31. Treasured Possessions

I can't understand why people will take their treasured possessions and hide them away in cupboards and drawers where only dust and woodworm enjoy their beauty.

Homo sapiens have a peculiar twist in their make-up that compels them to hoard everything not required for immediate use. Squirrels and magpies have the same compulsion and I refuse to be put in the same class, having neither a bushy tail or a big beak.

The same attitude exists in the mentality of some of my neighbours who strive to attain perfection in their gardens and lawns. Especially the lawns. They feed them with chemicals, sand is sifted over through a fine sieve, and watered immediately it stops raining, which ain't often in our climate. Any weed rash enough to poke it's head above ground level is ruthlessly exterminated and all blades are cut to exact size and ordered to stand to attention or else!

But they never sit on it to have a picnic and should any of their kids set foot on the hallowed turf, instant thumps on the earhole are swiftly dealt out, as what do they think that notice, which is the only object allowed on the grass, is put there for? This always reads "Keep off the grass".

                                           

Now whats the use of it if you ain't going to use it? This annoys me intensely. Whats the good of a tail to a dog if he can't wag it?

When my parents were married, my mothers employers gave her a reference stating that she could cook good plain meals, was of a clean disposition, and had been to church twice every Sunday during her service with them. What they did not say was a) that she had worked some 15 hours a day doing this, b) that carbolic soap, which they supplied, certainly cleanses as it nearly takes your skin off and c) this was a condition of her employment. Anyway she couldn't afford to go anywhere else on the £5 per annum reward she got for these trifling efforts.

                                                  

But what they did give her, perhaps as a sop to their conscience for enslaving a young girl for so many years, was a very nice tea set, beautifully designed, and complete with milk jug and bread and butter dish. This was a most prized possession in a working-class home where tin mugs were the rule rather than the exception.

Throughout my parents life the old squirrel habit persisted, in this case the tea set being the nuts, hidden away in a sideboard where it remained in spite of all my pleas to fetch it out when I wanted to impress my girlfriend when she came to tea.

                                                 

Can you understand it? The winkles that we always had for tea on Sunday would have looked almost appetising laid on that lovely china. Not that I like them much, by the time you've dug them out and torn off their little black hats you've lost interest and you wish you had a plate of cockles. Think of the gastronomic joy in tilting one of those delicate plates and sipping the vinegar. Would have tasted like nectar. 

                                                            

                                                      


Still, it was used, with due reverence, when we were married.

After my parents died I did the usual clearing up and when we had got used to the idea of living without them, my wife and I were unanimous in our determination to enjoy the full beauty of our tea set by using it. This was what is was made for and for what my mother slaved all those years.

We washed it clean of the dust of hoarding and put it carefully in our sideboard, after all, you can't put a set like that in a kitchen dresser, can you?

My mum and dad have been gone now for fifteen years* and that is exactly the length of time the tea set has been in our sideboard. We haven't used it all that much, in fact we ain't used it at all. I'm not having a lovely thing like that desecrated with jam butties and cream doughnuts. Woolworth's stuff is good enough for them. You've got to take care of the few heirlooms you've got, haven't you?

Notes:

* dating this piece to 1973 

30. Street Vendors

aka Paddington Tradesmen

Seems to me that whatever impression one gets from reading about the modern youth and the rat race of today, homo sapiens hasn't changed much since he took over from the dinosaurs, and young Bill ain't much different from his Dad, however much environmental improvements affect our way of life, apart from square eyes from watching too much T.V. Turn out his pockets, and the same type of junk will appear, as did from Dads when he was a kid. With one sure exception. Fag-cards.

When I was a boy every lad had fag-cards somewhere on his person, they were a way of life that was deliberately put down by the tobacco barons when they discontinued them after the war.

One set of fifty that I remember in particular was called "Cries of London"*. It showed the colourful vendors who sold their wares on the Streets, and fascinated me as a lot of the people depicted still existed at that time and were part of our life, but have now disappeared. Well, almost.

Kids in Paddington where I lived, didn't awake to the sound of Radio One or bird-song, but to the dawn chorus of various tradesmen who made no bones about letting you know who they were. The firewood man pushing a costers barrow loaded with bundles of sticks hand chopped the night before, bellowing "Fire-woodo" A succession of milkmen from all the local dairies, Evans's, Jenkins’s, and Rose's who left cans of milk on the doorstep, all the time hollering who they worked for. Roses milky sang this ditty in a loud tenor - "I'm here with the babies beer, Roses round your door".

The former J Evan's Dairy Farmer, London W1

And many a lad was awoken by the sound of a hoarse voice grating"Serweep" and looked up to see a black faced, red eyed chimney sweep peering down the area (basement) window. He always came before seven in order to give you the rest of the day to clear up the mess of soot which inevitably settled over the whole room. None of your fancy vacuum cleaning then, just the brush up the chimney and down again, the bulk of soot caught in the sack held underneath the chimney stack and the rest billowing freely. Well what could you expect for l/3d.

Many and various were the vendors throughout the day. The cats meat man with his retinue of meowing moggies, tumbling and jumping round his feet, trying to get at the sticks of skewered horse meat carried on a tray on his head. The pong sent the cats frantic, I don't know how he stood it, but he seemed to be aware of it as his call sounded like "Yer meat shtink".

The Indian Toffee men were always sad looking turbanned Indians who carried a metal box in which were little sticks of the original candy floss, and all sang the same song;

 "Indian toffee, good for belly,

Go ask mummy for a penny"

No wonder they looked sad as Mummy very seldom had a penny to spare. How they existed on the sales they made is a mystery to me. 

Gypsys often came round selling pegs and lavender, genuine Romanies who sang very tunefully their song of "Sweet lavender"** which, if I remember rightly went like this:

"Won't you buy my sweet pretty lavender,

Two bunches for a penny.

You buy it once, smell it twice.

It makes your clothes smell very nice."

Many others with their peculiar calls and appliances came and went, The muffin man with his hand bell, the toffee-apple man who was the earlier firewood man, now with his standby trade; the cockle and whelk man (straight from Sahfend, lady): the rag-bone man who gave a penny for a rabbit skin; basket chair weavers who sat on the curbside; knife and scissor grinders with a large water wheel which they pushed as a wheel -barrow, and the buskers.

Blokes dressed as women dancing to a barrel organ (drag is nothing new). Escapologists laying in straight jackets; strong men bending nails and snapping chains; bird whistle men; three packet men who always got you to buy the one with the farthing inside; and the singers. The one I remember most vividly was a chap who came round at ten at night. It always seemed to be raining and his plaintive song was "Where is my wandering boy tonight"***. As a boy I often wondered if he ever found him.

All great characters who have gone forever as things ain't wot they used to be, but like I said, young Bill isn't much different from his dad.

I was up the Lane the other Sunday when standing in the middle of the road I saw a tall, lugubrious gent, holding aloft on strings, balloons about six feet long. His song of sale, if not melodious, was direct and utterly to the point. It was "BLOODY GREAT BALLOONS"

No, homo sapiens ain't changed, only the environment.


Notes:

* Players Cries of London - Series 1 (25 cards) 1913, Series 2 (25 cards) 1916

** 'Won't You Buy My Sweet Blooming Lavender'.  As with folk songs different versions exist. The one included above was recorded in Battersea in 1958. Grandad remembered the lyric pretty well :
                     

"Won't you buy my sweet blooming lavender,

 There are sixteen blue branches, one penny, all in full bloom,

 You buy them once, you buy them twice

 It makes your clothes smell sweet and nice"

              

*** "Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight" written by Rev Robert Lowry, 1877. Various recorded versions exist.