Henry Allingham
As a boy, I was friendly with the sons of Andrews the Chemist. They used to have a big house, and I used to go and play with their children. It was there that I sat in my first motor car. They had a lot of lovely swings and roundabouts in their playroom and they had a little lake in their garden with a boat on it. We used to be given a lovely peach melba in a long glass – and I wasn't used to that sort of thing. They were way ahead of us.
Joseph Henry Yarwood
We had Battersea Park nearby, and that was really marvellous. It had a boating lake and I used to go down there on a Saturday afternoon to read a book. They had a deer park and some wonderful cavern-like aviaries, full of owls. It was perfectly quiet. If I'd been on a gentleman's estate, I couldn't have had better surroundings.
George Perryman
We used to keep linnets, canaries and finches. There used to be a little pub opposite us in Canal Road called the Moulder's Arms that had competitions for the best singing birds, so we used to put our linnets and finches in little cages, and a black handkerchief over them, and take them over to the pub, where we'd hang up the cage with our name on it and they'd have the competition. When I was a youngster, I used to go on a bike to see my grandfather on a Sunday and he used to take me over to Hackney Marshes just beside the River Lea. He was a bird fancier, my grandfather. We used to set a trap. We put a linnet in a cage and put a trap next to it. We put food in the trap and attached a stick to the door and attached twine to the stick. We lay on the river bank and watched as all these linnets came down. They used to come down in droves. As soon as they got into the trap, we pulled the twine and the piece of wood came loose and the trap shut. We might catch two or three linnets at once. My grandfather used to sell them privately for two shillings or half a crown. The cock bird was the singer so he was more expensive.
Mr Lockey
My father didn't give me any pocket money so I had to make it in other ways. I had three long nets, a 100-yard, a 70-yard and a 33-yard, and I had a clever dog. I used to go out at night and set the 100-yard net up at the quarries while the dog lay in wait. Then I would send him round while I lay down. I would see the rabbits in the moonlight being herded towards the net as the dog ran back and forth. When he arrived at the net he would jump over it and come to me. Then I went to the net and took out the rabbits. At the time I was supplying fifty rabbits a week to the miners of Boldon colliery. The price was three shillings and sixpence a couple, but if they'd been shot, the price would only have been eighteen pence a couple, so it's clear why I was taking them alive. I was also a bit of a poacher, and when I was hard up, I would call hares. If the wind was the right way, I could call them from about a mile. Then I used to shoot them. I'd get five shillings a time. That kept me in pocket money.
Bessy Ruben
There was a barrel organ on a Saturday afternoon in Thrawl Street during the summer, and the children would dance in the street. We'd look forward to it. My mother didn't like it, but she'd let me go. I used to have my hapenny ready for him – his name was Percy. There was one little girl – a beautiful dancer – and we used to make a ring round her and clap while she danced.
Ted Harrison
I used to like the fairs on Hackney Marshes. I loved the joywheel. It was a flat wheel and it spun you round and we used to like it because you could see the girls' knees and their drawers. Or ‘freetraders’ as we called them. They were bloomers that came just above the knee. They were the latest thing. Another new thing was fancy garters. Some of the girls were daring – on the bottom of their petticoats they used to wear a little bit of lace that would show under the skirt. That was the enticement, you see. It used to get them a free drink at the pictures or a fish and chip supper. A little bit of lace showing.
Tom Kirk
On one occasion, when I was invited to Sunday dinner by the parents of a boy at school, we threw mud from behind a hedge at the girls of Lowther College who were coming out of church in a crocodile. We were spotted and soundly thrashed.
Arthur Harding
We used to go hop picking in Kent. Mostly it was people from South London. The farmer was called Hawthorn, and every year he sent a letter and paid for our fare down, otherwise we wouldn't have gone. He used to send the train tickets because he didn't trust us with the money. Because, frankly speaking, nobody was honest. When we got there, we all used to sleep with our clothes on in a great big barn – about thirty or forty of us. We children were a priceless asset because we were very quick at picking. We used to bung the whole lot in the bins, anything we could get hold of.
Albert ‘Smiler’ Marshall
We used to have a day's holiday from school for picking pears, and for lifting potatoes, the whole family taking part. Our only excursion was to an agricultural show at White City, and that involved a two-mile walk to the local station.
Sonia Keppel
Usually, Kingy, too, spent Easter at Biarritz, and gradually I came to realise that Tweedledum, Sir Ernest Cassel, was quite easily distinguishable from Kingy – Tweedledee. For one thing, Tweedledee laughed more easily and, as I already knew, he could enter into nursery games with unassumed enthusiasm. Always, he was accompanied by his dog, Caesar, who had a fine disregard for the villa's curtains and chair-legs.
Beach parties and parties with other children took up our time, and one Easter Sunday, Kingy, ourselves and a host of others set forth for a mammoth picnic. Kingy liked to think of these as impromptu parties, and little did he realise the hours of preliminary hard work they had entailed.
First, his car led the way, followed by others containing the rest of the party. Then the food, guarded by at least two footmen, brought up the rear. Kingy spied out the land for a suitable site and, at his given word, we all stopped, and the footmen set out the lunch. Chairs and a table appeared, linen table-cloths, plates, glasses, silver. Every variety of cold food was produced, spiced by iced cup in silver-plated containers. Everything was on a high level of excellence, except the site chosen. For some unfathomed reason, Kingy had a preference for picnicking by the side of the road. On Easter Day, inevitably, this was packed with carriages and the first motor cars, all covered with dust, and when we parked by the roadside, most of the traffic parked with us.
Ruben Landsman
The children used to do an annual trip to Crystal Palace, and all the boys lined up and the teacher gave you a brand-new sixpence each. And the monitor got one and sixpence. We marched to Aldgate Station or Liverpool Street Station. I remember the first time I saw the train.
Ellen Clark
We lived next door to an engineer, and every Christmas Eve he used to send his daughter round and she would ask my sister and I to their house. They would have 2 lb of the best raisins and they put them on a plate and they put some rum over them and they set light to them. The first time we saw this, we daren't touch them – we were frightened, so the other girls were eating them all. So the mother said, ‘What's the matter with you Barbara and Mary Ellen?’ And her daughter said, ‘They're frightened to touch them’. ‘Oh’ she said, ‘Get on with them – they'll not hurt you!’ So we tried them and after that we didn't stop.
Tom