It was an unnerving stay in hospital that got Ken Kimberley thinking again about his childhood days in the East End. Suddenly, as mortality became more real, he had a new sense of urgency about writing them down before they were lost to him.
So was born the idea for one of the most personal and ‘real’ memoirs of East End life in the 1920s, 30s and 40s – the curiously titled Oi Jimmy Knacker. As Ken admits, there is nothing unusual about his story, “there must be thousands like me with similar thoughts of yesteryear … whether you lived in London, Liverpool or Leeds.” But it is exactly the fact that this was a life everyone lived– and which no-one lives anymore, that makes it such an irresistible read. To anyone under 30 it seems like another world.
About that title first of all. Legions of readers will remember Oi Jimmy Knacker as a kids’ street game where one team of energetic cockney kids would form a human horse while the other team would leap upon their backs – trying to stay feet off the ground while simultaneously making the opposition collapse. It’s just one of the games Ken details, Knock Down Ginger being another favourite guaranteed to infuriate the neighbours.
Games are only part of this journal of East End street life for the kids of seventy years ago. There is Delamura’s horse-drawn ice cream cart; the spectacular and lavish East End funerals – also horse-drawn of course; and street parties for the Silver Jubilee of George V and Queen Mary in 1935.
And there is a taste of things to come for Ken and his young pals when a grumpy neighbour parks that rarity, a car, in their street. “You can’t park there, that’s our football pitch,” cry the outraged kids. Little do they realise that a couple of generations on and it will be a space between the cars that is a rarity.
And even when the kids aren’t in the street playing conkers, or cricket, or snowballs, or Christmas carol singing, or watching the council workmen “relaying our cricket pitch” as tyre-friendly tarmac smoothes over the old-fashioned cobblestones, they are out and about. The truth is, with no television, videos, computer games and precious little space, the children have to look far and wide for their fun.
Trips down to the Thames are a favourite pastime. The Woolwich Ferry makes an excellent free trip across the Thames, though as Ken’s Grandad warns, “across the water” is like being in a foreign land, “cos they don’t even speak the King’s English over there”. Off the ferry, the kids race down and through the tunnel to beat the boat back to the northern shore. The swing bridge at Custom House is another favoured destination. Watching the Star of India cruise past, its hull as long as a street, Ken remarks in wonder at the crewmen waving down at him “Look Grandad, they’ve all got black faces.”
And there are much-awaited trips out of the East End. Forget school skiing trips and excursions to France – Ken and his classmates travel to the wilds of North Ockendon, just outside Upminster. Trips out of town mean Essex of course, and the excursion to Southend on Sea is eagerly awaited, as much for the trip on the LMS steam train through the countryside as for the day at the beach itself.
Come World War II and the streets become places of fear, with the Luftwaffe and V2s bringing destruction, and unexploded bombs making whole roads impassable.
But mostly it is happy memories and of streets crowded with people, not cars. Salvation army bands play; huge gangs of kids assemble for the regular Sunday bike ride, children collect for Bonfire Night and chat to the night watchmen guarding the docks and building sites.
Whether you were born in the East End or just moved here, the stories strike a chord. Oi Jimmy Knacker was a game known all over – in other parts of London as Hi Jimmy Knacker, in Croydon ‘Bury the Barrel’, ‘Mountikitty’ in Newcastle and Pomperino in Cornwall to name just a few. But is it still played in East End streets? Probably not.
Oi Jimmy Knacker, written and illustrated by Ken Kimberley, is a Silver Link Book, ISBN 1857941209, price £15.99.