Ed Cowley's Story |
updated 5/21/01 |
My first two years of evacuation to Windsor were not too happy. But, I have to wonder what did the people of Windsor think when they saw us. I have to go back to our living conditions in Poplar prior to the beginning of the war. As far as material possessions were concerned, we had very little. We lived in the slums. To be honest, as far as my mother was concerned Godliness was not next to cleanliness. She had a number of proverbs that she used continually. What the eye doesn't see...., you will eat a peck of dirt before...., you know what I mean. Before going to school she would look at us and if we had not had a wash, and if we had sleep in our eyes she would spit on her apron and give us a cat's lick, then we ready for school. We knew the inside of the pawnshops, usually on a Monday morning. We lived next door to a pub. The Ivy House on the corner of Prestage Street, my father was a good customer. I think that my parents did the best for us according to their own standards and their own experience. Nevertheless, we were dirty, raggedy-arsed guttersnipes, personal hygiene was nonexistent, honesty meant don't get caught. When we went to Windsor although we were billetted with working class people there was quite a culture shock. We were evacuated with the school, and we stayed together. The only times we mixed with the local boys was when we were fighting them.
Ed Cowley
Number 1, Prestage St. survived the war but it did not survive Canary Wharf. The house would be described as a two up and two down with a walkout basement. The lavatory and washhouse were in the yard. The front door opened onto the pavement. In front of the house was a coal hole (chute) linked to the cellar. Some houses had coal boxes in the cellar, the coal slid down to the box and there was a minimum of dust. Our house had no box; the coal slid to a heap on the floor. The gas stove was in the cellar, along with all kinds of junk. One of my mother's sayings was "You'll eat a peck of dirt before you die." She wasn't kidding. Ed Cowley
I was in five different places during the war, three in Windsor two in Ross-on-Wye. The first place in Windsor, not ill -treatment but neglect. We were not wanted; there was not enough room in the house. If you remember the winter of 1939. It was bitterly cold, we never had proper winter clothing. We were only going to school for half days, yet we were sent out every day immediately after breakfast. We walked all over Windsor, the riverside, the railway stations, Peascod Street, if we went into Woolworth's we were kicked out, even the porters in the stations chased us away. I can understand why we were not wanted. We were dirty, cheeky, our sense of honesty was "don't get caught." We were actually bombed out of that place by what I think was the only bomb dropped on Windsor during the war. My second place was better, in retrospect quite a funny situation. The lady was married to a private in the Grenadier Guards, who was a waiter in the officer's mess. He would bring home liquor in small lemonade bottles. When the husband was on duty, the lady would have gentlemen friends call. We would come in and find her in bed with these guys, there was uncle Jock, uncle Peter et al. We developed a taste for liquor, but nobody said anything about it. I was staying there with Teddy Fox a pal from London and another boy whose name now eludes me. I have been back to Windsor but not to see anyone there. Then I was put into a home for children with problems. Ross was a different story, that can wait for another day. Ed
Were we poor? Yes we were. My father's occupation on my birth certificate is listed as stock room cutter. Before the war he worked as a labourer for George Cohen's, sometimes he worked away from home. I enjoyed the times when he wasn't there. He was a drinker, we lived next door to a pub, The Ivy House. My mother worked as a general skivvy. The day we were evacuated she couldn't come to see us off, her boss wouldn't let her have the time off. At school we had free milk, malt, cod liver oil, sometimes we ate at a free food kitchen. Poplar Borough used to give away free disinfectant at one of the Borough work yards. On Saturday mornings some of the more enterprising lads would take their homemade barrows loaded with their neighbour's empty bottles and go to the work's yard and get the free disinfectant. Our homes were damp, vermin infested, we would peel back the wallpaper and see the red bugs scurry away from the light. We knew the insides of the pawnshops; we mostly went to one on Poplar High Street. There would be a queue, mostly housewives, waiting for the place to open on a Monday morning. We often equate poverty with a lack of money and material things, but poverty isn't really a lack of cash is it? It is as much to do with a lack of spirit, a way of life. Throwing money at poor people does not enrich them unless they can change their way of living. Do I sound like Scrooge? My wife is one of eight children born in a small mining town in Scotland, just as poor, in a monetary sense, as we were, however, their life was much richer than ours, due to a different way of life. Comparing the two families shows that money isn't everything in determining poverty. Ed
My sister-in-law's father worked as an inspector for the Water Board. They lived in Shoreditch, and the City of London was in his area of supervision. During the blitz, the police would come and get him to shut off and open water mains for the firemen to operate their pumps and hoses. His wife would physically try to stop him leaving the house crying that he would get killed. He always went, and he never received a scratch. He had a lot of courage to go out and do what he did, yet to look at him you would never have believed it. Ed
While I was evacuated to Windsor, the school was not integrated into the local schools but retained its own identity. We fought with the local boys at all levels as individuals and as gangs. The word would go round the school, and we would meet the locals at a prearranged place and do battle, sticks, stones and, fists. At other times there would be fights between individuals. Being a life-long coward I didn't get into any individual fights but I was dragooned into fighting with the rest of the boys in the gang fights. However, I don't think that the fights were simply as a result of being evacuees. Before the war we were always fighting with the boys from a nearby Catholic school. School playground and street fights were common. My mother's advice was "if you can't hit' em, kick' em." I do not recall any fights between the boys in the school and the local boys in Ross-on-Wye. Perhaps it was because we had very little to do with the locals there. Regarding making friends, being a loner has always been a problem for me but those problems existed before the war. Being evacuated may have worsened the problems, perhaps not.
Ed
Mara wrote: What's a slipper bath? I have never heard of that. Mara
Dear Mara, A lack of knowledge of slipper baths is evidence a sheltered and privileged upbringing. The great unwashed of the East End knew about public slipper baths.
I am sending a copy of a poem that was published in the Evening Standard of October 24th, 1934. A BALLAD OF POPLAR BATHS I've had a bath at Haggerston And one at Tooting, too; I like to sleep in steamy baths, As alligators do. I've splashed about for hours and hours In bathrooms great and small, But the vapour baths at Poplar Are the choicest baths of all.
The Wandsworth baths are empty; At Marylebone they're dead. United, from the Bath club The Colonel Blimps have fled, Towards the east, like pilgrims, They walk and march and crawl To the vapour baths at Poplar, The smartest baths of all.
A soak in liquid incense, And exquisite you feel! While the towels down at Poplar Will be sprayed with eau de nil, Come dowagers of Kensington! Come, Ealing! hear the call! And bathe with us at Poplar, For it's friction time at Poplar And the slipper bathes at Poplar Are the grandest baths of all.
I am not the author nor was I the editor of the Standard, I am just the messenger. I never had a slipper bath in the Poplar baths although I have been to a number of municipal baths in London for the purposes of bathing, swimming, and dancing. I did go once to a municipal bath house in Toronto, but that is another story. Cleanly yours. Ed.
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