East End of London: 1910s and 1920s

Transcript

EMILY GIGGINS

My name is Emily Giggins. I’m ninety years old and I was born in 1908. I lived in the East End for 87 years.

ALICE LIVINGSTONE-BOOMLA

My name is Alice Livingstone-Boomla. I live in East London and I’ve lived there all my life. I’m fourteen and I was born in 1984.

Emily

I had a good childhood, a very happy childhood. My aunt brought me up and she was very good. We never had no punishment - the punishment we had, you were put to bed with no tea.

Alice

If I get into trouble with my parents they shout at me a lot then it generally ends in a big argument and I storm off.

Emily

Them days there was no telly, no fridges to keep our food cool. There was no telephone, no washing machines. We had no bathrooms, so we used to have to go round to a wash house, what they called, and they used to give soap and towels and the towels was like boards. Little bit of soap and they used to cost you tuppence to go and have a bath.

Alice

I think that if we didn’t have a washing machine or a bathroom it would waste a lot of time having to go to wash at a wash house and then you wouldn’t have much time for going out with your friends partly because there wouldn’t be any buses or tube to get there so you would have to walk everywhere which would take absolutely ages and then you wouldn’t be able to organise to meet them because you wouldn’t have a telephone. Then you wouldn’t be able to stay at home because there wouldn’t be a television, so I don’t think it would be very good.

Emily

This is where I lived, down here. I used to live in number two over the road there, but they knocked that down and built… there’s a brick wall there now and they are building new houses along the street. We had a two up two down. I shared a bed with my sister and when it got dark of a night, we only had oil lamps - we never had gas - and we used to put the lamp on the table and we’d sit round and I used to make a triangle of wallpaper out and roll it on the knitting needle and make beads and we used to thread them up and make curtains for the passage and I used to go up here to the pub at the side door and I used to have a black pudding and it used to cost me tuppence ha’penny. There was a woman round the corner there on the next turning and she used to get drunk and every Friday night they used to come and take her away on a flat board. They used to take her to the police station and they used to put her in a cell for the night. Then they used to bring her home and then she’d do it again the next Friday night.

Alice

Every Friday night?

Emily

Every Friday night she used to get drunk, so the policemen had a regular job didn’t they, picking her up. I had a china doll and when I broke it I used to have to take it to Hackney Road to a dolls’ hospital and they used to mend it for me.

Alice

Has the market changed much?

Emily

No, the market hasn’t changed, not a lot. They had more stalls out and all the shops were open. It was a bright market, very nice. Most of the shops are closed down - not a lot of trade, 'cause they have these supermarkets don’t they now.

This is the area where I lived and I used to come down here quite a lot to watch the barges go past. They were open top barges and they used to carry coal and wood and food stuff and we’d stand and the men used to wave to us. They were pulled by shire horses, big strong horses.

Alice

They were big horses.

Emily

They had to be because the barges were heavy to pull along. So we used to stand and watch them.

Alice

People used a lot of coal, yeah?

Emily

Everyone used coal - didn’t have no other way of getting heat for cooking by.

Alice

Didn’t that mean it was very smoggy?

Emily

Yeah it was very smoggy 'cause the chimneys were smoky, it made it very smoggy, it was foggy like you know. And of a night-time in the winter, the fog used to be so thick they used to have to guide their horse by lights. Men used to have to stand beside their horses and carry a lamp, and the buses used to have lamps on them to see them through. You used to choke, you know. Couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe cause I had asthma but a lot of people they couldn’t breathe. They used to sometimes always walk along with their handkerchiefs up to their mouths, you know, so they didn’t breathe it in.

See that building over there? That was Darwin’s sack factory and when the First World War was on, 1914, I was 6 and I was dragged out of bed and taken over there to shelter and there was all sacks we laid on and there was rats running about .

Alice

Rats

Emily

It was ever so dirty. Terrible.

Alice

You were six, and there were rats. Eugh.

Emily

The air raid went on for a few hours and there we were told to come out and went home and went back to bed again.

Alice

Did you get scared?

Emily

Well I suppose I was. I was half asleep and half awake. I was asleep when they woke me up dragged out of bed and then as soon as I got in there I went to sleep again till the air raid was over and then we came out.

Have you got a boyfriend Alice?

Alice

No!

Emily

You haven’t seen the right one have you ?

Alice

No.

Emily

What sort of one are you looking for?

Alice

I don’t know.

Emily

What do you want, blond? Dark? Nice looking? You want one?

Alice

Yeah.

Emily

Plenty of money.

Alice

That would help.

Emily

Yeah?

Alice

Yeah. What about you?

Emily

I had plenty of boyfriends. When I was young I always used to lark about with the boys and one boy gave me a lot of gold things - necklaces and rings. I said to him ‘Where’d you get these from?’ cause he said to me he gave them to me as a present, But anyway I found out he’d been taking them from Woolworth’s. So I didn’t want him, did I?

I used to come here as a treat and it used to be nice. I like my pie and mash.

Alice

Did you eat eels as well?

Emily

And eels, yeah. I used to like it.

Alice

What are you going to have to eat?

Emily

I think I’ll have a pie, please.

