In Gunnersbury Park

Gunnersbury Park, less than two and half miles (4km) from our house on Croft Gardens, was a favourite place to pop out for some fresh air. To this day the park offers a variety of recreational facilities including boating pond, a putting course, a local musuem, some ruins (a 19th C. folly) - but for me, most importantly, the swings. And not only swings, slides and roundabouts - but climbing frames. My favourite one, left, was built to resemble a tanker truck. You could clamber all over it or pretend to drive it. Here I am demonstrating use of hand-signals - which in the autumn of 1962 were still in common use.

Right: the relevant page from the Highway Code that I would study diligently as a child. At this time, my father drove a Morris Minor 1000, which had semaphore trafficator (lovely archaic term!) masts which would pop out from between the side windows. This system was in use until the early 1960s, and hand-signals were useful in case the trafficator broke.

Left: back to the park and another climbing frame to conquer. Photos by my father, Bohdan Dembinski, who was 39 years old when he took them.

This is around the time of my fifth birthday; by now, I'd have been at primary school for a few weeks. There was a similar climbing frame in Oaklands Road Primary School infants' playground, though not as high and with more densely spaced tubes.

Images of India from childhood

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, been taken up by an interest in the British Raj. Was it my dream of Bombay, unprompted by anything I've read or seen or deliberated upon, augmented by reading about the Great Hedge of India?

An India not of cool hill-stations, but of dusty cantonment bungalows, of cities laid out by the Victorians to European precepts, of teeming crowds at bazaars and railway stations, of neo-Gothic architecture arising from dusty plains; an India of humid monsoon clouds.

Thinking of these images prompt me to consider where, in my deepest childhood, did I first encounter notions of India, of the British Empire's presence there.

As I have written here before, Oaklands Road Primary School was ethnically diverse even in the mid-1960s, with one-third of my class being immigrants or children of immigrants, who ended up in West London as the result of European war or imploding Empire.

Less than 20 years from India's independence, there were signs (other than the growing number of South Asians living in Southall, the suburb bordering Hanwell's western edge) that the country had once been a British dominion. Much of the pre-decimal coinage I carried in my pocket was minted before 1948, dating back to Queen Victoria. "IND. IMP." was there on all of them - a reminder that Victoria and her heirs, Edward VII, George V, and George VI. We knew then that the IND. IMP. meant Empress/Emperor of India; however, our Queen Elizabeth II was no longer Empress of India.

Below: coins from my childhood (from top left) - a Queen Victoria penny, Edward VII penny, George V halfpenny, George VI halfpenny (pre-1948) and George VI halfpenny (1949 - note lack of 'IND: IMP.' in the inscription around the rim.

Below: the George VI halfpenny (pronounced 'hayp'nee') from 1943. Emperor of India. As a child, I thought that in profile George VI looked a lot like my father.

In the classroom, America crept into my child's consciousness far more strongly than did the Raj of Imperial India. The Janet and John books on which we learned to read, were lifted, complete with illustrations, from the American Alice and Jerry series. When I started thinking back to what stories we read then which were about India... I remembered one - just one, which ended up with tigers chasing themselves around a tree and... turning into melted butter. Gosh! The tree..., the whirring tigers... let's see if I can google it. Yes!

O dear. Is it right to mention this book, to admit to having had it as a set text at primary school? Well, here it is... The Story of Little Black Sambo, by Helen Bannerman, first published in 1899.

The pictures finally come out of copyright in four years' time, 70 years after the death in 1946 of Ms Bannerman - copyright law is absurd. The entire book, for those of my readers educated before the dawn of Political Correctness, can be seen here.

Certainly, the book resonates with me back to my childhood, but does not explain my strange and sudden fascination with the Raj... It is an entirely new fascination, and as such, it lends itself to online research. The internet's a wonderful thing!

School assembly, Oaklands

Each school day would start with Assembly. In the Juniors, this would take place in the ground floor hall. The eight classes of the Juniors (years one through four, two classes in each year) would gather to hear a piece of classical music played over the Tannoy loudspeaker system. Some Italian arias, I recall (Caro mio Ben). Also, Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. After a few words from the headmaster, Mr Beckford, we would sing a hymn.

Ones that spring to mind: For Those In Peril On The Sea; as Welsh as you can get in West London Bread of Heaven; at harvest festival time, We Plough The Fields and Scatter, Come, ye Thankful People, Come; and the perennial O God, Our Help in Ages Past; Praise My Soul the King of Heaven; O Worship the King (Our Shield and Defender/The Ancient of Days/Pavilion'd in splendour/And girded with praise.) To Be A Pilgrim (though I recall the first line as "Who would true valiant be"). And of course Onward Christian Soldiers, and All Things Bright and Beautiful.

One that came back to me months later after compiling the above list from memory was At the Name of Jesus (this version).

During Advent, of course, carols would be sung.

No concessions to multifaith other than a once-weekly assembly for Catholic children held in a classroom by Mr Sayer. Who drove a Sunbeam-Talbot 90 car.

