Rodwell Road 1950's

[Wardy]

I have been writting a few things about Heber Road School on another thred and with the responce shown I thought you may like to read another chapter from my book about Rodwell Road in the 1950's. Enjoy

CHAPTER 8

People Who Made Their Living on the Streets

The world today compared with the world of my childhood has changed drastically and so has the meaning of many English words. When I was a boy you could use the word ?gay? without giving homosexuality a second thought; ?gay? in my day meant you were happy or it could even mean bright colours. The same could be said for the word ?muffin?. If you said to someone today you were a ?muffin man? they would immediately conjure up all sorts of sexual innuendos, thinking you were a pervert. In fact the muffin man was a regular visitor to my street, and every street in the area where I lived, on a Saturday afternoon.

The muffin man sold bread muffins. He would carry the muffins on a huge tray which he balanced on his head. As he walked along the road he would be holding a large bell by the handle, a bit like an old-fashioned school bell. He would shake the bell rigorously and at the same time shout the words ?Muffins, fresh muffins.? On hearing this barrage of noise, normally at about 4pm, mum, providing dad wasn?t too pissed and in a good mood, would send me out of the house to buy six muffins.

I was always intrigued by the muffin man. He was very old and his face was full of wrinkles, the type of face you would imagine had a thousand stories to tell. He always wore the same clothes: a black suite coat, grey trousers, waistcoat with a pocket watch and chain, a greyish white shirt buttoned at the collar, but with no tie, and a thick long white apron. There was no colour in his clothes, just black, white and grey. He reminded me of Charlie Chaplin in the old black-and-white films.

The muffins would be covered in a white sheet, and as he pulled the sheet from the muffins there was an unmistakable smell of fresh bread. I could never figure out how he balanced such a big tray on his head without toppling over somewhere on the way. I used to try to mimic him by balancing a tray, made from a plank of wood, on my head in my back yard, but could never master the art.

There were no hygiene precautions to speak of ? he personally handled all the muffins and the money without once washing his hands and I suspect he had a piss somewhere on his rounds too. That said, I can?t remember anyone ever having a stomach problem after eating one of his muffins.

Saturday afternoon and the muffin man, believe it or not, was an exciting time. Mum would warm the muffins, cover them with butter and we would sit and munch, quietly enjoying our weekly treat; and what a treat that was.

Almost every day I hear people rattling on about recycling; it?s on the news, in the tabloids, on the radio and rammed down your throat by the local council. Recycling is nothing new ? we just forgot how to do it.

The best recycler of all times and someone who has long since gone was the rag-and-bone man. Every day of the week, the rag-and-bone man would ride his horse and cart along every street shouting, ?Rag and bones, rag and bones, any old lumber.? The rag-and-bone man would buy anything: old clothes, iron, copper, lead, old bath tubs, old kettles ? you name it and he would give you something for it, and then recycle it. I loved the sound of the rag-and-bone man?s call and the click-clock of his horse?s hooves walking along the road; I tried every day to have something for him to buy.

The rag-and-bone man always had dirty finger nails and clothes that looked like they should have been binned long ago. Every finger on his hands would have an old gold ring and he wore a silver pocket watch with a chain hanging from his waistcoat pocket.

There?s a couple of things I distinctly remember about the rag-and-bone man: he always smelled of horse shit, most of his teeth were dark brown with the odd broken black tooth, and he had one gold tooth, just to the left-hand side of his top jaw, a sign of wealth in those days. The rag-and-bone man was always friendly, always had something to say about nothing and always had a big smile on his face.

On the opposite side of the coin, his horse never seemed to have a smile, his horse always looked completely fucked and in need of a good feed. I suppose the bottom line was that if anyone, horse or human, for years walked the same old route, day in, day out, with someone shouting ?rag and bones? in their ear every couple of minutes, they would probably look fucked too.

Like with most things as a child, I would look at people and situations and ask myself questions. The one big question I always asked myself about the rag-and-bone man was why he shouted ?bones? in his daily chorus. I never saw any bones on his cart and I never saw him buy any bones. After all, I would think, what can you do with a bone? I still don?t know the answer to this day.

Ask anyone today for a glass of milk and they will reach into the fridge and produce a carton. Ask anyone today for a slice of bread and they will reach into the cupboard and produce a nicely cut pre-wrapped loaf. Not when I was a boy. Milk and bread were delivered to your door by the milkman and the bakerman.

