BERMONDSEY GIRLS - Eliza Minnie Cherry - Part 3

That’s better, amazing what a cup of tea can do for an old body. Where was I? Oh yes, between the wars. 

The Daniels family had moved in with us when some of the other tenants moved out not long after my Ern died, after my Mum had passed away, and as soon as they were old enough, all my children left school and started work where they could.  A lot fell on our Ern’s shoulders when his Dad was too ill to work, especially after he died; but he could already drive a lorry by the time he was 12; he had been helping the coal man out on his rounds since he was a little kid.  The others all found work too, we had plenty of factories round and about where the docks were, the girls worked for the Peak Freans biscuit factory and fetched home broken biscuits, what a treat that was!  It really eased things up a bit for me, with what they brought in I didn’t need to do so much myself, though it was a bit too late for me now, I was more or less crippled by the time I was nearing 50, there were so many stairs in that house I stayed mostly in the kitchen in the basement!.  But I could still cook a bit; our Rosie loved my coconut slab cake, and I would make it for her specially as a treat, such a good girl she was, even got me a wheelchair out of her own money.

Vi had married Fred Hooper and Min married Dick Ward a few years before the War, and I had a little grandson from each by the time the War started in 1939.  Min’s Dickie came along in 1937, and Vi’s Freddie in 1939; they were the only proper grandchildren I ever knew; of course Mary and Charlie had both married a good while before and had several kids, but they didn’t really look on us as family.  It was a pity really, I would have loved to be surrounded by little’uns.  Rose often looked after the boys while their Mums were at work both before and during the war, or in Min’s case while she was out enjoying herself!  Not nice really while her old man was away with the Army in Italy. I missed Vi when she and little Freddie got evacuated to the country when all that started, but they was soon back again in the Old Kent Road; missed their family and London too much.  Of course they had to come and live with me, as Fred Hooper was away with the army; he was a Chindit in Burma; terrible time he had, which may well account for him being so bad tempered when he finally came back.

In fact as the War went on all the men in the family either volunteered or got called up, and Rose and Lou got married at St Philips Bermondsey in 1942, just before Lou got sent abroad with the RAF, poor bugger went to all the worse places, ended up in Burma on some island and we didn’t see him for years.  You had to laugh, there was no roof on the church and not much left of the walls because it had been bombed, but my two little grandsons did their best to wipe the brick dust off the pews with their clean white gloves, and the show went on! Rose looked beautiful in a proper white parachute silk wedding dress and veil; not many brides got that during the war, most got married in a costume and hat, but Rose managed to borrow a lovely frock from my friend’s daughter, and two blue bridesmaids’ dresses too for Lou’s sister Ann and our Elsie. And we had a chocolate cake, with there being no white icing sugar. There was a war on, you know!

My brother George Daniels gave her away, as her big brother was away at war; then in 1944 the poor sod got blown to bits in the V bombing that destroyed Woolworths and the Co-op at New Cross gate.  He was on a bus that was just passing by as the bomb went off.  There was about 300 killed that day, and gawd knows how many injured; you see what with the rationing and people losing everything in the bombing attacks, there was a need for cooking pots and the like, and hearing that Woolworths were expecting a delivery of saucepans, a queue was already forming when the bomb struck.  Wicked blighters them Germans.  They only knew George was on the bus because they found Rosies wedding photos on a body.

After the wedding Rose went to live with her in-laws Lou and Lil quite near us in Rolls Road Peckham, off the Old Kent Road, where Rose and Lou had both gone to school. I missed her of course, but she often came round and brought me any news she had of Lou. And when Elsie married John Wigley in 1945 they came to live with me – most young couples in London had no choice but to move in with their families, so many houses had been destroyed in the continuous bombing.

For all the fear and hardship of the war, I was proud as punch to see all my boys in uniform; even little Will who was too young at the start joined the RAF like his hero Lou, at the end of the war. And I was happy to see all of them come back home eventually, though Lou was very ill with all sorts of tropical diseases, and we thought he was a goner at one time. 

But the war had worn me out; even though our house was more or less undamaged, we were near the river and docks and copped it every night, it seemed. Spent half our lives in the shelters!  I could hardly stand by then, ankles like footballs, and always out of breath, but I was determined to make it to Ernie’s wedding to Florrie Biddiss in the Summer of 1946, and with all my family round me I even managed to stand on my own two feet for the photos. 

I still had Elsie and John, and my half-brother Freddie Daniels with me at 354, as well as young Will and our Stanley when he came home. He had been at the Normandy landings, but like most of the men, didn’t say a lot. Rose had just moved away to Bellingham, because the Wigzell’s place in Peckham had been bombed out more than once.

I didn’t want to leave my family, I would have loved to know all the Grandchildren I would have had, but I was just worn out, even washing myself came to be too much of an effort, let alone doing the laundry.  On Armistice Day, 11th November 1946, my poor old heart just couldn’t take any more.  There was no real pain, just a brightness, and the funny thing was, there was this little lad with golden curls holding out his arms to me.  I so wanted to give my little Arthur a cuddle, and I was so tired, I held him close and closed my eyes and – well, that was it for me on earth, though I did my best to let my children know I was still around when they really needed me. And I had seen all my boys do their duty and go to war, and all come back safe.  What more can a Mother ask?

And that’s it for my story.  I’m just as busy up here as I was down there, so I had better go and get on with it.  And I’ve got such a lot of catching up to do with all my girls and boys, so I’ll say tata for now.  And God Bless.