The events of 1940 to 1942/3 are naturally a bit hazy. I was in my pre-school years. Mum and I returned from our voluntary evacuation to Scotland and lived at my Nan's house in East Ham for a while. It seems Dad may have remained with his family up there a little longer, but eventually rejoined us in London. All three of us spent some time at my Aunt Myrtle's in Clevedon, Somerset, before finally settling down in the East End.

What I do know, is that I was conceived out of wedlock, and my parents were married on 1st January 1938, just eight months before I was born, weighing a bonny 8lbs 11oz.

It must have been a hurried and unpublicised wedding as there were no photographs and no one in the family ever spoke of it, except once when I was about 7 or 8, when my Aunt Daisy, in a moment of mild vindictiveness, confided in me, "Of course you know your mother and father HAD to get married!"

I seem to remember understanding at the time what she meant and also not being particularly surprised. Mum and Dad never celebrated their wedding anniversary and it was only some years after she died that he told me the actual date of their marriage. For nearly fifty years it had been a guilty secret for the whole family.

When I was born there was no such thing as an unmarried mother and, looking back nearly seventy years on, I can understand some of the confusion I felt as a child; for instance that my father seemed to be tolerated by Mum's family rather than accepted into it; that I was on the one hand loved, but somehow regarded as the cause of some subdued bitterness and shame.

Regardless of their ignominious start, and many setbacks along the way, my Mum and Dad stayed together for 52 years until she died, though I never understood why, because they spent half their time having violent rows.
The culture and attitudes to marriage were just so different in pre-war Britain.

Uncle Stanley was probably in his late twenties when I came back from Scotland with Mum about 1940. He was still living with his mother, my Nan, and remained with her until she died about twenty years later. He never married and as far as I know never had a girlfriend.

Stanley was a typical East Ender. An unskilled manual worker, rough and ready, with little to say for himself. He spent most of his meagre wages (probably about £2 a week) on drink and gambling.

I mostly remember him sitting by the fireside, opposite Grandad, reading a newspaper or dozing. If he ever spoke to me it was usually to tease me or pretend to chase me away by growling "Gertcha!" (get out of here). His favourite word seemed to be "Arse'oles", which he used to answer almost any question put to him by my Nan, like, "Ow long you gonna sit readin' that paper?"
"Arse'oles!"

On one occasion, which sticks in my memory because of its rarity, Uncle Stanley took me for a walk up to the pub. He bought a bottle of stout for Nan, a bottle of Tizer and, to my amazement, a MARS BAR!

I walked home with him in an ecstasy of anticipation. A MARS BAR! I think this was the first one I had ever seen. My experience of sweets up till then had been loose in paper bags, shaken out from large glass jars and carefully weighed by the ounce by the lady in the sweet shop.

When we got back to Nan's house, all the family gathered round the table in awe as Uncle Stanley carefully unwrapped the bar and ceremoniously sliced it into about eight equal pieces, one for each of us.

We all nibbled and sucked at our tiny fragment of chocolatey sweetness trying to make it last as long as possible. What a treat! Uncle Stanley was my hero after that!

In the early 1940's, most of my mother's family lived around the East End within a few miles of the London Docks, Hitler's prime target for bombing.

Fortunately they all came through the Blitz unscathed. The worst thing that happened was when Aunty Dolly, who lived south of the river (Thames), had her windows blown in when a bomb fell nearby.

My Nan also had a lucky escape when a bomb fell in Blenheim Road and completely destroyed three houses opposite hers. This had already happened by the time Mum and I went to live with her on our return from Scotland, and most of the rubble had been cleared away. Weeds and grass had started to grow around the scattered bricks and lumps of masonry that remained, and the area became a kids playground.

This was my introduction to "bombed buildings". I would later discover there were many thousands of such derelict bomb sites around London, providing places of fun and adventure for kids like me. At the age of 4 or 5, I was too young to consider the implications of death and destruction as I played happily amongst the ruins.

I was allowed out of the house whenever I wanted and roamed freely around the area. The only friend I made in the street was a boy about a year older than me called Terry Hobdale (I think). All the other children had presumably been evacuated to the country.

Terry's family must have been pretty well off because his dad had a motorcycle with a sidecar. No one else in the road had any kind of vehicle in those days.

In the early 1940's, in the middle of World War II, Mum and I lived for a while at Nan and Grandad's little terraced house in East Ham. Life was pretty basic.

One of my jobs around the house, as a 4 yearold, was to help make the "toilet paper" for the outside lavatory. This consisted of cutting up Grandad's copy of the Daily Mirror, once he'd read it from cover to cover, into sheets about 5 inches by 7 inches. These were collected into a wodge and a hole made in the corner with a meat skewer so they could be tied together with string and hung on a nail within reach of the lav seat. Many a time I sat with my little legs dangling over the edge of the wooden seat reading the adverts and cartoons as best I could before putting a couple of sheets to their final good use.

I also remember hearing the plaintiff cry of "Paper ... Pa-a-a-per!!" echoing from the half open door of the lavatory when someone had forgotten to check the supply before sitting down. Everyone giggled, but it was not so funny for me as I knew it would be my job to take out some replacements!

I can't recall how long Mum and I lived with Nan and Grandad or where Dad was at the time, but the house fascinated me. The downstairs was split into two distinct halves, the back room and scullery was the part where we and anyone who came to visit, like my aunts and uncles, spent all of their time. The "front room" or parlour was virtually out of bounds to everyone.

In the back room, apart from Grandad and Stanley's easy chairs, there was one large built-in dresser in the alcove to one side of the fireplace and the remainder of the room was filled with an enormous scrubbed pine-topped table with a long bench down one side and as many curved back dining chairs as would fit round the other three sides. This was where everyone else sat all the time.

