A late purchase of some Brie and we glide from the station. In the distance we see the exquisite Château Sarat. How can people live in such luxury, while my parents are eating the furniture. Never mind, I’ll be rich one day, and if possible the day after that as well. We are at sea level, but none is getting in. What? We are not going to stop in Paris. This is a breach of the Geneva Convention.
“The rotten bastards,” says Len, who was looking forward to Paris, and is now looking back at it. Never mind, there’ll be another war. Before that we must open the champagne! We retire to the corridor. Like barbarians we shake the living daylights out of the bottle. This was the way Clark Gable opened it in San Francisco. We swig from the bottle and soon we aren’t missing Paris at all. We are jolted awake as the train suddenly screeches to a halt. Amiens. My God, we are reinforcements for World War One. “Oh,” says Len, “that stuff.” I didn’t know he’d had a stuff, he must have done it while I was asleep.
The RTO Sergeant is wobbling down the corridors: “Calais in two hours.” he calls. I must wash and brush up. Calais, one of the Sunk Ports.
“Have you ever seen the statue of the Burghers in Calais?” says Len.
“No, I’m waiting till they make the film.”
A last coffee in the Buffet car. The waiters are breathing a sigh that the culinary barbarians are leaving. But what bad cooks the English are — they even burnt Joan of Arc.
Still miles from Calais, yet the idiot Sergeants are getting their luggage down. Some are even standing at the door. In their tiny minds they think they’ll get there quicker. Why don’t they stand near a graveyard?
Our train is slowing. The canvas is grey, a spaghetti of railway lines, black industrial complexes, many of them bombed skeletons. A mess of railway sidings, rolling stock, here and there a burnt-out tanker; slower and slower and then in the middle of a sea of points, we are told, “All out!” Waiting in the grey gloom are three RTO Sergeants, all brass, bianco and bullshit. We split into two groups. “NCOs this way please.” (PLEASE???) We two-step over a hundred yards of tracks. NO. 4 TRANSIT CAMP says the sign, and who are we to argue. “In here, gentlemen,” (GENTLEMEN?) The Sergeant shows us into a Nissen hut. Beds and an iron stove.
“Make yourselves comfortable,” he says.
“How?” I say.
We are to report to the Camp Office for documentation. “It says here you’re a bombardier,” says a clerk.
“Yes, I’m a bombardier.”
“You’ve got sergeant’s stripes on.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s a tertiary appointment awaiting ratification through G5 Documentation.” That floored him. He stamped my Travel Warrant and we were free from the tyranny of twits.
The Hotel de Ville — Where British Tea and Buns held sway that Golden October day
Well, you see the postcard. Well, it’s much bigger in fact. A walk through the streets of Calais wasn’t exactly enervating, grey; rather like Catford on a good day. The Hotel de Ville is now Le NAAFI. We have le tea and le beans on le toast. I keep an eye open for any lads from le 19 Battery, it would be nice to see Driver Kidgell or Gunner Edgington; but no, 19 Battery are all in Holland and at this moment possibly all knee trembling in doorways. We finish le meal and partons pour le Camp. Army or not, bed is lovely, even though it’s made of wood with springs missing. A goodnight gesture as Len stokes up the fire. As I doze off, I hear rain falling. It will do le garden good.
LAST LEG OF THE JOURNEY…
REVEILLE 0600
BREAKFAST 0700
PARADE 0830
EMBARK 0900-1000
It all sounds reasonable, no need to see a solicitor after all. The channel steamer SS Appalling (the name of the ship has been changed to protect the innocent) is waiting. A tiny almost unnoticeable sign says LIAP PARTY NO. 26 ASSEMBLE HERE. We’ll never do it, it’s much too small to stand on. We move slowly up the gangplank like shuffling penguins. I’m humping a kitbag, big pack and trumpet case. The kitbag is vital, it contains all the hoarded underwear that my mother has promised will put me on the road to success in civvy street. And I will never be taken short. The officers in first class look down at our huddled mass from the top deck. “There’s one thing we’ve got over them, Len, we can see right up their noses.” A clatter of donkey engines and French steam; hawsers plummet into the waters. Cries of yo, ho, ho, and the ship slips from the quay into the muddy waters of Calais harbour, but soon we are free from the muddy French waters and out into the pure English Channel and its muddy waters. It’s very choppy; ere long the first victims are starting to retch. Whereas other ranks are seasick, officers only have Mal-de-Mer, as befits the King’s commission. Sleek white gulls glide alongside. In their total freedom, we must look like a bunch of caged monkeys. It’s getting rougher; three green men are throwing up at the rail. Thank God for gravity.
