SCHOOLDAYS 1917—1922 by Jessie Sheppard
1917 started gloomily, mother and I went to the pictures on Mondays and Thursdays at the Old Gem, Merchant Street. On our way into town, down Alfred Hill, past the Infirmary, we used to wave to the soldiers on the balcony from the steps. New Zealand and Australian wounded soldiers though they might have been, they were very cheerful and often threw down sweets to children passing by.
Mother and I used to get some Wills Gold Flake cigarettes and throw these up to them. The nights were dark as the glass at the top of the street lights were painted dark brown. No shop lights. Going down the steps wasn’t too bad as the reflected light from the Infirmary lit them a little. On the other evenings, we stayed at home to read — Buffalo Bill, Sexton Blake and Tinker, Nelson Lee and Nipper and Nick Carter, Mother would read one chapter and I would read the next.
When it was my turn to read, mother knitted and I knitted whilst mother read. We made socks for the Red Cross. I was no good at sewing, writing or drawing, but took prizes for knitting. At this time I was staying in school for dinner, we had to eat it in the playground or the cloakroom in the winter, I sat on the hot water pipes to eat mine. Mother gave me a penny on Tuesdays — ½d for fish, ½d for chips and scrumpies for dinner. The rest of the week — ½d for fish or chips.
Often I would buy sweets instead and just eat the piece of bread and marge I was supposed to eat with dinner. There had been a drought during the summer of 1916, the water was turned off from 2 p.m. until 6 o’clock the next morning. I had to come home at lunch time to fill a bath with water for our use. At this time the Grammar School bell came in very handy as it rang at 1.40 p.m. and 8.45 a.m., this gave me the five minutes I needed to get to school.
By now I was reading Sherlock Holmes at school, the other books we read at night — mother said not to mention them at school as they weren’t the sort of books I should be reading. We used to change these with my friend’s father who got all his from the pub, buying two books a week ourselves. We had a card sometime in February from Dad saying he expected to be home on leave soon. Our postman, Mr Lloyd, used to call out wherever we were in the street if there was a letter or card for us.
In those days we had three posts a day and you could ask the postman or postlady if there were any letters and they would give them to you — not at all like today! The policeman were also wonderful; one of them, a young one, we used to wait for and lassoo him as he came round the corner of the street and we wouldn’t let him go until we had a sweet each. He would always warn us when a change meant an older man, who would not appreciate our jokes, would be on duty, and of course we made sure we never upset them.
At Christmas time we used to give them a bar of chocolate each. The young one brought a bag of sweets between us, to our sorrow he left us in the summer of 1917— he was called up.The pictures of Kitchener and his slogan ‘Your Country Needs You’ were beginning to fade. The battle of the Somme started and on the 1st April, whilst playing ball outside my door with the boy next door, we were surprised to see a little soldier whose kit was as large as himself, and with a huge moustache coming up the court. Bert said ‘It’s Mr Jones’ — I didn’t believe him but stepped inside the door and said to mother ‘I think it’s Dad’ — it was.
By the time mother and I had finished crying at seeing him, the kettle boiled and we had tea. Dad took out a long stick of real white bread, all the way from France. He also brought me another little doll, a white rosary and a red - white and blue rosary for mother; for her too a pink silk handkerchief sachet with a little cottage and the words ‘To my dear Wife’ printed on it, also a large handkerchief, which I still have, cotton with each corner having a General and different war scenes all over it.
Dad was home for seven days, I had a week from school as did most children when fathers came home on leave, with no loss of marks. Mother was very worried as several of our friends’ relatives who had been on leave had been reported missing or killed about a month after going back on duty. Dad went back and things settled down again. At school we were now collecting for the Red Cross — ½d per week and eggs for wounded soldiers at the Infirmary — ½d. Money collected for the Infirmary was used to buy eggs and taken down in a galvanised bath every Friday afternoon.
Occasionally some of us juniors were allowed to go along with the seniors helping to take the bath down. By now, I was upstairs with the seniors. Although still considered the most intelligent girl in class, I was getting into trouble over writing, drawing, etc. I could not write two paragraphs without a blot and in those days it was pen and ink. How I envy the scholars of today, I am sure if I had written with a biro pen my life would have been much more pleasant. Unfortunately I was always getting into trouble for talking too much. I jumped a class into Standard I — the class I hated most, as the teacher and I were at loggerheads, although this did not prevent her from using me to answer the Inspectors’ questions on their visits.
After about four weeks in this class, I took every Friday afternoon off. A friend who lived at the bottom of the Court got her sister to write notes to say I was visiting one of their sisters in hospital, this was true sometimes! I was very pleased when I left that class. The teacher, although I heartily disliked her, was not really to blame as she was the sole supporter of an invalid mother and sister and the girls she favoured were the ones who brought little gifts for her. I then jumped another class; in this class Miss Webber was the teacher and we got on very well. I still had the reputation of being the most intelligent but the most untidy girl in the class!