Both these commodities were transported by horse and cart door to door. The horse would walk along the streets and know just when and where to stop and when to start walking again.

The bakerman?s bread would be piled high in baskets on his cart, covered only by a sheltered fabric roof open to all the elements, and yet there was never a complaint from anyone about hygiene.

The milkman was very much the same. His horse would know when to stop and when not to stop. The big difference between the milkman?s cart and the bakerman?s cart was the noise. The milkman?s cart made a loud noise of bottles banging together as the horse pulled the cart along the road. It was always a mystery to me how those bottles didn?t break, but they didn?t.

Although we only had small back yards in the street where we lived, some people grew a few vegetables. Now, one thing that is good for vegetables is horse shit, and Saturday mornings, when most men would be at home, was horse shit day.

Just before the bakerman or the milkman came along the street eager gardeners would be poised waiting at the front of their houses for them to arrive. Each of them would be praying that when the horse did shit, and they do shit a lot, that it would shit outside their house so as they could lay claim to the pile. This was okay in theory, but the problem came when the horse shit halfway between two houses or in the middle of the road between two rows of houses; then the fun began. When this happened you would see two grown-up men running with all their might, carrying a bucket and small shovel, towards the pile of horse shit. The first to arrive at the pile would claim it as theirs. Unfortunately there were times when two men would reach the shit together, and that is when the real fun began. I have witnessed adult men come to a physical fight over a pile of horse shit. By the time they had stopped jumping around and throwing punches at each other there was no horse shit to have; it was spread across the road where their feet had kicked it from place to place during the scuffle.

Slowly the horses disappeared into retirement. I was about ten years old when the last of the horses, the milkman?s horse, was on his rounds in a thunder storm. For some unknown reason, at the sound of thunder, which he must have heard a thousand times before, he bolted and came to an abrupt halt at the end of my street, lying on his side shivering with fear.

There was some panic and the police were called. Eventually a vet arrived and examined the horse. Shortly afterwards a screen was put around the horse, there was a bang and the horse was dead, put down by the vet.

This horse was a beautiful intelligent animal that had worked hard for years and who was loved by all the kids. I was only young and the whole event made me very sad. I had known this horse all of my life. Every day I saw him, stroked him and fed him with bread ? now he was gone.

Although I was only young at the time, I can remember wondering if the horse had just had enough of life. Perhaps he felt too old to do any more, too old to pull that heavy cart, too old to get up every morning at the crack of dawn and just too old to work tirelessly in all weathers. Perhaps he decided to end it all by making that final bolt for freedom.

The horse was replaced by an electric milk float; having milk delivered was never to be the same again.

I don?t know who this man was or where he came from, but every now and then this tall man with an artificial leg would appear at our door; he was the knife sharpener.

He would bang at the door and shout ?Knife ? scissors.? Mum would go to the kitchen draw and pull out a carving knife or an old pair of scissors, giving them to me saying, ?Go and get these sharpened.?

The knife sharpener?s entire business was mounted on his push bike. The bike had one pedal which was attached by various chains to a big grinding stone wheel which was suspended from his handle bars. He would sit on the bike supporting his balance with his artificial leg firmly on the ground. His good leg would push the pedal and in turn this would turn the grinding wheel. As he did this he would run the knife blade across the stone until it was razor sharp.

We all know someone in this modern world who can?t work because of a disability, bad back, gammy leg or some other such ailment. When I was a boy there were few people who didn?t work because of a physical disability. One leg, one arm, in a wheelchair or no feet, somehow they all found a way to make a living.

The peculiar thing was this man?s choice of making a living. Who in their right mind with one leg would choose to make their living by pedalling all day with their one good leg? Surely a better choice would be a fiddle player or play to a mouth organ ? anything rather than completely fucking up the only one good leg you had left.

I didn?t know an awful lot about the knife sharpener, but I did know he was a miserable bastard. He never talked and if you talked to him he would just grunt or shout ?Don?t talk, I?m sharpening.? With those sharp knives in his hand, I never pushed the point. I did however wonder what would happen if his artificial leg broke as he pedalled away at the wheel. Sometimes he was so miserable I wished it would break. You see, in those days artificial legs were made of wood and the cheaper National Health-issued legs didn?t have any joints; a little too much pressure or a touch of woodworm and the whole thing could collapse in pieces. Needless to say, it never did.

Now, of all the strange ways to make a living this must be it. There was a man who visited our street every week selling cotton reels and needles. Now, I don?t know how much cotton one needs, but I was always puzzled as to how he could make enough money to survive.

