The Westcliff Years 1958 - 1961

Not sure why we moved, but move we did. We went to a semi in Osborne Rd, Westcliff on Sea.

School was a problem. All the kids in my class had evolved into their own long established gangs, so going there in the last year of junior school left me feeling very isolated. I eventually got into Dick Walkers gang along with Bob Coss and a few others.

Knowing that Mum kept a small packet of chocolate on a high shelf, I got a chair and got it down. Bob and I shared the pack which was only 2 inches square and had possibly a dozen little sections. After we spent the next few hours running to the toilet, the story came out and Mum laughed when she realised we had eaten a high dose of laxative!!

We only had a small garden, but Dad grew pize winning Dahlias and Gladioli. One time when he was working and couldn't make a show, he asked me and Bob to take them for him. We took a bus to the show in Pitsea, but by the time we got there most of the blooms were damaged and past their best. The only set of good blooms I entered into the wrong class so Dad won no prizes that day. However, during a break in the procedings, Bob and I went to a field and gathered some wild flowers and grasses which we entered into another class. I got first place and Bob got second.

Had a fight with another boy not far from our house, I called for Bob to get Mum, which he did. She came and sorted it out, but I felt very cowardly afterwards.

The Pitsea Years 1953 - 1958

Mum and Dad finally gave up the struggle to pay the mortgage in Upminster and moved to a bungalow on the outskirts of Basildon.

I remember that we had hoped to buy a house in Laindon, somewhere on the north side of the Arterial Road. It was in the middle of nowhere but had a huge garden, more like a field. It was overgrown with grass that must have been more than four feet tall. Dad must have been confident of buying the house because we started clearing the garden. I lifted a piece of corrugated iron to find myself confronted by a snake. I screamed blue murder and Dad quickly chopped it in half with a spade. The odd thing was that this snake was pure white, so I don't know what I saw, but it scared the life out of me. In the end, the house was riddled with woodworm, so we never got the mortgage.

We moved to a bungalow in Rectory Hill Road with quite a large garden and a couple of pear trees located towards the top of the hill and only 100 yards from Rectory Park where we spent much of our leisure time.

The lady next door didn’t have much to do with us, but she had a daughter who emigrated to Canada and a very deep fish pond which was said to be built from the remains of a WWII Anderson shelter.

Most of the roads in Pitsea were unmade at the time, and turned into thick glutinous mud when it rained. There was a narrow concrete footpath down each side, barely wide enough for a pram, but was so cracked and broken it was difficult to use.

There was another unmade road at the back which we called The Chase and was lined with bushes and tall elm trees. This was also subject to serious mud when it rained.

At first, we had an outside loo which was a corrugated iron hut about three feet by three feet located at the bottom of the garden. Everything fell into a bucket full of Jeyes fluid, which I seem to remember was emptied by a man who would drive a horse and cart up The Chase every week. To this day, the smell of Jeyes fluid still reminds me of this time. Of course, loo paper consisted of strips of newpaper hung on a piece of string. Interesting to note that even as a young boy, I don’t remember being cold or uncomfortable with these facilities. Bath night was carried out with a tin bath which we would use one after the other - by the time the water got to me and Bob, it was pretty grotty.

Some time after we moved in, the council ran in new sewage pipes, and I remember the Irish navvies who dug yards and yards of trench by hand. No mean feat in the clay soil of the area. Dad built an annexe at the back of the house and fitted an inside toilet and bathroom. Luxury.

During the winter, Mum would get up early to light the stove. She would warm our clothes and we would get dressed at the fire.

Dad had a job in a business behind Pitsea station making electrical transformers. I guess he was some sort of manager/ foreman or something, because one dark night he had to check some products in an oven and took me with him. He left me in the middle of this large workshop while he checked the oven in a side room. Well - it was really creepy - it was late at night, we were on the edge of Pitsea marshes, and there were only a few light bulbs lit, so this big room full of benches and machines was all light and shadows. After what seemed like ages I couldn't stand the heebee jeebies any more and not knowing what else to do, shouted 'Help'. Dad shot out of that room as if his tail was on fire.
Dad got a company car (something like an Austin 7). When it was wet, it was great fun driving up the hill to out house on those slippery roads - sliding from side to side with wheels spinning as Dad tried to find a dry line. So many times we had to back-up and try with a faster run-up. Occasionally we had to give up and walk home through the mud.

