The man with the uniform made me stand right beside him until the deck crossed back over the river again, then he told me to run straight home as fast as I could. ‘Your mam will be making your tea soon,’ he said to encourage me.
I was pretty hungry but I knew there wouldn’t be any food back at the house. There hadn’t been any that morning, at any rate. I wandered up through the dock area and picked up some stones to throw in the water, but another man came running over and told me off.
‘What are you doing? You might fall in,’ he shouted.
Everyone was telling me what to do all of a sudden.
He asked my name and I told him it was Terry.
‘Fancy a biscuit, Terry?’ he asked, and led me to a shed over in the corner of the dockyard where he gave me two whole Rich Tea biscuits, which weren’t even broken. They tasted fantastic.
While I was eating them, he asked me if I came down that way often. He said he was usually there and I should look out for him so we could be friends. I thought to myself that he was far too old to be my friend but I didn’t say anything because he had been nice to give me the biscuits.
I asked him the time and when he told me it was after three o’clock, I said I had to go. I always went up the road to meet Dennis coming out of school.
‘Come back again another time,’ the man said, and I thought to myself that I definitely would because it wasn’t often someone gave you biscuits just like that.
I walked up to Bolt Street and sat on the pavement just down the road from the school, waiting for Dennis to come along. Loads of kids came out in a big crowd when the bell rang but I could always spot Dennis in the midst of them because he did a funny walk, with one foot in the gutter and one foot on the pavement, making him look as if he was limping. Every day he did that.
‘What’s up, Terry?’ he asked when he got up close to me, and he ruffled up my hair.
‘I went up on the Transporter Bridge and a man gave me two biscuits,’ I told him straight away, then I felt guilty because really I should have kept one for Dennis. It’s just that I was so hungry, I had eaten them both myself.
‘What man?’ Dennis asked.
‘He’s got a hut down at the docks.’
‘I know who you mean.’ Dennis frowned. ‘He’s a bit odd, that one. Best not go to his hut without me there, OK?’
‘OK,’ I shrugged. If Dennis said so, then I wouldn’t.
‘Want to go to the park now?’ he asked, and I said yes and trotted off behind him, happy just to be in his company.
I missed Dennis now he was at school. Before that it had just been him and me going out on adventures together. We’d play hopscotch on the railway tracks, or walk along the top of the high stone wall down by the docks, or play hide and seek in the park, where they had a pavilion and a bandstand and rockeries and lots of good places to hide.
Dennis and I had always played together. My other brothers and sisters were too old, apart from Freddie, and he was too young. When I was four, Cyril was eighteen, Betty was sixteen, Charles was twelve, Tom was ten, Rose was eight and Dennis was six. The big ones thought I was a nuisance and were mean to me. They used to hang me upside down over the banisters to try and calm me down, but as soon as they set me on my feet again I’d yell at them that they were effing bastards and sprint off down the stairs before they could catch me. I liked saying ‘effing’ and ‘bloody’ and ‘bastard’, like my big brothers and my dad always did, but it used to make the girls cross with me.
In those days the coalman delivered coal to the houses by horse and cart and everyone would threaten that if I didn’t behave myself, the coalman would take me away in his cart. He was a big, scary, soot-faced man with a loud voice so I’d cower in the background when he came to the door, just in case.
Some mams would cuddle their little boys – I’d seen them in our road – but our mam never did anything but shout at me, so I usually kept out of her way. Besides, she had a funny eye that gave me the creeps. She’d be looking at you with one eye but the other one would be off staring over your shoulder, which wasn’t very nice to see.
I hardly ever saw my dad because he was never home. Mam said he was off working but Dennis whispered to me ‘Yeah, if you count sitting in the pub lifting a pint of beer to your lips work, that is.’
Tom once told me that Dad had knocked a man out in a fight with just one punch and I was quite impressed about that. And there was a funny story about him when he was a kid. He’d sneaked downstairs in his family’s pub in the middle of the night to try and pinch money from the jukebox, but he did something wrong and it suddenly blared out loud music, wakening everyone up. ‘Oh, Oh, Antonio’ the song was called. Dennis used to sing it for me and it made me laugh every time.
We moved home a lot when I was little. I think it was because Mam and Dad couldn’t pay the rent. There were angry scenes on the doorstep with men demanding money and Mam telling them to eff off, then we would have to move again. I know I was born in Frederick Street, then at one point we lived in a wide road called Portland Street that had trees down the middle of it. Next we moved to a flat in Commercial Road, and the last place we were living in was Bolt Street. All these places were in Pillgwenlly, or ‘Pill’, as everyone called it, the area of Newport that led down to the docks. It wasn’t posh round there. We didn’t have much money but I don’t think anyone else did either.
You don’t miss what you’ve never had. I was starving a lot of the time, but I thought that’s just what people had to put up with. I had itchy scabs all over my legs, but so did Dennis so it never occurred to me there was anything that could be done about them. It was freezing cold in winter, especially at night, when Dennis, Freddie and I huddled together under one blanket. But at least we had a roof over our heads and got fed mashed potatoes or watery stew or fried bread a couple of times a day.
My favourite times were when I was out playing with Dennis. He looked out for me and made sure I didn’t get into trouble. I remember one day I caught my fingers in the door of the public toilets in the park and it hurt so much that I howled for ages. I sat on a wall outside crying my eyes out while Dennis tried to comfort me. It’s funny the things that stick in your head. After he started school, I was really lonely during the day. I never wanted to hang around at home, with Mam shouting at me or arguing with Dad, so I just set off on my own in the morning and wandered round until it was time for Dennis to come out of school.
My brother Tom did his best to look out for us kids but he was too young to get a job so all he could do was busk at the coach station, scrounge food from the market, scrabble in bins for fruit and veg that had been thrown away, or simply beg. Sometimes he was so desperate that he would steal empty lemonade bottles so he could take them back to the shop for the deposit. When he had any money, he’d make sure we got a nice dinner, like stew and mash, and he would give Dad some cash for beer and cigarettes.
Tom should have been at school, though. He was always getting into trouble with the police for begging and other little things, but it was a huge shock to me when I heard he had been arrested and sent to remand school. The idea that the police could put you in handcuffs and lock you away made a big impression on me at the time. I found the whole idea terrifying. Would they be coming for me next? After that I used to hide whenever I saw a policeman coming towards me.
One morning in December 1939, just after my fifth birthday, a big tall man in a long coat came to our front door, carrying a briefcase and all kinds of papers. He said he was some kind of inspector and insisted that Mam should let him in. Something about his brusque manner worried me so I ran to hide behind the settee and peeped out timidly as he looked round our home.
‘These floors are in a disgusting state,’ he said to Mam. ‘Don’t you ever wash them?’
She was agitated. ‘We’re just about to move,’