He was deaf and dumb, but he could sort of grunt a few words. He had all his cotton and needles in a big tray on the front of his cycle. Every week he would have a small group of women surrounding the tray looking at different colours of cotton. I could never understand the weekly fascination of looking at reels of cotton; surely you can only have so much cotton. Maybe it was just a chance for the women to have a chat, not with him obviously, but each other, and in the process he would make some money. I imagined these women to have huge cupboards indoors stacked high with every colour of cotton imaginable and every size of needle you could possibly want.

After years of coming to our street, one week the cotton man didn?t turn up and he was never seen again. I don?t know what happened to him ? perhaps he just got fed up with all those women talking and not being able to join in the conversation, or perhaps he just died. Whatever happened to him, no one seemed to care. I suppose everyone had enough cotton to last them a lifetime anyway, so he wasn?t missed.

Sad when you think about it ? spending your whole life not being able to talk and selling reels of cotton to women who done nothing else but talk and on top of that nobody really cared when you were gone.

Before I leave the people who earned their money on the street, I must tell you about Tom Cornwall. Tom had a small shop in Heber Road. I say shop, it was a shop, but it never opened. Tom used the shop as a storage area for what he sold on the streets.

Tom had a big old open-back van which during the week was loaded with fruit and vegetables. Tom would go from street to street shouting ?Fruit and veg.? His voice could be heard for miles, but on a Sunday morning all changed.

His van, instead of being loaded with fruit and vegetables, was loaded with fish, cockles, shrimps and all other kinds of seafood. Every Sunday morning mum would send me out to buy a pint of winkles and a pint of shrimps. The smell coming from his van reminded me of the seaside; it had a salty smell and felt fresh.

Now the thing was, we bought seafood on a Sunday, but we never bought fruit or vegetables from Tom during the week. The reason: dad had a fiddle going on.

Tom employed a young lad to help out in the shop on a Saturday. It was his job to stack the potatoes, open the boxes of tomatoes and generally make himself busy while Tom was out selling. Tom?s shop was right next door to the Heber Arms pub where dad often enjoyed his Saturday afternoon drink. At some time dad came into contact with Tom?s helper and struck a deal.

Every Saturday, when Tom was out on his rounds, his helper loaded a box with all the veg you could possibly want. He would leave it just outside the shop for dad to pick up. In exchange dad gave him a couple of bob, probably more than a couple of bob if the truth was known. This went on for years and Tom, poor old sod, was never the wiser.

[PeckhamRose]

Nothing changes. Fiddles go on all the time. I am often in a pub when someone will come in with some joints of meat from questionable sources and sell it to the barman. This is another reason I prefer to eat vegetarian when in pubs.

Some lovely stories there, Wardy! Thanks for sharing them with us!

[Wardy]

No problem I have plenty more if anyone is interested.

[????]

wardy...I still remember a horse drawn rag and bone man in SE5 the late 80s and possibly even early 90s in SE22

[Wardy]

Its a pitty they dont bring them back today; the council could learn a lot.

[minder2]

i can remember the parafin man who used to come round in his van so we could fill up our oil filled heaters in the bathroom! and also holding on to the back of the van on our rollerskates as he pulled us around, so dangerous would'nt be allowed today but great fun!

[Wardy]

Minder 2: I remember that so well. I also remember that when parafin came in to fashion there were so many more house fires. I can also remember one of the parifine men selling " Esso Blue". Use must be around my age; did you live in Rodwell Road?

[chuff]

Wardy, my grandparents used to tell me of many of the characters you speak about plus a few others including the French onion seller. They lived on zenoria street so I'm sure you encountered many of the same tradesmen.

It's really nice to read your descriptions, for me it's like having my grandparents back and listening to their many stories of how things were different. One of my favourites was how my great grandfather managed to get lost in the fog for hours at goose green roundabout, which seems bizarre to me.

Anyway, I enjoyed Reading. Thanks.

[minder2]

hi wardy, lived in se5 at that time, can remember getting the plastic funnel out to pour it in and just hope you did'nt spill it! the van driver who used to deliver as i remember was a large jolly man who had a really loud voice so you could'nt not hear him as he done his rounds.

[Wardy]

Chuff: Im glad to know you enjoyed my story. I to can remember getting lost in the fog, or smog as it was known. Problem was I was only outside my house, but I couldnt find my way back home. Dont remember the French onion man.

