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A London Boy: My Ragamuffin’s Remininscenses
Looking back to my youth and the fun we had as poor kids growing up in the Essex/East End of London border. I’ve decided to write the more amusing side of growing up as a Baby Boomer in Barking. But first the background of how we got there. I was born in 1949, 4 years after the war ended. My Dad’s war had been with the Desert Rats of North Africa and had left him with a legacy of duodenal ulcers, hair loss and early removal of all his teeth courtesy of the Doctors and Dentists of the time, who put things like stomach ulcers down to bad teeth, so would remove all of them!
I can remember moving at age 3 years from a house we shared with much of the family on my Mother’s side. It was the grandparent’s house and had to be sold off when my grandfather died as there were 6 brothers and sisters the proceeds had to be shared out. My father had been awarded a new council flat just across the main road about a half-mile away, like many ex-servicemen from WW2 he qualified as did my friends and neighbours. The Labour government then was very progressive as were the councils.
Our area had been transformed from part urban/part rural into many homes. Some householders didn’t like the big new council estates being built on their doorsteps and petitioned against public housing being built next to the private housing estates. That sort of nimbyism still goes…
