‘Now before we all go home, children, Charles Hodges will come out and recite the poem to you all on his own.’ I went out all caked in shit, but it clung there, not showing itself as I went into ‘I know a little cupboard with a teeny, tiny key.’ I did it all through, word perfect. The bell went and I was off home. I run indoors and all I could say was, ‘I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t help it!’
‘What couldn’t you help?’ said Mum. ‘What’s the matter? Tell me, tell me!’ The ‘couldn’t help it’ bit came about ‘cos I’d gone home from school once laughing about a school mate who’d been in the same predicament. ‘Ahh, he probably couldn’t help it,’ Mum had said, and I had latched onto that.
So after a bit she found out (it didn’t take long!) that I’d shit myself. My Nan promptly took my trousers and pants off and put me outside on the toilet. What’s she done that for? I thought. I’ve already done it! I sat there on the bog-hole. I decided I’d never laugh at my mates again. It could well have been apples. Too many of ’em, I was mad on apples.
One day Mum and Nan decided to take me and my brother to Southend for the day. Grandad said, ‘Take this bag of apples with yer, give some to the kids and give the rest away when you get down to Southend.’
It wasn’t a bag, it was a sackful! We had to catch the train at Lower Edmonton station, but the train was late. Me and my brother played up and down the station and I nicked an apple every time I got near the sack. Finally the train came along (the sack half empty by now) and off we went.
As we neared Southend, a thunderstorm started and, on top of that, so did one in my belly. Mum told my brother to take me to the toilet. He did, reluctantly. Boy, did I have the shits! My belly was aching like hell. I really thought I was gonna die. My brother Dave reported back to me Mum and then forgot what toilet he’d put me in. I could hear him shouting ‘Chas!’ underneath the toilet doors miles away. I was answering feebly. He found me in the end. When I recovered we spent the rest of the day under a shelter away from the storm. But that wasn’t all. I got me fingers shut in the train door on the way home! I’ve still got the scars to prove it. Some yobs, running down the platform, slammed our carriage door shut and my fingers were in the hinges. Nan sorted them out though, and gave their earholes a walloping to go home with.
Now you’d think from that first experience I’d hate the place. But I grew to love it. A trip to Southend was second only to Christmas Day. My favourite pastime down Southend was crabbing, in the boating pool. A bit of string with a piece of cockle or mussel tied to the other end, drop it in the pool, wait for a tug, and slowly pull it up. Sure enough there’d be a crab. Years later when I took my own kids down Southend I tried the same thing in the same pool (the one near the pier). I got the same results. Kids watching at first thought I was mad. Crabs in the boating pool? But they were away after bits of string and cockles and mussels before you knew it! Try it yourself, when you’re next down Southend. (Note, 2008. It ain’t there no more)
Harton Road was a typical London street of terraced houses. Small front garden with evergreens. Downstairs was the front room (most people didn’t use theirs and kept it as ‘best’ but we had to use ours), the kitchen (with the old black leaded stove), scullery, or ‘washus’ as it was called, back yard about thirty foot long by twenty foot wide, outside toilet and old dug-up Anderson shelter at the end, which became Grandad’s shed. There were three rooms upstairs and eleven stairs. I know, I counted ’em ’cos my ambition at the time was to jump all eleven stairs in one go.
I worked my way up, first one, then two etc, until the day came to attempt the lot. I’d done ten stairs, one more to go. My Nan would shout, ‘You’ll jump your legs in.’ I never knew what she was talking about but I presumed she meant I’d end up a midget. I remember poising myself at the very top, waiting for the right moment (like a footballer does when he’s taking a penalty) to do what I had to do. It came. I took a flyin’ leap, eyes fixed on the landing strip (the passage floor). I would have done it too if it hadn’t been for the floor of the upstairs landing. I had to jump that bit higher to make the eleven stairs. Whack! My head hit the landing floor that jutted out above me, and I landed in a crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs. I never attempted it again. I stuck at ten.
The characters down our road were unique. Next door to us lived a gypsy family, who had mad kids. They had bows and arrows with real dart-heads screwed onto the arrows. They let their little sisters out of upstairs windows, cowboy-style, with ropes tied round their middles and all that. If you went in for a cup o’ tea, you’d get it in a jam jar. Which, I gotta be honest, seemed a good idea. Why buy cups when you get jam jars for nothing? Though jam jars were handy too, when the roundabout man came round. For a jam jar you could get a ride on the roundabout. It was a small round wooden thing with sticks sticking out that the big kids grabbed hold of and pushed. The roundabout whizzed round full of little kids. We’d all get off feeling sick. But it was an occasion. This red, white, blue and green wooden roundabout thing turning up at the end of the street. Well, you had to have a go!
Mrs Barlow lived the other side. I played John Bunyan in the school play once and she lent me her long drawers. I played the part with, I thought, the dignity which it deserved. I couldn’t make out why everyone was laughin’.
A woman who lived down the road really was mad. She was always on about spacemen and Mars and that. My Great-grandfather didn’t know about this ’cos he was as deaf as a post. I remember one conversation I overheard that went, ‘Where you goin’ for your holidays?’ Woman: ‘I’m goin’ to Mars.’ Grandfather: ‘I don’t like them seaside places.’
Not everybody was mad in Harton Road though. Well, if you class being mad on music as bein’ mad then perhaps a lot of ’em were. Music played a big part in our household. Mum played the piano which she taught herself, with the aid of Nan who had a great ear for music. ‘Get your vamps right,’ she’d say. She wasn’t interested in the twiddly bits up the top, like most self-taught pianists played, with anything for the left hand. With her, the chords had to be right. She had the right idea. Mum learnt the hard way by just sloggin’ at it ’till it was right. She had no teacher who knew how to play, only Nan who knew when it was wrong. Mum ended up with a unique style that was admired by many, me included. I could never figure out her chord shapes or exactly what she was doin’ but it sounded great.
Nan did play a bit of mouth organ though. She was a great critic too. Later on when I began to make records she always had something constructive to say and would come out with good ideas. Grandad (Mum’s Dad) was the only unmusical one. He’d just sit back with his pint and enjoy the racket. He did sing now and again though. I learnt ‘Not me’ from Grandad, which we put on our first ‘Jamboree Bag’ album.
Grandad took over when Dad died. He was great, he loved an outing. Southend for the day, fishin’ off the pier or just fishin’ in the Lea down at Broxbourne. Grandad enjoyed it as much as us kids.
Mum often said to me at the time, ‘Why don’t you take up the piano? You’ve got a good ear.’ But I didn’t want to know. I loved music but I also loved fishing and football, and playing in the street. It wasn’t until the guitar became popular that I wanted to play. But that was later. There was too much goin’ on at the time for me to actually sit down and learn to play an instrument. My every spare moment was spent in the open air. If I wasn’t over the Lea fishing or just messing about, I was out in the street playin’ games like ‘runouts’, ‘end to the football’, or ‘Jimmy Knacker’.
Around 1953 when I was nearly ten I remember there were two gangs down our street. There was Lenny Macey’s gang with Nobby Brook as his right-hand man. In our book they were the trouble-makers. The other gang was led by my brother Dave with me as his right-hand man (at least I thought so!). We were the peacemakers, but ready to fight for peace! Lenny Macey, a couple of years older than my brother, was talked about as being the best fighter in the street. When he spoke, everybody jumped, but not us.