Chapter 5: Peace

Chapters:

1: Beginnings, 2: Doreen, 3: Moving On, 4: War, 5: Peace, 6: A Long Encounter, 7: Family

At last in 1945 the war ended but it was some time before we returned to London from Buckhurst Park. On V.E. day we went to London to watch the victory parade. We were in the Mall queuing for a place to view at about 6am. It was a great day of celebration. But of course the Japanese war did not end until a few months later. I think those soldiers out there were forgotten. We were working back in the City of London, engaged in paying out on insurance claims from the owners of ships and cargoes destroyed during the war. Once again we were expected to deal with accounts and I was writing cheques for millions of pounds and ringing the Bank of England to tell them how much we were paying out each day (and I and the others on similar work were only quite low grade clerks). Of course there were senior men overseeing us but they were not qualified in any way in accountancy. The Civil Service was run on very amateurish lines. When all the claims had been met we were all sent to new jobs in different departments. Several of us went to the Ministry of Transport in Berkeley Square – a long journey for me from Ilford. I became personal assistant to an Under Secretary in the Shipping Department. Australia was then taking immigrants from Britain and shipping was provided (the immigrants only had to pay £10 for their passage). The Australian minister for immigration came to our office several times to finalise arrangements and tried to persuade me to go out there saying I could work in his office in Canberra and what a lovely life I could have out there compared with Britain which seemed even more run down and short of goods than it had during the war – we were still rationed for lots of things. If I had not been an only child I would have gone but I knew my parents would have been very upset.
	One thing that happened before this – at the very end of 1945 – was that my friend Catherine who was still in the R.A.F. waiting to be demobbed persuaded me to join her in a trip to Paris. We stayed in student accommodation at the University and we visited Catherine’s old school penfriend, Claire, who lived in a Paris suburb. We had lunch with her parents who produced a wonderful meal with wine (which we were not used to drinking and soon got rather merry). What they told us about their experience in the war was very interesting though. They had to walk miles into the countryside to buy a few vegetables on which they had to live most of the time, so what we thought of as our meagre rations were very good compared with how they were forced to exist. We took photos of Paris – this one shows the Place de la Concorde without a single car;– if you visit it now you will see cars eight abreast roaring along in places!
We went to France again the next year staying briefly in Paris with people that Claire knew and meeting colleagues of hers in the French government office where she worked. We then took the train to the South of France and then walked and hitch-hiked (thumbing lifts from motorists) along the coast (Union Jacks on our rucksacks were useful as the English were actually quite popular just after the war). We met people, most of whom were kind and helpful. Two lifts I remember particularly – one in an ambulance (we had to lie down so we would not be seen) and one from a priest who took us a very long way. I suppose we were taking risks although I don’t think it occurred to us then – giving lifts to people was fairly common in England then. Working in Berkeley Square was very pleasant. We spent lunch hours window gazing in the shop windows of expensive Bond Street shops. At work we were meeting and working for men who were all Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates and very intelligent and hard working. This was when I first became hooked on the Times crossword. Copies of the Times arrived every day on the desks of the most senior staff. My boss was not interested in the crossword and let me have the paper when he had scanned it. I started trying the crossword – in those days it had lots of literary quotations which stumped me but when other members of staff found me having a go they would come in and swap answers and I soon became one of the circle of crossword fans (some of them very senior men who would probably not otherwise have exchanged a word with me). One interesting part of my job was to sit in with the committee deciding on the Honours list – I was there to take notes. Each Ministry drew up a list of people they considered worth honouring from the occupations connected with their Ministry, e.g. for our Ministry of Transport obviously employees of railways, road transport, shipping (which included the coastguards) etc. Letters were sent to employers and organisations inviting them to nominate people, from those a list was drawn up and submitted to our Minister and then the final result was sent to the Honours Commission which then sent their final list to the Prime Minister. What I soon learnt was that the honour you might receive did not depend on how excellent you might have been (all candidates had obviously been chosen as the best in their field) but on your standing in the pecking order of society. For example, if you were a train or bus driver you would be awarded an B.E.M. but if you were in a higher position, though no more worthy, an M.B.E., higher still an O.B.E. and so on. Only persons already in high positions and of note were awarded the top honours. At that time I had fairly strong left wing ideas and straight away decided the Honours List was a pretty poor idea and I still have objections to it. I remember one meeting where my boss suggested an award for one of the office cleaners, saying she had come in every day all through the war despite the air raids. The rest of the Committee thought he was mad to suggest such a thing, saying it would never get past our Minister, let alone on to the final list. It is much more inclusive these days but the pecking order does not seem to change. Life was slowly returning to normal, though we were still rationed for some things or certain things were hard to get. I think nylon stockings must have been because my friend Eileen and I went to Ireland for a holiday and bought some there. There seemed to be more food available there too. We were enjoying being able to go to theatres and concerts after work instead of having to hurry home before the raids started. Eileen introduced me to the Promenade concerts at the Albert Hall and we used to hurry straight there after work to queue for a ticket for the promenade area. Much later in life I went to Promenade Concerts but sitting, which somehow did not seem half as exciting. One of the friends I had made at Buckhurst Park lived near me in Ilford. She was a Catholic and belonged to the tennis club attached to her church and managed to get me in as a member although I was the only non-Catholic there (I expect they hoped I would join their church one day). In the winter they held socials on Saturday evenings – they were a jolly crowd. I also joined a squash club – I was not a good player, neither was I a good tennis player but enjoyed both.
		I also enjoyed cycling. I was persuaded to go out with a club once but found the distances they covered and the speed at which they rode too much. I also went Youth Hostelling, sometimes cycling and sometimes walking. I had other holidays in France and Switzerland but never stayed in a youth hostel abroad.

Chapters:

1: Beginnings, 2: Doreen, 3: Moving On, 4: War, 5: Peace, 6: A Long Encounter, 7: Family