Minder: I can still remember the smell of those vans. If I remenber coredctly they usually called on a Saturday

[candj]

Lovely stories Wardy and thanks for sharing them with us. Do you still live on Rodwell Road?

[Wardy]

Candj: Moved away in 1968. My perents lived there all through the war. Rodwell Road is where I grew up and learned about live. There were many old charactors who lived in the road in those days, people you would never see today and some of them had memories going right back to the 1800'. I can remember one person, his name was Stan the Polish Man. He was a terrible driver and he owned a very old Standard Vanguard. He once came out of the Heber Arms Pub after a few pints, put the car in revers, instead of foreward gear, shot backwards and ran over a man called John Robinson, breaking both john's legs. No police were called and no charges where brought against Stsn the Polish Man.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Wonderful tales Wardy. I can just about remember the rag & bone man from my childhood, though he had a flat back truck rather than a horse and cart. Weren't the bones used for glue?

The muffin bakery was at the top of Gordon Road in Nunhead just by the Salvation Army building.

My gran used to tell me tales of pea soupers in the fifties. Apparently she had to walk in front of grandad's chimney sweep van directing him because visibility was so bad.

[candj]

Wardy,

I suspect your stories transcend Rodwell and Heber Roads to all of East Dulwich and even South London. It's great for people who live here now to hear your wonderful tales. And we all think that things have changed in the last 4-5 years!

Out of interest, what house number did you grow up in?

Keep the stories coming!

-C

[Wardy]

Canji: I was born in the back room of N0 25. The garden was very small but I still managed to have a shed full of racing pigions, chickens and a dog. If you look from Rodwell Road towards Crystal Palce Road at the very end house on the corner on the left hand side, you will see my initials carved in to the cemented wall pier. It was put there in 1957, I got a good bash around the back of the head for doing it. When I was very young I would climb from the back of my house up on to the roof. I would look over the ridge of the roof and when the pigions were feeding in the road, as they always did, I would pop them off with my caterpult, my mum would go mad at me for doing this: arew the pigions still there?

Peckhamgatecrasher: Your grandad probably cleand our chimney, knowing how it was in those days we probably still owe him the money. I had some muffins the other day; nothing like they were in the 50's. I have lots more stories from my book, I will put them on this thred one day.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

That'll be two guineas then please, Wardy.

[chuff]

Wardy

Which school did you go to? I'm guessing you're about the same age as my father and would have known some of the same people.

Chuff

[Wardy]

Chuff: I went to Heber Road from 1955 to 1961 and Thomas Calton in Peckham from 1961 to 1965. However if your dad is in his late 50's early 60's and live in Dulwich I may know him; whats his name?

Peckhamgatecrusher: The cheque is in the post.

[macroban]

Thanks, Wardy. I hope your book gets published.

One of my memories of Rodwell Road in the late 1950s and early 1960s is that it was regarded as slightly "posher" than the adjacent roads.

[Wardy]

Blimey macroban, I didn?t know I lived in a posh street. In those days we did have posh ends and rough ends; I lived in the rough end. The streets that were considered rough were Whatley Road and Silvester Road. Whatley Road had a good chip shop but that was it. I suppose things are a lot different today. Did you live near Rodwell road in the 50's/60'?

[candj]

Rodwell Road has such a mix of Victorian houses, three story terraces on one end and extra wide semi-detached on the other across from smaller two story terraces... interesting though! It's a nice street because it doesn't connect to Lordship Lane so you don't get too many racers unlike some of our other streets.

[Wardy]

Funny how things change. I can remember as a child being told to s?d off a play down my own end of the street. I lived in the end near Crystal Palace Road; the rough end. At the other end lived white collar workers who had shiny painted doors. Down my end the doors were painted once in a blue moon and there was always roaming dogs and people sat on the steps talking, it was the end where all the kids were allowed to play outside in the street, unlike the other end where the kids stayed in doors. Regards Wardy

[diwhy]

Wardy did you once swap some roller skates for a watch ?

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Wardy Wrote:

... and there was always roaming dogs and people sat on the steps talking, it was the end where all the kids were allowed to play outside in the street, unlike the other end where the kids stayed in doors.

Love your anecdotes and how true, in general, that last comment is/was.

Seen the same syndrome all my life, with some exceptions in built-up areas.

[macroban]

Rodwell Road was not my part of East Dulwich.

Thinking about what Wardy wrote I do now remember that one end of Rodwell Road was posher than the other. At the posh end some of the girls went to Honor Oak.