My mother, Ada Grace Childers - Mum - was born on March 14th 1910 at 1, Sidney Road, Wood Green, London, where her parents, John William and Caroline - née Lulham - ran a tobacconists shop. The Schilders family - they dropped the initial S during the first war to avoid its Germanic associations - orginated in Belgium, where they may have been cigar manufacturers. She had two brothers, William and Edward, and a pair of sisters, Dorothy and Mary. Will, as he was known, had lost an arm in the first world war and lived on Canvey Island, near Southend, a slightly strange area that I very vaguely recall visiting as a small child. In later years, Ted - married to another Mary - had a son named Derek, and also lived in Hackney, not far from the Johnsons, sharing a house with his parents. Dorothy - married to Alfred Weedon - lived in Hornsey, just up the road from Turnpike Lane tube station, with their two sons, Kenneth and Douglas. Mary, for whom I have no other details, lived at Maryland Point in the London area of Stratford.
Mum had an uncle, also called Will, who, at an early age moved from London to Middlesborough for some reason, where he met and married Joanna. During the 30s depression, work was hard to find in that area, and a number of families were relocated to specially built estates in the South. One of these was in Cobham, Surrey, where both Will and Joanna and their daughter, Sarah - married to Wiiliam (Billy) Foster - took up residence in homes in the newly-built Tartar Road. Sarah and Billy had sons Raymond and Eric, and a daughter Ann - who came to stay with us in Edmonton on many occasions and she and Mum became very close. In their late 'teens, although the boys were far from a big city, on their evenings out they would dress in full Teddy Boy suits, with Ray sporting a mass of long hair swept back over his neck in the current D.A. style, the cause of many arguments with Billy.
We visited Cobham quite often, and our journeys would start with a 679 trolleybus ride to the Astoria, Finsbury Park, where we caught the Green Line coach that took us through London, Kingston-on-Thames and Esher, to alight at the stop outside The Tartar pub. Initially I found Aunt Sarah somewhat frightening as she spoke very loudly and had rather large protruding teeth. Billy was relatively quiet in comparison to his no-nonsense wife, who, possibly because of thrifty habits learned through hard times, was the only person I ever observed who, after buttering a slice of bread, appeared to end up with more on the butter knife than the amount with which she started. My earliest recollection was of a visit made at a time just before Christmas where my brother and I were presented with large wooden model aeroplanes, constructed and painted by Billy and his boys. My 'plane was almost bigger than I was, and I recall struggling through the snow with this enormous aircraft on the way to catch the Green Line coach home. Will's family in Cobham all had Geordie-like accents, but the broadest of these was Joanna's. However, what really amazed and tickled me was the fact that their budgie mimicked Joanna exactly, being very loquacious, but speaking like a character from the later TV series When The Boat Comes In.
Besides family visits, I would also sometimes go to Cobham by myself during the summer school holidays. There was a tree at the end of Tartar Road up which I loved to climb to the very top, to get a panoramic view, including that of the adjacent field where some local boys and I would play with the bales of straw left after harvesting. The boys also access to trade bikes, the ones fitted with large metal basket frames at the front and back, in which some of us would ride to nearby Mizen Way en route to Mizen Close. This cul-de-sac, lined with fruit trees on its verges, was locally referred to a Millionaire's Way, and our forays to grab the available apples, pears and cherries were exciting and productive adventures. We also had great times on the banks of the River Mole where a rope had been attached to a branch of a tree so that it hung down near the middle of the river. Swinging out over the water was a great experience, but if fully dressed, we had to be careful not to let our swings reduce in amplitude too much or we would be left suspended too far from the bank to get back without vigorous use of arms and legs to start swinging again. This didn't matter if we had come prepared for swimming, when the object was to drop off the rope and splash into the water as far away from the bank as possible. Someone else had to catch the rope with a long branch before it got out of reach, so that the next boy could have a go.
