Jennifer Worth - Shadows Of The Workhouse - The Drama Of Life In Postwar London

Mr Collett, too, found that hard work was the only remedy for unhappiness. After Sally’s death he worked day and night, not bothering much about food or sleep. As an ARP warden he did anything and everything that needed doing: helping ambulance men, digging away rubble, carrying water, filling sandbags, and mending burst pipes. He went out at night when bombs were dropping all around, not caring if he was killed. He helped people out of burning buildings, got them to shelters, carried babies, pushed prams. “It was a hard time, but satisfying,” he told me, “and all the while I fancied Sal was looking down on me, and sharing the experience.”

Many of his experiences from those days he could still vividly recall. He told me about one little boy, about six or seven years old, he said he would never forget. The wardens had dug him out of the rubble he had been buried under for several hours. He was underneath the body of his mother. She must have thrown herself over her son in order to protect him, when the bomb fell. She was quite stiff and cold, but he was safe beneath her. One does not know the psychological damage that such an experience can inflict, however. He said the boy’s name was Paul. Mr Collett mused: “He would be in his twenties now, and I often wonder how he has grown up, and if there has been any lasting mental damage.”

He continued his tragic story. “During the next five years I saw Shirley occasionally. She was flourishing. War has that effect sometimes. The unusual circumstances bring out the best in some people. All her intelligence and leadership qualities placed her in positions of command, and she thrived on it. I was so proud of her.

“In 1944 it seemed that the war was ending and we dared to plan for her demob and picking up our life again. But it never does to plan ahead in wartime. The VI and V2 rocket attacks started. At Christmas 1944 I was told by the RAF that a rocket had fallen on the staff headquarters where Shirley was stationed, and that she had been killed. I have been alone ever since.”

Poplar was destined for change. Town planners had a new broom with which to sweep clean, and they were so successful that they swept virtually everything away. Poplar had survived the war, the blitz, the doodlebugs and the V2 rockets. The people had picked themselves up, brushed off the debris, and formed themselves into a community again, almost indistinguishable from the communities of their parents and grandparents. What finally destroyed Poplar was the good intentions of bureaucracy and social planning.

The tenements were to be demolished. In 1958 and 1959 notice was served to thousands of tenants and alternative accommodation was offered. This could be as far away as Harlow, Bracknell, Basildon, Crawley or Hemel Hempstead, which might as well have been the North Pole, as far as most of the older people were concerned. Social workers and housing officers buzzed in and out of the tenements all day with sheaves of forms and good advice and forced good cheer. The residents were not taken in. Most were wary or apprehensive. Some were distraught.

This was the time, and the only time, when I felt sympathy for Mr Collett’s neighbour. She came up to me one day as I entered the court of Alberta Buildings and said piteously, “Vey sez we go’ ’a go. Go where? Somewhere we don’ know, somewhere a long way off. Somewhere no one’ll know me, an’ I won’ know no one. It ain’t right, it ain’t. I’ve always paid me ren’, you can look a’ me book. Never a day la’e. I keeps me flat clean, like me mum used ’a. You can see for yerself. Can’ chew do somefink? Ve Sisters ’ave a lo’ of say in fings round here.”

All the Sisters experienced scenes like this. The idea amongst the older generation that the Sisters would somehow intervene and help them save their little homes was touchingly persistent, but quite erroneous, of course. We tried to comfort the people as best we could, but I doubt if it did much good. The community was doomed. The people who had seen off Hitler by sticking two fingers up and carrying on were themselves seen off the premises.

Then the demolition men took over. The land became valuable. Big business stepped in. The ordinary people didn’t stand a chance. Tower blocks were built, which were supposed to be so much better than the tenements. In fact they were the same thing, only far worse, because interaction between neighbours had been stripped away. The courtyards had gone, the inward-facing balconies had gone, walkways and stairways had gone, and upstairs and downstairs neighbours were strangers, with no obvious points of contact. The communal life of the tenements, with all its fraternity and friendship, all its enmity and fighting, was replaced by locked doors and heads turned away. It was a disaster in social planning. A community that had knitted itself together over centuries to form the vital, vibrant people known as “the Cockneys” was virtually destroyed within a generation.

But this was all in the future. We did not know, in 1959, that the effects would be so catastrophic to the Poplar people. We only knew what was happening at the time – namely that the Canada Buildings were to go. We discussed it endlessly over the luncheon table, and one of the nuns said, “Well, if the tenements go, it won’t be long before we have to go, because we won’t be needed here.”

We all looked at each other with sadness, but Sister Julienne said, without a trace of regret: “For more than eighty years we have served God in Poplar. If we are no longer needed here, He will give us other work to do. In the meantime, I suggest we stop speculating on the future and get on with the job in hand.”

When I next visited Mr Collett, a social worker was just leaving. She looked harassed, poor soul, and was besieged by women as she stepped across the courtyard. I felt sorry for her. What a job! You are on a hiding to nothing, I thought as I watched her go.

Mr Collett’s legs were almost better now, and as he was quite capable of dressing the superficial wounds himself, I called only once a fortnight to check that there was no deterioration. His walking was much better and he was able to get about easily, which was entirely due to simple, regular treatment. Nursing is one of the most satisfying jobs in the world.

He was silent and thoughtful as I undid the bandages. I think we were both wondering what the other was thinking.

He was the first to break the silence. “You’ve heard, I suppose, that the Buildings are being closed? Yes, Of course you know all about it. I don’t understand why. These buildings are sound. They were still here after the Blitz, when thousands of terraces went down like packs of cards. The Canada Buildings will last for centuries, yet they want to pull them down. All my ghosts will be cleared away with the rubble. Will they be laid to rest, I wonder? Will I?” His words sounded like a premonition.

“What are they offering you?” I asked.

He started, as though I had interrupted a dream. “Offering me? Oh, I don’t know. Several things: a flat in Harlow; another in somewhere called Hemel Hempstead. I’ve got to think about it. I must say, it’s very good of them to offer me anything at all. When I was a boy, if a landlord gave notice to quit, he was not obliged to offer you anything else. So I’m grateful for that, and I told the lady social worker so.”

I smiled at his generous disposition. There can’t have been many social workers at that troubled time who heard an expression of gratitude. “How long have you got to decide?” I asked.