Dot's story - London.

Tom Holloway (xuegx@CSV.WARWICK.AC.UK)
Sun, 7 Jan 1996 21:20:45 +0000 

Dot's story - LONDON

I told you about getting my first job in a steel-works when
I was still 13 (starting it on my 14th birthday) and what
sort of job it was, work that humans wouldn't be allowed to
do now, moving bags of filthy slag dust in a barrow,
breathing the stuff all day.

I was still only 15 when I finally got out of the
steel-works at Scunthorpe.  I went to London to live with my
sister.  It was 1945 and the war was still on and it felt
strange sitting in the dim light of a London bus in the
blackout, no lights anywhere, just a tiny glimmer coming
from the stairs that went down to the 'tube'.

By the time the war ended in September I was thoroughly
enjoying myself - still 15, but I had a very full social
life.  Ballroom Dancing was my passion, and my job as a
shopgirl in Woolworths was very much better than my job as a
barrow girl, trundling half-hundredweight bags of filthy
slag-dust from 7.30 in the morning until 5 at night for 30
shillings a week.

-----------

We would go to the Putney Palais de Danse every Saturday,
and there were lots of forces home on leave to dance with.
I didn't take up with anyone special - just had a bloody
good time!  We had all got used to taking everything in our
stride; young peoples attitudes were very much "enjoy
yourself while you can, cos a doodlebug or a V2 can get you
any time of the day or night".

The lads on leave were certainly out for a good time and the
Palais was where they went to have it.  Not at all like
today though - there was no bar for a start.  At the
interval we would all have cups of tea and a slice of cake.
Socialising didn't mean getting tiddley, and being sober
didn't stop you having a bloomin good time.

Another difference was that we could walk back the couple of
miles or so from Putney Palais at midnight without any
fear at all.  You would pass people, lots of people,
sometime a soldier or a sailor would say "give us a kiss
love" and you'd give him a kiss if you liked the look of
him, but there was never any thought at all that you might
suddenly be attacked by anybody.

Strangely, our determination to enjoy ourselves carried over
past the end of the war, and looking back I can see that my
generation considered war conditions to be 'normal' and we
found it very hard to change our attitudes.

But all of a sudden we had all these soldiers and sailors
coming back from the war; well, the lucky ones anyway.
(Some of em didn't get back for years and years, stuck in
Germany, in case the Russians decided to push on and take it
all).  The lads getting demobbed wanted to get stuck in to a
'normal life' but found out that they weren't going back to
a land 'fit for heros'.  There was a lot of bad feeling, and
it didn't get written about in the papers.  I'll tell you
more another time.

Dot

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Dot Thom lives now in the beautiful village of Ardington in
Berkshire.  She isn't on the Internet but questions can be
put to her by writing to the MEMORIES list and they will be
sent to her for her reply.