Life before me
I was born on 28th
March 1945 – just in time to miss the bulk of the Second World War. I
was always told that my birth marked the cessation of the German V
weapon attacks on England. Reputedly the last V2 fell on 27th
March and the last V1 on 29th March. However, from my
investigations it seems that this information is true. Maybe Hitler
thought that I would reap enough damage without him joining in. Looking
back on the history of the 20th Century and how my parents
lived through the bulk of it, it seems that they had very hard lives
with little spare money. However, neither of these facts was apparent to
me in my youth because my parents were good honest hard working folk
that came from a poor background and would die if they ever showed it.
I am know in the
family for being able to place events in their time – Mother-in-law
often asks me to tell her when an event took place. I seem to be able to
relate events to times quite easily. However, I am useless at birthdays
except for my immediate family, hence at this time I cannot give you
exact birthdays for Charlie, Ivy or indeed my brother Charlieboy. Some
time on the Internet should resolve that but for the moment let us stay
with the facts that i do know. Dad was born in November (or was it
October) 1905. Mum was born in February 1910 and brother Charlie was
born in October (or was it November) 1935 so was just short of 10 years
older than me. Alfred Charles
Pennington
Dad always told me
that he was brought up in Bermondsey, which tied in with everything I
knew as I visited relations. One day whilst driving him and Mum over to
our house in Gidea Park, we were coming up the Barking Road and Dad
suddenly says – I used to live in that Street. Well it shook me so we
drove up there to see. It turned out that Dad was sent to live with an
Aunt when his Mum ran out of room for all the children at home. Then
later on, when I received my inheritance from Elsie Ellerby, the family
tree showed that he was actually born in Walthamstow.
He did live most of
his childhood and early adult life in Bermondsey and went to what was,
and still is, one of the best schools in South London. He was very proud
of the fact that he won a scholarship to St Olave’s Grammar School which
at that time and until recently was situated on the south end of Tower
Bridge. Remember that this was in the middle of the 1st World
War when times in Bermondsey were extreme to say the least. Little money
and the lack of men folk off at the war with a great chance of not
returning made life extremely difficult and unsettled.
I don’t know either
of my father’s parents and have no names for them. As I understand it,
his mum married Dad’s father – known to me as a Ship’s Steward by trade.
After a separation – I assume that he ran off and never came back
because a normal divorce would not have been possible at that time.
There was a story in the family that Pennington was not the birth name
of the children – that Dad’s mother gave the children the name of the 2nd
husband. However, I have seen Dad’s birth certificate and he was born a
Pennington. I must have seen the rest of the names but I can’t remember
them. Also, I don’t know when the separation came in the family.
I do know that he
only had one white shirt for school and that this shirt had to be washed
and dried every evening for the next day. Sometime during his time at
school during the 1st WW, he was caught out during a bombing
raid and was blown over a fence. With a broken back, he was unable to get
help and lay there for 2 days until he was found. This resulted in him
being hospitalised for some time. During that time, his teachers took
turns in visiting him and continuing his education. This education was
first class and I never found my Dad wanting in terms of understanding
or knowledge. However, the incident left him with a pronounced stutter
which was with him for the rest of his life. It only became apparent
when he was under stress. This, unfortunately, had a serious effect on
his life once he was at work.
Leaving school at
15, he went to work at The Royal exchange Insurance company in the Royal
exchange Building opposite the Bank of England. Is skill at figures was
of great benefit to him but the crunch came when the ‘new fangled’
telephone was installed. Unable to speak on the telephone due to his
stutter, in the way of those times, he was sacked. As all offices were
converting to the phone, Dad realised that his options were limited and
he went to work in a factory, ending up at the Cowes rubber goods
factory opposite Streatham Common.
Dad was one of four
children to my knowledge although there may have been some child deaths
as was common in those times. Aunt Cis (Cicely I assume), Aunt Mil
(either Millicent or Amelia, I am not sure) and Uncle Frank were the
sisters and brother that I knew. Aunt Cis lived in Bermondsey all the
time I knew here, firstly in a ‘tenement’ in The Jamaica Road and then
in a rather nice modern flat in Southwark Park Road. Married to George,
she had two children –Georgie-boy and ??. Aunt Mil moved out of an even
worse house in Bermondsey to a council flat on Denmark Hill – married to
Tim, she also had two children, Tim and Kathy. Incidentally, Kathy ended
up living not far from us at Park Side in Romford. Lastly, Uncle Frank
always lived in New Cross when I knew him. He seemed to be the well to
do one of the family as he had a rather nice semi in St. Donatt’s Road,
backing onto the Goldsmith College sports field. He was a district
councillor in Deptford and, as became apparent at his funeral in around
1967, he was a long time Freemason. Uncle Frank was married twice. I
only knew the second wife – Aunt May. He had one son from the first
marriage – Terry, and Aunt May brought Colin along with her. He
subsequently hyphenated his name to Colin Pennington-whatever-can’t
remember.
