Southend Memories E-Book

Dee Gordon

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 271

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2006

Beschreibung

Including many conversations with Southendians, this title aims to recall life in their town, during the 1950s and '60s. It focuses on social change, as well as school days, work and play, transport, and entertainment. It also includes memories of the late '60s clashes between Mods and Rockers, and of the infamous Wall of Death at the Kursaal.

Leseprobe

SOUTHEND

Memories

DEE GORDON

First published in 2006 by Sutton Publishing Limited

Reprinted in 2010 by

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Reprinted 2011

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Dee Gordon, 2010, 2013

The right of Dee Gordon to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 5328 3

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgements

Harry Day

Harry West

Gladys Mude

Ron Stokoe

Ray Davy

Pat Dalton

Alan Thurston

Danny Rowe

Ernie Halton

Evelyn Cline

John Lewindon

Graham Sargent

David Smith

John Hart

Brian Smeeton

John Coppins

June Winkworth

Ken Brown

Sue Cox

Roger Glover

Brian and Sue Cronk

Annette Fox

Angela Callahan

Jim Willetts

Lesley Horner

Frances Willetts

Scott Sisters

Pat Parkins

Marilyn Budgen

PREFACE

Like so many east Londoners, I was a frequent day tripper to Southend-on-Sea – sometimes by train, sometimes by charabanc – in the 1950s, which many of the people in this book will regard as the heyday of its popularity. Even the sun seemed to shine day after day, and there was a naivety, an innocence about the place and its people, residents and visitors alike; everyone revelled in the relief of a postwar world. From the autobiographical reminiscences of Charlie Chaplin through to Charlie Richardson (a contemporary of the Krays), the world and his wife seemed to enjoy visiting Southend.

The 1960s saw more than just the national influences of music, foreign travel, television, fashion, the motor car and the cult of the teenager; it saw the arrival of high-rise blocks completely changing the look of the town centre. The standard of living improved immeasurably during this decade, not that material deprivation marred youthful pleasures – as you will see from the reminiscences that follow.

Mary Hopkin’s 1968 song said it all: ‘Those Were The Days’.

Dee Gordon

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Simon Fletcher and his team at Sutton Publishing have made this book a pleasure to write, but lots of people have helped it to fruition. Principally, I owe a vote of thanks to those interviewees included in these pages, who tolerated a barrage of questions, and were all so willing and happy to share their memories, almost invariably fond ones, of a time and a place tinged with a very deep rose.

There were people who helped me source those with memories of the 1950s and 1960s, especially Donna Lowe, Pat Stone, Roger Robinson, Kim Kimber, Judith Williams, Emma Bearman and Alison Halton, as well as staff at the Southend Library and Southend Museum who helped me check some locations and some occasionally dubious facts; and people who provided photographs, particularly Gary Nicholls and John Atkins, some of which I was unable to use for reasons of space, principally those from David Goody, Dorothy West and Bob Essery.

Thanks also to the staff and residents of Beaufort Lodge, St Vincents Road, Westcliff, whose memories of the era and the town were so diverse.

HARRY DAY

Southend’s Frank Sinatra?

Although Harry is not strictly a Southender, as he was born in Kent at the end of the First World War, he has been in the area since 1945 and has become a well-known character in the town. As a musician and singer, he had moved to London to find band work. A couple of pals he came across at the Locarno in Tottenham Court Road told him about a vacancy for a drummer with Stan Pearse at a phenomenal (if his memory serves him correctly) £9 per week. He joined the band the next day and was subsequently offered a job in Southend at Mecca’s Olympia Ballroom at the bottom of Pier Hill, a venue reachable only by escalator. This is where he met his wife, Rose, an usherette, and they married at St John’s Church at the end of the 1940s, with Mecca providing a plush reception.

Harry (on the drums) with Stan Pearse (piano) and Guy Snowden (saxophone) at the Olympia Ballroom, Pier Hill, c. 1953. (Day collection: original photo Star Photography, Leigh)

Harry Day and baby Sue (aged about 3 months) in the back garden of their Fairfax Drive home, early 1950s. (Day collection)

Harry and Rose started married life with her mum and brothers in St Leonard’s Road, Southend, with a sheet of hardboard on one of the beds as a table. Professionally, he moved on to the Kursaal with Howard Baker’s twenty-one piece band, and performed in the pubs at lunchtime with Sid Uren for extra money. It was Sid who offered the couple a share of his home in Fairfax Drive, enabling them to live downstairs while Sid and his family lived upstairs. This is where they have lived ever since, although now they have the whole house! Their three daughters were born in the 1950s in Rochford Hospital.