Back then, Primacy of the Established Church (of England) held firm; Queen Elizabeth on the Throne, God in His Heaven, we all knew our place. Yet from today's perspective, over 40 years on, this feudal vision of a deity that is Lord and King, wears a Crown, runs a Kingdom or even an Empire, is out of time and out of place. "Jesus, the President and CEO"? A similarly unlikely conceit. A reason why C of E is losing touch with humans today.

I very much doubt that any of my fellow pupils at Oaklands read this blog, but if you are one of them, and can recall anything else from Assembly, please let me know.

Playtime at Oaklands

"All-in-for-US-Cavalry" the boys would chant, as they formed a huge chain around the Junior boys' playground during playtime. More and more would join, and once a critical mass was attained, the chain would split up into cowboys and Indians, and play proper would begin. As well as US Cavalry, obviously inspired by what was going on at ABC Minors at the time, there would be "All-in-for-Zulus-and-Welsh" (the 1964 movie Zulu). Note the Anglo-Saxon imperialists vs. Natives theme in both games. Oftentimes the chain of boys, arms around one another's shoulders, would form under the shelter at the side of the playground opposite the school building. Here was a long wooden bench, the boys would stand on the bench stamping their feet in time in a show of play masculine aggression.

Other games played in the playground; the classic British Bulldog ("British Bulldog One Two Three!"), Chain-he, was a game based on tag, where two boys holding hands chased others running around on their own; when tagged, the boy would join the chain, until the entire playground was one long chain trying to catch the last single boys out there. There were also piggy-back fights, with two teams of horses and riders, trying to pull the others down. A sophisticated variation on this was chariot racing (or fights) in which two boys (the horses) would link arms, between them, bending down, a third boy (the chariot), usually big and strong, and a fourth boy (the charioteer) sitting on the back of the 'chariot' boy, who was supported by the two 'horses'. Two or more ensembles like this would smash into one another, the aim being to physically break up the other team.

While the boys were busy in rough-and-tumble, the Junior girls (who shared a playground with the Infants) would also be parading around arms around each others' shoulders, emulating the Tiller Girls and performing high kicks. "Keep your sunny side UP! UP!" they would sing as they danced around the playground together.

These were the 1960s, but the traditions that we children were drawing on were already decades old; each generation learning from the older children that went before.

Pounds, shillings and pence

Talking to my daughter Monika over the holidays about pre-decimal money that we had when I was a child, she expressed her horror at just how complicated things were. Four farthings to a penny, two ha'pennies to a penny; twelve pennies to a shilling, twenty shillings to the pound - twenty one shillings to the guinea... things would cost tuppence (not two pence), thruppence (not three pence) or thruppence ha'penny, we had tanners (sixpence), bob (shillings, never expressed in the plural, so six bob, not six bobs), florins (two shillings) and half-a-crown (two shillings and six pence). No crowns, though, which would have been five bob. A penny was 1d, a shilling 1s. One shilling and six pence ('one and six') would be expressed as 1s 6d.

Decimalisation removed all this wonderful jargon and replaced it with prosaic pence and pounds, one hundred per. Yes, it is now so much simpler. But as a child, I never had any problems with the value of money. Down at Tanner's, the sweetshop, I know what a ha'penny could buy, what thruppence worth of chewy milkbottles or rhubarb-and-custard boiled sweets was like, and that sixpence would purchase a nice bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk ("a full glass-and-half in every bar"). Fry's Turkish Delight would cost 5d.

Now 5d is nominally two pence. That's the rate at which old money was changed into new. A shilling is five pee (as they're referred to now). But it would be wrong to say that a Matchbox toy (a shilling) cost only 'five pee in today's money'), as average earnings in the mid-1960s were some 12-15 times less than they are today.

To compare 1965 prices with today's click here for a useful calculator.

School lunches, or 'dinners' as they were called at Oaklands, cost one shilling and thruppence (1s. 3d.) a week when I started school in September 1962. For that price, a child had five main courses and five desserts. Thruppence a day to feed a child! I remember bringing five thruppenny bits to school on a Monday morning, standing one of the 12-sided coins upright on my desk, then carefully placing a second on on the first, then a third... no one could do all five!

Taste flashback

The taste of Zott Jogobella pieczone jabłko (baked apple) flavour yogurt is identical in flavour to school apple crumble and custard. One mouthful and the memories of Oaklands' lunchtimes came flooding back! The subject of school dinners will be covered in full, as there's so many memories (pleasant and unpleasant!) associated with this.

On being Polish in West London

Both my parents are from Poland, they ended up in England after the War, unable to return. They bought the house on Croft Gardens, Hanwell, London W7, in 1955. When I was born, two years later, they'd speak Polish to me, and carried on speaking Polish between themselves to this day.

