The Thirties and a Little Boy's War

By W.T. Doyle

The Thirties: A Social History of My Times follows the adventures of William’s life as a young boy growing up in London in the 1930s. It is a story filled with laughter and tears as he and his sisters make the most of their freedom while living with the harsh realities of those times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: May 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781984589606

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Thirties- and a Little Boy’s War

I was born in 1930.

I was the third child that mother produced- I was named William, My two elder sisters were Lilly and ANN, the eldest.

We lived in a two story flat in, WHARF ROAD; ISLINGTON. LONDON

Granddad and Grandmother also lived with us.

Times were rather hard in those early years, Father worked on the dock side of the Grand Union Canal as foreman, for Fellows. Morton & Clayton.

This yard was next to our home. Mother was a French polisher. She also suffered with a bad cough, that being in those days called consumption. - TB today

In the course of time, as the flat we rented from a furniture company, that went bust, we had to move on…

It was to Fairbanks Street near the great north road, I recall Granddad Tong wheeling me in a pushchair along the road to meet my sister Ann as she came from school, and sometimes Ann saving her bottle of school milk to give to me.

As I got a little older, Ann was told to buy me some sandals with the money Dad had given her, they cost one shilling and a penny (5p in today’s money). The shop was in the City road. There was also a religious mission near the shop, where Missionaries were sent to the darkest corners of this world, .one being Dr Livingston. This mission might still be there today.

As the months past, Dad wanted to move once again, to a better home…

My grandparents, had found their own home in Brittania Street, not too far away from us.

Our new home this time was 48 Murray Street, now Murray Grove I believe, that being in Shoreditch, we again had a top floor flat.

Mother was taken from this house to Whittington Hospital, where she died. From TB. Mother must have suffered for some time, Consumption (TB) being a lingering slow inevitable death,

I can still recall two men in white, (doctors) looking at my father and shaking their heads as she was so near to death, I being so young can only recall fleeting moments, of me being put into a car to follow the coffin of mother, I cried only because my sisters were, not really knowing why. It was soon after mother’s funeral, Dad wisely gave Ann some money to take the three of us to the cinema, to put our minds on other thoughts, and Ann has recently told me that we saw the Great Waltz., The music of Franz Lahr or Strauss. I have always loved the music, it stirred something within me, never really knowing why, it stayed in my head from those sad miserable days, it might have been the music of the Merry Widow.

CHAPTER 2

The Priest with Nuns

My elder sister tells me soon after mother’s funeral, there was a knock on the door. Standing before Dad, were priests and nuns, who were asking Dad to hand over his children. Dad who was schooled by Catholics and saw things, and I believe suffered in their hands, Knew them to be evil, so no way was he about to hand over his kids to such a wicked Organization. They called on various occasions, at times I believe while dad was at work, but Ann was warned- not to answer the door. I mentioned this matter to Dad, some years later, anything that reminded him of Mother’s death hurt him, and his words were few. They are wicked bastards he said, (Not its people, I must add,) I know many of them and some, are truly the salt of the earth.(It’s the system.) and knowing what I now know of them, he was right (Was he also one of their child victims?) Also was that the reason why we moved so many times, trying to escape their watching eyes.

A tear would soon fill his eyes, he’d blow his nose, then talk of other things, my sisters and I owe him much for his love and care of us, in those miserable trouble times.

The cruel and wicked care of young children within the Catholic Church. Is Documented on film and in book. History has proved father right, It was again. Many years later, they were still searching too find me, I was at that time ten years old and living in the country, many miles away. Yet by the grace of God, I escaped their clutches; but thousands of children fell into their hands.

In those early years of childhood. Diseases took its toll on children; measles, attacked ears and eyes as well as brain, whooping cough, chicken pox, scarlet fever and diphtheria, chills that got within my bones, as I coughed and wiped a continuous running nose on my sleeve, no warm clothes in those days, neither antibiotic’s. It was measles, I feel that made me deaf in my left ear also weakened my eyes, yet I was lucky, being in the womb while mother