Although Harry had a heart attack in 1953 just after getting a standing ovation for his solo demonstration of ‘Drumming Man’, he is convinced this was because he was burning the candle at both ends rather than as a result of his energetic performance. While in hospital, another local musician, Harry Brooker (father of Gary of Procul Harum fame), visited him and offered him a job in a six-piece band, Felix Mendelssohn and his Hawaiian Serenaders.

He worked with them for three years at the Palace Hotel. In the 1950s this venue featured plush red carpets, even on the pavements outside, and gold-braided commissionaires escorting ladies in from their ‘carriages’. Its Blue Room Restaurant was one of the more superior in the town at the time. In 1952, Laurel and Hardy appeared at the Palace, and Harry found Stan Laurel particularly friendly. In fact, as one of Harry’s daughters had been born at the same juncture, Stan accompanied Harry home to ‘wet the baby’s head’ with whisky, much to the amazement of Rose.

While with the Hawaiian Serenaders, Harry wore the appropriate dress code – black baggy trousers, flowery shirts and leis around the neck. He worked six days a week (including Sunday lunchtime, but not Sunday evenings – and no dance music was allowed on Sundays), singing and drumming, but also took on extra work in the building trade.

By the late 1950s, Harry was back with Howard Baker and his Broadcasting Band, touring as far afield as Northampton at a time before motorways. Their sessions could finish at one o’clock in the morning, leaving Harry with very little spare time. In the meantime, Rose was taking the children to the boating lake that was then alongside the Pier, and to Never Never Land, always a girly favourite with its turreted castles. When the girls were very small, the prime baby-goods supplier in the town was Liddiard’s in Victoria Avenue (now Kindercare), and Harry persuaded Ray Liddiard over a drink in the Spread Eagle to provide them with a Silver Cross pram for the twins they thought they were expecting. It transpired that twins didn’t materialise until the second pregnancy, so they did get the Silver Cross eventually. The girls went to Macdonalds Junior School, then Dowsett School.

Holidays were brief and at short notice, but they did manage to take advantage of £2 return day trips to Ostend from Southend airport, leaving at eight in the morning and back at six in the evening. This was a one-hour journey on a Viscount eighty-seater, and the children travelled free of charge.

Harry’s memories of the music scene in Southend are far-ranging. He recalls the Glide-a-drome by the seafront gasworks, which featured roller skating alongside a big band. There was a ballroom at the beginning of the Pier, and a sun deck at the end that also featured a band under cover. Apart from the Kursaal and Olympia ballrooms, every pub along the Esplanade to the Halfway House had a live band, with punters ready and willing to put money in the band’s postperformance collecting box. Jukeboxes in pubs later killed off the live bands.

The seafront in the 1950s was awash with day trippers, with trains into London running every ten minutes. There was hardly any traffic along the beachside roads apart from coaches and buses. Mondays were traditionally ladies’ days, when the young and old arrived on coaches laden with beer, and were not averse to flashing red, white and blue knickers – just for fun. It seems that this kind of bawdy revelry was common after the war, when ladies from London arrived, allegedly to avoid paying their rent, but it was less common by the 1950s. The Kursaal’s funfair and its gardens were a big attraction, with an entrance fee of around 3d, and Harry has fond memories of the caterpillar and the water chute and particularly of the wind tunnel (controlled by Kursaal staff, which blew the girls’ skirts up. It seems that Tornado Smith from the Kursaal’s Wall of Death liked a drink at the Victoria Hotel (then at Victoria Circus) before his performances. Harry often picked him up there and took him to the Kursaal.

The 1960s saw Harry back with the Sid Uren Trio, performing straight dance music. One of their first jobs was at the restaurant then in Southend airport, which it seems was quite something, with first-class cuisine at around £3–4 a head. They were the resident band there for two years, and it was a very busy period for Harry, who was expanding his building business during the day. When the band moved on to the Commodore (brand new and elite) at Basildon, customers from the airport followed them.

It was important that Harry kept up with changes in the music world, and in drumming in particular, and Ringo Starr had quite an influence on him and his peers because of the new beat patterns he introduced. The Beatles also brought the guitar into the limelight, and were instrumental – literally – in bringing an end to Sunday restrictions on music.

