The Rabbit Farm

Oh no! A thousand times, NOOOOO!  I HATED CHANGE!  I wanted to turn on my heels and run back to cosy Portobello Road.  I wanted to thread Mrs Kasmir’s needles and choose the buttons for some rejuvenated frock.  I wanted to see the lamplighter climb his ladder to the top of the post and watch the gas burst into flame outside our window. More than all of this, I wanted my Cambridge Gardens bomb site:  I had a real good little camp going on there with a couple of chairs and even some old saucepans.  I yearned to hear the pub on the corner turn out with the drunks singing “Lavenders’ Blue Dilly, Dilly” which little sis would waken and join in with.  And my little Caribbean boyfriend and his mum’s wonderful cooking.  I wanted, I wanted, I WANTED! 

“Square pegs in round holes” was one of dad’s oft-quoted phrases. 

And my goodness me was this next move going to be an uncomfortable fit.  I had spent the entire journey perched between the driver and his mate at the front of the van, my parents and little sis sitting in blissful darkness on the settee in the back with all our chattels.    They thought they were giving me a treat, these two men, sitting with them, and were continually cracking soppy jokes in an attempt to make me feel happy.  It had the opposite effect and by the time we arrived on the Essex estate I was already homesick.

Once again my world was turned upside down. And here we were again, moving on with something else to merely get used to.  But this monstrous landscape?  I knew that love would never be felt for it.  To be sure, there was a small copse near our street which would be a future Godsend and excitedly Jana and I discovered bluebells growing there; and, we were both mesmerised by the bathroom, envisaging deep foamy baths and lengthy soaks… something which never actually occurred since the heating of water in an electrical cylinder proved too expensive for such frippery, and we were everlastingly constrained to a couple of inches of splash and paddle. 

But the rest of it?  I saw mum’s excitement making tea in the nasty dark kitchen with a high up metal window affording a view of a brick wall, but poor dad’s sombre stare prompted me to enquire, “Daddy do you like it here?”  His answer came.  Always right, forever blunt,  “We had bigger rabbit hutches in Touškov, now WE are going to learn how those rabbits felt living in them.”

Row upon row, upon row, of raw new builds in a reddish, orange brick.  Nasty little steel-framed windows staring out apologetically. They seemed to be saying “We know we are ugly and will never frame a pretty view but we are ashamed to admit it.”  Unmade up roads.  Thousands of carelessly broken bricks.  Headless brooms and shovels bent out of recognition.  Bags of solidified concrete.  Rivulets of cement and sand running hither and thither.  Ghastly gardens of yellow foul-smelling clay in which it would be nigh-on impossible to grow anything (and dad had promised us cucumbers and tomatoes at the very least.)

This was our new reality. This was Harold Hill.

It seemed to me that the whole of the East End had been relocated here.  It certainly appeared that way on this moving day, for everyone else going into these houses were from there.  It was all part of a planned resettlement with the first occupants being those with only a couple of kids – the more vulnerable ones by age.  Get the little ones out of London first!  And all of them poverty-stricken! I watched along the road as other vans unloaded their miserable contents:  a table, a few chairs, cast-iron beds, stained mattresses, piles of old blankets, tied up bundles of clothing.  I saw mothers walking in carrying the kettle, frying pan and saucepans.  Well, that would be the kitchen sorted!  Very often a linnet, or a canary, would be carried in by the man of the house and inevitably in a misshapen wire cage.  Even a pearly king and queen.  It was like a verse from the old song;

My Old Man said Follow the Van,

And don’t dilly dally on the way…

Off went the van wiv me 'ome packed in it,

I walked behind wiv me old cock linnet. 

I thought those days were long gone at the turn of the century, but believe you me, the same sentiments were just as applicable on this day in early 1950s Essex.  Really and truly, the pathetic belongings I witnessed coming from the back of these old vans could easily have been put in a hand cart, such was the poverty. I can categorically state that my camp under the rubble of Cambridge Gardens, contained far lovelier artefacts.  It had framed pictures for a start!

Two little girls were playing on the ramp of one of the old vans.  Jana and I approached them and stared.  A budgie in a cage came out and we gathered together to look.  This broke the ice.  We all giggled and exchanged names.  Jessie and Penny Budd became our friends from day one, and it was with them that we navigated the choppy waters that would become estate living.  We were on the threshold of life on a horrid post-war housing complex.  One thing was for sure and that was what we all had in common:  we were all hopeless, guiltless, witless, styleless, hapless… and, most of all broke.  Crime was guaranteed to take off big time here.

Worse was to come. 

Over the next week family after family arrived, the larger families into the three-, four- and five-bedroom houses.  The bigger problems? There was no work to be had nearby, no schools, no shops no clinics no libraries no churches.  No nothing!  All that still remained firmly in the architect’s head.  But no, surely this monstrous layout could not have been actually designed? It seemed as if it were merely a question of cramming in as many builds as space would allow.  Families striding out for a new life? It was going to be tough, but at least we had all been herded out of the way so that London could get on with rebuilding.

