OH/294
Reference code
OH/294
Level of description
Item
Title
Catterall, Joan
Scope and content
CD
Growing up in Brentford (over 60 years)\Life on the canals\Working on the Great West Road (Beechams) and telephone exhcnage \A vivid and wide-ranging account of life in Brentford, transcribed phonetically.\As a small child in the war, she lived next to Gunnersbury Park, used as a gun emplacement and and under air attack. Her family had devised a varied range of air-raid shelters. After the war, during rationing, they bartered home-grown produce and ate broken biscuits and the good bits of damaged fruit.\Her grandparents had lived in Goat Wharf and worked on the canal and the river. Since barges settled on the foreshore at low tide her grandfather had to clear rubbish that might damage the boats. This included bodies, which were moved first and then notified to the police.\r\nJackie, a nephew of her grandparents was the son of senior domestic servants, who could not keep him, so he came to live with Joan's grandparents and regarded them as his parents. He was unhappy when he did go to live with his birth parents and was sent back down to Brentford, without warning.\Joan's Nan could and did do anything. Her Granddad once disappeared on a Friday night and was feared drowned. In fact he had been given a week's work on a boat going to Birmingham and back, and when he returned, Joan's Dad had to go and explain to the insurance man.\Her Nan, born in Dalston, had moved to Brentford and started work at the New Inn when she was eight years old (!). She cleared the tables and slept under the bar. She had to put out porter for the night-soil men. When it didn't interfere with her duties she could sit in with the landlord's children during lessons and so learned to read and write.\Her grandparents were married when her Nan was 17 and they had a happy marriage. The only real row anybody could recall was when her Granddad came home with a week's money from the Birmingham trip to find her Nan mourning him for dead.\Joan's Dad had left school at 14 and worked for a blacksmith and did other jobs before starting with the Electricity Board. When Joan's Granddad died, her Nan came to live with Joan's family. She lived until 1950 when she was 86 and Joan was 9. Joan loved her dearly.\Joan relates several incidents playing in the street with her friends, quite wild games but Joan's Dad trusted that the children would all look after each other.\After the war, bombed-out families lived in the huts in the park built for the troops who had been stationed there. The huts had been partitioned and made very nice homes.\Joan's husband's uncle kept the White Horse (now the Weir) for five or ten years. It is just behind the Magistrates Court. It was patronised by the police and the court staff and it has a small poky cellar that had on occasions been used as an overflow cell by the court.\Joan had read about the Butts and compulsory archery practice. At one time the King had banned football because it interfered with this practice but the whole country had revolted against this and so football was re-instated.\The fumes from the gas works were thought to cure whooping cough, though they only made you sick. Perhaps this did work.\Joan's Nan believed that Famel Syrup would cure anything and dosed them for any illness.\Joan's cousin David once locked his sister in the garden shed and tied Joan to a tree and went to the cinema. The two girls were there for several hours. Later Joan got her revenge on David, who used cold tea to make his hair shine. Joan added some liquid boot blacking and David's hair and skin were stained brown for weeks afterwards.\Joan's Dad had campaigned vigorously against proposals to build a stadium on Gunnersbury Park, and he would take Joan with him to council meetings where this was being discussed. On one occasion he left her at home and came back really upset. He had been the only member of the public there and the chair asked him to leave, although he had the right to be present. This was reported in the press. Although Joan's Dad did not normally display election posters, at the subsequent council election he displayed posters from which the names of those promoting the stadium had been deleted. Some men forced their way into the house to tear down the posters and Joan fetched her Dad. The men left after an argument, hoping the incident would not be public but of course it was.\People had suggested to Joan's Dad that he should stand for the council but he would not be a party to their doings.\Joan would go fishing and mudlarking in Teddington with her Dad. A friend lived by the canal at Brentford Bridge and her friend's father would sometimes take them on the boat to Hanwell or Southall and ask somebody on a passing boat to take them back down to Brentford. Sometimes they took their bikes on the boat and cycle back, with strict instructions not to stop for anybody. Another trip on a pleasure boat took them to Westminster and back, and they enjoyed scrubbing the decks.\Joan looks back with pleasure at how much freedom she and her friends had as children.\Joan left school at 15 and worked first at United Dairies, then Beecham, then at Isleworth Telephone Exchange as an operator, following extensive training. After further training she worked on the emergency switchboard and she talks of how difficult it was to stay calm and of the close bonding within the emergency team.