1918 started with nothing but bad news, every other child seemed to be losing relatives, food was getting even more difficult, gloom seemed to be all around. Then came the autumn of 1918 and we were hit by what was called the Spanish ‘flu. By this time all the schools in Bristol were closed. I had ‘flu the week the schools closed and was deaf for a fortnight. I was out playing on the Thursday before Armistice when the rumour started that the war would be at an end the next day.
Friday the 11th dawned, a typical November day. My friend and I had dressed up and were playing, we had been told to listen for guns going off at 11 o’clock which would mean that the war was ended. The first thing we heard was the bell ringing and putting on our coats to hide our fancy dress, we rushed into the street. Everyone was out on their doorsteps very excited with the guns going off. People started shouting and carrying on. I went back to the house to make some cocoa for my friend and myself when mother came home, half crying, half laughing at the thought that Dad would be home soon. My friend ran off home after drinking the cocoa. Mother and I had some bread and jam and another cup of cocoa before getting ready to go out. We went down town, down Alfred Hill.
At that time there were steps at the bottom and on the left there were green areas of grass with a glass corridor. On the other side were the balconies filled with beds for the soldiers; they were mostly Australians and New Zealanders and they called out and waved as people went by. On this special day people were throwing up packets of cigarettes and tobacco to the soldiers and they were throwing down chocolate to the children. Mother bought two packets of Gold Flake for me to throw up.
When we reached town, crowds were everywhere — Castle Street was packed, so was Old Market. In those days Peter Street, High Street, Mary Le Port Street and the markets — flower and vegetables and fish markets — were Town. People were everywhere, groups singing, shouting and dancing. A few stood in corners needing to be with people, but I saw people crying, those for whom there would be no joyful reunion. Open air meetings with the churches fully represented were in progress, we stopped at one just starting the hymn ‘Now thank we all our God’ followed by a prayer and the sermon. The Vicar holding the meeting was elderly and I can still see his face today as he seemed to be talking more to us children than to the adults, reminding us of why they had fought and in many cases, why they had given their lives. Most believed it would lead to a better world if they won this war and they died for a better world, a world of peace and understanding of neighbouring countries. This at the time didn’t mean all that much to me, as far as I was concerned if we had not fought the Germans, they would have taken us over. Then the Vicar said, and I still remember the expression on his face, that it was up to us to see there would be no more wars like this again.
We finished by singing the National Anthem. After this mother and I went to Woolworths, a 3d and 6d store in Castle Street, where mother bought me a little china ornament — a little dovecote in green and white with doves with gilt wings, I still have it although one of the wings is broken — to me it still stands for Peace. We went on down to the Centre; it was getting dark and the trains were lit up and all the shop windows, flags were hanging all over the shops and buildings.
After dark it was like fairyland. The few boats in harbour were covered in flags. The people and a few sailors were waving, a night I shall never forget. It is still more vivid than 1945, being younger it was the biggest thing I had ever seen. Peace was signed June 1919. Our school had a tea party and each child was given a copy of Landseers Peace. Dad came home in April 1919. No employment about; like thousands of others when needed they were the salt of the earth but when the fighting finished, no one wanted them. Before the war Dad had been a gardener but as there was no hope of a job in that line he became a docker. At first he was lucky if he got one day’s work a week, then he got on the banana boat for two days a week, this with the ten shillings a week from the exchange.
Mother had half a crown a day with is 6d on Saturday and a meal. I was doing a paper round for 2s 6d per week and helping mother on Saturdays for 6d. My job was to clean knives and boots. From 1919 mother worked for a couple who had two St. Bernard dogs (prize dogs at Crufts — Winston and Julie). I used to take them on the Downs for half an hour, this I looked forward to all the week, they were grand dogs, you only had to talk to them and they were sitting down in front of you before you had finished speaking.
Things were getting better now, Dad had his two days a week and often a half day on the Scotch Coaster. On Saturday mornings and during the school holidays I used to take Jack, my dog, who was a cross between an Irish terrier and an Airedale, down to the Bristol Docks. One day the foreman at the warehouse came out and asked if he could catch rats. I, of course, said yes!, never having seen him catch a mouse let alone a rat. However, that morning he caught three rats for which I received is 6d. After that I took him with us every time I went with Dad. On Saturdays I had to leave the docks by 9 o’clock to get to work but on other days, we could stay until twelve. In those ‘good old days’ rent was 4s 6d per week, coal 2s 4d per cwt, corn beef 6d per lb and ham is 3d per lb, but with wages as they were there wasn’t much left over for luxuries.
1922 brought the dockers’ strike — no strike pay or DHSS then, and there was quite a lot of trouble in town with the mounted police out. This was my last year at school and after two years and a bit, I couldn’t leave quickly enough.
