BERMONDSEY GIRLS - Rose Amelia Wigzell - Part 2 - Sisters

I think I’d better introduce you to my brothers and sisters, or my story won’t make much sense. That’s full kin; I’ve mentioned Mary (who we called Ninny) and Charlie, my Dad’s eldest kids. They were both married and left home by the time I was five.

Our Min was the eldest; she was called Eliza Minnie after our Mum. She was born in 1911,  in Deptford.  I don’t remember much about her really before Dad died; she was working then, I don’t know where, probably the shirt factory or Crosse & Blackwells tin-bashing like I did; I know she had lots of boyfriends, Mum used to tut when she threw one over and got straight on with the next; but she eventually started going with Dick Ward.

 He was a bit gypsy looking, dark hair and moustache and swarthy complexion.  He was one of about 20 kids, and his family had some place in the country somewhere.  They took Ern there once, he said it was a stinking hovel! Anyway they got married a bit on the quick side in 1934, I don’t remember it at all, and I think she had a miscarriage before having her only child, Richard, known as Dickie, in 1937.  She was a bit of a good time girl even during the war when Dick was with the army in Italy, and I know for a fact Dick had an eye for the girls himself, he was always winking at me, and I know Lou thought his attentions were a bit off-colour.

Dick was an interesting type though; I remember they had a monkey as a pet at one time, as well as a big green parrot.  He played the accordion too, gawd knows where he learned it, nor where the monkey came from.  I was fond of young Dickie and looked after him often when Min was at work; we were very close until he got married himself. He loved my apple tart!  He grew up into an interesting character too, always different hobbies; tropical fish, air-fix models, even making jewellery.  He had various big motorbikes, and even a bubble-car, but gave all that up when he nearly came a cropper on his big Enfield. Later in life he and his wife had a horse, and belonged to a wild west club, they even had Western style weddings and were used as extras in a film. He was a sharp-shooter and had many lovely guns, all above board and locked away.  He made a lovely cowboy!

Anyway Min and Dick eventually took over a laundry business in Peckham.  It was in a big old house with the laundry in the basement, and their living quarters above, up loads of steep twisty stairs.  It was called ‘the Dutch Boy Bagwash’, and had a big cut-out of a Dutch Boy outside on the top of the house.  People used to bring bags of washing and come back for it later, taking it home wet. No-one had washing machines much then!  It was done in big boilers, and was always hot and steamy down there. In the 50s they had a Dachshund called Sheena; one time she had about 15 little pups. The breed was a bit of a novelty as it had been considered unpatriotic to have anything German during the war.

After Dickie married Rose they shared a house with Min and Dick, and eventually their only son Gary. Later, when Rose and Dick bought their own house in Barnhurst, they moved to Huntingdon where they shared a house with our half-sister Mary, and later our sister Elsie, her husband John and children Margaret and Kenny.  We didn’t see much of them after that, too far away. When John died and Elsie re-married, Min and Dick moved back to Peckham.  Min passed away in a nice little house opposite Nunhead Cemetery, when she was 80, and already a widow. It was a really good age for our family!  Lung cancer it was, she had always smoked; but then so had practically everyone in those days.  Made me glad my Lou made me give it up when I had a bout of pneumonia.

Me and Lou visited her quite a bit, and she was still friendly with our half-sister Mary, who had been twice widowed by then.  I still didn’t like her; she had enough money from their boarding-house business to buy herself a nice sheltered flat quite near my Linda, and was comfortably off; but she would still park herself round Min’s especially at mealtimes, and take home anything that was left over.  Proper mumper she was.  Lived to a ripe old age of 99 though. I bet she was wild not to make the hundred! That’s about all for Min, and Mary come to that.

Violet May was born in 1913.  She was the one that looked most like Mum, short and chubby with very dark hair and a lovely smile.  A bit on the quiet side, she got on with everyone.  She married Fred Hooper in 1935 and moved into a little place in Nutcroft Road Peckham, and it was me and Lou that saw her off on the train to Peterborough when she and little Fred, who was born in 1939, were evacuated. And it was us who met her from the train when she came back a few months later; couldn’t stand the country, being a London girl. She spent the rest of the war living with Mum at 354 St James Road; getting a bit crowded in there it was, what with Uncle Fred Daniels, Mum’s half brother, living there as well. Little Freddie was company for Mins’ Dickie, and I loved looking after the pair of them.  I would have loved a boy of my own, but it was not to be.

