YESTERDAYS CHILD. Chapter 6.

[Maywalk]

CHAPTER SIX

THE TRIBUNAL

While living in the cottage my mother had got a job at the main Post Office and John had started work at Herbert Morris the big engineering firm.

A dis-used chapel was set aside for the London evacuees in King Street that was to house about 250 children and three teachers one of who was nearly blind.
She had been brought out of retirement to teach the infants. This she could manage with the help of two senior girls.
To say that it was crowded would be an understatement but we managed and I even passed my 11+ to go to Rawlins Grammar School but my parents had neither the money or the coupons for the uniform.

The Londoners were looked upon as foreigners because we had come from another part of the country.
We were blamed for T.B. nits, scabies and anything else that was going round.
It took some time for the barriers to come down between the Southerners and the Midlander's.
Once they got to know each other some firm friendships were formed as well as marriages.

It was 1942 and my mother had not received any money from my father to keep us because Mount Pleasant Post Office had been bombed heavily and it looked as though my mothers housekeeping money had gone out in a blaze of glory.
I must add here that though my parents fought like cat and dog from when I can first remember after finally going home to live with them, my father had NEVER kept my mother short on her housekeeping money. It used to come regularly to her all the time we were away from my father.

My mother knew that a special place was set aside for the evacuees in dire straits where they could go if they needed help in an emergency.
I went with my mother to this austere looking building. We were taken to a room where a bald headed man was sitting behind a huge oak desk, on which stood two inkwells, one with red ink and one with black.
He demanded to know what we were there for and my mother said that she had not had any money come through and would like to know if she could borrow some out of the evacuee kitty to see us through until she heard from her husband.

He started ranting at us and scrabbling in the small safe and threw on the desk 3s/6d this is equal to 32 and a halfpence in today's currency.
Even I as a 12yr old knew that the amount would be no good to keep us until we heard from Dad. Our rent was 5 shillings ( 25p ) a week before buying the rations.
Just as all this happened another woman came in. She was another victim of having no housekeeping money to live on through the same circumstances.
Meanwhile the bald headed man said as he threw the money on the desk, "You all want to get back where you came from instead of taking money and wanting handouts."
OH DEAR! OH DEAR!
He had said the wrong thing to the wrong person.

I can see my mother now with that look of anger on her face as she picked up both inkwells on the tray that they sat on and just threw the lot all over him. She was saying at the same time "You cheeky git you! Don't you dare talk to me like that. I have lost two homes and my family is split up and you say things like that to me. I will brain you, you bald headed git."
The bloke was spluttering with ink running all down his face shouting out for help. All this was going off while my mother in her anger got hold of the heavy oak desk and just lifted it bodily and tipped it over on him. He luckily saw it coming and moved pretty quickly. I was trying to pull my mother away from the desk where it lay on its side and before she did anything else in her anger. Someone had sent for the bobby and he came in and told my mother she had to accompany him down to the police station.
We went there and my mother had to make a statement why she had gone berserk. She had to report back in a few weeks time because it was going before a tribunal.
I was too young at that time to take it all in and I had NO idea what a tribunal was.
When we finally came out of the police station I can remember my mother saying, "Well, after all that I am still no better off money wise but I know what I will do"

We were on our way home by this time. Our walk home took us past Johnny Marr's the pawnbrokers. My mother made a beeline for his door and when we got in she wrenched an 18 carat gold keeper ring off her finger that had been her mother's.
She got £3 for it and it had to be redeemed at the end of a month.
The rent got paid and we got our meagre rations out of that £3 but unfortunately the ring was never redeemed.

After a few weeks my mother had to go before this tribunal.
She got off with it because the one in charge said that she had been provoked.
They even hoped that if ever it happened again she would be spoken to correctly.
I believe the other evacuee lady who saw it and heard it went to the police to tell them that my mother was provoked.
OR, thinking back over it, the one who said that she was free with no blame could have been one of those she had sung for.
...

Once again I have to remind the reader that it was over eighty years ago this happened and things were vastly different then to the present day system.
The photo is me and my mother, when first evacuated to Loughborough, sitting by a young sapling in Queens Park that is now a very sturdy tree.
It had been ages before we had been out in the daylight without bombing raids making us dash for shelter and that nice walk through the park helped to calm us down.
Loughborough had never had a bombing raid in WW2 .





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[Alex]

Lovely !  your Mum sounds quite a character 

[klondike]

She certainly does 

[GrannyMac]

What a horrid experience for your mum, I'm glad she got off!