The Brick used to build My House
Perhaps not quite the same colour as the school, but close enough

I have little memory of the building at the time when I first saw it other than the colour of the brick and the entrances. At that time, the two wooden gated entrances on Duke’s Place were in use, one for boys and the other for girls. Above the boy’s entrance is a statue of a young boy and likewise above the girl’s entrance one of a young girl both dressed in the attire of the time when the school was founded. I remember that the building had a many windows, some large and some small. I do recall that the building was, and still is, impressive. There was a third entrance around the corner on Mitre Street, just across the way from Aldgate Pump. This entrance was not used at that time, but has since become the main entrance today. It should be noted that there is no statue above this entrance.

The Blue Boy & The Blue Girl over the old entrances to The School
(sadly with netting protection today)
Far Right: the entrance on Mitre Street

My mother told me that I was very lucky to be going to such a nice school and that she hoped I would be well-behaved and learn a lot. Most probably I was looking forward to going to school, but I feel certain that I had absolutely no idea what it would mean to actually go. I doubt if I had any notion that I would be required to spend the whole day there and that I would also be required to do as I was told by a stranger and also be required to spend time with other children that I did not know.

Although I lacked brothers and sisters, I come from a huge extended family and was used to being around other children. My parents had many siblings, both full and half and each of the living had married and had large families. This meant many, many cousins, the majority of which I disliked. Now, it wasn’t that I was an unfriendly child, as I wasn’t, rather my dislike of my cousins resulted from the fact that they were not the swiftest little people you would ever meet. Unfortunately most were quite stupid. This may sound snobbish and harsh, but truth is often hard and sadly a good number of them have proven their lack of sense, as their lives have ended badly, not bringing naches to their equally dozy parents. As a result, the thought of being forced to be with children that I had not chosen to be with proved to be somewhat daunting. Still, I had been assured by my mother as well as by her friends that I was going to enjoy school and would meet all sorts of interesting children. This must have satisfied me, at least to some extent, so much so that I was willing to give school a chance!

I was to start school in early January 1948. Sometime in December of the previous year, I was taken to Dawson’s Department Store (A Place Lost & No Longer Remembered: Dawson’s – A Department Store – pas comme les autres) in City Road (on the Hackney side of the road)  by my mother where all the things necessary for school were purchased. At that time, boys that went to better schools wore white shirts, ties and short gray flannel trousers throughout the academic year. In non-summer months, they also wore either jumpers or pullovers with or without a jacket. In spring and autumn, depending on the external temperature, these garments were often left at home or removed during the day. Regardless of the temperature or the time of year, boys wore caps on their head. The wearing of a cap was not as dreadful as it might seem, especially if one wore it at a slightly jaunty angle in order to emulate toffs and film stars with their trilbies, homburgs and top hats of the time.

On the breast pocket of the jacket and at the centre of the cap would generally be the crest of the school. The wearing of such a crest informed the world where you went to school and would most often be proudly worn by the young pupil. Sir John Cass Foundation School had a wonderful crest. It shows a shield with a hand above it, which is holding on tight to a fish. We were told that this crest was meant to inspire the pupil with the concept of never letting go! When I first saw the crest, I obviously did not understand its symbolic significance and believed that one was meant to hold on to any fish that one caught. Since my parents ran a Pie ‘n’ Mash Shop at the time, where my father prepared both hot and jellied eels for sale, I understood the slippery nature of fish and how difficult it was to maintain a grip on one. Every Monday and Thursday mornings, huge wooden trays of live eels were delivered to the shop for my father to prepare for sale. He would take hold of these creatures between his index and middle fingers and surround each with his thumb to maintain his grip on them. While holding the fish in this manner, he cut off their heads and tails off and then scrapped out their guts. Once the wriggling remnants of fish were cleaned, he chopped the remains into small pieces and then washed them in running water before plunging them into boiling salted water. It was many years before I was able to taste eel.