Growing up in Brentford (over 60 years)\Life on the canals\Working on the Great West Road (Beechams) and telephone exhcnage \A vivid and wide-ranging account of life in Brentford, transcribed phonetically.\As a small child in the war, she lived next to Gunnersbury Park, used as a gun emplacement and and under air attack. Her family had devised a varied range of air-raid shelters. After the war, during rationing, they bartered home-grown produce and ate broken biscuits and the good bits of damaged fruit.\Her grandparents had lived in Goat Wharf and worked on the canal and the river. Since barges settled on the foreshore at low tide her grandfather had to clear rubbish that might damage the boats. This included bodies, which were moved first and then notified to the police.\r\nJackie, a nephew of her grandparents was the son of senior domestic servants, who could not keep him, so he came to live with Joan's grandparents and regarded them as his parents. He was unhappy when he did go to live with his birth parents and was sent back down to Brentford, without warning.\Joan's Nan could and did do anything. Her Granddad once disappeared on a Friday night and was feared drowned. In fact he had been given a week's work on a boat going to Birmingham and back, and when he returned, Joan's Dad had to go and explain to the insurance man.\Her Nan, born in Dalston, had moved to Brentford and started work at the New Inn when she was eight years old (!). She cleared the tables and slept under the bar. She had to put out porter for the night-soil men. When it didn't interfere with her duties she could sit in with the landlord's children during lessons and so learned to read and write.\Her grandparents were married when her Nan was 17 and they had a happy marriage. The only real row anybody could recall was when her Granddad came home with a week's money from the Birmingham trip to find her Nan mourning him for dead.\Joan's Dad had left school at 14 and worked for a blacksmith and did other jobs before starting with the Electricity Board. When Joan's Granddad died, her Nan came to live with Joan's family. She lived until 1950 when she was 86 and Joan was 9. Joan loved her dearly.\Joan relates several incidents playing in the street with her friends, quite wild games but Joan's Dad trusted that the children would all look after each other.\After the war, bombed-out families lived in the huts in the park built for the troops who had been stationed there. The huts had been partitioned and made very nice homes.\Joan's husband's uncle kept the White Horse (now the Weir) for five or ten years. It is just behind the Magistrates Court. It was patronised by the police and the court staff and it has a small poky cellar that had on occasions been used as an overflow cell by the court.\Joan had read about the Butts and compulsory archery practice. At one time the King had banned football because it interfered with this practice but the whole country had revolted against this and so football was re-instated.\The fumes from the gas works were thought to cure whooping cough, though they only made you sick. Perhaps this did work.\Joan's Nan believed that Famel Syrup would cure anything and dosed them for any illness.\Joan's cousin David once locked his sister in the garden shed and tied Joan to a tree and went to the cinema. The two girls were there for several hours. Later Joan got her revenge on David, who used cold tea to make his hair shine. Joan added some liquid boot blacking and David's hair and skin were stained brown for weeks afterwards.\Joan's Dad had campaigned vigorously against proposals to build a stadium on Gunnersbury Park, and he would take Joan with him to council meetings where this was being discussed. On one occasion he left her at home and came back really upset. He had been the only member of the public there and the chair asked him to leave, although he had the right to be present. This was reported in the press. Although Joan's Dad did not normally display election posters, at the subsequent council election he displayed posters from which the names of those promoting the stadium had been deleted. Some men forced their way into the house to tear down the posters and Joan fetched her Dad. The men left after an argument, hoping the incident would not be public but of course it was.\People had suggested to Joan's Dad that he should stand for the council but he would not be a party to their doings.\Joan would go fishing and mudlarking in Teddington with her Dad. A friend lived by the canal at Brentford Bridge and her friend's father would sometimes take them on the boat to Hanwell or Southall and ask somebody on a passing boat to take them back down to Brentford. Sometimes they took their bikes on the boat and cycle back, with strict instructions not to stop for anybody. Another trip on a pleasure boat took them to Westminster and back, and they enjoyed scrubbing the decks.\Joan looks back with pleasure at how much freedom she and her friends had as children.\Joan left school at 15 and worked first at United Dairies, then Beecham, then at Isleworth Telephone Exchange as an operator, following extensive training. After further training she worked on the emergency switchboard and she talks of how difficult it was to stay calm and of the close bonding within the emergency team.
