More memories and making money at Portsmouth harbour station and school

More memories and making money at Portsmouth harbour station.

And of course School .



this is me Melvyn ,and my brother Peter we are about 4 years old


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On other occasions to earn some pennies we used to get a big wooden box, and a set of pram wheels
to make a cart with handles .  Then go to the coach station and carry suit cases to the train station , the price was usually sixpence more often then not the cases would have big scratch marks left on one side of them," always place the case so that they could not see the scratches" , take the sixpence and run , we had forgot to take the nails out of the crate.

We used to go under the Portsmouth station to hunt for crabs, before we went to the station, we would go to a building site and look for Iron reinforcement rods, sharpen the end of the rod on the edge of the pavement.  Often we would stab the crabs with the Iron rods. (not very nice, thinking back).

I do remember walking out along an old railway line that arched across the harbour, then stopped just before it reached the dockyard itself , when you looked down through the slats when walking, it gave you a funny vertigo feeling , when we reached the end we fished with home made lines and hooks.

We learnt to make our own weights on a bit of waste land, just behind the cafe that used to be by the cross roads near Brickwoods brewery, we would light a fire, get a piece of wood use a red hot metal rod, and make holes in it , not to deep , depends what weight you wanted, get some lead from the broken down houses, melt the lead in an old tin and pour it into the holes, put a "u "shaped staple into the top of the melted lead and just wait  for it to cool ,then knock them out ,

In the hard , on the left side of the wharf , (" Fisherman's wharf ") I think it was called, there used to be a row floating pontoons anchored to some pylons sticking out of the mud , attached to these were large tree trunks all joined together in a long line , they had been in the water for so long they were waterlogged , you could jump from one to the other quite easy , so often we would play tag with the other kids , chasing and jumping from one tree trunk to the other , not staying on one trunk to long otherwise it would sink , and you with it , but only when the tide was in, the best way to get into the water was to stand on the end of the trunk and wait for it to go under water, then just swim away .

　

I first went to Beneficial school at the age of 5, on my first day, they sat me on a rubber mat, I was crying, with the want of my mommy, when my mum left and went out of the door, I wet myself, I remember it quite well, and the smell.

At another school, a building somewhere near Brickwoods Brewery, maybe It was part of ST, Georges ? that day, before I went to school , I took , STOLE! two , one shilling , bits off the mantle piece, put them into my pockets, one either side of my shorts, and went to class, some time later my mother came to school to search me, I had my hands in my pockets", take your hands out of your pockets", mum said, with a shilling in each hand I lifted my hands above my head, finding nothing in my pockets she told me to open my hands, whoops! How did they get there? she did not say another word ,  she just pushed me back into class , (You think I got away with it ! ) When I got home from school, she was waiting for me, a 2" inch wide strap in her hand, she held onto my left wrist and strapped me so hard my hand went numb, then she did the same to my right hand, I was in so much pain, I cried for a long time in my bedroom , I had trouble with my hands for years.

If she had asked me why I took the two shillings I would have told her it was just to get her attention. Well I got that all right.
　

　

On a lighter note , M.B was a neighbour, who lived along our balcony we always walked home from school together , often on the way home from school we would play in an old air raid shelter, we did the things that children liked to do when they played, innocent childlike games, we always had fun.

she was a pretty girl, when she grew up she did not want to know me, I expect I had pimples.

I do remember the hardship that was all around me , the poor family in the middle bottom flat , they were Evicted , all of their furniture pulled out of the flat and just dumped outside the front door , looking over the veranda I remember the sadness I felt for that family , it still haunts me to this day.

Living in a large town like Portsmouth , food was not readily put onto the table , tea time for us might be a slice of bread with dripping , if there was any , turn the bowl upside down , turn the dripping out and scrape the dark dripping off then put it on your bread , a pinch of salt if you had any , and off you ate, yum , yum, Or bread and margarine with a sprinkle of sugar if available , lovely .

Breakfast of course was never on the cards , unless like on some occasions mother would give us a Farthing (in old money) and a corner of a paper bag with a spoonful of sugar in it , we then took that with us to the Salvation army in Queens street ,where we would get a bowl of porridge and large mug of hot chocolate , it was up to us where we put the sugar , on the porridge or in the hot chocolate , mine always went on the porridge . I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the Salvation Army, for helping me through the early part of my life , keeping my belly topped up got me through .

　
looks like I put this photo on a second time by mistake " I didn't".