more memories of life in Portsmouth ,chocolate,coal ,the Queen, Truancy.

                                          More memories of life in Portsmouth .

                                         Chocolate. Coal. The Queen. Truancy

                         

Of course as life goes on , it can change for the better as , it did for us , my sister Iris , would visit us on a Friday , she would cook us a roast dinner , that was one meal we never missed , Thank you Iris.

It was on the way to the salvation army in Queen Street , that I got run over by a bicycle . I remember I had just came out of an arched way, I was very lucky because behind the bicycle was a big red bus , if the bike had not have got me the bus would have , scratched and bruised , I hobbled across Queen street and had my breakfast .

　

When we got a little bit older , my brother Peter and I would go to Old Portsmouth to the Camber Dock’s , there we watch the cargo boats come in , they would be very busy unloading all sorts of goods , Bananas , Oranges , and our favourite , Chocolate , we would wait , with others , until it all went quiet , then sneak into the store ,( whilst going equipped ), you know , something to cut the sack with , and something to put the Chocolate in , most of it went into my pocket , by the time we got home it was all gone , I think it was raw Chocolate , because it did not taste quite the same as it does today .

Mrs Rene , she lived on the next veranda down , up near the end stairs , she would ask me to go get her a bag of coal ,about 28lb ,I had to go from the Private house flats to the other side of Queen street ,down an ally way to a coal merchant,there he would give me a dirty old sack full of coal dust with the required amount of coal, off I went , for the first 100 yards all was ok ,then the weight would start to get to me, one minute I was carrying it ,the next I was dragging it , then it was all I could do to drag it ,eventually I made it back to the flats , it was so heavy ,you know the song -- "one day at a time sweet Jesus " well in my case it was -- " one step at a time sweet Jesus ,all the way up to Mrs Rene’s flat , I gave the coal to her and she gave me three pennies ,well I started of on that journey looking like a scruffy urchin I came back looking like a chimney sweep .

At the back of Private flats ,there used to be a long row of sheds ,above the sheds there was a long attic ,if you wanted to you could get into any of the sheds , but even as children we had respect for other peoples property, we would only go into the empty shed to get up into the attic, there we would meet and talk about what we will do today ,and play games that boys do , see who could spit the furthest ,play five stones ,and tell stories .

Below is a photograph of my sister Shirley ,with me and my brother Ralph, my sister played a big part in bring us boys up ,she would often come down stairs and look for us ,of course being boys we did not go indoors to easily ,more often then not she use to chase us around the washing lines that was at the back of Private flats ,round and round in and out of the washing lines ,if you grab the washing pole when you run past ,it would fling you into a fast loop ,while my sister was running one way I was running the other ,that worked quite often ,until she got wise ,she would grab hold of my hand when it was on the washing pole , not being able to let go of the pole ,I would run around in circles ,to late I was caught! , up to bed we would go ,she is a great sister ,she always took all in good fun .

　

　

　

　

　

I saw the Queen when she come to Portsmouth Dockyard , she come along the road from the H.M.S. Vernon , she sat in the coach and waved her hand at me , (Well it could of been me ! , ) I was standing on the bottom part of a lamp post , about a meter off the ground , I had a clear view of a very beautiful lady , I don`t think I understood who she really was , there was people on both sides of the road , crowds of them , they were all cheering and waving , so I just copied them .


I was not very good at going to school , often I would play truant with my brother , we would go to a secret place near to Queen street, right behind some large poster boards , there we would dig out a large trench about 10 foot long and about 4 foot wide , we lay sheets of tin across the top and then cover it again with dirt , leaving room at one end for a chimney that vented the oven ,we would often have a fire going , we find mats and other oddments to make ourselves at home ,inside the dugout we made a ledge on one side, lined it with old carpets ,and that was our bench to sit on , back then there was a lot of bombed out buildings so it was easy to find things for our den , even during the summer holidays we spent a lot of our time there.

Just outside the dugout area ,just over a wall was a very large pear tree ,way up in the top branches was this beautiful extra large pear ,it looked all yellow and ripe ,well we had to have it ,I did volunteer to go for it but peter said he would go , so up he went , he made it look easy ,he went from one branch to the other ,up ,and up , and up ,finally he reached it , f--- , bug-- it ,and other explosive words ,coming back down ,he said ,(shouted )! "you can have it !" and trussed it into my hands ,how kind of him I thought , the pear had been pecked by the blackbirds all down the side that faced away from us , the prize had dulled to sadness ,frustrated we went back to the dugout ,we sat there and stared at the pear for a little while wondering what to do with it , finally we stood it on a wall and through stones at it .

After we had been absent for about six weeks , Mum had word from the school that we had not attended , She was very upset , there was talk of six of the best on stage in front of the whole school , well we were not having that , we decided to run away , we set of on two old bikes to go to Peterfield , and live in a haystack., We got as far as Havant , a few miles outside of Portsmouth , It was freezing , my fingers and toes were about to drop off , luckily one of our sisters had a house at Havant , we made our way there , found out she was not in , climbed in through the bathroom window and made ourselves at home , we slept down stairs in front of the gas fire tuck up all warm and comfortable .

Unknown to us the police were informed of our escape and were looking for us , early next morning we decided to head back into Portsmouth , we got as far as the Camber Docks , before we were nabbed by a Bobby ( Policeman , ) on a bicycle , our adventure was over .

We did go back to school on condition that there were to be no caning . When I next got genuinely sick , mum would give me a letter for the teacher to say :- Melvyn has not been to school because he has been very poorly , well I was only sick for a day , but that note was worth at lest to weeks more hooky time to me , I did that on more times than I could count.

I was sat in the classroom one day , the sun was shining , and I was asking myself, what am I doing here , I decided it was time to go , but how was I going to get out of school ? , I could pretend to cry and say I had a head ache , well I can’t pretend , so I lifted the lid of the desk and made it fall on to the top of my head , well that hurt enough to make me cry , the teacher asked what the matter was , so I told him ,"Sir I got a very bad head ache and I feel unwell ", Blake" , he said to my brother Peter ,(who was in the same class as me ), take your brother home and explain it to your mum ", once outside we ran off laughing and went off for the rest of the day playing , making sure we got home at the normal time

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NEEDLESS to say when I eventually left school at 15, I WAS AS THICK AS TWO PLANKS , Knowing what I know now , I would willingly go back to school . Well really , in a sense , I did go back to school, at 15, my sister taught me how to read with DANDY and BENO, comics , then on to the Army ,then knight school, then Collage.    (   more to follow   )