THE PIE SHOP. Chapter eight. GOSSIP.

The nineteen-fifties was a confusing decade. It even began with a General Election in each of the first two years; it seemed that people couldn't make up their minds whether they wanted a Socialist or Conservative government. Sir Winston Churchill, dismissed by the country only a few years earlier, something many of us never did understand, was again Prime Minister after the second of those elections.

The war was still fresh in everyone's mind though the politicians seemed to want us to forget all about it. Apparently we hadn't been fighting the Germans at all. It had been the Nazis that had caused all the trouble….helpful of them to clear up that misunderstanding! "Yes! Good Times are ahead of us" they said confidently… but a lot of everyday items were still on ration and for many, life was still difficult. "The war is over," they told us…but our army was fighting in Korea and elsewhere and the Russians who had been our friends during the war were now to be regarded as a potential enemy. "We will re-build our cities," they assured us…but there were still gaping holes in every street and bomb-sites had become overgrown eyesores with scores of feral cats and dogs wandering about. There was one site in The City of London, at the bottom of Ludgate Hill where an old lady would arrive every morning at ten o'clock to feed the dozens of cats roaming about there. That story even made the "Daily Mirror".

Yes! It was a confusing and rather worrying time. It was also a time of great change in everyday life at every level. None of the Politicians seemed to have noticed that the basic attitude of people had shifted over the war years from one of dogged acceptance to one of truculence, further changes were obviously imminent with strong feelings becoming ever more apparent, expectations were higher, the old world had gone, never to return.

These weighty matters, important though they were, were of little interest to those in the Pie Shop on Saturday nights. Politics was not a subject seen as something to worry about or be involved with. None were old enough to vote, though it seems, were old enough to get shot at during National Service, something else that needed to change. No, amongst the group in which I was involved was the feeling that the generation ahead of us were making a mess of things and whatever they were getting up to was nothing to do with us for the time being. When it became our turn to run things…well we'd show 'em! In the meanwhile we'd worry about Manchester United winning the league from Arsenal and Spurs, and the performance of our own team, the Victoria Casuals, that Saturday afternoon. And of course what had happened at the Dance that evening at The Royal in Tottenham.

On this particular Saturday evening, in the February of nineteen-fifty-two, it would have taken the outbreak of World War Three to have grabbed our attention. Why? Well I'll tell you. Teddy Fenton, who had dreams of becoming a reporter for the local paper and could always be relied upon to break local news before anyone else had heard of it, breathlessly announced that Jane Elvey was pregnant! We all knew she wasn't married! She couldn't be she was only fifteen and still at school!! And she wasn't saying who the father was!

This was big news. In those days no young man would be seen with a girl who had the reputation of 'being easy' and if a girl had a child before she was married… well! let's just say that her chances of ever becoming married were not good, unless the bloke responsible, who would of course be expected to marry her, did 'the right thing'…even then the reason they married was never forgotten. But…Jane Elvey! No one even knew she had a boyfriend, certainly she'd never been seen out with anyone and only rarely attended the dances on Saturday evenings. So who could it be?

Maurice immediately opened a book on who the father would turn out to be, Tommy Molton was offered at four-to-one, Teddy at ten-to-one. Benny, myself, and few others were not even quoted as runners, I didn't like to ask why. But I was astonished to hear that my brother Billy, two years younger than me, was quoted at fifty-to-one! No, not that the odds were so long; but that he was quoted at all! "For God's sake don't let Mum hear about this," I advised him. That wiped the smile off his face, my mother never welcomed any of our girl friends to the house and her views on morality, well known and totally inflexible were. "You don't indulge in sex or have children unless you are married!" It started and finished there. No discussion! Billy was the same age as Jane and very much involved with some of the other girls in their class at school, so, I was at first a bit worried in case Jane and he had…then having dismissed the idea as ridiculous, was a bit surprised that he hadn't noticed anything different about her. But then blokes didn't know much about such things in those days. But as it turned out all bets were off with Maurice …the father proved to be a rank outsider whose name wasn't known until long afterwards.