I know that he was a
keen motorcyclist and a very keen cricketer. He was a fan of football
and supported both Milwall and Charlton often went to see their home
matches. I remember being very pleased that he lived long enough to see
both teams in the then 1st Division. Dad wasn’t one for
hobbies. He was very keen on music – mostly 30’s bands. I have a story
about that later. He read the Daily Mail for all the time that I knew
about. He was very keen on crosswords, Ellery Queen and Earle Stanley
Gardner (Perry Mason) mystery novels.
His stutter never
really cleared and he found both that and his inability to do some
things – like woodwork, extremely frustrating. This frustration came out
in one main way which would be seen by most as a bad temper. This is
what I thought as a child but realised in later years that if the
frustrations were out of his life, he was a very peaceful person. Ivy Lilian
Pennington
Ivy lived almost all
he life in or around Streatham. She was born in 1905 in a part of
Streatham known as Lonesome – a strange area between Streatham and
Mitcham. She had lots of brothers and sisters. I know more about Mum
than Dad purely because of the death of Elsie Ellerby, who turned out to
be Mum’s Dad’s sister. From that I got a full family tree, although I
seem to have lost it for now. Like with my Dad, I never knew my
Grandmother or even her name. I did know my maternal Grandfather – one
Sylvanus Webster. He was born in Kettering and was reputed to have run
away to join a circus as a youth. Although this sounds unlikely,
Sylvanus actually made a living during the early part of the 20th
Century by playing ‘The Glasses’ on liners. ‘The Glasses’ are a line of
high quality drinking glasses filled with varying quantities of water
and tuned so that they can be played like a Xylophone. This appears to
have come to an end when, as a result of an argument with his wife, she
is reputed to have smashed the glasses!
Two facts I know
about Mum from her early days are that she both left school and started
smoking at 14 in 1924. She started out life as a waitress – a job she
returned to quite often in her life. One of her waitressing jobs was as
a respected ‘Nippy’ at a Lyons Corner House although I do not know which
one she worked at.
Mum met Dad sometime
before 1934 when she was working at a Café at the top of Greyhound Lane
in Streatham when my Dad was working at Cowes which was just 200 yards
down the Croydon road from the Café. That Café was still there when we
last visited that part of Streatham in the late ‘90s.
Ivy’s enduring
passion was knitting. She was never seen without needles in close
company. Not only was she prolific but she was also very talented,
providing Dad was there to advise on the more complicated pattern
instructions. Mum’s lack of education meant that she only every did what
would be called menial jobs nowadays but was an extremely hard worker.
Often she had two jobs, one of which would be an evening job so she had
a hard life one way and another.
I now know more
about Mum’s family because I have recently been presented with a full
family tree going back to 1850. However, I may k4now the names but I
don’t know a lot of the details. For now, I will keep to what I knew
prior to getting this information. For some reason, none of my Mum’s
relations ever came to our house with the exception of Grandad and Uncle
Stan. I don’t remember Grandad coming in his later years and I now know
that he died on my birthday in 1962 – a fact I have no memories of at
all, which I find difficult to understand. Uncle Stan used to call in
every Saturday evening but I think he ran some sort of purchasing club
so called in for a weekly payment. In addition to Stan, I knew Mum’s
four sisters – Alice, Vi, Dolly (Dol) and Kath. Alice lived four doors
down from Vi one the eastern end of Streatham near my school. I remember
Aunt Vi’s house still having gas lighting – something that had gon in
our house years earlier. Kath (I never knew her full name so was it
Kathrine or Kathleen?) was
always a mystery. She lived somewhere in London but I never knew where
and I think I only met her a few times. Aunty Dol’s husband worked for a
national newspaper and she always had a little bit more money than any
of the others. My first memories of here are of her living in a communal
building in Earlsfield. She then moved to a council house in Putney Vale
and finally to her own house in Worcester Park. There was an Uncle Sid
but I almost never met him and know nothing of him. It turned out to be
a more extensive family than I knew, but more of that later.
.
|