Memories I have some very early memories, which would be difficult to believe if they had not been corroborated by members of my family. My earliest memory is of being in a punt on the River Thames at Oxford as a baby in arms and we’ll take it into the water and pour down beneath the surface. My memory is of looking up through the water and seeing the sun shining through the whirlpool above. This glorious memory stayed with me throughout most of my life until one day I asked my uncle whether he remembered when we were swimming in the River Thames and he pulling me beneath surface of the water. He told me that he had not so but that I had fallen into the water and was drowning. He had dived into the water to rescue me. For those who aren’t familiar with the craft a punt is a rectangular flat-bottomed boat that is propelled by using a long stick pushed into the riverbed. My memories will be difficult to date if it were not for the fact that during my early days my family moved three times. These moves would have been times of stress and no doubt stuck in my memory.
Picture left and the top middle is where I spent my first baby years, the one below that the next 2 years, my junior and the right, senior and teenage years. And that was my home during the army years -Walk up Cranmer Road, turn right at the junction and there was the Officers Mess.
The picture
s depict our changing fortunes. The first house was a rented flat. The second a rented house i
n poor condition. The third was a rented modern semi-detached the last similar but mortgaged for later ownership.
This is the playschool I attended which I attended whilst we lived in that second “house”. I am the third from the left, at the back. My Uncle Bill took me to school on the bar of his bike. One day I got my foot into the front wheel and we both pitched over the handlebars
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Post Office Messenger at 14
| Reading in the Times newspaper I spotted a picture of three telegram messenger boys. The picture had been taken in 1942 in wartime London. The messengers had a notice attached to their belts ” telegrams taken”. The story went that due to bombings post offices were not working and the boys were sent out to the streets to offer the telegram service. Mention was made that the telegram boys job was distressing because of the news they delivered of wartime casualties. This article triggered memories for me. In this year, 1942, I was a 14 year old telegram messenger boy delivering telegrams in Oxford. Although not war-torn like London and other towns, telegrams were arriving with messages of casualties. Standing on a doorstep holding a telegram with thoughts that it might contain terrible news and having to ask “is there a reply?” was not a pleasant experience. Now that I look back I can see that earlier forms of communication had elements which led up to today’s computers. The form of transmission of the telegram from the counter of the Post Office was via machines like typewriters which transmitted the words over telephone lines to similar machines which printed the words on to reels of narrow paper tape. Rather like ticker tape. these papers strips were attached to telegram forms. Enveloped for messenger to deliver. On my fourteenth birthday, when I joined I was known by the Post Office title ‘Boy Messenger’, but more commonly known by the public as a ‘Telegram Boy’. I earned the princely sum of fifteen shillings and eight pence, (about 78p) a week. In due course I was supplied with a uniform – navy blue with red piping around the cuffs of the jacket and around the collar and edging, and down the seam of the trousers. This was similar to the postman’s uniform, except that we wore a pill-box hat, also with red piping and a red button in the centre of the crown. Our appearance together with those of the postmen was of prime importance and we always had to appear to be seen to be correctly dressed. Not how I see the postmen of today and see how they dress whilst on delivery. The messengers worked three different ‘shifts’ which started at 8.00 am, 8.30 am., and 10.00 am and ending at varying times up to 8.00 pm. We also worked a Sunday morning session I regret now that I never had a photograph taken of myself in my uniform. The procedure on delivery was to had them to the addressee (not merely push them through the letter box) and wait for the message to be read, and take any replies that they wished to send, and we carried spare forms for this purpose in our leather pouches. |
Fred's Memories 