I should make it clear why this news was such a surprise, a shock even. Jane Elvey was regarded by everyone as a 'nice girl', Not to put too fine a point on it and in the language of the time she would always be described as a 'Smasher' rather than 'Crumpet'. The latter description was applied to those thought of as rather less than 'nice'. Tall, with a figure most girls would kill for, well dressed despite clothes rationing, dark wavy hair down to her shoulders, blue eyes, high cheekbones and a wide mouth that smiled to reveal beautifully white even teeth, she was a stunning vision that every boy in the school gazed at and hoped…. and dreamed…fantasised about. To the girls of the school she was an inspiration. Captain of the netball team, Captain of the girls' swimming team (Male membership of the swimming club increased dramatically after she joined), and Girls' Captain of her school house she was what everyone else, male or female in that rundown, war battered, deprived area, wanted to be…admired by all and sundry. She worked hard at school and was rarely seen outside school hours with any friends at all, never mind boyfriends. So this news was the more unexpected. There were many girls around the parish that we could easily believe might and probably would find themselves in such a situation but no one would ever have thought that of Jane. Speculation on who was responsible was rife, but no one could think who it could be and she wasn't saying.

Her parents visited the parents of all the likely suspects but to no avail. It must have been difficult for them. Imagine the conversation "Our daughter is having an illegitimate baby, we wondered if your son could be the father?" Thankfully they never came to my house, I shudder to think what my mother would have said to them, her comments to my brother Billy and I were bad enough. I remember her fury when a few years before, Billy 'accidentally' told her that Mr. Grison at the end of our street had called me a bastard. He hadn't meant it literally, he was just cross at finding me on the top of his pigeon loft recovering a football that someone had kicked over the wall. But my Mother took it personally and before I knew what was happening we were banging on Mr. Grisons' door. As soon as he opened the door she grabbed him by the knot in his tie and screwed it into a ball, nearly choking him. Putting her face close to his she hissed "If my eldest son is a bastard, what does that make me.? Eh? Eh?" she screwed the knot tighter and his face started to turn a nasty shade of pink. "I'm sorry Flo," he gasped through swelling lips, "nothing personal. I just got a bit niggled, finding him on top of my pigeon shed…you understand…nothing personal…not against you… Gawd forbid… Flo let go my tie, please." She did so. Slowly his face returned to his more natural greyish hue. She wasn't finished with him though. "You ever have trouble from my boys, you come and see me…understand? They'll take more notice of me than they ever will of you!" It was clear from the relieved expression on his face that he believed her and understood very well. I mention this event to show you that this whole subject was likely to start all sorts of hares running with my Mother and others like her that would be difficult to stop.

As soon as the news of Jane's predicament became public knowledge she was expelled from school and no one heard anything of her for quite some time. Her parents, shocked and distraught at the turn of events, sent her to stay with relations in the country somewhere, so Teddy told us. The subject was a major topic in the Pie Shop for months afterwards but still the father remained a mystery and probably would have remained so had Albert Weston not gone with his girlfriend to the matinee at The Regal cinema in Mare Street that Saturday afternoon.

Opposite the cinema was a rather grubby amusement arcade. It had all the latest American pin-tables and slot machines in there and a shooting gallery at the back. It was rumoured that there was a room behind the shooting gallery in which all sorts of skulduggery was planned. Hard looking faces from miles around were noticed going in and out of there, particularly late at night. But this was about half-past-six in the evening and parked outside was a rather battered looking pram. Holding onto the pram's handle was none other than Jane Elvey. Not the Jane Elvey they had known and admired. Oh No! Gone was the 'Just washed' look that had been her hallmark. This one looked uncared for, almost grubby and had an air of sadness about her that was noticeable even from the other side of the road. Naturally, Albert and Valerie, his girlfriend, went over to say hello and see how she was. They both said later that after almost wishing they hadn't, they were glad they did.