Dad got another job as a sales rep delivering hairdressing products for a company based in Benfleet. During the school holidays he would take me with him in his van on his travels around east London. He always introdued me to the ladies in the salons as 'the boss'. It made me feel very grown up and he would let me get the orders from the back of the van.
On one occasion he had trouble with his brakes, then driving down a hill on busy carriageway, the brakes failed completely as we approached a cross-roads with the traffic lights on red. Dad reached across and held me in my seat while he swerved one handed in between the crossing traffic. He managed to miss everything and came to a stop some yards further down.
On another occasion, he brought home a new cast iron stove. I remember him staggering up the garden path under the weight of it, it was only later that we found out he had been in accident and had suffered som broken ribs.
Late one night, during a terrific storm, the horn on the car started blaring. Dad went out in the driving wind and rain  to find that the huge elm tree at the bottom of the garden had fallen and crushed his poor little car.

The owner of Dads company owned a chalet on the Isle of Sheppey, so every summer we would spend a week or so in Leysdown. The drive there, before there were motorways, was long and boring for us kids. Once there, we would go to the beach and follow the tide out to collect buckets full of cockles and bring them home where we boiled them up, took them out of their shells and ate them with vinegar.
There was a social club on the site that held competitions - nobbly knees and that sort of thing. My first solo performance was in a talent show there where I sang the following:
                There was an old man called Michael Finnigan,
                He had whiskers in his chinnigan,
                The wind came up and blew them innigan.
                Poor old Michael Finnigan - begin again.
I was very nervous and the pianist had to fumble his way through the tune since I didn't have music so I didn't win - shame! Funny how I remember the words after all this time.
The cinema in Leysdown was probably the village hall and I remember seeing some early black and white Elvis Presley films there.
For at least one year, Uncle Jack and Aunt Sadie came with us.

With Mum & Caroline outside the chalet

Where we lived on the hill, we could see for miles across the marshes and Thames estuary, so on another night and another huge storm, there was a terrifc thunderclap. Later on, we could see the flames coming from a burning oil tank which had been struck by lightning over at Corryton or somewhere round there.

Rooks nested in the tall trees at the edge of the park. Their calling as they roosted in the evenings was a source of great noise. I once found a fledgling which was too young to fly. I took it home and we placed it next to the fire in a shoe box lined with cotton wool and small bowl of milk. Children being children, I couldn’t leave it alone, so while holding it for the umpteenth time, it suddenly fluttered out of my hands straight into the red hot fire. It didn’t survive and I felt really bad about it.

I went to Pitsea Primary School. I vaguely remember my first day, but it wasn't too traumatic. I remember the big old-fashioned wooden desks. I don't recall any lessons except being able to 'jibble' in a big tin sink. We learnt our pints and quarts by jibbling with metal jugs.

I can't remember being in that part of the school for long, but there was at least one Christmas because all the class contributed something to the Christmas party. I don't think we had much money, but Mum gave me a packet of jammy dodgers so I was heartbroken when the teacher didn't use them.
I remember Mrs Sneddon who was very strict, and Mrs Ramsbottom who had aa unfortunate name which young children giggle at. I was in the shool choir and we went to a singing competition in Benfleet or Thundersley - can't remember how we got on.
One thing that will surprise modern parents and children - school must have been half a mile or more from home along the main Southend/London road and I'm sure it must have happened a lot - but I can't remember ever being escorted to or from school!

I went to the Junior section where my teacher was a Mr Harry Green. He was a wonderful teacher and years later I took the trouble to look him up, but in the days when teachers were allowed to chastise unruly children he would use a slipper. I guess I was really unruly because I was chastised a lot, but it never hurt - except for the day when I was unruly with a boil on my bum - now that did make my eyes water.
I was never a born footballer, so when I took part in a football match which Mr Green was refereeing, I followed the ball all over the pitch, kicking it whenever I could. Finally, Mr Green stopped the game and asked me which position I was playing. I didn't have a clue, so I just said "down there", pointing to the other end of the pitch.

We played with marbles. We had a game which was a bit like golf - we dug a hole, and the first player to get all his marbles in the hole won the game and his opponent's marbles. Although we could dig a hole anywhere, the best playing surface was a manhole - it had ready-made holes where the lifting handles were, and had a diamond pattern on the surface which made it really difficult to manoevre the marbles. We also played with cigarette cards. One game was called knocksy downsy, where a number of cards were propped against a wall and we would flick other cards from a distance until they were all knocked down. Whoever knocked the last card down kept all the cards. Inevitably we played cowboys and indians - don't forget that prime chidrens television consisted of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger (and Tonto), The Cisco Kid, Hopalong Cassidy and others.