The early 1960s saw the formation of the Harry Day Combo, which lasted until the 1980s. They were resident for a number of years at the Queen’s Hotel, then in Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff, a resplendent pub and hotel, but played other venues such as the Dorchester in Park Lane. At the Queen’s Hotel, famous names appeared before they were famous – Bob Monkhouse, Leo Sayer, Genesis, ELO and Suzi Quatro, who appeared at the age of 17 for just £5 expenses. Lots of Masonic lodges had their dos here, and Harry, as musical director, had the freedom to choose the music, suiting it to the patrons.

During this period at the Queen’s, he organised Sunday mornings for the children known as ‘Grown Ups Mind Your Own Business’. This brought a couple of hundred children in, and their parents would use the time in the hotel’s bars. Stars from the Cliffs Pavilion visited on Sundays and signed autographs for the children – people such as Ann Shelton and Edmund Hockridge. When West Ham were playing at Southend, all the team came along with footballs for their young fans. A feature of these Sunday mornings was an ongoing talent competition, with the final judged by one of the visiting stars. Prize money amounted to about £60. Music was obviously an important part of Sunday’s entertainment, and there were treats on special days. For example, on Mother’s Day ‘Uncle Harry’ presented the youngsters with violets, which they could give to their mums on stage. The regulars among the children even had their own committee to keep an eye out for bad behaviour and nip it in the bud.

Harry (on the left) and the Queen’s Hotel staff with their carnival float, late 1960s. (Day collection)

Harry with John Inman (Are You Being Served?) on Southend Pier at the 50th anniversary of Laurel and Hardy’s visit to Southend, 2002. (Day collection)

At carnival time, the Queen’s had its own float, and the Harry Day Combo was featured. One float was set up as a garden with umbrellas, paid for by Fosters Lager, but when it was finished it was too big to get out of the Queen’s gates, so the sides had to be removed and replaced. Although this was a four-and-a-half-hour drive, these carnival processions are remembered with great affection.

Harry has had several opportunities over the years to reminisce about this period in the local press, and even with Chris Tarrant on television.

HARRY WEST

Dib Dob and Bob a Job

Harry (born in Summercourt Road, Westcliff, in 1920) started his Scouting life before the Second World War, and came out of it wanting to form his own group, to ‘do something’ for the boys. Another inspiration was an uncle who was a Scout leader.

By trade, he became a butcher, and he married in 1941. In the 1950s his wife, Gladys, was beginning to epitomise the idea of a Scout widow, although she had her own interests; for instance, she sang in the Salvation Army choir until the children came along. The Salvation Army was also important to Harry. He played the tuba, having been taught by the junior band leader at Southend Citadel. On the evenings Harry was out either Gladys or her mother looked after the children at the family home in Kensington Road, Southend. This was to be their home for over fifty-seven years, and was rented out by the landlord living next door, who did not want to sell because, if he did, he would have no control over his neighbours.

Harry West is the one with the largest tuba! The Salvation Army Essex International Jamboree at Belchamps, Hockley, 1952. (West collection: original photo Rimmer, Leigh)

By 1950, Harry was the district Scout leader, the local association having grown so much that it had been divided into districts. This meant he was out visiting other troops in the area, such as Rochford, Prittlewell or Southchurch. Three years later, after the Scouts had changed from King Scouts to Queen Scouts, he became East district commissioner (for Southend and Prittlewell Scouts). For this role he had undertaken a course in Chingford, and an assessment by the district commissioner, at the end of which he had achieved the accolade of Wood Badge. This uniform he wore with pride for over thirty years.

When he handed over the Scout leadership for Southend, the troop had forty Cubs and twenty Scouts, and the boys saw it as somewhere to achieve, and the badges as something to strive for. Promotion meant that he was now authorised to present warrants to leaders, and ensure there were enough of them, and that everyone obeyed the Scouting rules. In the 1950s, there were possibly more female Cub Scout leaders than male, and they were invariably middle-aged or older. Leaders, male or female, were known then, as now, as Akela, and the Scoutmaster was invariably known as Skip.

In 1952, the first Essex International Jamboree was held at Belchamps camp in Hawkwell. This attracted Scouts from Sweden, Denmark and Holland, and from countries as far away as Korea. The Renewal of Promise Parades were something of a public relations exercise in the 1950s and 1960s. The parades, of some 1,500 Scouts, moved from St John’s Road in Westcliff, past the war memorial and the bandstand to the Odeon in Southend High Street. There the flags of all the Scouting groups would be on the stage. Two Scout bands were a part of these parades, boosted by the Southend Citadel Salvation Army band, which provided the music for the service.