On getting closer to her their first impression of sadness was confirmed. Her eyes were dull and her hair lank and greasy, she seemed lost but couldn't have been, she had lived only a few hundred yards from where she was standing. The baby though was spotless and so were the covers in the pram. Valerie noticed it first, well she would, wouldn't she? girls notice these things with the speed of light…the wedding ring on her finger. Yes, she was wearing a wedding ring and yes she told them that she was fine, the baby was fine, everything was fine…but it clearly wasn't! This wasn't the Jane Elvey they had both admired so much. But the two girls, and they were both still girls, were soon in deep conversation as only girls can. Have you noticed that? Within seconds of meeting, girls are well into an exchange of news and general chit-chat, blokes are automatically sidelined and required, only when asked, to offer the odd "Yeah, sure!" or "Really?" perhaps sometimes a shake of the head and a "No!"

As the conversation began to slow and Albert was beginning to invent ideas to break away, a young man came out of the amusement arcade and joined them, her husband, she told them. You'll never guess who he was! No, you won't. Maurice wouldn't have given odds of a hundred-to-one on him. It was Polly Benson! Yes that Polly Benson. The Polly Benson who had been in the class ahead of her at school and had left the same year. He who never took part in any form of sport, he who was interested only 'in looking the part' he who we all thought wasn't interested in girls at all. How wrong can you be???

Polly wasn't his real name, he got that the first year at senior school. He was so good looking you see, he had one of those faces that if you folded a photo of him lengthwise the two halves would match almost perfectly. He was incredibly good looking and dressed to emphasise his looks, looks that proved to be deceptive. When his classmates began to rib him about his looks, and what would be able to do with the girls, he smiled but when one of them suggested that he would also be attractive to boys, he struck like lightning, made such a mess of the boy that no one ever made a comment like that again. But he was given the nickname Pretty Boy Benson, that eventually shortened somehow to Polly and the name stuck. He didn't seem to care.

Now though, he too had lost his polish and looked run down and dejected. Albert looked at him closely, he knew why young men went into that arcade. He hoped Polly wasn't getting involved with the hard cases in there, but feared that he must be, what else could he be in there for? Albert made a decision. "Look," he said, "don't let's stand here in the cold. Freddy and my mother would love to see you both, we'll go to my place and have a cuppa." His place was about five minutes walk away, one of those old tall houses opposite London Fields. We all liked going there, his family were a happy go lucky lot and it was a sort of open house, all the friends of Albert, his brother Freddie, both of whom worked with their dad in the goods yard in Bishopsgate, and his sister Maureen, a machinist at the clothing factory in Retreat Place, were always welcomed in as if they lived there.

That visit was a turning point for Polly and Jane, as Albert reported to us all in the Pie Shop a week later. His mother was horrified by the condition of the youngsters and their baby, disgusted to hear that both sets of parents had washed their hands of them after their marriage and given them no help at all. They were living in a room in a grubby house in Hackney Wick, Polly couldn't get a proper job and had been to the arcade to see what he could find there. They were obviously in real trouble and Mrs. Weston wasn't going to allow that to continue. She had been down that road herself and knew the dangers and the misery that lay there, she wasn't going to stand by and see this young couple suffer if she could help it.

Maureen, her daughter and eldest child, had been married a month earlier and her room was now unoccupied, it was on the top floor of the house and if they moved the junk out of the attic as well….that would mean Polly and his wife, she stressed that word, could have two rooms in a clean house. They must move there at once, she would hear no arguments from them to the contrary. So they did. Mrs. Weston went further, she had a word with Ollie's mother, who had a word with her husband, who was a sergeant in the nick in Mare Street, and he had a word with a mate who worked the biscuit factory next door, and… well to cut a long story a bit shorter, Polly started work in the biscuit factory and eventually ….years later of course, became a director of it, so I'm told. It really was a confusing, worrying, almost frightening decade, the fifties, one of great change…you ask Jane and Polly Benson, they'll tell you!