When I started going to nursery school on The Avenue in West Ealing, at the age of three and half, I spoke no English at all. My mother tells me that before going there for the first time, she taught me the words "please", "thank you" and "toilet". Because there were several other Polish children in my class, I never had any sense of being unusual.

It was only at Oaklands Primary School, after I'd been there for a few months, that I had the following conversation with my friend Gary Clark. I don't remember the exact words, but the gist was something like this: "Gary - you speak Polish at home to your parents, don't you?" Gary was puzzled - he didn't have a clue what I was on about. I explained. "At school, in shops, on the street, one speaks English. At home, with one's parents, one uses a different language...?" Gary replied "Er... no..."

Only at this precise moment (I must have been five and a bit), did I realise that I was different in this respect to other children. Until this moment, I thought everyone spoke Polish at home, only for some reason they didn't talk about it in school.

Polishness was for the weekends. Saturday mornings were Polish school, which I attended right up to 'A'-Level. Sunday morning was Polish cub scouts, followed by Polish mass at the Polish church. And so it went throughout my entire childhood and adolescence (scouts on Saturday afternoons).

Unlike many of our Polish friends' houses, my parents' house was not a temple to Polishness, full of folk art, pre-war maps, Black Madonnas, engravings of Lwów or Wilno, cavalry swords, bookcases solid with Polish titles. There were some signs of Polskość around our house, but it was neither deliberately being hidden nor made a show of. Which I think, in retrospect, is the healthiest balance. Not forgetting one's roots, yet not going full-on for assimilation in the host community - and then not cutting oneself off to the ghetto either.

This approach worked well. Throughout my childhood, I never felt picked on, discriminated against or victimised because of my Polish surname. This also says a lot for the basic decency and tolerance of the English host community. Not once, in all those years, can I recall a single snide comment aimed at me on account of my supposed national "otherness".

Playground games at Oaklands Primary (I)

Unique to Oaklands (I believe), as I never met anyone from any other primary school who’d played this, was a game called Buzzing (or Bunging). The game was played between two teams, one standing on the air-raid shelter side of the Juniors’ playground, the other team standing by the wire fence separating the playground from the Infants. The distance between the two teams was some 90 ft (27m).

A thrower from one team would throw a standard tennis ball from one side of the playground to the other. The other team would attempt to catch the ball. If they did so, they’d get three points (for a two-handed catch) or six points (for a one-handed catch). If they failed to catch the ball, the throwing team would win one point.

A simple game, but it kept us Juniors occupied for many a playtime. It helped hand-eye coordination, teamwork and – numeracy. Adding all those sixes, threes and ones and keeping tabs on the score. Whatever was going on in the rest of the playground, there was usually a steady barrage of tennis balls flying overhead!

There were many other games we played – many common to other schools (British Bulldog, chain-he, piggyback fights). I will describe everyone I remember in future posts.

Oaklands Primary School - infant impressions

One day in early September 1962, a month before my fifth birthday, my mother took me to school for the first time. I'd gone to nursury school for a year and half before starting at Oaklands, but this was the first day at Proper School.

Oaklands Primary School was divided into two buildings; a single-story Infants school, with its own headmistresses, and six classes with the youngest three years. Across a driveway was the two-storey Junior school, eight classes, with four years.

I remember well the smell of the varnished wooden floors (always the same smell at the beginning of each school year), the solid Edwardian architecture, gloss-painted doors, brass doorknobs, the cloakroom with its coat pegs, the nature table. I also vividly recall the smell of Magic Markers, thick-tipped felt pens used to name everything in neat hand-written letters on large rectangles of coloured card; "Door", "Table", "Window".

Always having had a lactose intolerance, I hated school milk, which was delivered in wire crates full of one-third of a pint bottles (around 200 ml) to each class for drinking during the mid-morning break. Passable in winter when the cold took away the taste, in summer, it made me retch. Still, I had to drink it, no getting away from that. Everyone got a straw, either punctured the silver foil top or removed it (that yellow cream in summer!) and sucked it down with a slurping sound. The taste of the paper straw also comes back to me. Free school milk was withdrawn by the state in the 1970s by then Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher - "Milk Snatcher", but in the '60s, it was a daily ordeal I had to contend with.

The headmistress of the Infants School was Miss Golding; my first teacher was a jolly woman, Mrs Constance, (Class 6) who cycled in on a bicycle with a lady's frame and an enclosed rear wheel to prevent her skirt getting caught in the spokes. She taught me the correct way to walk with scissors (the blades in the palm of the hand).

Oaklands Primary was a state school - no fees. Yet there was a proper school uniform; a green blazer, piped in silver-grey, grey shirt, green and silver striped tie, grey V-necked jumper with green piping, grey flannel shorts for boys, with creases and turn-ups (which I'd wear even in mid-winter! Only in the final year were long trousers allowed), grey socks with green piping, and black shoes. And a green cap with silver piping and crest.

Although the vast majority of children were working class, there was a decency and sense of order. The infants school was run by middle class ladies who I sensed were dedicated to their jobs. Everything seemed in its place.