From surgical boot to a stage clog

My cousin Tommy Harrington contracted polio as a child. He survived the illness but,like many others he ended with one leg shorter than the other.  The only remedy then was the surgical boot, a contraption consisting of a brace on the longer leg and a heavy boot with a thick sole on the shorter.  Like most children fitted with the boot Tommy hated it. He knew that it helped with his walking but it made him stand out from the other children. Also at this time in the early 1900s children whose limbs had been damaged by polio were "cripples" and rarely got beyond that either in description or aspiration.

Tommy Harrington would not accept that. He developed a liking for music possibly derived and perhaps learned from his grandfather Alphons Eder, a street musician,  how  to play the accordion and concertina. As well as being a natural musician, never learning to read music, he began writing comic songs and performing them for anyone who would listen.

Later he decided to go on the stage, developing a yodelling style of singing and dressed in his own version of a Dutch costume. He later said that the costume was inspired by wanting to cover his surgical boot so baggy trousers did that well.. Eventually he was able to have some special boots made which resembled wooden clogs, which he wore to the end of his stage career.

He appeared on the Music Halls which were still popular and numerous in those days, recorded many of his songs and even had hits, such as they were then.  I told much of this in a previous blog. I am reminded that he died twenty-five years ago but you will still find mention of him on the internet.  By today's standards a "celebrity".

A day at the Races

Peter McKie was a chair-maker and although much of

his trade was in the repair of chairs he also manufactured a folding stool, much like those sold to anglers today. Working from a shed in the back yard of the house where they lived in Pennington Street, Stepney there was no room to carry large stocks apart from the lack of capital for that.  The chairs were usually sold wholesale to market traders but at least once a year Peter would build up a stock, load up the small pony and cart that he owned and would go off to the races to sell them there.
Normally he would take one of his older sons with him but one year, 1905,  he allowed one of the younger ones, Ernie, to go along, together with 14 year old Joe.  What an adventure that was as young Ernie had never been far from the house before.  Pennington Street, to Tattenham Corner, Epsom was in the region of 17 to 18 miles by road.  The pony was not that young and although Ernie was allowed to ride on the cart from time to time, the pace was still a walking one and the journey took almost half a day to accomplish.
Over Tower Bridge and almost into “Indian territory” as it were for Ernie, he had never been on this side of the river before and to many east enders Bermondsey was almost a foreign country.  Along New Kent Road to Camberwell, probably places he had never previously heard of and then more new experiences as they got out through Streatham which was still effectively in the countryside in those days.
Coping with the early morning traffic with a pony and cart  was not the problem that it would be today.  Although there were quite a few manufacturers of cars in Britain by 1905, there were still not that many motorised vehicles on the road, and the many of them could not go a great deal faster than the much larger number horse-drawn carts, drays, traps and the like which clogged the main roads in and out of London.
Hills were avoided as much as they could, to save the old pony's strength for the long walk that he was no more used to than the boys were.  On to Mitcham a small village then where they stopped to breakfast on the sandwiches they had brought with them, having been on the road already for nearly three hours.  Fortunately for the two young boys, the pubs along the way were not open at that time of day, otherwise, perchance they would not have reached their destination.  On through Sutton and Banstead still no more than country villages at this time so more new experiences for young Ernie.  Finally to Tattenham Corner on the Epsom Downs where the fairground had been set up for the race meeting.  Ernie had not seen such a large open space before in his life.  There were parks near were they lived, but nothing the size of Epsom downs, rolling away into the distance.
Tattenham Corner also had its own railway station used by many of the Londoners who came down for a day at the races, so a good spot to catch likely customers for the chairs.  The Epsom race meetings usually lasted about a week, but Peter rarely had enough stock to take with him to justify staying for more than one day,
Having set off early in the morning they were there in good time for the first of the day trippers to arrive on the special trains which operated on race days  They did a good trade and sold most of the chairs by the time that racing had started and Ernie fully expected that they would then soon be starting for home.  It was not to be.  Peter “liked a drink”, as they say, so he was off to the bar tents with the takings leaving the two boys to look after the pony and cart.  They could hear all the excitement of the fairground, the steam organ on the roundabouts, the cries of the hucksters and screams of the girls on the ghost train.  Worse still they could catch the aromas from the food stalls,   They would have been able to see the helter skelter and some of the high rides and would have wanted to sample them, supposing they had some money, but they dare not disobey their father and remained where they were told.  They passed the time watching the racegoers toing and froing near the rails and having some inkling of the thrill of the betting and the racing, although they heard but could not see the horses thundering round the bend at Tattenham corner.
Peter did not return until racing was over for the day or all the takings had gone, whichever came first, Ernie didn’t know.  Fortunately in those days, being drunk in charge of a horse was not an offence, however Peter still had no intention of leaving.  Waiting until the crowds had thinned, he sent the two boys to scour the grounds for any of the chairs which may have been abandoned.  They came back with a reasonable number, only to find Peter fast asleep in the back of the cart and would not be roused.  Joe did not think that he was able to find their way back to Pennington Street so they had no alternative but to unhitch the pony and feed him and then make themselves a bed under the cart to wait until morning.
At first light they were on their way again, with all three riding in the cart this time.  Having spent the night on the ground in the open, which he had not experienced before, for Ernie, the shine on the adventure had worn off, so the return journey was not as exciting for him as the outward one had been.
There was also the foreboding of the reaction of their mother when Peter returned home without the profits that she would have been anticipating to provide for the family in the coming weeks.  Being the sort of person that she was she would lay some of the blame at the door of the 15 year old Joe, boys of that age being regarded as adult in those days. and regularly worked with his father.  Jessie McKie was a martinet, by any measure of the word, but try as she did to control her wayward husband's drinking habits, she was unsuccessful.  This was to be the last visit to Epsom downs.  At the time of the Derby the following year, Peter having been ill in the St. George in the East Infirmary died there three weeks before the race.

