VISITS TO LONDON

I was the most fortunate in our group over the matter of visits. If things went smoothly then I could expect a visit every three weeks or so. If I had gone out of my way to be disruptive and upset the running of the family group at the Home, I could have easily expected that visits to be less frequent. As my mother had to spend a large amount of time looking after my grandmother, on certain occasions an expected visit might be delayed. It was disappointing but it soon could be made up. Others in the flat had either few or no visits. How they managed to keep happy with almost no contact was something that I could not understand.

I often managed to get longer periods away from the Home during the summer holidays. This was the period when I was happy; for most of the time I was out of the house. The confines of the Home made me take full advantage of my freedom. For my mother there was one extra bonus – for the full weeks I was away from the Home, the two pounds fee did not have to be paid to them. My food, pocket money and clothing that I needed during my holidays could soon use up the money my mother saved.

Visits from my mother took two forms. If there was enough time and my grandmother was in a reasonably stable condition then I would be collected on either a Friday evening or Saturday morning and taken to London; my return to the Home would be early Sunday evening. If my grandmother was not very well and needed quiet, I would simply get a visit from my mother mid-morning on a Saturday; I would have a day out with her instead of going back to London. These normally started out by visiting a small café near the school annexe. The treat was to have a rum-flavoured cake topped with a dollop of cream, and a cup of real coffee. Then it was a trip by bus to a nearby town. Money was not that plentiful, but during the trip out there was enough for lunch, and possibly tea and if I had been good, a small toy. If we did not go on a trip, we might visit one of my aunts and uncles. I would be spending my entire day in the same town as the Home, and could actually see my school from their window. I was never allowed to visit on my own during my stay at the Home. Getting away from the Home was all that mattered. I was slightly disappointed at not being taken back to London for the weekend but a day away from the Home and its stifling life was something I was quite happy with.

Visits to London were the treats that I really lived for. I tried to be good in front of my mother in an attempt or hope that she might decide that I could stay in London and not have to return to the Home. Sunday afternoons when it was time to get ready to return were always the worst. I tried to keep a brave face on it, but the thought of the boring and frustrating time ahead of me until the next visit did get me down. If I had played up at this point, I could guess that a decision might be made that perhaps visits back to London were not such a good idea and that it might be best if my stay at the Home became like the others’.

To the staff my trips to London enabled me to spend more time with my mother. In reality during my weekends and holidays in London, little time could be spent with my mother. My grandparents needed full-time attention, and other than the journey to and from the Home, my mother never really had the time off. I could stay indoors and keep quiet, but that would have been as dull as life at the Home. It was the chance of life in the normal world during the visits to London that helped me with my life. If I had been confined to the Home and did not get any visits or time away from the Home, there was a good chance I would have become a real problem.

Weekends in London although not pre-planned, were always mapped out in my mind with a range if things I could do depending on the weather and if the adults had any plans. If I had returned to London on the Friday night then Saturday morning at the earliest opportunity I could be free as soon as breakfast was over. Saturday morning cinema was my main activity. It might have been odd but although there was a cinema in the town where the Home was, our lives seemed to be organised so that it was only on very rare occasions that it was ever visited, and then only as a family group at Christmas. With our number, we could have always organised a sell-out on a Saturday morning, which most of us would have been willing to spend our pocket money on.

Only managing to get to London at odd weekends, I was certainly at a disadvantage when it came to the serials, but as there was an introduction at the start, it was possible to make up for the missing episodes. Joining the queue to get into the cinema was a little odd. I seemed to revert to being one of the local London kids. A child on their own would soon be picked on. However I found it quite easy to find other boys around my own age, and although I might not have seen them before, gaining temporary membership in their gang for the morning was fun. In the Saturday morning cinema, there were two distinct groups; there were the cinema staff and any older children that had gained the coveted free admission to be monitors against the rest of us.

Sundays were mine until about four o’clock. This was the point when I had to have returned home; miss this deadline and all the following Sundays in London would have been miserable. Cinemas opened late on Sunday afternoons so that was normally out. Swimming first thing in the morning and a visit to an outdoor market, were often how my freedom was spent that day.

Life in London was so different. During my activities, the Home became only a vague memory; it was so odd to experience all this freedom of the sights and interest, then to have two or more weekends when almost every moment of your time was organised in a way that allowed you no freedom. I could have quite happily gone for a long walk in the area surrounding the Home on my own without causing any problems at all. Confined inside the Home was so frustrating, when it was possible at other moments to have such freedom. The late afternoon of a Sunday could come round so suddenly. The return by train seemed to pass in no time, then it was into the Home and life was back to normal.