Jellied Eels

Once gutted, cleaned and washed, the eels were cooked and jellied and allowed to set in an enamel bowl.  A portion of eels generally consisted of four pieces and a tail and were served directly from the bowl and eaten to taste with salt, pepper and vinegar, often with chillies.  A bowl of eels, either jellied or hot, was eaten with a spoon ……. never with a knife and fork!

Pies should be golden brown and crisp; the crust should be flaky while the underside should have the consistency of a pudding.  Mash should be made from real potatoes and should never be lumpy.  And the liquor ……. this is a parsley sauce.  I was never able to tolerate this sauce – not then and not now.  Salt and pepper were provided in small bowls while vinegar was available in a suitable container.

Traditionally, the a Pie ‘n’ Mash was eaten with a spoon and fork and never, ever with a knife!  Such an implement was considered to be too dangerous for certain customers to be allowed to use at one time.  Tables were normally marble topped and seating consisted of wooden forms.

My first day at school began at 9 a.m. on a cold Monday morning. However, getting ready for school had begun much earlier with our trip to Dawson’s and came to a head the day before school was actually to begin. This Sunday proved to be exceptionally stressful for both my mother and me. It began early in the morning when my clothes were lain out on the chair in my bedroom.

My clothes were later checked and rechecked by my mother numerous times throughout the day. Meanwhile after breakfast I had been given the job of cleaning and shinning my new black shoes. The footwear looked suitably shinny to my untrained eye, but not nearly good enough for my mother. In those days, all new shoes were waxed and shinned before wearing. This meant covering the original shine with shoe polish, generally supplied by the Kiwi Shoe Polish Company.

My father saw himself as quite a Dandy. He was extremely particular about his clothes and spent a long time seeing that they were just right. When he left school he had been apprenticed to a tailor in Chancery Lane in the City, but someone upset him and he left before finishing his apprenticeship. However, he learned a great deal before leaving and knew how to sew, iron and take care of clothes in a professional manner.

My Father, The Dandy

My father was extremely particular about his shoe cleaning materials and was careful about their maintenance. He kept his shoe cleaning materials in two old biscuit tins – one for black shoes and one for brown shoes – in a lower cupboard in the kitchen. Each tin contained a polish-on-brush, a polish-off-brush, several tins of shoe polish and a soft cloth for final buffing of the freshly waxed shoe. He was certain to have several shades of brown shoe polish, as he did not wish to use just brown polish on the various pairs of brown shoes that he owned since he said this would alter the original colour. Even I, at my young age, knew his behaviour was excessive. To me shoes were of two colours: black or brown.

I had been given a detailed lecture and practical demonstration on how to clean a shoe by my father when I got my first real pair of shoes. Obviously I was too young at that time to be able to clean my own shoes properly, but this did not deter him from teaching.

For those wishing to know how best to shine boots and shoes, click here

However, as a result of his training, by the time I was to go to school, I was more than capable of cleaning my shoes and producing an acceptable shine – acceptable to me, that is – but not to either of my parents. To achieve the required shine, the polish has to be worked into the leather by endless brushing with the polish-on-brush and then repeating this action multiple times. Once this was done, the shoes need to be left for a few minutes to allow the polish to work its way into the leather. Only when the wax in the polish had dried could the laborious task of removing excess polish from the shoe be undertaken. This is achieved by use of the polish-off-brush and repeated brushing. The shoe readily gains a shine once one gets into a rhythmic motion with the brush. Suitable music will often help with achieving an acceptable shine. However, arriving at the desired rhythmic motion for a five year old is generally not possible for a number of reasons, most notable of which being the child’s inability to grip the brushes firmly enough.  This is a direct result of the size of his hand. I found that if I brushed too quickly, my brush jumped out of my hand and sailed across the room. This was frowned upon by connoisseurs such as my father. Needless to say, I lacked the ability and skill to produce a shine that was acceptable to him. He invariably turned up his nose, shook his head and tut-tutted several times once he had inspected my feeble effort. Once he finished tut-tutting, he took hold of my shoe with one hand and the polish-off-brush with the other and subjected the shoe to further vigorous brushing with tremendous vim and vigour in a rhythm that one could frantically march to. His actions produced a gleam that no doubt an old-fashioned Army sergeant-major would be proud of! My mother, on the other hand, although having high standards realised the limitations associated with my age and was less demanding than my father when it came to the shinning of shoes. Upon completion of the task, my mother would inspect the shoes and generally offer her highest praise – not bad – whereupon she would take the polish-off-brush and finish the job without further complaints and at a less frantic pace.

