BERMONDSEY GIRLS - Eliza Minnie Cherry - Part 2

I’m getting out of order again now.  I gave birth to my first child Eliza Minnie in 1911, and Violet May followed in 1913. Our first son Ernest was the last to be born in Deptford, arriving in 1915. Ern had worked on the docks like most of the men round our way, but work gradually got harder to find, and I took in washing to make up the difference.  My brother Bill went to war in France with the army, but he had a bit of a dicky ticker and was invalided out before the end of the war.  At least he survived to marry and have his own family unlike many men we knew.

We still moved around a bit, spent a while back in Deptford then back again to Bermondsey, where we lived in a few rooms in a big old house, number 354 St James Road, near the Canal Bridge.  It was a bit of a slum really. No hot water, shared taps with other tenants, and bathroom? Don’t make me laugh! Tub in the kitchen if you were lucky, and we had to walk down several flights of stairs to the outside privy in the yard with its square wooden seat and torn-up newspaper on a nail; freezing cold it was whatever the season, and you sat there hoping to get it over quick in case the rats started nipping your ankles.

That was where the rest of my children were born; Elsie in 1918, Rosie in 1920, Stanley in 1924 and little Will in 1927.  There was another boy, our Arthur, born in 1922.  He was a sickly little chap, and died of the Ricketts when he was about a year old.  He was such a pretty child, we called him Bubbles, because he had a halo of blond curls, like the angelic lad in that famous painting. My Ern never recovered from that, though we had other sons after him. Even our old dog Fluff always looked sad after Arthur went, and didn’t last long after that.

Times were hard as work dried up during the Depression of the 1920s; the men would go down to the docks daily and line up to be picked for work; but as the older men got weaker and thinner with worry, and lack of food – and too much drink, Ern got picked less and less, and tried to make a living at his father’s trade, shoe-mending, or a ‘snob’ as we called them then.  He put a little notice in our window ‘SHOES MENDED NEATLY’, but it didn’t bring in a lot, and he drank to forget his problems.  It didn’t work and was hard for me and the rest of the family when he’d had a drink too many and there was hardly any food to put on the table.

I had to take in more and more washing, standing there up to my elbows in soapy water, my hands all sore and bleeding from the bleach and the blue bags; I had bad rheumatism from quite a young age, due I suppose from living in all those damp places, and nothing much proper to eat.  Mum had taught me to make the most of what we had, so I could cook quite nice meals for the kids, but of course me, I just ate the scraps, like poor mothers have always done, and no doubt still do. I was used to hard work from my days in service, but as my arthritis got worse, my legs and ankles swelled up and my hips gave out, it got harder and harder to even stand at the tub let alone work the washboard and wringer.

Ern was good with his hands, and made toys for the kids with bits left over from the furniture he made to sell  – one Christmas he made a wooden pram and doll for our Rose, she loved it but it got broken by one of her brothers. He used wood picked up from the timber yard just over the way, no questions asked.  There was a big place on the canal behind the house, and the barges used to come in laden with piles of planks; the kids used to jump from barge to barge and often fell in the canal; several kids were drowned this way.  We watched them fish out their little bodies from the slimy water, along with the drunks and tarts. I told my lot not to do it, but you know what boys are.  That’s where my boy Ernie learned to swim, and he became a real champion swimmer in his day.  He had a good singing voice too, and used to go in for talent competitions at the Classic cinema, which was later the Rialto and backed on to our house, the kids used to listen to the turns from the attic bedroom. He won quite a few bob and other bits and pieces in prizes. He thought I didn’t know he used to sneak out of the window to listen to the shows!

Poor young Ernie had to become the man of the house when my Ern died in 1930, on Valentines Day.  We had never been able to marry, couldn’t afford to get a divorce, and his first wife, the cow, was off down the register office with her fancy man two days after he died – she had to, you see, because I happen to know that she had actually committed bigamy by marrying him a few years before, something to do with an inheritance.  Her daughter Mary and her husband were witnesses at both weddings, and she let it slip to our Minnie, her half-sister, the only one of my girls she was really close to. Of course it was against the law, but quite common in those days, though I wouldn’t chance it myself.  We may have been poor, but were always respectable.

I am proud to say none of my kids went wrong, no matter how hard life was. So I had the shame of having to put my name on his death certificate as ‘informant Eliza Mutton causing the body to be buried!’. Eight kids I’d borne him! It should have been ‘Eliza Cherry, wife’, but I wouldn’t tell a lie to the officials. I always wore the wedding ring Ern gave me when I was expecting our Min; I treasured it even though it was only made of brass under the gold coating; a sham, like our marriage really some would say, but we loved each other in our own way, and our kids were so precious to us.  And though my Ern had quite a big family just a stone’s throw away, none of them came near us, because of the shame you see, so I had to do the best I could.

Anyway after that the Relief offered to take some of my kids in to the workhouse. They had said this before when Ern first got sick. I told them the same as I had then: Over my dead body! Sometimes we had to queue up for a loaf of bread at the office when we were really hungry, but on the whole we managed, and Mum and Fred Daniels helped us out sometimes too; they loved the kids, especially my half-brother Freddie.  Every week we popped the best clothes and anything else we could find into ‘Uncles’ to see us through the week, and got them out if and when we could afford it.  The kids shared shoes too, which meant that sometimes they couldn’t all go to school – which suited some of them, but not our Rosie, who was a clever girl and would have loved an education.

My Rose was a good girl, even before her sisters got married and moved out, she did all the housework, and when they left she took great pride in keeping what was now her very own room clean and tidy; she had hated sharing with her sisters, who never did much around the house at all.  It let me get on with my charring and washing, as it got harder and harder for me to work, even though I was only about 40 when I became a widow; but I tried to look after the kids as best I could.

When she left school at 14 Rose had several jobs in the factories round about, she worked as a tin basher in the Pearce Duff custard factory in Spa Road, and it made us laugh to see her hair, which was always a pretty blonde colour, turn all yellow with custard powder after a day’s work  – everyone said she looked just like that film star Jean Harlow the blonde bombshell. She was so pretty and spirited; I remember how proud she was when she saved up enough to buy herself a bike, then won a saddle-bag to go on it by singing on stage at the Rialto!  All the boys were after her, but she preferred to go out and about with her girlfriends when she had the money; they even had a few little holidays at Clacton and Southend.  But there was only ever really one bloke for her; not like her eldest sister Min who was a bit of a girl and I am ashamed to say had a bit of a reputation before she got married to Dick in 1934. And she was also a bit over-fond of the Yanks during the war while Dick was away in Italy; but I am not going to speak ill of my daughter.  I comforted and many a girl who found herself in trouble during those years. I always had the healing hands you see; people often came to me for help.  They was strange times.

Anyway young Louis Wigzell had known Rose since they were kids together at Rolls Road School; nice family they were, a bit more upper-crust than us Cherries though.  A bit hoity-toity Rose said.  But they courted, and married during Lou’s leave from the RAF in 1942.  He went off to Burma straight after that and we didn’t see much of him again until well after the war was over.  But I’m getting ahead of myself again, and me throat’s getting dry so I’m off for a cuppa.