My Nan had brought up at least six kids in that house. I say at least because I remember sometimes overhearing the adults talking in hushed tones about some not making it through infancy. I hardly understood anyway but they always changed the subject if they thought I was listening. There seemed to be lots of secrets which kids like me were not supposed to know about. Anyway before they all found partners and moved out there were at least eight adults living in this tiny house with no bathroom and just the one outside lavatory.

The strange thing was that they all managed without ever using the "front room". Nan's parlour was immaculate. It had a massive floor to ceiling fireplace and marble mantelpiece with so many shelves and gold pillars. A beautiful chiming clock stood in the centre above the fire and on either side were black statuettes of men trying to control prancing horses. There were other expensive looking ornaments on display and an aspidistra in a large pot on a spindly high stand in front of the square bay window. There were comfortable armchairs either side of the fireplace and a chaise longue opposite. A deep fur rug lay in front of the fender in which were arranged a set of enormous polished brass fireside tools; poker, coal shovel, tongs, hearth brush, toasting fork etc. Then there was my favourite piece, the piano! Light coloured inlaid wood with ornate candle holders which swung out on hinges. Whenever I could I would sneak into the parlour and stand looking at the piano. If only I dared open it I knew in my innocent mind that I would be able to play a tune on it, but someone would always come and pull me out and close the door. No one was allowed in the parlour! Keep out of it!!

That room remained unused and immaculate until years later when, sometime after Grandad died, Nan and Stanley moved away and went to live in a caravan at Bishop Stortford.

My English grandparents were poor by comparison with the Scottish side of the family, who were largely business people and comfortably off.

Nan and Grandad lived along with their youngest son, my Uncle Stanley, in his late twenties but unmarried, in a tiny two-up, two-down terraced house in Blenheim Rd, East Ham. When Mum and I came "home" we took over Nan's bedroom in the front of the house. Nan, Grandad and Stan slept in single beds crammed together in the back bedroom. There was no bathroom in the house and the only lavatory was a dark and dingy affair outside in the backyard so the three adults kept a large white enamel bucket just inside the bedroom door for "emergencies". I only ever saw this bucket full to the brim with bright orange pee! How my Nan ever managed to get the bucket down the steep narrow stairs to empty it remains a mystery. You can bet your life the men in the house never lifted a finger to help. It was the accepted norm that when working men came home they sat by the fireplace and were waited on "hand and foot" by the womenfolk.

Nan spent most of her time in the scullery at the back of the house, cooking, washing, ironing, sewing, polishing etc. Grandad and Stan sat either side of the fireplace, in the only two small wooden armchairs, reading the newspaper or dozing. The only time they spoke was to demand another cup of tea, or grumble about something. In the fireplace was a large black range which burned coal. Grandad would occasionally open the door in the front and stir the fire with a big iron poker which hung on a stand on the hearth inside the polished brass fire surround or fender. Sometimes he would call out to Nan, "Fire needs bankin' up!"
Nan, who was probably up to her elbows in a tub of soapy washing water in the scullery, would dry her hands on the apron she never ever took off, and come through to collect the small shovel which hung next to the poker.

The coal was kept in the cupboard under the stairs in the hallway oposite the front door. Black dust would billow out as Nan scooped a heap of coal onto the shovel. After she'd chucked it onto the fire and poked it about a bit she would go back to her chores. Hardly a word passed between any of them.

Once in a while Grandad would sniff hard up his nose like a pig snorting, make a loud hawking noise, and collect a great gob of phlegm in his mouth. Then lifting the round lid off the top of the range with the special cast-iron handle, he would spit it violently into the flames. I loved the sizzling noise it made as it instantly vapourised!
I seem to remember thinking,"When I grow up I'm going to be a great spitter just like Grandad!"

I was nearly two years old. My father had taken my mother and me to Scotland to live with his parents after the start of World War II and to escape the Blitz which was expected to devastate London, particularly the East End, largely because of the busy and strategic London Docks.

Memories of that time with my Scotish grandparents are sketchy but a few painful episodes stick in my mind to this day. Like the time I got hold of Grandad's gold hunter watch, somehow opened the back and crammed the works full of plasticene. My backside was sore for a while after that! On another occasion, against parental rules, I climbed on top of the coal bunker and knelt on a rusty nail which penetrated my shin. I bore the scar, and the "serves you right" guilt, of that for many years. Then there was the time my father boarded a tram to go to Glasgow with me in his arms. The tram suddenly lurched forward and Dad, unable to hold on because of me, crashed against the rail on the tram deck and badly hurt his back. Somehow I was made to feel to blame for that also and carried the guilt for a long time.

Although I believe the few months I was "evacuated" to Scotland were generally happy ones for me I later heard my mother was very home-sick for her family in London and wanted to return despite the Blitz and so some time in 1940 Mother and I caught the train south again.

I remember a little of the journey back to London. The train was packed, mainly with men in uniform, soldiers, sailors, airmen, many of them made a fuss of me. Of course, I didn't realise it at the time, but I suspect they fancied my mum! I believe the journey was rather tedious with the train having to stop several times because of air raid warnings etc., but my last memory of it was holding Mum's hand, crossing the cobbled street outside the station at Stratford, East London, on the way to my Nan's house near Upton Park, the home of West Ham United football club. Mum was carrying all our wordly possessions in a small suitcase and juggling with my only toy, a Mickey Mouse tricycle. I was wearing a "siren suit", a one piece woollen outfit modelled on the one favoured by Winston Churchill.

And so began my life as an East End kid!