When the Devil came to Wapping on Christmas Eve

When the Devil came to Wapping on Christmas Eve

Christmas around again and all is merry and bright, but there have always been some who think that it needs  a little bit of something different.

Before the war we lived in Wapping and were part of the fairly large Catholic community so that Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve was quite a large event.  The church was full to overflowing and the the Parish Drum and Fife band played for the carols. After Mass there was the usual chinwagging outside the church before the congregation started to wend their way home to try the mince pies and the crackling off the roast pork.

We lived in a flat on the top floor of a building just down the road from the church so many of the congregation passed by as they went home.

My older brother Tom, about 16 or 17 at the time, a teenager but they weren't called that then, always good for a laugh, had acquired a cows skull, I know not from where, as cows head was not a common dish on east end tables.  So he dashed home immediately after the Mass and and put a lighted candle inside the skull and dangled it on a stick just like a fishing rod out of the window just as they first passers by approached.  He had tipped off his mate Leslie Munns about this and Leslie was supposed to just point it out as he came along.  Leslie though was as big a wag as Tom, he had a deformed back and used to do impressions of the Hunchback of Notre Dame so he did his performance whilst pointing out the skull floating mysteriously in the air.

 Difficult to imagine these days that anyone would be frightened by such a thing, but there was complete pandemonium in the street for some considerable time. It was not clear if it was the antics of Lesie or the skull which was more to blame, but one woman actually fainted and others ran screaming back to the church for protection.  Fortunately the candle soon blew out and the skull disappeared from sight so that those who had not seen it were doubtful that it had ever been there.

Tommy opined to me many years later that there must have been quite a few guilty consciences around that night for so many to imagine that the Devil had come to get them on Christmas Eve. 

A Christmas Raffle with a difference

The Pig Raffle

Between the two world wars, the local branch of the Transport and General Workers Union, of which Ernie (my Dad) was the Chairman, used to have a raffle at Christmas time to provide funds for a party for the members children.
Most years the prizes were the usual ones of bottles and boxes and so on. One year, Ernie had the bright idea of having a “pig raffle”, having in mind acquiring a piglet as the prize. “Something different” he thought. So he ordered a piglet from one of his country cousin connections.
By this time Ernie was working for the Stepney Borough Council in the Engineers Department and responsible for pay, so that apart from the members of his trade union branch he knew most of the workforce.
Three weeks before Christmas he received a phone call from the Station Master at Stratford (east London that is not the birthplace of Shakespeare) asking if he was expecting a pig.
“Yes”
“Have you got a horse and cart ?”
“No”
“Well I don't know how you're are going to get this bloody great thing home then. It took three of my blokes to get it out of the luggage van and I want it moved out of my office quick smart”
Naturally he thought that the Station Master, whom he knew, was exaggeration, so he just took the underground along to Stratford after work to collect the pig. He was still only in his thirties, and whilst no weightlifter he thought he could manage to carry a piglet home under his arm.
This was not to be. When he saw the pig sprawled on the floor of the Station Master's office he could barely believe his eyes. Afterwards he insisted that the beast was at least six foot long and weighed close to two hundred weight (two sacks of coal or over 100 kilos) He just did not know how he was going to get the animal from Stratford to Stepney and already it was gone six oclock in the evening and the Station master was pressing to know when he was going to get his office back.
He not only had to get his prize back to Wapping he would need to have it cut up and he knew that he woulde not be able to do that by himself. Whilst he knew the Stratford Station Master, he knew no one else in the vicinity that he caould call on for help, so he had no alternative but to go home and rustle up some help from there.
These days of course it would be no big deal, a quick phone call to a friend or relative and the cavalry would arrive. But folk didn't have phones at home in those days, so back on the train to Aldgate East, change and then down to Wapping. At home, just time for a cup of tea and explain to his family what was going on and out again. Mum, of course had the solution to one of the problems; ask the butcher in Watney Street to cut up the carcass in exchange for some of the cuts, after all it sounded as though there was going to be too much for the raffle anyway.
Eldest son Ernie was dispatched to Watney Street to make the arrangements with the butcher and now to find transport. Wapping was a purely residential area, there were few shops and no market so there were no costermongers living near by from whom to borrow a barrow. There was no alternative but to use a pram and hope that it could manage the weight. Fortunately on the ground floor of the buildings was a family which had had twins and still owned a larger perambulator, so this was borrowed and then the long walk from Wapping up to Stratford Railway Station. The distance was over four miles, at the end of a working day for a 5 foot two inches man who was still not convinced that the pram was going to take the weight of this enormous beast. He had visions of having to cut the damn thing in half and make two journeys, but he hadn't brought a knife let alone a saw with him. Nothing to do but to press on, taking it in turns with son Tom and a neighbour Dan Connolly, they pushed the pram all the way to Stratford resisting the temptation to go into a single pub on the way.
However, all the anxiety on that score was unnecessary. Perhaps the weight was not as much as he had thought, but with the assistance of a porter so there was one person on each corner, the pig was laid lengthways on the pram, not too much hanging over the ends and off they went to Watney Street, a much shorter distance and in the hope that the butcher was amenable. The pram survived the journey, despite much of the way being along cobbled roads- they don't

make prams like that any more.
The Watney Street butcher was quite happy with the proposed arrangement to cut up the carcass and keep it in his cold room until the day of the raffle.
The raffle was a big success with far more prizes than usual and despite urgings in later years, this was to be the one and only pig raffle.