Harry on a Scouting course in 1953. (West collection)

Even Harry’s annual holidays were dictated by the timing of Scout camp trips. His wife and children (three by now, one having died at a very young age) would visit the camp on Parents’ Day, but their holiday was more often a day trip to Canvey Island on the bus. Scouting was also Harry’s social life, what with going to band practice on Thursdays, visiting camps on Saturdays, arranging and attending meetings, organising carol services at Christmas, and keeping up to date with Scouting changes.

The Second Southend Scout troop outside the Salvation Army hall, Clarence Street, preparing for a camping trip in the 1950s. (West collection)

To get around from one troop to another, he relied mainly on his bicycle, but occasionally borrowed the butcher’s van, having passed his driving test in 1948. (He did not get his first car until 1959.) As a butcher Harry had worked for Garons in Southend High Street, the ‘Butchers under the Bridge’. But in the 1950s and for most of the 1960s he worked, less conveniently, in Romford.

He had to find the money for two uniforms –the Scouts and the Salvation Army. On Sundays he played with the Salvation Army band at their open-air services morning and evening, and marched with them before and after the services. The band was about forty-strong at one point. On his afternoon off, Harry and his family enjoyed visiting Joe Lyons in Southend High Street. They treated themselves to a plate of chips each, and walked back home down Pier Hill. Southchurch Park was another favourite family venue. When the children were older, Gladys worked for a while as a school dinner lady at Bournemouth Park School.

Harry receiving the new district union flag from the minister of Wesley Church, Leigh-on-Sea, c. 1954. (West collection)

Harry can recall just one Scout show in the 1950s, held at the Kursaal as part of a Scouting bonanza, which was advertised on one of Southend’s carnival floats, which sported the flags of all the countries that were involved. In the 1960s, however, the Scouts’ shows became a regular feature at the Palace Theatre, London Road, Westcliff. Senior Scouts such as Harry took turns to look after visiting dignitaries such as the Southend mayor, taking them backstage to meet the cast.

By this time Harry’s own son, Derek, had become a Cub, but he was less enthusiastic about the Scouts, who all seemed so much bigger than him! Derek was keener on sport, especially football, and became captain of his school football team (Southchurch Hall School), and head boy by the end of the 1960s. He also played baritone brass in the Salvation Army’s junior band for a while, and all the children attended Sunday school at the Southend Citadel while Harry was at the open-air services.

There was a national Scouting review in 1966, when the uniform changed from hats to berets and from shorts to trousers, with some changes to the badge system. This was mainly to bring the fraternity up to date, and to a lesser extent because boys were growing more aware of, and interested in, what they wore. Part of Harry’s role was to implement these changes.

Harry, who is still known as Skip to generations of Scouts, has finally retired and remains a resident of Southend.

GLADYS MUDEMBE

Music, Music, Music

Since the early 1920s Gladys has always lived in Southend, although she has seen many changes over the years. Her family moved to the house where she now lives shortly after the Second World War. Her mother encouraged her to take an interest in music, especially singing and the piano, which she began to learn at the age of 6. Although Mum occasionally earned a few pence an hour for babysitting or did a bit of cleaning, she appears to have given up her job as a professional cook when Gladys came along. Dad provided the family income as a decorator, but his wages suffered if it rained.

For Gladys, therefore, her dream of being a teacher did not seem possible, given that she felt the need to contribute to the household’s finances. She was working at E.K. Cole in 1948 when, as a result of teacher shortages, an emergency training scheme was initiated. Following an interview at Chelmsford, Gladys was offered a place on a one-year crash course at Bedford. This was far more affordable, and the training was of a good standard, involving three months of primary school practice, with a choice of specialisations. Gladys chose singing and the violin. She then had two years’ probationary teaching at West Leigh Schools.

At this time, the early 1950s, Southend had a lot of choirs – male, ladies’, mixed, children’s and choral societies. Gladys’s own singing teacher Madame Parry (Madame apparently indicated that she was married but was used with the teacher’s maiden name for professional reasons) won a first prize with the Freda Parry’s Ladies’ Choir at the Festival of Britain, which took place on London’s South Bank in 1951. The prize, a silver rose bowl, is on display at Porter’s, the mayor’s official residence on the corner of Grange Gardens, Southend. Madame Parry lived in Westbourne Grove for many years, and had a small chain of music academies, one apparently in Hamlet Court Road. When conducting the Junior Co-op Choir (a choir of youngsters whose parents were members of the Co-operative Society, now known as the Southend Young Singers) Madame Parry had a heart attack, resulting in her death in 1971.