During the summer, gangs of us kids would play hide and seek in the woods behind the house. One person was elected to 'seek' and the rest would hide. As each child was found, they too became seekers until everyone was found. When hidden, we would toss sticks and small stones to distract the seekers. One day an older boy joined us, I believe he was a member of the Howard family. I was hiding in a ditch on the edge of the park when half a house brick came flying through the air and landed on my head. Blood was pouring from the wound as I ran home howling. I ended up in hospital with a fractured skull, concussion, and nine stitches. I spent ten boring days in Southend General before I went home to recuperate. Grass was never so green or sweet that day. When I got home I had to stay in bed for a few weeks and the boys parents sent me a stack of jigsaw puzzles to keep me occupied - I've loved doing puzzles ever since.

The scout hut was a wooden building opposite Howard Crescent. I became a Cub at one stage. I did the dib-dib-dob thing, but don’t remember lasting long at that.

Mum went to the Methodist Church across the A13 in Brackendale Ave. I joined the lifeboys and wore the pseudo Navy uniform. Despite the cost of a uniform, I don’t remember lasting long at this either.

Bob, me and Jack from left at the Methodist Christmas party.

A Christmas fete at the same church saw me admiring a big wooden boat. It was about 15 inches long and made of solid wood with a thick strip of lead on the keel. I later found it in my Christmas pillow. Christmas presents always came in a pillow along with an apple, an orange and a few nuts.
That same fete became the highlight of my year when I went to an upstairs room where all the teenagers had congregated. Paul Anka was blasting out ‘Diana’ on a record player and I got to pin the tail on the donkey. I was blindfolded and turned round three times and then had to guess where to place a pin (attached to a tail-like thingy) on a picture of a donkey. I hit it right on the spot and won a ‘selection box’ of chocolates. I was so pleased with myself.

My brother Bob and I got tricycles at some time - those three wheelers with the little cupboard thing at the back. I learnt to mend punctures on that trike, using two dessert spoons as tyre levers. Apparently I wasn't very good at it because I was too impatient to let the glue dry properly, so the patch would leak. It wasn't until I got older and was given my first two wheeled bike that I became really adventurous. I went everywhere for miles around.


Learning to ride a bike: We never had our own two wheelers to practice on, so I borrowed a girls bike from a friend, marched it up to the top of the hill in the park and let it go. When it got down to the flat, it lost momentum and I fell off. Time after time I’d push it back up the hill, and time after time I’d ride it down until I fell off. Eventually I twigged that there was a relationship between momentum and pedalling, followed by that Eureka moment when I first applied pedal power and stayed upright…………and then I fell off.

The police station was located on Rectory Road between the Chase and Howard Crescent (where the policemen lived). The police organised a Cycling Proficienct Test which I passed with almost flying colours. We had to ride from to police station, down Rectory Road, around a few back streets and back again and there were observers on all corners and junctions checking that we carried out the right indications and manoevres. I didn't quite get a perfect score because one policemen didn't see me indicate - Mum kept the certificate and I have it now.

I once found something in the street (can't remember what it was) and Mum insisted that it was 'stealing by finding' to keep it, so she made me hand it in to the police station. They would keep things for three months and then you could claim the item. Whatever it was, I never got it back so I guess the owner reclaimed it.

There was a cattle farm across the A13 from the park. A very distinctive pong emanated from this farm, especially during the summer. To a stranger, it might have been obnoxious, but living with it day in and day out you became used to it. I’ve seldom smelt this same pong anywhere else, but anything similar tales me right back.

We had an idyllic childhood in Pitsea. Virtually no restrictions on where we could go or what we got up to.

At the top of Rectory Hill Rd was a field with a large pond. We used to take a fishing net and collect all sorts of pond life, especially newts, which we would take home. No matter what we did, the newts always vanished from whatever vessel we saved them in. I never found out where they went. Some older boys set up a 'cycle speedway' track in that field. I borrowed a bike to have a go, not realising it was 'fixed wheel' (the pedals did not rotate backwards when idling), so I went into the bend left leg out, but the pedals didn't stop turning and my leg ended up crushed between the ground and the pedal. My eyes watered! One boy gave me my first cigarette - a Craven A.

There was a house which backed onto this field, which led to the first of many regrettable incidents in my life. Scrumping was a regular pastime for us kids. Apples, pears, gooseberries were all fair game to us. However, this one time I noticed a green fruit hanging from a bush in the garden, so I gingerly opened the gate and crawled over to the bush and plucked the fruit. It was a peach, it was green, and it tasted awful. After one bite I spat it out and threw it away. Years later and I often imagine the gardener who might have lovingly tended this bush which he had grown in the most unlikely conditions from seed and relishing the prospect of seeing his first peach ripen on the stem – only to have it stolen by a young scallywag who then threw it away.
If that gardener is still alive and reads this, I’m truly sorry.