Landlords Ahoy!
Frightening Folkestone on the Kardboard Kow! The golden seaport hove into view; I would rather have viewed into Hove. It’s raining, and doing the gardens good. We are close to the quay.
“It looks so bloody foreboding,” Len says. “I think I’ll go back.”
I remind him that his dear little wife is at this moment panting on her bed with the heating turned up and drinking boiling Horlicks.
The customs are pretty hot. “Read that, please.” I am handed a foolscap sheet of writing.
“Very good,” I say.
“Have you anything to declare?”
I declare that the war is over. He’s not satisfied. What have I got in the case. It’s a trumpet. Can he see it. He opens the case. Where did I buy this? In London. Have I got a receipt? Yes. Where is it? It’s in an envelope in a drawer in my mother’s dressing-table in Reigate.
He hums and haws, he’s as stupid as a pissed parrot. “Empty your kitbag.” I pour out a sea of my second-hand underwear. He turns it over and over. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The contents.” He thinks it’s the wrapping for something. Why have I got so many underpants? I tell him of my mother’s forecast of the coming world shortage that will* hit England soon. He is now pretty pissed off. OK. He makes a yellow chalk mark on everything. Next to me he finds a poor squaddie with a bottle of whisky. “You’ll have to pay One Pound Ten Shillings on that,” he says with malice aforethought.
“Oh no I won’t,” says the squaddie.
“Than I’ll have to confiscate it.”
The squaddie opens the bottle and hands it round to us. With devilish glee we help lower the level to halfway, then the squaddie puts the bottle to his lips and drains it. The customs officer is in a frenzy, says to an MP, “Arrest that man.”
The M P wants to know why.
“Drunkenness,” he says.
“He’s not drunk,” says the M P.
“Wait,” says the customs officer.
From the quay to the station, we are now free of military encumbrances. Just for the hell of it we go into a little teashop in the high road. It’s very quiet. Three middle-aged ladies are serving.
“Tea, love?” says one in black with a little white apron.
“Yes, tea love.” That, and a slice of fruit cake that tastes like sawdust. The sugar is rationed to two lumps. The war isn’t quite over yet. We pay tenpence. Folkestone station and the 11.40 train to Charing Cross. London is as I left it -black, grimy, rainy but holes in the terraces where bombs have fallen. Len and I split.
“See you in four weeks’ time, two stone lighter and skint,” he says.
I buy my first English newspapers for two years. The Daily Herald, the Daily Mail, the Express, the Mirror, the News Chronicle. I go straight for my beloved Beachcomber and find that Justice Cocklecarrot and the Red Bearded Dwarfs are still in court. He is sentencing a Mrs Grotts for repeatedly pushing the Dwarfs into people’s halls.
From Charing Cross I take the tube to Archway. Soon I am knocking on the door of 31 St John’s Way. A
surprise for Mrs Edgington, she doesn’t know I’m coming.
“Oh Spike,” she’s drying her hands. “What are you doing here?”
I tell her I’m doing leave here.
“When are you going back?”
Can I come in first? Tea, would I like some tea. Ah! at last an English cup of tea and a dog biscuit. (JOKE) I explain my accommodation difficulty. What is the difficulty? Accommodation. Yes, I can stay here. “You can sleep in the basement.” Mr Edgington’s not in, he’s gone out to get a paper. Yes, he’s well. Son Doug? He’s been called up. The Army. Did I know Harry was getting married on leave? He’s been caught at the customs with some material he’d bought for Peg’s wedding dress and the bastards have given him detention. Mr Edgington is back. Ah Spike. “When are you going back?” He’s tall, thin, at one-time handsome. An ex-Guards Sergeant from World War One, he was badly gassed in France. He is in receipt of a small war pension. Alas he smokes, it will do for him one day, as it would his youngest son Doug…I dump my gear in the basement. Would I like some lunch? Toad-in-the-hole? Lovely grub. I set myself up in the basement. There’s a coal fire, but remember it’s rationed! Best not light it until the evening.
