Page 17 - My Story

I know it’s a little bit drafty
But I look at it this way, you see,
If it’s good enough for Nelson
Then it’s quite good enough for me.

As a family we enjoyed Harry Hemsley, a stand-up comic who had four imaginary children with
whom he used to converse, Johnnie, Elsie, Winnie and Horace. Horace, the baby, was almost unintelligible
and had to be interpreted by Winnie, which led to the catch phrase, “What did Horace say?” So, there
were a few outings to the Hackney Empire for what was good, clean and innocent fun.

Denna and I always listened to Children’s Hour on the radio – from 5 – 6 every evening. The host
was Uncle Mac, Derek McCulloch, and there was always a good selection of interesting topics, finishing
up with a serial book. We were introduced to some really good books by Children’s Hour, The Swish of
the Curtain by Pamela Brown and its sequel, Maddy Alone, being memorable.

The radio was on in most homes the way television is now – constantly. I would call in on my
grandmother after school and she would be listening to Mrs. Dale’s Diary, “I am so worried about Jim”
each episode would start. And while we were eating dinner, we had to have The Archers, followed by
Dick Barton, special agent – or maybe Dick Barton came before The Archers because The Archers had
fifteen minutes at 6.45 before the news! Then there was “Workers Playtime” at lunchtime, a variety show
usually broadcast, certainly during the war, from a munitions factory. On this we first heard of Petula
Clark and Ted and Barbara Andrews with their little daughter, Julie!

Being back in London also gave us the fun of Auntie Annie’s sweet shop. Auntie Annie was my
father’s second sister, a mild, sweet person who was a bit behind in most conversations because she was
deaf. She had been married to an abusive husband and my mother always said it was because he hit her
that she was deaf. Auntie Annie was the mother of cousin Myrtle, four or five years older than me who
was and remains a loner, and Myrtle had had an older brother, Louis, who died during the war, I believe
of septicemia. My mother always said he had picked up an infection when forced to pick potatoes,
something children were employed to do in the country and we were therefore never allowed to earn a
little money potato picking, despite my tears and tantrums when all my friends went off to do it. In case
you have no idea what I am talking about, a big piece of farm machinery would go up and down the potato
fields turning over the plants so that the potatoes were left exposed on top of the soil. Children were
employed to pick them up and put them in sacks. I’m not sure about child labour laws at the time –
England had stopped sending little boys up chimneys some fifty years before - and in any case it would all
have been part of the war effort! Anyway, Auntie Annie had a sweet and tobacco shop in the west end
in Tottenham Street, across from the stage door of the Scala Theatre and around Christmas time when
Peter Pan was on at the Scala, which was for about twenty years, all the actors and stage crew would
come to Auntie Annie’s for their sweets and cigarettes and newspapers. She needed extra help then, too
and Stanley and Jackie and I would take it in turn to go and “help”.

Something else that Denna and I did every year was to go and see Robert Atkins production of “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Open-Air Theatre in Regent’s Park. Every year it was a little different,
always magical and although I can remember it being sometimes cold, we were never rained on.

We survived the Upper Fourth and started the Lower Fifth and I was voted House Captain for
Florence House. The girls voted for House Captains. Later, when I might have been a school prefect, the
votes came from the teachers and I never made it! We were also invited to audition for the school
production of “As You Like It” which I did and was cast as Rosalind. Best friend Denna was the Duke, I
think the banished one who is Rosalind’s father. A very pretty girl called Marie played Celia and I think
we were good together and Josephine Barbanel, who became head of the Stepney Jewish School was cast
as Jacques. Marie, now living in Israel and called Yonit, pops up now and again in my life, she and her
husband were at our golden wedding celebration in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and she has remained a really
gentle, nice person with a good sense of humour. I hear about Josephine, who sadly died recently, from
my cousin Michael Whine and we send messages to each other but have never met since our schooldays.
I don’t know how good or bad the play was. Peoples’ older sisters said we’d done a good job, the family,

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