We would, I suspected, be largely overlooked and forgotten.  It could not work harmoniously.  For a start, we were all the same ages:  our parents young adults and offspring of similar years, between one and ten. And there were lots and lots of offspring.  It just could not work as a society.  It was simply not diverse enough and everyone was in precisely the same boat.  The whole thing couldn’t be driven by intellect or style or the wish for a better more comfortable life, simply because we were all too poor.  Crime alone would be the driver.

Various forms of survival techniques instantly sprung up, and the populous of Harold Hill were sitting ducks.  All that was needed was a glossy brochure displaying everything needed for hearth, home, kith and kin (plus a little extra… a radiogram, perhaps, for anyone willing to rob a bank?)   Our first “tallyman” turned up to jot down orders. Delivery of goods would be swift and before even the first payment was made.  The game was set and ready and would soon turn the poor to the famous misery of the ‘never, never’. Soon, Friday evenings would become a no-go zone.  The street would become suspiciously bare.  Dogs would stop their roaming.  Not a cat to be seen. Doors bolted, windows closed tight and curtains drawn.  You see, nobody was at home. Mothers and kids crouched down behind the chairs and were silent. And then the tallyman would arrive, banging loudly on a door, his account book and pen at the ready.  Another loud wallop followed by deafening silence.  On to the next house, then the next etc., etc., He knew the score and was careful to add each debt on to the next week’s due amount.  As he disappeared over the rise of the road, his shoulders slumped and head down, he was angry but not fooled.  He would tie the lot of them up in knots in no time; they wouldn’t have a clue what they owed.  Still, for the time being at least, normal service was resumed.  Curtains opened and kids leapt from doorways ready for a game of ‘tin can Tommy’, already their new shoes showing signs of wear.

There was one good thing about living in the sticks though, and that was its proximity to the coast.  Nothing on earth was more exciting to us than to hear dad say “It’s going to be a scorcher tomorrow, girdles” (he pronounced ‘girls’ in that endearing way.) A “scorcher” indeed!  The wheels were set into immediate motion:   the Sunday beef was promptly put on to roast slowly overnight along with the potatoes and vegetables.  Yorkshire’s in the morning.

Sometimes Jana and I were already asleep in our beds when dad listened to the shipping forecast and realized the morrow would be hot; but the merest touch of his hand on my shoulder would have us both awake instantly and the word “scorcher” would hardly have to be spoken before we leapt from our beds and ran barefoot to the garden shed to rummage for our mouldy bathing attire, still hanging screwed up since the year before whence they had been dumped.  String bags containing woollen bathers, threadbare towels, mismatched salt-stained plimsolls and sticky rubber swimming caps, all of which stank. We didn’t give a fig. One dip in the salty briny and that would be sorted.

The next morning would find us all running around in a sort of organised chaos, the day already warming up to the promised heat.  We would stuff the back of dad’s little van (yes a little van that went with his new job) to the gunnels.  Mum would fix up the little curtains on the two small back windows and inside would be tossed, willy-nilly, blankets of varying patterns and hues including the thin little grey one dad had laid on the stable cobblestones all those years ago when we first arrived in Portobello Road.  Along with this followed a loaf of bread, butter, bottles of water, apples, oranges and Bakelite cups, plates and bowls; a can of methylated spirit, a mallet, a packet of tea, bottle of milk, windbreakers a huge inflated inner tube from a lorry tyre and the Pullman sprung seat cushions from our settee and armchairs.  Then to enter would be Jana and I, along with a carrycot housing a new little baby sister, along with her dummy bottles and spare nappies.  And then the swimming togs, towels, snorkels, assorted-and-often-punctured rubber rings and a couple of cork boards to aid the non-swimmers; some gooey sun lotion (from way back when, but with a tiny amount remaining…)  Nothing was forgotten. 

Thus we would travel, knees under our chin sat on the various pieces of soft clobber, the carrycot placed on top of the inflated rubber inner tube so that the little one didn’t get jostled about too badly.  In the air hung the scent of the methylated spirits (fuel for the Primus) roast beef, newborn baby and more than a touch of burnt tyre issuing forth from the rubber ring leftover from its glory days, before its outer tyre burst.  Oh but we loved that smell, just as one loves the scent of pine and mince pies at Christmas.  To us, that smell meant ‘seaside’.  Mum and dad of course had the luxury of front seats, but poor mum had the responsibility of the cooked dinner in its roasting tray on her lap (covered with a tea towel) the Primus stove between her knees and the milk crock between her feet.  It cannot have been easy but she bore it without complaint.  She was also full of eager anticipation at the thought of her beach day and her swim.  Our parents always had a swim.  It also meant a day of no cooking for her which was tantamount to bliss.