Once alone in London, there were always interesting things to do. On visiting playgrounds and the like, I found it quite easy to merge in with the local boys of my own age. We did get up to some mischief, but nothing serious was ever attempted. London in the mid 1960s for boys was similar in appearance to the London that boys of our age found at the end of the war. Large areas had been cleared for redevelopment. Although often fenced off to keep the likes of us away, there were few fences that could keep a determined boy out. Weekends were often the best for such exploration; there was seldom any work going on at the building sites so we had relative freedom of what we wanted to do.

New buildings that were being constructed were seldom of much interest to me; old abandoned buildings that were days away from being demolished were far more fun. With care, we could play as we liked. We might keep a few bonfires going, but we never decided to set fire to any of the buildings simply because there was so much fun to be had whilst they still stood upright.

Salvage companies had often arrived before us. Some of the buildings could have been dangerous; that they had removed all the floorboards was simply a challenge. The ability to hop from one joist to another above a large drop to the floor below was fun.

The houses had often been in occupation until quite recently. Families moved out and often left all manner of junk behind. Some of the local boys were good at collecting anything that looked to be of any value and would then take it down to the local markets; the rest of us regarded odd items of cracked and unwanted china as playthings. Dropping china and glass on the floor on purpose was strange – often it never broke and we had to put more physical force into actually smashing them.

The adults also scavenged lead and copper pipes; some of the houses we explored had water running from the walls. The best finds were in houses where there was flooding in the basements and cellars. If some floorboards had already been removed, then light helped us in our search for treasure and adventure. If it was total darkness then assortments of battery-powered torches and lit candles were used. It was simply down to luck that we never found a cellar into which gas had escaped.

Stepping onto the floors of cellars even if you wore your wellingtons was always a bit of a risk; you simply did not know the depth of the water in the building. At first we might test the depth of water with a stick. After a time this would get boring; you would then take a chance. Old play clothes were the best type of clothing for such activities, although most of us would normally have liked to wear long trousers or jeans; there was a definite advantage in shorts when the water was up to your knees. By the time most of us returned to our homes there was little evidence to where we had been. Ordinary play in playgrounds and the like seemed to satisfy most parents as to acquisition of dirt.

Only at one point did I nearly meet with a serious accident. We had clambered across a row of garages that adjoined a group of houses that had just become abandoned. In our rush to get at this new site, we were in a little bit of a hurry; cutting a corner of the final garage, I went across an asbestos roof. Like someone sinking into a frozen pond that was giving way, I was slowly disappearing. With luck I managed to get to the side without going completely in. The drop would have been about ten feet; although I might not have suffered any major injury, getting me out would have proved a challenge to the boys I was with.

One item we did take that was not really abandoned was lengths of rope. Hung from trees and high buildings all manner of play activities could be thought up. Possibly the adults soon claimed them back, but to us that was fair; all we did was hunt the next one down.

Commercial buildings proved equally interesting. The Underground station at Swiss Cottage had stood for many years; owing to redevelopment, a newer updated station had been built a short distance away underground. The old station building above ground still functioned, with a small group of shops surrounding the building; it slowly seemed to fade away until finally the metal panelling to keep the public out went up. Part of the building was soon demolished, however the vast carcass seemed to stay untouched. We never regarded ourselves as the public; the old shops were the first to explore. All the stock had gone but there were plenty of odd finds available; clean cardboard and paper to draw on was my main acquisition. We did have fun in the shop that repaired and sold umbrellas. Several damaged and uncompleted umbrellas made marvellous swords; no injuries were achieved even though our play had been quite violent.

The floors above the station were a mess: stacks of old newspapers, books and other rubbish were all over the place. If we helped clear up the place it was to throw all this stuff onto the stairwells and then slide down the pile. With the amount of paper and cardboard, we found it was quite a soft landing. A group of lavatories to us were asking to be smashed up. The water had been turned off and anything of remote value had already been removed. Smashing such heavy objects up was actually exhausting. Our final act was to smash a couple of the remaining plate glass windows in the arcade that had survived the demolition by the workers on the site. These were not the largest windows, but when eventually we did manage to get a brick through, the sound in this desolate arcade was deafening. Departing quickly was a wise move.

If I had a whole day to myself, the Zoo in Regent’s Park was one place I could visit. The cost to get in would take most of my pocket money, but if I had sandwiches and a drink my duffle bag, the day could go without further expense other than the bus fare home. Often I made a first quick tour round the Zoo. There were notices as to the times animals were fed, and returning at the correct time often brought much more interesting sights, rather than the normal points in the day when most animals seemed to be more or less asleep.

