THE EARLY YEARS & ODD JOBS
I was born on 29th May, 1921, at 122 Argent Street, Grays in Essex. My parents were Edward George and Victoria, nee Sargent- known as Queenie.
A year later we were living in rooms with the family Pastefield at 3 Roseberry Road, Grays, and at this address my brother Leslie was born on 22nd October 1922.
Another year later my parents became tenants of a new council house in Wallace Road, Grays-No16.
At this address my brother Robert was born on 1st July 1924 and I began my first schooling at Quarry Hill Infant School in Grays.
During 1926 my mother developed tuberculosis and spent a long time in hospital in Black Notley, Essex. While she was in hospital we were cared for by my mother’s sister-our Aunt Gladys.
I was seven years old when my mother died of TB.
My father and we boys then went to live with relatives in the village of Corringham in Essex.
My father, brother Bob and I were accommodated at the home of his sister Alice, known to us as Aunt Lal. She had a daughter-Marion.
Brother Les was cared for by our grandmother Nanna who lived at 24, Digby Road. I attended school in Herd Lane and later to Lampitts Hill school.
On 28th September 1929 my father married a widow Maud Hazell who had a son Harry (Nutty) and a daughter Lillian Rose and we then lived together at 23 Digby Road.
During the 1914-18 war my father served in the Royal Fusiliers and saw service in France and Belgium.
On being demobbed in 1919 he obtained work in a margarine factory at Purfleet, Essex. The factory was owned by Van Den Bergh, Jurgens-later known as Stork margarine.
He worked in the dairy for most of his years.
While we lived in Corringham my father cycled to work daily, a distance of fourteen miles.
He retired in 1964 after 45 years service and sadly he passed away on the 29th September 1979 aged 81.
In 1932 when I was eleven years old I became a paper boy, delivering newspapers and magazines every morning to sixty customers in Ward Avenue\and Bradleigh Avenue.
On Friday evenings I made a delivery of the local newspaper, Grays and Tilbury Gazette-now styled Thurrock Gazette. After the Saturday delivery I made the rounds again to collect payment for the papers, which I entered in a notebook.
So in all I made eight deliveries each week and for this I received sixpence (two-and-a-half pence). Of this my stepmother claimed three pence.
When I was thirteen I received nine pence (four-and-a-half pence) per week wages.
At age fourteen I left school and reported to the local Employment Office and my first job was with a one-man business.
He owned a large shed at Tyrrells Corner, Grays and we had a contract to clean, maintain and paint a fleet of lorries owned by the Thames Board Mills at Purfleet.
My job was to clean the oil, grease and dirt from the chassis, axles and wheels with paraffin, then wash them with hit soda water. The Boss would then paint them.
My hours were 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday for nine shillings (45 pence). Needless to say, my clothing was a mess at the end of the first day and on arriving home I received a lot of verbal from my irate stepmother. The next morning she accompanied me to work and after a heated discussion with my boss it was agreed that I would receive another shilling per week as cleaning allowance-nowadays termed “dirty money”.
I left that job after a month.
Then came a period of unemployment and during these times I attended for two evenings each week. We were taught a trade and I recall that I became very interested in carpentry.
My next job was in a bicycle shop in Church Path, Grays where the work entailed cleaning, repairing and painting bikes. This paid eight shillings (forty pence) for a 40-hour week, eight to five. I let after a few weeks.
My next employment was in West Thurrock with the Thurrock Flint Company where a dozen lads were employed in sorting and grading flints after their extraction from chalk from the nearby quarries.
On a high platform 50 feet long and 2o feet above ground level, we lads were spaced five feet apart on the platform.\As flints of various sizes passed us on a conveyor belt we sorted and removed them.
The largest stones were removed by the first two lads, the next size by the next two lads and so on.
The flints were dropped toward the ground below us and consequently pyramids of various sizes built up. Only dust remained on the belt at the end of its run and a foreman stood there to make sue all flints had been removed.
At the end of the day our hands were cut and bleeding-work gloves were unheard of.
On the following days we attempted to relieve the damage to our hands by wrapping pieces of\burlap around them. but this was only partly successful.
As it was a job I disliked and was also underpaid I left after two weeks.
Another period of unemployment followed with sessions at night school, but by no means did it worry me as I always found something to do.
A fleet of sailing barges were owned by a Grays company, E.J. & W Goldsmith Ltd and many of their barges were often at anchor off Grays and waiting for work.
When the crews came ashore in their dinghy I would acre for it while they did their shopping or visited a pub. As the river was tidal I would row or scull the boat to keep it afloat.
When the crews returned they usually gave me a few pennies, so I was paid for doing something I thoroughly enjoyed.
I also had a home made wheelbarrow which I took into fields or along the river bank looking for scrap metal which I sold to a local scrap dealer.
On one occasion when I was caring for a boat for a barge crew I took it up river from Grays to an obsolete jetty where some scrap metal was laying.
I began putting some metal into the boat with the intention of selling it but on hearing someone shouting I jumped into the boat and rowed downriver to the causeway at Grays. There I planned to put the scrap into my wheelbarrow which was hidden behind a shed.
Near the causeway I saw a policeman near the shed so I dumped the metal overboard and casually moored the boat.
The officer came onto the causeway and told me I had been reported as stealing the metal, and that he saw me dumping it.
We then remained there for an hour while the tide ebbed, and when the metal was exposed I went into the mud to recover it and put it into my barrow.
I was then escorted to the police station and charged, and later in court I was given two years probation. The scrap metal was returned to the jetty and a p.s to this is that it was taken again a few days later.
On mentioning this incident to the Mate of a barge, he took his boat during the hours of darkness to the jetty-and removed the scrap.