The night before my first day at school was perhaps the most miserable of my life up until that point. My parents expected me to go to sleep instantly I went to bed that night. Naturally this was impossible. As a child I was lucky enough to have a radio at my bedside. As my parents had to work in the shop each evening, I was sent to bed before the shop opened. This was tolerable since I was allowed to listen to the radio and look at my books as long as I remained in bed. Generally by the time one of my parents came up to check on me, I was asleep and they removed any books that I held and turned the radio off. I used to love lying in bed and listening to a comedy show or a play on the radio and even now I find lying in bed and listening to the radio to be a joy. However, on that Sunday night before my first day at school, I was not allowed to look at my books or listen to the radio.

When that first Monday of school finally arrived, I was made to get up early and although I had bathed myself before bed and then been scrubbed by my mother, I was once again required to bath and be scrubbed. Next I dressed myself and once finished I had to be inspected. I recall that my tie knotting skills were not yet acceptable to my mother and my father was called to produce a suitable knot.

How to Tie a Tie …… a Traditional Knot (classy!) & a Windsor Knot (neat, but less classy)

Lastly, and worst of all, was the combing of my hair. However before this miserable experience, on the previous Friday, I had been taken to the barber’s shop with my father. We went just across the road to Maurie’s, who had cut my hair since I had started going to the barber. Although Maurie was a nice man, I hated having my hair cut. I especially hated the straight razor used to clean up the hair at the back of the neck. At my age, I still had to sit on a little form placed on the arm rests of the chair, which was an indignity. I would try to sit still, as directed by Maurie, but some hair always seemed to slip down my neck and cause me to itch. Eventually I had to scratch. Maurie’s response was to take hold of my head and return it to where he wanted it without saying a word. His silence spoke volumes and I once again tried to remain still.

Click here to learn how to give a boy a haircut

Tools of the Trade

Whenever we had to go somewhere special, my mother would insist on brushing and combing my hair. Although my mother was a good woman, she was not always gentle and I can attest to this when I recall her manner of brushing my hair. She used to brush my hair with such vigor that I was always surprised to find that my hair had not been pulled out. Following this, she combed it and spent an eternity doing so.

This was the era of Brylcreem, and at that time, a little dab most certainly did not do it. Men used to pile great gobs of that sticky material onto their hair and after working it into the hair and scalp would next set about achieving the desired style that they wanted with their comb. My father had started to lose his hair at a young age and did not have much hair by the time I was born. This meant that he applied only a small amount of Brylcreem to his hair. Fortunately only a similar amount was applied to my hair and most often it only had to be applied to the crown of my head, as it was here that some hair insisted on sticking up. This generally failed to bring the offending hair back into place, which meant that it had to be left, much to the annoyance of my mother.

Once dressed and groomed, I was allowed to come to the table to be given a good breakfast. I was quite insulted that morning as I was made to wear a huge tea towel about my neck like a baby to catch any spilled food. My mother pushed aside my complaints and said that she was not having her son go to his first day of school with food stains on his clothes.

At this time, a good breakfast meant a boiled egg and toast either with or without bacon and tomato. A few years later, my mother decided that porridge constituted a healthier breakfast and for several years this became de rigueur. This proved disastrous since my mother lacked the necessary patience to produce a good porridge. She failed to realise the importance of stirring it constantly during heating. This resulted in the production of a porridge of congealed lumps, some of which stuck to the bottom of the pan and burned. What annoyed me about having to eat my mother’s porridge for breakfast was that she never ate it herself. My father refused to eat it as he said that she rushed its cooking. Of course he was correct, but I always felt that it was mean of him to tell her this, but then he was well aware that he was the superior cook in our household. My mother had not been taught how to cook by her mother and she never learned any of the necessary skills while at school. My mother had learned how to produce a number of simple dishes and was capable of producing the most delicious Sunday lunch, but it wasn’t until many years later that she learned how to produce a number of special dishes that were both tasty and pleasing to the eye and could be considered a good cook. Her light fruit cake, her sausage rolls and various other pastries were exceptionally good.