Alice

You want a pie?

Emily

Pie and mash please.

Alice

Pie and mash. And what am I going to have?

Emily

And can we have a knife and fork?

Shopkeeper

I can give you a fork and spoon.

Emily

She wants jelllied eels, please.

Alice

I want jellied eels. There’s your pie and mash. What does yours taste like?

Emily

Nice.

Alice

Nice.

Emily

Well nice. You’ll like 'em - you’ll have another lot!

Alice

So how old were you when you first came here?

Emily

About six. I used to come over here 'cause I lived opposite.

Alice

So it’s 85 years ago.

Emily

Yeah 85 years ago.

Alice

Has it changed much?

Emily

No. They used to have a stall outside where they sold the live eels and they used to chop 'em up. They don’t have them any more. They used to chop 'em up and serve 'em. If you wanted one eel or two eels then they used to weigh 'em.

Alice

But all the decoration is the same?

Emily

All the same, yeah. The seats are the same. Everything.

Alice

So it’s amazing that! 85 years ago, and it hasn’t changed.

Emily

We never had knives to cut the pies with, 'cause people got a bit naughty with them and they stopped giving them knives, but I don’t know why they don’t do it now!

Alice

What other things did you eat?

Emily

Tripe and Onion.

Alice

What’s tripe?

Emily

It’s the inside of an animal. The lining of an animal.

Alice

Yuk!

Emily

And it’s nice. Tripe and cow heel - that was from the heel of a cow. We had sheep’s head.

Alice

So what would you eat on the sheep’s head?

Emily

Sheep’s head and it had the meat round the bone and you had the eye.

Alice

You’d eat the eye?

Emily

The eyeball, yeah. You’d eat the eye and that was the best part of it.

Alice

So what did it taste like?

Emily

Nice.

Alice

Do you eat the brain?

Emily

Yeah. Tongues and brains was our dinner.

So what about your life?

Alice

I go to the Chinese and the Indian and I go to McDonald’s.

Emily

What’s that?

Alice

McDonald’s.

Emily

Oh yeah.

Alice

A burger. Do you eat McDonald’s?

Emily

Yeah.

Alice

Do you like it?

Emily

I like that, yeah.

Alice

So how would you keep the food cold, cause you didn’t have fridges?

Emily

No, you couldn’t keep the food cold. We used to have larders, like cupboards, but we never ate stored food - we used to go out and buy it as we wanted it. When they delivered the ice to the shops, they used to break it with a big pick axe thing hook, and all the bits that were left on the cart that would drive away, and all the children used to run after it, like me for one of 'em, and we used to grab some ice and suck it, to keep you cool. But in the winter you didn’t, but in the summer it was nice to have, a nice lump of ice, you know. The man used to call out ‘Clear away, clear away.’ (laughs) We used to have the milkman come round with a can with a lid on it, and we used to leave it on the step when it was empty and they used to fill it up when they come round. And along here over the bridge, they had a tap where if the shops were shut you could go over there and put a penny in the top and you’d get a penn’orth of milk out in a jug.

Alice

So how did the war affect what you ate?

Emily

Well we were short of food, weren’t we. So we had to ration it out, how much we bought a day to go through the week. Otherwise we had to buy black market. Anyone had anything to sell on the cheap, we used to buy it, so that’s how we made our extras up. But if we got caught we’d go to prison wouldn’t we? So you just went out and picked what you wanted. Give your ration book up, used to take so many little squares out for how much you spent. If you spent all of them, you couldn’t get any more, so that’s what made us buy black market.

My husband used to keep pigeons. So if there was any pigeons he didn’t want, he used to kill 'em off and we used to have them for dinner which were quite nice. Kids used to love 'em.

My husband when he came home from the forces, I used to like pie and mash - he would never go in a pie shop and have pie - he’d say ‘You’d go in and I’ll walk up and down.’ Anyway, when my grandson came to lunch once he said, ‘Can we have pie and mash, Nan?’ I said ‘Yeah.’ I said to my husband ‘You try it. It’s nice.’ And he tried it and he’s had it ever since. So he liked it, so it must have been all right. So I tempted him like I’m tempting you to have them jellied eels - you taste 'em and you’ll like 'em and once you’ve tried it you’ll want more. Go on, open your mouth and put it in. Wide.

Alice

It’s a bit salty. I’ve tried a bit. Very salty.

Emily

No, it shouldn’t be.

Alice

I don’t like it. No.

Emily

Don’t like it? Sorry. I don’t know why you don’t like them, you like all these McDonald’s and these Indian foods and what have you. Anyway, you don’t like it. You don’t like fish?

Alice

No.

Emily

That’s why, that’s why. They should have given me the eels and you the pie. I’m not a fussy eater. You can’t be a fussy eater, that’s why I’m as old as I am — 'cause I eat everything that’s going. You couldn’t be fussy during the war, so you can’t be fussy now. You don’t like rollmop?

Alice

No.

Emily

No, you don’t. You don’t like eels, so you can’t do. Plaice, skate, no? I love skate - my favourite fish. I used to like plaice but I’ve gone on skate now. You know what they say, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.’ Just put that little bit in again.

END