When My Dad Was A Kid
by Sue
Just before and during the time my dad was growing up schools were much smaller than they are now and generally did not have the facility to offer children a school dinner. In the winter months, children would bring in a large potato to school with their initials carved into the skin, to be baked for them in the school coal oven. In the summer months, pupils would bring sandwiches or if they lived very local to the school they might go home for their lunch. A small number of schools were able to offer free school meals to children from poorer families but were not available everywhere.
Discipline in school was often very strict. Anyone deemed to have misbehaved could expect to be given 100 lines to write out (“I must not…) or, if the misdemeanour was more serious, they could expect the cane or the ruler across the opened hand. And in that time it was common for the chastised child on returning home to receive a 'clip around the ear' from parents for good measure!
Comics were very popular and were published on a weekly basis. “The Chicks' Own” was geared towards young girls while the popular boys' comics included 'The Magnet' with perhaps its most famous character Billy Bunter. The 'Wizard' came along in the early twenties and was followed later by the 'Hotspur', the #Victor, the 'Valiant' and the 'Beano' and the 'Dandy' all published in the late 1930s.
Black Jacks, fruit salads, liquorice sticks, and gobstoppers could be bought for halfpenny an ounce at that time just to name a few. But sadly, Polio, Rickets and TB were notable illnesses in those times and often led to physical disability. It was a common sight to see children who had polio in callipers in those days and right up until the 1960s.
Games children played in the streets during those times were hopscotch, skipping, and ‘double-Dutch’ - a particular favourite, although it required long ropes. In summer cricket was the street game of choice and of course, football was played, knock down ginger - one of my dad’s favourite games, (tut, tut!) where kids would knock on a neighbour’s front door and run and hide. The game was to watch puzzled householders open the door – and look bewildered when they found nobody there.
Conkers would be played in the autumn. Kids collected the biggest and toughest-looking horse chestnuts they could find, thread them through with a piece of string, and then swing them at others’ conkers in a contest to see who had the best conker.
My dad lived and grew up in Hoxton in the Shoreditch area. The street where he grew up is no longer there, although the church where he went to Sunday school still remains. Many of the streets are now long gone but that area was amongst those that were included in the businessman and philanthropist Charles Booth’s work of mapping out the worst areas of poverty.
We owe a debt of thanks to such men, for that work which identified families that were in the greatest need of help during those times and for all those that God has raised up to serve now in some way to help those in need – homeless charities, and foodbanks are just two examples of those who still tirelessly serve others.
In a parable in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus made it clear that we should help all those in need when He said:
‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ (Matthew 25:40)