They were demolishing some houses further down Rectory Road. There was a popular rumour going about that one of the houses had a secret trap door which led to a cellar full of treasure. Consequently, I spent hours one day sifting the rubble of the said house. Needless to say, I found no trapdoor, no treasure and Mum was not at all happy when she had to search for me and drag me off the building site as dusk was falling at 10 o’clock at night.

The local Boy’s Club from Timberlog Lane made model jet planes, which they took to the centre of the park and flew using about 10 yards of elastic which they pulled tight and let the aircraft go. And fly they did, rising high into the air and looping the loop before they came back to earth again - sometimes on the main road. Dad took me to the club occasionally and I was able to make a little wooden boat.

The park boasted the tallest slide in the world, or so it seemed. It was certainly very high. We found that if we dragged a candle behind us we could get the slide so highly polished that we would fly down ever so fast and go speeding off the end.
We were scolded by one mother who had unwittingly placed her kiddy on the slide only to see it go down at a great rate of knots and fly off the end into a crumpled heap at the bottom.
I could never understand how we got away with it, because we would come home every night with a thick layer of candle wax all over the seat of our trousers. Before washing machines, it must have been a devil of a job to get off.
I was looking after my baby sister when I ran up the stairs with her following on behind. When I looked back, she was a crumpled heap at the bottom and bleeding everywhere. Poor thing.

Most Saturdays we would go the matinee at the local cinema where we would watch black and white films with rickety sets, but featuring Cowboys and Indians, adventures in Space, and Cartoons. During the interval a man would come on the stage as a sort of holiday camp cheerleader and a raffle would be held with the entry ticket. If you had enough stamps on your membership card you got some free weeks off your next season ticket (or something like that - I never had enough stamps or won the raffle to find out). There always seemed to be hundreds of kids in the place, all making a tremendous racket. It must have been a nice little earner for a Saturday morning. Afterwards Mum would pick us up and we would spend our pocket money buying cheap toys from the market which was just behind the cinema.

We had a dog called Blackie that was a labrador cross. One day we got the news that he had been run over on Rectory Road and had to be put down. I crawled into the back seat of Dad's car and cried. We also had a tabby cat and one he let out an awful scream and died. Mum said he must have had a fur-ball in his tummy.


Dad was a member of the British Legion, in fact he was some sort of officer, either treasurer or secretary. The hall was a corrugated iron building situated just on the north side of the High Steet behind some shops. It boasted a full size snooker table, but Dad wouldn't let me play in case I tore the cloth. We used to attend Beetle drives and Whist drives, but again, I wasn't allowed to play. My uncle Jack Coe was an artist andwas commissioned to paint a portrait of the Queen.

Jacks Portrait and Legion Members

Dad was also a member of the Red Cross. He often took me with him to their meetings in Rayleigh (I think). On one occassion, we practised marching and I ended up at front of a line of boys - when Dad ordered 'left turn' I didn't know which was which so I guessed - and guessed wrong. Ooops. I still remember most of the pressure points I learnt during that period. Dad would stand his turn as duty first-aider at the Kursaal in Southend. Sometimes he would take me with him but it seldom got me any free rides or grub, and since the first-aid post was right at the back, it got to be a bit boring after a while. Interestingly, his first aid box, with its little drawers for scissors etc stayed in the family for years and after all the bandages and stuff was used, it became his fishing tackle box.

My sister Caroline was born in that house. I don't remember much about it - I don't even remember Mum changing shape during the process. I do remember Mum wheeling a pram home and saying something about it being unlucky to have baby stuff around before the birth.

We had a period where Dad would make fresh bread and leave the dough to rise next to the fire. It didn't last long because within minutes of the loaf being cooked, it was eaten. 

Uncle Albert and Aunt Dorothy were courting around then. Whenever they went for a walk, I would follow them, playing gooseberry. They were married in Dagenham and we were all invited. I don't remember much about it, but during the reception, I wanted to drink some pineapple juice but Dad woulldn't let me have one. No doubt I was sitting around with a face like a wet weekend when Uncle George asked what was wrong. I told him and a few minutes later everything was fine because he brought me that coveted pineapple juice.

 
We supplemented our income by taking in a lodger. I believe he was called Michael. He struck me as a melancholy sort of person who didn’t have much to do with us kids. We weren’t allowed to disturb him or go into his room. He would build wooden models of ships in his spare time. Beautiful three masted schooners and such like, complete with all the spars and rigging – far too delicate to be handled by the likes of me.

The local garage was near The Railway public house and I remember Dad having to hand over ration coupons for petrol during the Suez crisis.