband in 1919. To put it mildly, he was a drunk and never worked a day once he married. He spent his time either drinking or in bed mingled with beating his wife on occasion and beating her children from her first marriage on every occasion possible, as the reader will learn when they read about my mother’s childhood. He had died from the effects of alcohol by the time my mother was to marry.

My mother’s mother apparently grunted at the news of the forthcoming nuptials. However after my father bought her a few shorts (i.e., any alcoholic drink drunk from a small glass) at the Bishop Bonner Public House on Royston Street, she changed her mind and found him to be a delightful young man. Sadly, my grandmother was never warm towards my mother (or me, for that matter!).

The Bishop Bonner – once a public house, now a number of flats
(Photograph source: Stephen Harris)

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When my mother was young she had long, luxuriant black hair that she often wore loosely swept up at the back and sides and coiled, again loosely, on top of her head. I remember a photograph of her with such a hairstyle, which I always liked. Sadly this photograph has long since been lost. As a result of her colouring, bright strong colours suited her well.

My mother did say that my father was critical of the clothes that she wore in her younger days. Apparently he told her that what she wore made her look flash! I presume that he found her sense of style somewhat too much for his tastes.

My mother liked hats especially those with large brims although she certainly could not afford them and what she referred to as American Shoes. In those days, the people of the East End of London were not well off and young women tended to buy their clothes from stalls in the street markets, most of which were undoubtedly secondhand. As a result, choice was not as great as in smart shops, and besides, cost played an important part in what they were able to buy.

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Evidently my father decided to take matters into his own hands and decide what my mother would wear for the Meeting! My mother said that she was somewhat bemused by this. Anyway, she decided to allow him to choose her dress, as she assumed that she was going to meet Sunday School Teachers and wanted to leave a good impression.

And so, on an early Sunday morning, my father accompanied my mother to Petticoat Lane Market where he intended to choose a dress for her. My mother said that the dress that he choose was like something from Victorian Times: it was black in colour, high necked together with long sleeved and stretched down almost to her ankles. She said that there were multiples of bows across the front and arranged in descending size from the neck to the waste. She hated the dress and said that it would be more suited to a grandmother than to a young woman.

I have been unable to find a depiction of a dress with the above described attributes

My father insisted on buying it and when she took it to show her half-sisters, they laughed and thought it ridiculous. Anyway, she wore it for a visit to his parents. Apparently his stepmother took my mother to one side and asked if he had bought the dress. When my mother said yes, she said that he had no taste and that she ought to wear it as little as possible or send it to the Dry Cleaners and say that it was lost!

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My father’s parents loved my mother from their first meeting. After several meetings and a period of getting to know her and seeing that she did not drink alcohol and that she was a hard-working woman, his father took my mother to one side and recommended strongly that she should reconsider her decision to marry his son since he believed her to be too good a person for his son! How about that for a recommendation? My mother said that she believed that they would be happy and that she looked forward to working hard along side of him. Brave words! However I can understand my mother’s attitude since she was a product of the times.

During their Engagement, my mother saved as much of her money as she could, which was not much, as her mother insisted on collecting money from her each week, supposedly to support the enormous number of children she had from her second marriage.

My mother thought that my father was also saving money. She hoped that what they saved would be used to buy some furniture and other things needed for their home. However, whenever he gathered some money, he would immediately go out and drink-it-all-away. Apparently on one occasion, and since he knew what his son was like, his father questioned him to find out if he was saving for his home and learned what he was doing and told him, yet again, to change his ways and think of his future. Of course, my father paid no attention.

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My mother and father were twenty-four and twenty-nine years of age when they married – certainly not in the first flush of youth! I would like to think that their wedding day, the 27th August, 1937, was full of apple blossom and singing bluebirds, but I fear that it was not. Sadly, I that the events of the day were more of a herald of things to come.

They were married at a Registry Office in Camberwell Town Hall with my father’s parents and my mother’s mother and eldest half-sister in attendance. My father’s Best Man was absent since he had absconded the previous evening with my father’s wedding suit along with several weeks of his wages. Fortunately, the Best Man had not been asked to hold The Ring! My mother’s mother let her displeasure be known when she learned of this.

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Camberwell Town Hall now part of Goldsmith’s College (University of London)

I am unsure of the requirements for marriage in the Borough of Camberwell at that time, but I do know that, as a requirement, my mother had to live in the same Borough where my father lived for a certain number of weeks. In order to fulfill this requirement, she went to live at her future in-laws home. I have no idea if The Reading of the Banns took place or not since they were not joined together in Holy Matromony in Church.

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My mother was married wearing a light blue dress with some white lace around the collar and cuffs that had been purchased new in a shop on Whitechapel Road. She also wore a Pillbox Hat that had a small veil, and knowing my mother, I am sure that it was worn at a slight jaunty angle! I am equally as certain that she wore a pair of American shoes, since she knew the man who sold them from a stall in Petticoat Lane. Wherever the shoes came from, I am sure that they matched the dress.

What my father wore remains a mystery, as unfortunately, there remains no photographs of the happy event and couple. There was no Wedding Reception, as we no them today, except for a drink in the local Public House. I presume that they were toasted. With no reception, there was no First Dance by the Happy Couple and no Honeymoon. People were poor in those days, and any money/gifts were made in the form of things for the home.

Not the romantic start to a life together imagined and dreamt of by many.

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