Leading question. Can Mrs Edgington see to find room for Sergeant Betty Cranky for a day or so? Yes, there’s Doug’s bedroom going spare. I tell her, good, because I’m going spare. I phone Betty: Hello Betty, knickers and boobs, can she get up with knickers and boobs this week knickers and boobs? Yes, she can, knickers and boobs.
“Mrs Edgington, can I have egg and chips for tea?” I light the coal fire. Mrs Edgington has lent me Doug’s ‘wireless’, a little Bakelite Echo set. These were the days of quiet broadcasting — Christopher Stone playing gramophone records in steady measured tones, unlike the plastic arse-screaming hyped-up disc jockeys with crappy jokes, who get housewives so hyped up with fast mindless chatter and ghetto-blasting records that they are all on Valium. I spent the afternoon reading the papers and listening to long-forgotten programmes. Sid Dean and his band are broadcasting live from a tea dance in Brighton. How very very nice. The News! Alvar Liddell, ace broadcaster and Master of Wireless is telling us in profound adenoidal tones that Mr Attlee, the Prime Monster, with all the impact of sponge on marble, is meeting with the Soviet Ambassador, where they are promising each other there will never be another war, and babies are found under bushes. Churchill is at home in Chartwell doing the kitchen. Henry Hall has been in a car crash in the key of E flat. Woman’s Hour: how to knit socks under water, and hints on how to make the best of rationed food (eat it).
I am staring into the glowing coals, sometimes I stare into the glowing wallpaper or the glowing lino. I decide to take my legs for a walk before supper. Do I want the door key? It’s where no burglar can find it, on a string in the letterbox. I’m wearing my red and blue Artillery forage cap. In the London gloom it looks like my head’s on fire. I stroll to the Archway and its grumbling grey traffic. The evening is lit with those ghastly green sodium lights that make the English look like a race of seasick Draculas. Down Holloway Road, remembering that it was down here Edward Lear was born. I stop to see what the shops have to offer. Displays of crappy furniture, boasting that you can see the ‘natural grain of the cardboard’. I go down to the Seven Sisters Road. None of the sisters show up, so I come back. I pass Hercules Street, with not a person in it weighing more than ten stone. Manor Garden, Alexander Road, Landseer Road; the last two would turn in their graves to see what the names had been used for. Giesbach Road? Who chooses them? What grey, dull, mindless idiots sit and debate these improbable street names, streets that should be called Grotty Road, Dog Shit Street, Crappy Avenue, Terrible Building Road, Who-in-their-right-mind-built-these-Mansions. Mind you, it’s got worse since. Ah! this is better. The fish and chip shop. A cheery fat sweating man with six hairs serves me. “Three pieces of rock salmon and a penn’orth o’chips.” He sees my medal ribbons.
“‘ello son, you bin in trouble?”
Yes, I said, and her father’s after me.
Back at number thirty, I pull the string on the key.
“Is that you Spike?” Mrs Edgington in her nightie, calls from the top of the stairs.
“Yes, would you like some fish and chips?” No, they’ve had their supper. Remember to bolt the door, but not the food. I say OK.
“If you want a cup of tea it’s all there.” Ta. It’s 8 o’clock. They go to bed early to save electricity and heating. It’s not been an easy war for the working classes. I lie in bed eating fish and chips and sipping tea. The fire glows on to the walls. Geraldo and his band are sparkling on the radio, and Dorothy Carless is Thanking her dear for that lovely weekend, reminding me I myself have a very weak end.
Hitler is dead, and I am alive. I cannot understand it. He had so much going for him. Like the Red Army. I fall asleep to the glow of the dying fire, or am I dying to fire by the glow of sleep? It all depends on the size.
Leave: Day 1
I awake to the sound of buses. I can tell by the tyres on wet streets. It’s raining. I am wearing my new pyjamas, made from sheets by a Maddaloni tailor and dyed by the local laundry. I thought they would match my eyes.
“You awake, Spike?” Mrs Edgington at the door. “Cup of tea.” She screams! “What’s the matter with your face, Spike?”
I say “Everything. Why?”