The vultures were the best of the birds to watch. On one visit when the keeper was feeding them, I was the only one watching this activity. Perhaps the keeper was a little worried that I might be upset at the sight of the food going into the cage, and asked if I wanted to go and find my parents. I was quite happy to watch the birds come down and squabble over the food.

The advantage of visiting the Zoo on my own was that I did get to visit parts that family groups did not see. In the Lion House, I was allowed to go and visit the rear of the building; wearing an old raincoat and wellingtons,  no harm could come to my clothes. This part of the Zoo was not as clean or as fresh as the front of the cages, but as long as I was quiet and did not make any sudden movements, I was quite safe. The big cats were far more active in this area.

Coin-operated machines were always of interest to me. If I was in London and had a little pocket money, any machine was a good bet as to where it would soon go. Everything from an automated snack bar, where to obtain food or drink you needed to put money in a slot, vending machines that dispensed cartons of orange squash or milk, and a cinema where hot dogs came from a vending machine.

One machine that was always a regular interest to me was the automatic photo booth. Adults might have thought the odd half-crown that I used up to get four or five pictures of myself, might have been a waste of my pocket or birthday money. I can now see this was money well spent. Over the period I was in the Home and had used these machines when I was in London, I probably had over a hundred pictures of myself. Many were discarded over the following months, but the few that survived can show a small boy having some fun. Without these images, all that would be available from my time in care would be a single photo from the Growth Study Test and one photo holding a chimp from my holiday stay in London during Christmas.

On some occasions, I did put my suit on if I was going out on my own. A slightly longer bus ride than visiting the park took me into the centre of London. The shops I could visit if I was smartly dressed were far more than if had I gone dressed in my play clothes.

I often had money to spend in the period after Christmas and my birthday. Once I had reached nine, it was thought I was old enough to decide what I spent it on; if I wasted it then that would be my own fault. There was little need to tell me not to buy toys that might be dangerous; guns and other fighting items were things I would not be spending my money on. As I already possessed a spirit-fired steam engine on a plinth, it might be felt that there was little else that I could buy that would be more dangerous.

Another toy I had in London was a chemistry set complete with test tubes, a burner and a small assortment of chemicals. In the instructions somewhere was possibly the wording that adult supervision was recommended for certain age groups. As my mother had little free time, I was allowed to work through the experiment book on my own. Once this was completed, I set about my own inventions. The most dangerous one was heating half a test tube of oil until it vaporised and then setting light to the gas. Certain household chemicals when mixed and burnt could have other interesting results.

Even when funds were limited, it was interesting to go round the large department stores on my own. Without my mother, I was able to go to the sections of the store I was interested in and take more time, rather than the quick glimpse that I might have in the normal way. It was not only the toy sections that I visited. As I was smartly dressed, the clothing section for boys was something I quite easily matched for quality of appearance in a few of the top stores. Some of the clothing for boys in the stores was what I could only wish for, but to most of my friends the clothing would be regarded as soppy; even if I did have such things, I would never be able to wear them in front of them.

My mother only had a limited amount of time to be away from the house. If I needed clothes or the like during the holidays, spending time with me going shopping was always a problem. With me not spending much time with my mother, it was often noticed that I had grown an inch or so since she had last checked my height. It was now thought that, within reason, I was old enough to buy clothes for myself. Before I left the house there was always the instruction of what I was to buy, and as if to reinforce the instruction it was noted on a piece of paper, which I should show to a member of staff. If I purchased something not on the list or chose something unsuitable then my next pocket money would be used to purchase the correct item. I knew that this would happen if I did ever try something silly.

As I was on my own, it was up to me where I looked for clothing. Some of the more expensive shops did at times have clothes at reasonable prices. Although my mother set a limit for the purchase and did not give me any more money than was necessary, I was to obtain a receipt and return any change to her. If I had been a girl, then fashion might have played a major part over my choices. To me it was just purchasing items that were more traditional and dull in colour. Something that was modern and brightly coloured was not my idea of clothing I wanted to be seen in.

I was well behaved and did not cause any trouble. Had any friends been near, there would have bound to be some problems. A couple of the stores had food halls; many of the items on offer would not have been of any interest to most children of my age, but on occasions small samples were on offer to passing customers. Never really a glutton, I could not resist many of the offerings. If I surprised the adults, it was that the delicacies that they produced were actually to my liking.

Continued

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