Vi and Fred moved into a flat in an old house in New Cross when he came back from the war; he was an Army cook and a Chindit.  Terrible time they had in the jungle.  He was always a bit stern was Fred, maybe it was the war that did it.  Anyway it was a ‘garden flat’ on the bottom half of 8 Reaston Street.  Sounds posh but it just meant they had access to a little garden from the basement kitchen.  Bill and Bessie Hargrove lived in the top half of the house; lovely couple they were. They lived there a long time; their Fred grew up there until he was called up for National Service and met his wife Jill. Lovely girl she was and still is.

They had two nice boys, Mark and James. Young Fred worked for the gas works like his Dad, but he was a lovely artist in later years, we had some of his pictures on our walls at home.  It kept him busy as he suffered from ill-health; ME they call it, and don’t let anyone tell you that’s not a real disease. When they all moved down to Havant from Bracknell we visited them every year when on holiday with our family on Hayling Island, quite nearby, and always kept in touch.

For some years Vi was a school bus escort - she accompanied children on the buses who had to go to special schools. Really enjoyed that, she did. We did almost have a falling out when our Tricia was about 14 and I discovered she had been hopping the wag from school, Haberdasher’s Askes, and spending the time at Vi and Freds! Still, they were very fond of our Tricia, in fact she was Jill and Fred’s bridesmaid.

They moved into a newer flat more down Peckham way until she died in 1973 of bone cancer. I loved our Viley, she was my favourite sister and I really missed her.  Only 60 she was.

Her Fred met a lovely lady called Midge and they married in 1976 and had a nice little reception meal at the Bromley Court Hotel. They had just five years together until Fred too passed away in 1981, when they were living in Bracknell near Jill and Fred and their boys.

So that was it for our Vi, and we’ve got no end of time to catch up with our chats now.

Elsie Irene was the nearest sister in age to me, born in 1918, but we were not that close.  She was always a little slow on the uptake, which I found irritating.  It was quite irritating for her when I got put up into her class because I was bright!  But we got on okay, and she was my bridesmaid in 1942.  She worked in the factories like the rest of us, and married John Joseph Wigley in 1945, at the end of the war.  John was the only member of our family not in uniform; not his fault though, he had a bad heart, and in fact was one of the first people to have a pacemaker fitted. It kept him going quite a while, though he always looked pale and sickly.  Such a nice fellow he was, everyone liked him. He always had a job, wasn’t a shirker.  They had two children, Margaret Rose born in 1949, and Kenneth John born in 1956.

They lived at 354 with Uncle Fred until the late 50s, when he got a little flat of his own and they moved away to Huntingdon, sharing a house with Min and Dick.  John got a warehouse job at the Yankee airbase, he used to get lots of nice bits and pieces, and send lovely old American comics home for the kids.  The Yanks used them as packing and John used to sort out the ones that weren’t too badly screwed up.

We didn’t see much of them after that; they occasionally came down to London and Margaret stayed with us.  Proper pest she was, always up to something.  Her and Linda used to torment the life out of poor little Tricia, sewing up her pyjama feet and putting stuff in her bed.  Young Kenny was a nightmare, always in trouble.  Used to bring in stag-beetles to frighten the girls; all their friends in our flats were a bit scared of both of them.  Lovely blond hair they both had too.

Anyway John’s poor heart gave out in 1964, and two years later Margaret married Michael, an Irish Catholic. John’s family were Catholics and Margaret and Kenny were brought up in that faith, much good it did them. Only 16 she was, and for all her being such a tomboy she had a church wedding and a lovely lace gown, with my two girls as bridesmaids. The other bridesmaid was Michael’s neice; her Dad was best man, he was later jailed for conspiracy in an IRA bombing.  Lovely people they were though, really friendly and charming.  They just had the one child, Michael Junior.

Unlucky family they were. Kenny was only 24 when he was murdered by some mad bitch in the flat in Wandsworth where he lived with his mate; he hadn’t much liked living in the country, and his Mum had re-married soon after Margaret to a nice bloke called Henry Arnold.  Poor Elsie had hardly been married three years when she passed away in 1972 with throat cancer.  I don’t know what became of Henry after that, he was never one for sending cards.

Kenny’s mate was stabbed to death too, and their dog.  This madwoman was screaming about the dog barking; she killed the lot of them and got put in the nut-house. I expect she got let out after about five minutes, what with her being a foreigner.  Then to top it all, our Margaret died of lung cancer in 1998, just turned 49, poor little cock.  So that was the end of that little family.  I wasn’t too well myself with the start of my cancer, but I made it to the funeral with Lou and our girls and their husbands; never seen so many priests in my life, all incense waving and chanting.  Not my cup of tea (not that I like tea) but I was glad I went, what with her Mum Dad and brother gone, and I did love her, very much like me she was.

So that’s all my sisters accounted for, now I’ll have a quick rest before I get on with the boys.