“You’ve got blue all over it.” Does it match my eyes? Yes. It’s off my bloody pyjamas. It’s all over my body, now my body matches my eyes, and my eyes match the sheets. I spend the morning washing Mrs E’s sheets, and finally get it off my body with a loofah. I boil the pyjamas in the copper and now they look like an old Variety backdrop for G. H. Elliot’s act.
Porridge? Yes, Mrs Edgington.
“Harry loves porridge. I always gave it to the boys before they went to work. It’s very good for you, gives you a good lining to your stomach.”
Mr Edgington had had his breakfast earlier. “I’m an early riser, as soon as my eyes are open I have to get up.” He’s so right, it’s silly to get up with your eyes closed.
Down in the basement I tidy up, and something that is never done, I tidy down and sideways — it’s silly to miss those areas. I polish my boots and my appalling brown bulging civvy shoes that weigh eighteen pounds each.
The doorbell. “It’s Betty,” said Mrs E.
“No it isn’t, it’s the door bell.”
There she is in her smart WAAF uniform, bright brass buttons, her WAAF mascara and WAAF lipstick. Has she brought her knickers and boobs? From the right, number one! two! We all sit round the Edgingtons’ kitchen table and have ‘a nice cup of tea’. Mrs E tells of the bombin’, the doodle bugs, the incendries, and that married woman over the road. I’ll take Betty up to the West End. There’s Variety at the Met Edgware Road. Max Miller and the wonderful Wilson, Keppel and Betty. No words can describe the atmosphere of that bygone age that started in 1850 and died in the 1950s. Betty and I are in the front row. Max spots me. “‘Ello son, we got a soldier ‘ere back from the war? That the wife? On leave are you? Wot are you doin’ ‘ere then?” It’s Lyons Corner House beans on toast.
Back home. “That you Spike?” Yes. “Don’t forget to bolt the door.” Betty and I go down to the basement. Max Miller was right…what were we doing there?
I awake at Mrs Edgington bringing me in tea. “Bet is in the kitchen. Did you have a nice time in London?” Yes.
Betty has to return to duty; her knickers and knockers are leaving at midday. I see her to the tube, we’ll meet for further things later. She is swallowed up by the descending stairs.
The Great Amnesia
I have a diary. It says: Stayed Edgingtons. Stayed Beryl. Stayed Folks. But I can’t remember — so I searched for Beryl — Success — I found Beryl — she remembered, but won’t charge me.
Gunner Milligan Traces Beryl Southby Now Mrs Smith!
Yes! 40 years on! I managed to get her on the phone. Did she remember me? Yes, I’d never stopped mo
lesting her.
ME: Beryl, did I see you when I came on leave?
BERYL: Yes.
ME: Did I come and stay at your place?
BERYL: Yes.
ME: Oh. Er, what did we do?
BERYL: You came and stayed with me and my mum and dad at Anerley.
ME: What did we do?
BERYL: (laughing) Don’t you remember?
ME: No my mind’s a blank.
BERYL: Well you stayed with us, and we sort of went various places.
ME: Where?
BERYL: Well, I was singing at the Ballroom in Anerley and you came and saw me.
ME: Did we go up to London?
BERYL: Yes, you took me to the pictures in Leicester Square.
ME: Did I take you anywhere to eat?
BERYL: Yes, we went to the Corner House.
ME: How long did I stay with you?
BERYL: About a week or ten days.
ME: Did I tell you I was coming on leave?
BERYL: No you devil, you never told anybody when you were arriving or leaving. The day you arrived I was with my dad, you know I was a bit of a tomboy, well, I was in the garage helping dad under a car. I was covered in grease, I looked terrible.
ME: Nonsense, you are a very pretty girl.
BERYL: No I’m not.
ME: No, no, you weren’t pretty. You were better, you were different. You always reminded me of the girls in Walt Disney full-length cartoons. BERYL: I remember you took me to see a bloke in Streatham.
ME: That was Jack Blanks…he was a drummer.
BERYL: It was a road off Streatham High Street.
ME: Yes, that was Jack Blanks, he was a drummer…I remember I went to a dance where he was playing. I know someone was with me. Was it you?
BERYL: It could have been. I remember you went to Chappell’s.
ME: Great, yes, I went to buy a trumpet.
BERYL: Yes, you were playing this trumpet in the shop and the manager asked you if you would go down stairs and try it.