As for Gladys, she was granted a music scholarship to the Guildhall in London, but she could not be spared from West Leigh. Later, when she could be spared for a one-year part-time course, it turned out to be unpaid, so Gladys had to do temporary secretarial work in London to be able to take advantage of the opportunity. But she qualified and returned to West Leigh Schools, later transferring to Bournemouth Park Girls’ School until the end of the 1950s.

Gladys Mude is standing on the left of Revd Mr Erskine from St Mary’s in Hobbs Ward, Southend Hospital, following a Sunday morning service in the early 1960s. (Mude collection)

At this time she learned to drive, having used a bicycle to get around up to now. The last words from her instructor before she passed her test were: ‘Please don’t swear at the pedestrians.’ It seems she was very ashamed of her first car, which seemed to be of mismatched colours inside and out, with a primitive, indescribable, braking system.

In the meantime brother Norman, a rep, who had been in the Fleet Air Arm during the war, married the Wren he had met all those years before. They had a flat in Southview Drive, Westcliff, then a bungalow in Rochford, but after the children came along (a boy and a girl) Norman’s employers moved to Liverpool, and the family left the area.

Back in Southend, Gladys was actively involved with the Southend Competitive Music Festival, which took place every November at different venues in the town, and the Leigh Festival, which took place in spring at the Leigh Community Centre. These established events were for adults and children alike, who would compete for different classes in piano, elocution, strings, mime and choirs, with the standard at gold-medal class being on a par with professional musicians. Gladys was personally successful in the singing classes – soprano, mezzo, contralto – and in piano. On Saturday evenings, finals night, you had to get there at teatime to get a seat, it seems, and Mum bicycled over in good time and sat through it all, enthralled. Dad was not so keen. He found it a tad repetitive, as many of the performances repeated the same pieces of music. Gladys’s brother, Norman, was encouraged to learn the violin, but she does not remember it ever coming out of its case, except to hit someone on one occasion!

By now, Gladys had long been involved as a volunteer at Southend Hospital, a lifelong commitment for which she was later (much, much later) awarded an MBE. In the 1950s this saw her playing the piano and singing hymns for five separate Sunday services, in three women’s and two men’s wards. Each ward had its own piano, and she and the minister from St Mary’s Church were accompanied by whoever was on duty at the time – the nurses, sister, deputy matron, hospital domestics – and soon hymn books were distributed to patients, and a good time was had by all. In the 1960s, the pianos gradually died a natural, tuneful, death, it not being viable to maintain them, and the accompanying minister changed too, to the St Peter’s representative; however, the hymns and services carried on.

As if that was not enough, Gladys was also involved in the setting-up of a nurses’ choir, which anyone could join. It was easier to coordinate practice sessions when all the nurses lived in, as they did then. There were nurses’ homes at Southend and Rochford hospitals, both providing rehearsal space. The nurses’ choir won the Stratford Competitive Musical Competition choral class three times in the 1960s.

Life as a teacher meant that any other spare time was often occupied with homework, after-school activities, hockey matches, choir practice and so on. Occasionally, Gladys would attend a local dance with her brother, apart from the annual hospital dances at such venues as the Kursaal in Southend, or the Arlington Rooms at Chalkwell. Dances at the latter would be rather short of men until someone hit on the idea of inviting men from the Shoebury Garrison, which seemed to solve the problem. Mum would accompany her on occasion to the Palace Theatre in London Road, Westcliff, or to a Sunday afternoon classical concert there. There were also shows-cum-concerts from the Southend Music Club at the Queen’s Hotel in Hamlet Court Road.

The nurses’ choir in full song at the Salvation Hall in Leigh in the 1950s, with Gladys playing piano on the left. (Mude collection)

This is the Ritz Children’s Choir – from the Southend cinema – who had just won the area finals, c. 1959, and were looking forward to the finals at the Odeon, Leicester Square, to be followed by a visit to the circus. Gladys, their pianist, is on the right, with the conductor, Leslie Price, behind her, and Mr Nimse, the cinema manager, next to him. (Mude collection)

A new post of ‘special responsibility’ was Gladys’s next professional role when she moved to Temple Sutton Primary, Eastern Avenue, Southend. She was there for seven years, although the ‘special responsibility’ seemed more about being able to order needlework supplies than anything else.