I can remember visiting uncle Ted's home, where his mother - Nanna - would give me a treat in the form of a slice of bread and butter which had sugar sprinkled on it and which may have been the origin of the ever-present sweet tooth that affected so many of my eating habits for the rest of my life. In later years, I must have once been taken to call on Mum's sister Mary, since I took it into my head one day to take a train from Ponders End station by myself to visit her at Maryland Point. I was about twelve at the time, and had often travelled up to London's Liverpool Street station collecting train numbers in the past, so it seemed only a little further than one of my usual excursions. I received a - very surprised - but delighted reception when I arrived out of the blue, and was treated as a very special visitor. However, when I made my way home, the train I had planned to take did not stop at Stratford, so I had to catch another to go up to Liverpool Street where I could get a different train back to Ponders End. As a result of these diversions, I arrived home in the dark, much later that I had planned, to find that Dad had been out searching for me. The result of causing distress to Mum and Dad was the application to my backside of several whacks with a stick - which I had to choose - from the woodpile outside the back door.
Going back to before I was born, Mum's family moved from Wood Green to London Fields, taking a newspaper and tobacconists shop in Westgate Street, opposite the aforementioned 'Avelock. Mum developed her love of reading there as she had access to all the comics and papers that were sold in the shop, and later told me about sitting in a corner behind the counter, avidly scanning the latest arrivals. The rear of the shop - which housed the kennel of a large Chow dog, Boy Boy, - backed onto the yard of Dad's home in Bocking Street, so it was no surprise that Alf and Ada soon became acquainted. Part of the attraction for Alf must have been that Ada, as the daughter of the owner of his own business, was a cut above most of the other girls in the area, and Alf's smartness might have impressed Ada. Inevitably, then, they married, setting up home together in a flat in nearby Pownall Road
Before her marriage, Mum had worked for Polikoffs, who described themselves as Skirt Manufacturers, Ladies Costume and Blouse Manufacturers and Gentlemen’s Tailors, at their factory in Mare Street, along with a host of other female sewing machine operators. From those days she recalled that the pressure of work resulted in several occasions when one of the girls got careless and ran their machine needles through their fingertips and fingernails! Once children arrived, at Dad's insistence, she never worked again, apart from many years later she and Betty Evans from number 49 secretly took on cleaning jobs, well away from their locality, in Southgate or Barnet. My brother and I were sworn to secrecy, and I don't think Dad ever found out about Mum's activities, which I think were undertaken for fun as much as to earn pin money.
Mum was a very thrifty woman, especially whilst Dad was in the army, as the part of Dad's pay that she received was augmented by only a very small allowance from Dad's employers, Forbes Stuart. When Dad wrote to ask if the amount could be increased a little, one of the current directors apparently queried whether Mrs Johnson was not a good manager. When Mum heard about this, the director concerned was lucky that he was not nearby, as Mum was so incensed by the insult that she would probably have throttled him! Whether this remark made her even more careful I cannot tell, but it was certainly true that when Dad finally came home, she presented him with an amount of money that she had saved that was enough to enable him to purchase a motor car - a Flying Standard. My brother and I were extremely impressed by this car, with blinds that could be pulled up over the rear windows by cords from the front, and with picnic trays that folded down from the backs of the front seats. Many outings were made in this vehicle, including one I particularly remember which was to Southend-on-Sea. Whilst proceeding along the Southend arterial road, steam began to emerge from under the front bonnet and Dad was forced to a halt. Despite not being a member, he managed to persuade a passing AA patrol man to stop to investigate, which resulted in his being told that the thread on the thermostat screwed in the water jacket of the car's cooling system had stripped causing the device to be ejected by the internal pressure. Most of the water in the system had therefore escaped through the hole that was left, causing the engine temperature to rise and boil the remainder. We appeared to be stuck, as there was no way that the AA man would have a replacement thermostat in his kit of spares, let alone one specifically for that particular car. No problem!, however, declared the AA man, who - with my help holding onto the selected branch of a bush beside the road - used a junior hacksaw to cut off a short length of an appropriate diameter. This he hammered into the offending hole to plug it, before sending me off to a local farm to get a watering can full of water to refill the car's cooling system. With the engine running quite happily again, Dad offered to pay for the AA man's help, but when this offer was declined, he promised to join the AA the very next day. I think that the wooden plug remained in the car's engine for some years until it was eventually sold, but what really sticks in my mind was that, as promised, Dad did join a motoring organisation, but it was the RAC!
