Chapter 1: The Living History
Charles William Richardson was born on 25th September 1915 in London, England. He was the sixth of the eight children born to Walter Richardson and Lillian Bright.
Europe at that time was engulfed in the First World War (1914 to 1919); an extremely bloody war that mobilized millions to fight overseas, and caused the death and injury of countless soldiers and civilians.
Charles was a bright boy who learnt very quickly from personal experiences. One public admonishment for truancy was enough to set him straight. In those days, very naughty boys would pad their pants with duck down before their public caning. Once was indeed enough for Charles and that single lesson resulted in him becoming such a model student that he became, in his last year of primary school, the school prefect!
At thirteen, Charles finished his lower education and was advised to further his education. But Charles knew that his mother could not afford to send him on to secondary school so he opted out and joined his older brothers and sisters in the work force.
Charles and his siblings did whatever they could to help put food on the table.
Childhood Memoirs through rose-tinted glasses:
These years were tough; an era when Britain was badly hit by recession. Life was, of course, much harder for those who were poor and their difficult conditions became worse when compulsory food rationing was introduced in February 1918. Charles recalled those umpteen times where he and his whole family all had to line up with their bowls at some charity places just to get some soup.
When Charles was about four years of age, he felt he was going to die. He would often sit alone by himself under the kitchen table until his mother, knowing it was a favourite hiding place, would come to look for him.
At the age of five, Charles was hospitalised for, and nearly died from, scarlet fever. Charles shared the one room and the one bed with his four brothers - and they all suffered when the room and all the bedding had to be fumigated by the health authorities.
At seven he was again rushed to the hospital for the same suspected prognosis but, in the end, the hospital authorities came to the conclusion that it was unlikely for one to get scarlet fever twice. Nevertheless, the boys’ bed was fumigated again as a preventive measure.
“I can’t recall much about my father as I hardly saw him in my early years. Even though he was a blacksmith by trade he was hardly at home since there was not much work locally. I was told years later that he was often away helping his chum who was a driver and they both would be away doing deliveries which could take days and sometimes even weeks.”
Charles’ mother did the best she could to feed her eight children, taking in washing and ironing; indeed doing any work she could lay her hands on just to earn enough to put food on the table. In a family consisting of four girls and four boys, Charles recalled how he and his siblings often squabbled, but yet they were all a very closely knit family.
As in all large, poor families, it was always a matter of making do with everything and anything, going without most of the time, with hunger as their constant companion. School lunch sandwiches were often nothing more than two pieces of bread slapped together with some dripping or sugar inside; and to this very day, Charles cannot stand eating closed sandwiches.
It was the accepted norm to wear hand-me-downs; especially for Charles - the sixth child! Fortunately, Charles’ eldest sister, Jessie, was rather good at sewing; and even as a young teenager, she could take the old collar off a shirt, turn it over and sew it back, making the shirt look presentable enough to wear again. Jessie went on to become a well known, and much sought after, seamstress.
“I remember the time when we were living in Walworth in London, and our narrow street was the popular place for street markets. It was always crowded every Sunday morning. My brothers and I - who were often hungry even after our breakfast - would, slyly and quietly, slide underneath the fruit stalls behind the empty boxes. We would wait patiently, in silence, with a pocket knife. When the barrow man threw any spoiled fruit into the empty boxes, we would collect those thrown-away fruits and silently slide away where we would cut off those bad spots to eat the rest.”
Charles was bosom friend with the boy next door, Eddie Brown. Eddie was the same age as Charles and they were inseparable right from their childhood and their bonded friendship carried them right into adulthood. Eddie’s sister, Rosie, was also a good friend of Charles’ sister, Jessie, and the four of them often walked up to One Tree Hill Park to play. One day, Mrs. Richardson, Charles’ mother, packed some sandwiches together with a large bottle of water for the children to take with them.
“I recall that day quite vividly. There were six of us that day including my youngest sister, Minnie, and Eddie’s brother, Percy. We ran out of water halfway up and were really thirsty.
Then I remembered an empty wine bottle lying in the garden of one of the houses we had passed. So I stopped the others, walked back to that particular house, and picked up that empty bottle. We knocked at the door and begged the lady who came to the door to give us some water.”
“Without a word, she took the bottle off us and went inside to fill it; but almost immediately she rushed out to the front door screaming. She shouted at us, and pointed indignantly to a small dead mouse that was inside the bottle and threw the bottle, almost at us. She obviously thought that that we did it for fun, just to play a prank on her; but no matter how I tried to explain that we did not know about the little dead mouse, she turned us away and we got no water as the result” chuckled Charles.
“Our first radio was one that my oldest brother George made with a wire and it was called the cat’s whisker radio, where we had a glass container for power. Since we had no electricity in those early days to charge it, we had to bring that accumulator to the shops to get charged up every time it went flat.”
Lamp posts on the streets in London were lit by gas, and each lamp post had two holes in the bar which was the actual switch. Every late afternoon the lamp master would come to switch on the light with a long pole. He would pull the bar to one side to light it at one hole. Next morning he would return to switch the light off by pulling the opposite hole in the bar to turn it off.
Often by prior arrangement the lamp master would earn an extra half a pint of beer for himself by tapping on the windows with his light pole to wake up those who needed to be up early so that they wouldn’t lose their jobs. In those days only rich and affluent people had alarm clocks.
A gramophone with the large horn was the main source of music in the home and records played at 78rpm. The first public telephone was the large boxed phone on the side of the road. “One would take the receiver off, and wind up the phone. It would go through the exchange line, the exchange lady would answer, ask you for the number you wanted and connect you. It was many years before you could simply dial the number to connect directly!”
