Brenda
Brenda was born in 18 Gales Gardens, just off Bethnal Green Road in London in 1943. While the street has now been redeveloped, the neighbourhood was then made up of densely populated tenement buildings and nine family members shared the limited space in Brenda’s home.
The family motto was to always have a good dinner and good shoes on their feet and ‘while times were hard, they were also good’.
Brenda started school at Stuart Headlam Primary School in Bethnal Green, followed by Wilmot Street until the age of 15 and reflects that those times were lots of fun and not quite as complicated as they are now.
East London was heavily bombed throughout the war and during air raids, Brenda’s Mum would take her and her siblings to shelter in Bethnal Green Underground Station. Brenda recalls that her brother Jimmy was blown through the window of a local fish and chip shop at the corner of Potts Street when a doodlebug landed nearby…
During air raids, Brenda’s Mum would take her and her siblings to shelter in nearby Bethnal Green Underground Station. As this fascinating short film shows, the station provided a safe haven and sense of community for many, though it would later become the site of London’s biggest civilian disaster of the Second World War.
Photo: Civilians sheltering in Elephant and Castle London Underground Station during an air raid in November 1940, by Bill Brandt. Used under IWM Non Commercial licence.
Brenda remembers her Nan saying “You’re a ray of sunshine to me you are” and one of Brenda’s treasured possessions is this necklace that her Nan gave her, asking that she never part with it.
Brenda recalls being ‘hard up, but happy’ as a child in Bethnal Green during and directly after WWII.
Having no bathroom at the tenement accommodation in Gales Gardens, Brenda routinely used the public bathing facilities at York Hall and recalls having to call out for more hot water!
Photo: York Hall, Old Ford Road, E2. cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Danny P Robinson - geograph.org.uk/p/394883
Brenda’s Dad worked for British Road Services and was a Lorry Driver his whole working life, while Brenda’s Mum worked as a cardboard stitcher, manufacturing boxes alongside the Regents Canal. Brenda fondly remembers walking down to meet her Mum from work on Friday nights and getting a bag of broken biscuits and a bottle of Tizer on the way home.
Brenda remembers her Nan’s lovely dinners, including tripe and onions, spam fritters and pie & mash.
After the war, Brenda remembers eating dinners that were subsidised by the local council at the V&A Museum of Childhood on Cambridge Heath Road. Huge shepherd’s pies were made and Brenda always remembers their custard and apple pie.
Photo: Bethnal Green Museum (V&A Museum of Childhood). cc-by-sa/2.0 - © David Dixon - geograph.org.uk/p/5184110
When Brenda was 4, her parents were given a council flat at Retreat Place in Hackney but Brenda continued to spend a lot of time at her Nan’s back in Bethnal Green and so had two sets of friends.
Brenda remembers her Nan washing and ironing bed sheets at York Hall, and then taking them to a shop across the road to temporarily pawn them to help make ends meet.
East London was heavily bombed during WWII. The first V1 flying bomb fell at Grove Road railway bridge, close to Bethnal Green, on 13 June 1944. Photo used under licence.
A photograph, map and official records of the Grove Road V1 impact can be seen here. Also of interest is this online map, which documents London bombings during the Blitz (7 Oct 1940 - 6 June 1941).
This map from 1945 shows Gales Gardens, (see arrow) where Brenda and her family lived during WWII. Brenda recalls that her brother Jimmy was blown through the window of a fish and chip shop at the corner of Pott Street (shown on the map by a star) when a V1 Flying Bomb, also known as a doodlebug landed nearby. The large circle in the top left corner of the map shows where a V1 landed, just a couple of hundred metres from Pott Street. Could this have been the same doodlebug that pushed Jimmy through the window?
Map image from https://www.layersoflondon.org/ © OpenStreetMap contributors
