Lest It Be Forgotten After I Am Gone: Recollections Of Relocations
...I also must have been quite knowledgeable about some of the facts of life, since I clearly recall standing at the door of my father’s little shop assuming to myself that every stout lady who passed by had a baby in her tummy, and that any particularly rotund ladies had two in there! I don’t recall concerning myself with knowing how they got there though!...
Raymon Benedyk, continuing his autobiographical writing, recalls the houses in which he lived.
1926 – 1930 at 16 Watney Street, Commercial Road, London E 1.
I was born on July 5th 1926 above my father’s little gents’ hairdressing shop at 16 Watney Street, Commercial Road, London E 1, two years after the marriage of my parents Albert Benedyk and Fay Berman on July 6th 1924. My mother had evidently had a hard time producing me, a ten and a half pound whopper, and, either by accident or design, I never had any brothers or sisters, my mother always saying that, “she had put all her eggs in one basket.” I can’t imagine what she meant!
My mother had previously decided that I should be named after the handsome Hollywood hulk of the day, Ramon Navarro, but my father only in the country some five or six years and whose knowledge of English not yet at its best, was probably unsure how ‘Ramon’ was spelled. So when the registrar was writing my name in his records, he assumed it was the standard name spelled ‘Raymond’ and proceeded to enter it that way. However, my father knew there was no letter ‘d’ and I am officially registered with it spelled ‘Raymon’, probably the only one in the world!
I well remember the geography of our little abode, with its shop parlour behind the two-chaired shop itself, the kitchen with a dresser against the wall behind the door to the shop parlour under which a tin bath was stored for occasional use, and the door to the outside area where our toilet was located. I don’t recall the steps leading to the upper floors however, probably because I always had to be carried up and down them, but I do remember the layout of my parent’s bedroom in which there were two windows overlooking the street and where I was located in a cot against the far wall from the doorway. I remember an occasion looking through the bars of the cot seeing my father chase something that I later learned was a mouse, with which the house was apparently infested.
I don’t recall being lonely and seemed able to make friends with anyone or just enjoy my own company. My close friends were two little girls who lived next door at number 14, and we played together quite a lot even using the toilet together. A photo was taken of the three of us in our toilet with me and the other younger girl on chamber pots and the older girl seated on the toilet itself. Their surname was Apple, or that was how it was pronounced. I wonder what became of them and the photo.
We lived there until the winter of 1929/30 and, during those beginning years, I would apparently often wander off to explore the hinterland of the market area in which we lived. Once I was brought home from where I was found talking to the chicken salesmen and, another time, from the junction of our turning and Commercial Road – a main highway – directing the traffic! I also must have been quite knowledgeable about some of the facts of life, since I clearly recall standing at the door of my father’s little shop assuming to myself that every stout lady who passed by had a baby in her tummy, and that any particularly rotund ladies had two in there! I don’t recall concerning myself with knowing how they got there though!
Although the living accommodation at the rear and above the shop must have been quite limited, my parents and I with my mother’s mother seemed to live there without difficulty. My grandmother was a kindly old lady who, as I readily recall, used to sit in an armchair with wooden arms, partially upholstered in a black and orange striped material, located in the corner of the parlour by the fireplace beneath a heavily barred window that overlooked the rear yard. Each side of the fireplace, in the chimney recesses, were glass fronted, presumably built in display cabinets. Beneath the window was a drop-leaf gate-legged table, the legs of which I would crawl through when she played with me.
One day in October 1928 she died at the age of 57. I was two and a quarter. Soon after, a young girl with the name of Gracie came to live with us. I assume now that she was a ‘help’ to my mother in whatever way she was required. I recall being at the seaside with my parents when she played in the water with me.
In the winter of 1929/30, when I was three and a half, we moved from Watney Street to a ‘nicer’ area in Clapton. My recollections are of the horse-drawn furniture removal vehicle pulling away from our shop with all the removal men seated at the front of the pantechnicon except one of them who was seated on one of our chairs which was tied on at the back. As I left the shop with my mother, I fell down and dirtied my knees. I was taken back into the shop, stood on a chair, and had my knees cleaned off.
I don’t recall going back to Watney Street over the following years as a child, but soon after the war when I found I was working in the same area, I took a stroll to Watney Street and found that it had been completely destroyed in the bombing and was no more than a desolate area of destruction. A little later the area was taken over by a well-known supermarket chain, where one of their stores was erected alongside a giant car park.