Cooking in those days was done on a coal fire. The hotplates and the oven were all together in one metal box. One would cook either directly over the coals or in the oven by the side. There was always a large copper boiler on the stove with boiling water for washing clothing; clothing that would be taken outside to be mangled to squeeze out the water, and then rinsed before going on the clothes line to dry.
“We had no fridge but almost everyone would have a large cold shelf made of stones where the milk, and things that needed to be kept cold, were stored.
In time, we had our very first gas stove which was second hand and made of solid iron. It was quite peculiar looking and completely open - the oven was exposed with no side to it and there were four burners on the top for cooking.”
When Charles was seven or so, he accompanied his mother to one of her occasional visits to a fortune teller for a psychic reading. Charles was told to stand outside and be on a watch to ensure that there was no policeman around as psychic reading or fortune telling in those days was illegal.
Charles’ favourite place was the market as it was the place where everything and anything could happen. He remembered well an incident when he was just eight years old where he was deliberately approached by a street seller called ‘The Doc.’
The Doc sold sarsaparilla in drink form and also in pieces of candy and he wanted Charles to be his stooge to help promote his wares. At a given cue, Charles would stroll to the front of the audience where he was called upon ‘at random’ to come forward to test and see if the candy would soothe his ‘sore’ throat.
Unfortunately, things did not work as planned. The sugary candy got stuck in Charles’ bad tooth and resulted in Charles crying in pain whilst trying to explain, in fitful tears, about his painful tooth. But the more he tried to explain, whilst cringing in pain, the more the crowd roared in laughter at his distorted face and which drew even more people towards the stall.
Charles couldn’t remember exactly what transpired, but the crowd liked the ‘comedy act’ that the Doc made good sales, and Charles walked away with six pence rather than just the one agreed penny. But when Charles gave the six pence to his mother, it took some convincing for her to believe that he had earned this princely sum.
“When I was eight years of age, my mate, Eddie, and I made up a little store near a park; which had a few swings on it. We made up a large jug of lemonade, which was sugar water made with lemonade powder. We put up a sign on the front of the stall advertising a penny for each glass of lemonade. Unfortunately, we didn’t sell any and we ended up drinking it all ourselves.”
BBC Television, a public service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, was first introduced in 1936. There was only one channel that ran for only a few times a day and had no advertising. The services were funded by a television licence fee. Sometime later, they brought out a second station with advertisements. Television broadcasting was suspended during the war years though it sprang back into action after the war.
“By then my family and I were in a better position as we were reasonably comfortably off. We were one of the earliest owners in our area to own a black and white Television. Colour TV wasn’t introduced until 1967 on BBC2 and it incurred a higher license fee, of course.”
At the age of nine Charles decided to stop going to church on Sundays. Despite his mother’s protests, Charles was so adamant that, in the end, his mother had no choice but to give in. She realized that he was truly serious, and so she did not force Charles to attend church again.
This was quite a rebellious act as the church had great influence and control; and people could even lose their jobs for non-attendance.
At ten Charles came across an old, rusty bicycle up for sale. Not having the asking price of two shillings, he asked the rag and bone man if he would be kind enough to keep it aside for him until he could raise the money.
The seller told Charles that he had a month to find the money. Straightaway, Charles raced off to look for a job that day. He found two elderly ladies who lived on the third floor of an old building, and they needed daily help for coal to be fetched from the basement right up to their flat.
So Charles accepted that arduous chore of bringing two scuttles of coal for the two old ladies each day for a whole month. He climbed up and down the stairs every day straight after school and on weekends, rain or shine, in order to earn his two shillings.
A month later, Charles got possession of his bike and proudly took it home. He and his father completely stripped it down, fixed all the mechanical problems, and painted the frame. It became a different bike altogether and it was Charles’ sole means of travel for many years.
Charles’ mother had a tailor friend who would come to the house to make suits for the family. The tailor would charge so much for the suits and Charles’ mother would pay him off bit by bit at a discounted rate every week. To earn the ‘discounted rate’, Charles would have to accompany that gentleman in his car during his rounds. It was Charles’ job to keep any loitering children away from the motor vehicle whilst the tailor went inside his client’s house to do business.
Charles looked forward to his first suit with long trousers. But, upon delivery, Charles noticed that there was a shade difference between the jacket and the trousers. The jacket was the remnant of the old roll of material whilst the pair of trousers was from the new roll of the same material. It was of the same pattern and colour but there was that slight tad difference in the shading.
Charles declared this too noticeable and refused to wear it. No matter how hard the tailor and his mother tried to convince Charles that he would not notice the shade difference after a while, Charles blatantly refused even to try it on. Instead he retorted indignantly: “Yes, I would! And I will not wear it.”
According to Charles’ sister, Jessie, Charles had always been a tad more ‘special’ in their mother’s eyes.
In the end, the tailor had to make a new jacket from the same roll of material as the trousers and Mrs. Richardson ended up having to pay quite a bit extra for the new jacket...and Charles’ job as car bodyguard was no more.
Even though Charles’ father was a blacksmith, he was often out of a job. One day when Charles was twelve years of age, his father asked Charles to join him to sell shrimps and winkles as Charles’ two older brothers were too embarrassed to do so. When Charles agreed to help, Mr. Richardson built two wooden trays for Charles and himself.
Thus, for a while Charles accompanied his father to the market to buy shrimps and winkles each morning, and they would stroll down either side of a street, knocking on doors selling their wares. Often they would return home having sold it all - although Charles recalled that there wasn’t much of a profit margin.
Cooked shrimps (with the heads and tails removed) and winkles were popular dishes. People would use a pin to dig the winkles out and put them on sandwiches. Charles chuckled when he mused over his early salesmanship: “…and I would slip in a couple more shrimps or winkles if I happened to like the person to whom I was selling.”
