100 Melody Road. Wandsworth S.W.18

A Memory of Wandsworth.

In 1943/4 My mother, brother and myself were bombed out of our home in Summerly Street.
In that house we had a Morrison shelter and the night the bomb hit, a few houses away from our house, it affected our shelter and my mother was unable to open the side of the shelter to get us out. She had to wait for help to arrive and open the shelter for us. We were evacuated to Sheffield.
I remember being on the railway station when we were being evacuated and there were many children on their own with labels pinned onto them with name and address and carrying a small case. And they were being evacuated by themselves. How frightened they must have been not knowing why their mum wasn’t with them and not knowing where they were going.
When we returned to London. From Sheffield we stayed with my auntie in Carshalton - my mothers sister. My Auntie was sorry for my mother bercause she had lost everything when we were bombed out of Summerly St. My mother had nothing. Not even her wedding photographs. My mother had to go to the Council offices everyday to fight for a home for us …. She told me she used to bring us with her… she was told she had to keep us quiet…… How do you keep two small children sitting down and quiet?
I think about the women who were left to take care of children by themselves. Some of them had to go and work on the land. They were called land girls. Some had to go and work in munitions factories.
After the war my mother, my brother and myself were rehoused in a prefab bungalow in Melody Road. I remember the night when my father came home from the Middle East. He had toys for us made out of leather which he had made himself. He also brought home a black and white shawl that the Arabs wear around their heads and he had a ‘’black rope’’ which was wrapped around the shawl to hold it in place. My mother did not like us playing with it.
Our fathers and all the men who went to fight in the war. Our parents and all the adults of that time. Men and women and I suppose many children as well had terrible experiences. My father never spoke about what happened to those men who went to fight for our country. Or any memories they would have had.
I went to an infants school about a 10 min walk from Melody Road and then to Swaffield Road primary school. I remember Swaffield Rd. school.... a large old building with stone stairs and we were allowed to only go in single file on the stairs for security. In those days we used to get a bottle of milk at school. I suppose it was 1/2 pint bottle. All the kids at school got this milk.
Our Dr. was Dr. Billig - I don't remember how far from our house that his surgery was. I just had problems healing and Dr. Billig told my mum to use Lion Brand Ointment which I used for years until I couldn't obtain it any more.
There was a common down that road past Swaffield Rd. School. My father used to play cricket there during the summer. We would walk down to the cricket field and walk over a small bridge to get to the cricket greens.
When I was about 7 years old I had to have my tonsils removed. I remember being in hospital and a mask being put over my face. I remember being ill and my mother being told to feed me with ice cream because I couldn't swallow. My bed was put into the sitting room and I had ice cream for days - until my mother decided enough was enough and made me eat real food.
Our neighbor on one side was Mrs. Moore and on the other side the the Tovey family, and where the building of the prefabs started, the last house of the original house, (were they Victorian houses? I am not sure) but Mrs. Sibley lived there and we used to visit with my mum.
Sometimes Mrs.Moore invited me to tea. I was friends with her daughter. She gave us bread and jam for tea. She would spread the jam with the serrated bread knife so that there were lines all across the jam. It tasted so good. My mum used to spread the jam with a regular knife, no lines across the jam. It just tasted ordinary.
I remember playing on Wandsworth Common. We lived opposite Quarry Rd and we would go up Quarry Rd. to the common. Wandsworth Prison was about 10 minutes walk from Melody Rd. and when our family went for a walk to Streatham Common we used to pass the prison.
Sometimes we walked across Wandsworth Common and went down to Clapham Junction.
When I was about 10 years old I was bought a beautiful Grey Coat for the winter. I loved that coat.
We used to draw a big hopscotch in the middle of the road. Safe in those days. Not too much traffic. We used to play hide and seek and hide behind hedges in front gardens.
My grandfather lived in Penwith Street in Earlsfield and we used to walk down All Farthing Lane to go and visit him. In the houses in Penwith street the downstairs part of each house was a flat and the top half of the house was another flat. Two front doors. One for the ground floor and one for the upstairs flat. My grandad's house was downstairs and he had a back garden and the toilet was outside the back door. There was no bathroom. In those days there was a metal bath that was placed in front of the range fire and filled with water and the family bathed in this. And then the water had to be emptied out by bucket. There were two bedrooms in grandad's house and the kitchen/ living room. And also a cellar underneath this house. Then a small scullery down two steps where the sink was and the metal bath was kept out there as well and the backdoor to the garden. At my Grandads house - it was about half way along Penwith Street on the left hand side walking along from Earlsfield Station - there was a round metal plate outside the front door - this was into the cellar - the coal hole - and the coal man delivered the coal and poured it through the hole into the cellar. So grandad had to go down into the celler and bring up the coal as it was needed.
These memories are not in any order... just as they come to my mind.....
My sister Shirley was born in 100 Melody Road in 1946. I was 6 years old. I remember the night she was born.
On Sunday afternoons, a man pulling a flat bed cart used to walk the streets selling different kinds of fish. We used to buy shrimps from him. In the winter we would have Sunday tea in our sitting room and toast the bread in front of the fire on a long toasting fork. The lights would be out and we just had the light of the fire.
A church building was at the end of the road and many of the local children used to go to Sunday School there, downstairs in the basement of the church building. To me at that time it was Sunday School, but in recent years I realized it was an Evangelical Sunday School.
On the other corner of Melody Rd. was a bomb site which I was told had been a library. It was fenced off and we children were told NOT to go onto the site. We were all very obedient children.... smile. A private house was used as a library during that time - it was about 3 blocks away from Melody Road. I Loved going to the Library - every day during the school holidays.
About 3 or 4 blocks away from Melody Rd. was St. Annes Church. My family went once to the church. My mother said it was High Church of England. There was incense around the alter.
The bungalow next to us had in the back garden a huge round hole which I thought had been dug out into this nice shape by the man who lived in that bungalow. I remember thinking how clever that man was. Only many years after I realized it was where a bomb had dropped - a bomb crater - and it hadn't been filled in when the prefabs were built.
My parents had built a green house in our back garden and they grew much of what we ate.
Potatoes, tomatoes, blackcurrants - many different vegetables and fruits, and my mother used to preserve the veggies in Kilner jars and make jams.
I passed my exams - I think they were called 7 plus, so I achieved a central school. I used to go to Chelsea Central School and I walked down to the river and across Wandsworth Bridge. I made a right turn and walked along the side of the river to Chelsea Central School . My brother achieved a grammar school and went to Tooting Bec Grammar School.
My aunt and uncle owned 3 dry cleaner shops. One in Sloane Squ, one in Chelsea and I think the 3rd shop was in Fulham. Kings Dry Cleaners. My father drove a van for them and my mother did the repairs in the shop.
My mother was born in 1912. When she was about 12 years old she was sent to a couture dressmakers in London to learn the trade of dressmaking. VP was the name of the couturier. They made robes for royalty.
My name is Jean Hibbert. It would be interesting if anyone reads this who lived in Melody Road in those years after the war.