Although Mum never worked, she was extremely good at knitting, and when the proprietors of the wool shop where she purchased her materials saw some of the baby clothes and other items she made, they asked her to take on commissions for customers who were not so adept. This resulted in regular trips to the shop, which was in Hertford Road, Edmonton, a couple turnings along from Houndsfield Road where I went to school. If I recall correctly, Westcotts was a laundry shop nearby where after completing her knitting shopping, Mum would take in Dad's used detachable shirt collars, which would be delivered by their lorry once they had been cleaned and starched. I can easily remember evenings when, on my outstretched arms, I would hold hanks of wool as Mum rewound them to make more manageable round balls. Sometimes I would even read out the abbreviated directions - like k1, p1, psso - to her when she was trying to learn a new pattern. She would do her knitting whilst listening to the wireless, and later, whilst watching television, but she never seemed need to look at what she was doing, even though the needles clicked away at a very rapid pace. On a holiday to Swanage in Dorset one year, the weather was not very warm so I needed an extra long sleeved pullover. Mum started and finished one - complete with cable knit front and back - before the end of our stay, and I proudly wore it when I went by myself to the pictures one evening.
As a result of her youthful employment, Mum was a skilled machinist, and used her Singer treadle sewing machine to great effect making dresses, curtains, and even clothes. However, at the time when Dad came home on his first leave from training camp after joining the army, she mistakenly used her abilities to machine sew permanent creases into his uniform trousers to save him having to keep ironing them back at camp. On his return, the eagle-eyed drill sergeant spotted the improvement straight away, and Dad was ordered to cut away all the tiny stiches with a razor blade. The resulting cuts and nicks in the trousers meant that they were ruined, and Dad's pay was docked when he had to requisition a replacement pair. As I grew up, I was always fascinated by Mum's use of paper sewing patterns, and liked to help with the cutting out. Later, in my teens, I even took on the task of making myself a fancy waistcoat, using bright red material for the front, and the correct satin cloth for the back, which was completed with a proper buckled adjusting strap. I did need guidance when creating the pockets, as everything had initially to be done sort of inside out, a procedure which took me a while to grasp, but the garment was eventually completed and did look pretty good. Some years later, I added a motor and control pedal to replace the treadle on her machine, which she still used up to the end of her life.
Mum was also a competent cook, and the thick suet pastry of her steak and kidney puddings was wonderful! However, I've mentioned previously that I disliked cabbage, and it may have been because of the strange way she prepared that vegetable. The leaves would be boiled for ages in a saucepan with the addition of a pinch of baking soda, after which they were poured out into colander. The drained pale green and yellow contents of the colander would be squashed with the back of a saucer to drain any remaining water, and the resulting curved top mass turned out onto a plate, where it resembled the dome of the O2 arena that was created in later years. A knife would then be used to cut the heap in two directions, to produce rounded top cubes ready to be served onto dinner plates - except mine! More to my taste were her afters - spotted dick, with its slightly slimy coating where some water had penetrated the cloth wrapping used during boiling, treacle puddings, and trifles - with a custard or blancmange layer on top of jelly which usually contained the contents of a can of tinned fruit. There were sometimes a few chunks of a yellow fruit in the mixture, which was too soft to be from a peach or melon, and which I always treated with some suspicion as it might have been something overripe. It was not until many years later when dining whilst on a holiday in The Seychelles that I realised that the mystery items had been pieces of Mango - a fruit that never appeared in Grocery shops in the UK in previous decades.