I considered an egg and toast as the perfect breakfast at that time. My father was a jack-of-all-trades and had also trained as a cook as a young man and was able, when he chose, to produce the most succulent food including the most delicious meat and fruit pies that I have ever tasted. My father also made perfect toast, a skill I admired him for. He never burned the bread, but produced toast that was of an even dark brown colour without any hint of black. He made sure to butter the toast while it was still very hot and to draw his knife across its surface several times.  This allowed the melted butter to penetrate the bread. Next the toast was cut into fingers of suitable width to fit perfectly into an egg once the top had been tapped and shell removed and the white spooned away to expose the hot and semi-congealed yolk. To make the egg even more delicious, a hint of salt was allowed to drizzle into the yoke. My egg was always brown and lain by my pet chicken, Susy, who lived on the roof.

Susy was a reddish brown hen, most likely a Rhode Island Red, that my father had bought along with a white hen down the lane on a Sunday morning when tiny chicks. Immediately I decided that Susy would become my hen and she allowed my fussing without snapping at me. The white hen made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with a small boy. My father made it clear that the hens were working animals and not pets and were charged with supplying us with eggs each day in return for a nice warm place to live and all the grain that they could eat. However, the white hen quickly proved herself to be mean and unwilling to provide my father with a daily egg. She was also notorious for leaving her mess about the roof. This was especially problematic as we shared the large roof area with several of our neighbours. One woman, a Mrs. Walker, had the habit of leaving open her door to the roof. On one occasion the white hen wandered through the door and apparently made her way to the Walker’s toilet whereupon she climbed up onto the toilet pan and messed over the seat. This did not make Mrs. Walker happy and caused her to complain to my father who unkindly was not sympathetic to her plight.

Click here to see and hear the Pathe Cockrel

My mother had made it clear to my father that since it was his idea to keep chickens on the roof then it was his job to clean up their mess and change the straw in the hatch daily. He had not bargained for the meanness and the mess that this white hen was to produce and for unwillingness to produce eggs on a regular basis. As a result, one morning she must have upset him a little more than usual and I later learned that that this had resulted in her becoming our lunch on the following Sunday. Although I was not fond of that white hen, I was quite upset when I later learned that we had cannibalised her. I was forever fearful that poor Susy would suffer the same fate. Happily she did not.

Susy was well behaved and friendly and far more accommodating than her sister hen and never brought grief to my father. Susy passed away one night after living a long and hopefully happy life. I found her cold and lying under some straw, but was by then of an age to cope with loss. With the passing of Susy, we never kept hens again.

Once breakfast was over, I had to put on my jacket and this meant being inspected again – and again – by my mother. This required me to walk back and forth and up and down. Throughout my childhood, my mother was never satisfied with my manner of carrying myself and would endlessly tell me to pull my shoulders back. Although I did, they were never pulled back enough to satisfy her and she constantly complained that I slouched. I also remember her asking me several times if I had a clean handkerchief in my pocket. She was not satisfied with a verbal answer, but required to see it each time she asked before moving on to something else.

Eventually I was considered suitable to be presented to the outside world and ready to go to school. This was indeed a big day in my life and I remember feeling a certain excitement although I had no real idea what I was in for.

I remember very clearly being taken to school on my first day. The Pie Shop was at Mile End Gate, which is a cross roads where the Mile End, Cambridge Heath and Whitechapel Roads and Sydney Street meet. I have always presumed that there was once toll-gate here, which marked one mile from the border of Stepney with the City of London. The gate has long since been removed, but the name remains. Since my mother had to be back at the shop to have everything ready for opening at 11 a.m., we did not have enough time to walk to the school. Instead we took a trolleybus to Aldgate Depot, which was only a short walk to the school.

-oOo-