Finally, in 1966, she achieved deputy head status – at Hamstel primary – and settled there until her retirement sixteen years later. Here, she was responsible for discipline, for teachers who needed her help, and for the administration of punishments; but she never felt the need to use the cane. She did, however, always feel the need to be extra strict from September to Christmas so that she could relax over Christmas and help out by decorating the classrooms, allowing her warmer nature to show through.

Overall, Gladys has only fond memories of the pupils and teachers she came across in her career. There were the identical triplets who liked to confuse her – and the other teachers – by switching places. There was the disabled boy with a twisted, corseted body who could manage PE but who needed, and got, plenty of assistance from his peers in rewrapping the corset afterwards. And there was the boy who practised a wrestling hold on his friend who promptly passed out and had to be revived, giving everyone quite a scare.

Gladys remains in Southend, a busy lady, with fond memories.

RON STOKOE

Taxis, Time and Motion

Ron was just a toddler when his family moved to the area from Lambeth in south London in the 1930s. He married Iris, from Rainham, in 1951 at St Mary’s, Prittlewell, and soon after moved to a rented flat in Southchurch Road. Ron remembers this as having a huge lounge and a proper bathroom, and, although not self-contained, it even had its own garden. Their furniture was mostly purchased from Norris’s in Southend High Street, with a small amount paid weekly covering everything they needed for the flat.

While still in this flat, the children, Jack and Lorraine, were born at Rochford Hospital in 1953 and 1956 respectively. Ron vividly recalls snow-white nappies hanging on the washing line in spite of the absence of a washing machine, thanks to his wife’s expertise with the scrubbing board. The Swan pram, with the latest anti-tipping brake, was bought at Liddiard’s in Victoria Avenue, now Kindercare. The carrycot with Jack in it was perched next to the radiogram, and Ron feels this is why Jack grew up to be such a music fiend.

Traffic-free Priory Avenue, Southend, in the early 1950s, Ron Stokoe’s home before marriage. (Stokoe collection)

Ron and Iris marrying at St Mary’s, 1951. (Stokoe collection: original photo Star Photography, Leigh)

Iris walked everywhere with the pram, from Southchurch to central Southend and further afield, providing exercise for herself and entertainment for the children. Before the children were born Iris was a clippie on the blue trolley buses, wearing trousers and a cap as part of her uniform. It seems that the trolleybus commuters from Leigh-on-Sea to Southend were known as ‘bread-and-cheesers’ because of the lunches they carried to work on a daily basis. On one occasion at Warrior Square, the ultra-lightweight Iris was hoisted up bodily when trying to stabilise the trolley bus from behind, and ended up looking at the bemused passengers from the outside of the upstairs rear window!

At this time, the early 1950s, Ron was a taxi-driver. He still has his Hackney Carriage Badge no. 171. Fares at the time were 1s 6d for the first mile, 1s for each mile thereafter, 3d for baggage and 6d extra (each) for more than two passengers. Rules and regulations for cabs and cab-drivers in those days included the necessity for running boards, and he had to get out and open the door for his customers. He ended up with three private-hire vehicles as well as his taxi, and ran the business with a partner as S & S Hire Service (Stokoe and Smith). The private-hire vehicles were based at their shop premises at Prittlewell station, and the business was busy enough to merit employing several part-time drivers.

One of Ron’s taxi ‘fleet’, early 1950s. (Stokoe collection)

Ron himself mainly operated from the taxi rank outside Southend Central station, for which privilege he had to pay an annual fee. The hours were very long, with days starting at about 8 a.m. and often ending up at 1.30 a.m. (that is, the next morning), not ideal for a young husband with a growing family. Some days he could sit all day on the rank and not get a single fare, as happened twice in one week one winter in the 1950s, although holiday times and Christmas were usually lucrative.

He recalls a very foggy, wintry night when a passenger wanted to go to Tyrone Road in Thorpe Bay, and Ron made the decision to go along the seafront. But by the time he got to the end of Pier Hill he could not see a thing, so the passenger got out and walked in front of the cab, with Ron following him with his lights on. When they finally arrived at Tyrone Road, Ron was still paid because the passenger felt sorry for him.