Chapter 4
On one occasion we went by train to Newcastle to visit my Grand-patrents. The compartment was full of soldiers going home on leave. They told us that they were stationed at 'DEATH CAMP'. They called it that, because it was in Cemetery Road, Gravesend (or so they said).
A train attendant came round selling packets of potato crisps from a large wicker basket, with a leather strap. This was the first and only time during the war that I experienced a packet of crisps. There was no choice of flavours, make, or anything like that, and the salt was separate. It was screwed up in a little square of dark-blue paper which was hidden away in the bottom of the packet. There was only one brand available, and that was 'Smith's Crisps'.
My Grandparents in Hebburn-on-Tyne, near Newcastle. They had a young sailor billeted with them, and he kindly took me on a tour of his ship, which was being worked on,I guess it was undergoing a refit in one of the yards on the bank of the River Tyne. I remember it well, it was a hive of activity, and very noisy too; especially from the riveting and hammering. The River Tyne is so very different now to what it was then. I think the shipyard (of which there were several) in question was called Hawthorn-Leslies. I saw pairs of workmen fitting red hot rivets into place with tongs, and then hammering them into place (very noisy), and I also saw and learnt a bit about 'caulking', when workmen sealed the decks with tarred string. I imagine now that I was rather lucky to have been allowed to go on board a warship, especially during war-time.
In a recent conversation with my aunt, who still lives in what was my Grandparents house, that, according to her, they and other neighbours had several sailors staying with them, and she thinks that particular ship, the one mentioned above, may have been the 'Agincourt', which was a 'Battle class' destroyer, but searching on the ionternet doesn't back that up, although she was built at Hawthorn-Leslies's shipyard. However she added another interesting little aside to my 'memoirs', which involves me, on what must have been a much earlier visit to the North (1938?) and which reads as follows:-
My parents liked to be overly prim, and proper, and fought shy of referring directly to such unmentionable subjects as the toilet, or anything to do with it. They had adopted the practice of referring to the need for the toilet, especially a No. 2 job, as us children wanting 'ATTENTION'. This I had grown up with. Only, in my simple child like mind I had always thought the phrase was: "A TENSION". Apparently we were all sat round the meal table, and the news came on the radio. The newscaster announced dramatically that: "A tension has spread all over Europe".
I was horrified. I raised my hands still clasping knife and fork, and with mouth half full, and cried out: "Yuck ! TENSION! That must be terrible!" And it was from that point on that my mother explained to me that there was another way to refer to one's natural needs, and that perhaps I could, and should, in future use the term "toilet'.
My grandparents' small terraced house already had a lodger (the sailor), the sleeping accommodation was all taken up, and there was no room for me. So, I was shipped over the River (across the Tyne on the ferry - I can even remember my mother chatting with the cheerful ferryman) to stay with another aunt, who lived in Whitley Bay. There I had three cousins, and I had a super time with my aunt (I had four aunts and seven uncles in my mother's family). We children went down onto the beach and combed the shore. We found coal, and a large leg of ham! How did that get there? We also took buckets to collect winkles, which my aunt boiled, and we ate. I didn't like them that much, and they were rubbery, and fairly gritty with sand. I think the public was allowed access to the beach, but it was limited to two hours. Unlike at home, in Kent, where could not get near the beach at all, as it was all cordoned off with barbed-wire.
In that part of Whitley Bay a considerable number of army unit soldiers were marched about the streets doing drill. My younger cousin David Stephenson, referred to them as the: "Left-rights". On account of the drill sergeants repeatedly shouting all the time: "Left right, left right, left right."
All around Hebburn there were 40-gallon oil drums placed in the street. They were filled with waste sump oil, or any other oils that was going spare. Their purpose was to act as smoke generators during an air-raid, they were lit to form a smoke screen to hide the ships and shipyards on the Tyne. I understand that the smoke used to sometimes settle in the Tyne valley, and thus hide the ships and shipyards. The resulting choking fumes, and the sooty smut, were unspeakable. Of course there were no streetlights, and the drums were black, so in the dark people couldn't see a thing. According to a Mike Ellison who manages the Hebburn Web-site; the very concentration of smoke would have attracted enemy bombers. I believe that there was a tale that some bombs fell on, or in the region of, Hebburn lakes (These were artificial industrial lakes that have since been filled in), and it was thought at the time that the enemy bomb-aimers had been successfully deceived.
All the local streets around my grandparents home were named after first World War battles, e.g.: my Grandparents lived in 'Mons Avenue'.
My aunts, like most ladies at that time, painted their legs to imitate stockings, and to make it look as if they were wearing them. A line was drawn to run centrally down the back of the leg to indicate the seam.
When it rained it all just became a mess.
Whilst I was there someone commented on how light it still was at 10 pm. . The summer days tend to be longer anyway in the North, but this was accentuated by Double-Summer -Time, i.e.: the clocks went forward two hours - not just the one they do nowadays.
Everybody (officially) had to carry a gas mask, especially when entering a public shelter. My Aunt Barbara had a young baby, and she had to put the baby in a special gas-mask, a small barrel like container. She had to keep pumping air through this gas-proof-container . Her husband, my Uncle George Canham, was in the Air Force. He had made a very neat model of a Spitfire out of a penny (the old large penny). I remember that when I foraged through some of my Grandmother's nick-knacks, I was shocked to come across a small round brooch which had a swastika on it. That was explained away, by explaining to me that it was an old brooch, and that the swastika used to be a good-luck-symbol. I have also subsequently seen another one in roman mosaic tiles (at Lullingstone Villa?).
My mother had seven brothers, all of whom were on active-service but they all survived the war unscathed. Yet they were all brought up in a small two-bedroom, terraced house. There was a black cast-iron (coal) fireplace, which also had an oven alongside, it in the living room. It was all known as a 'Range'. I can remember the lovely smell when my Grandmother baked bread on it. My grandfather smoked a pipe, which had a silver lid over the bowl. I was most impressed, as a boy, because he would sit in his armchair with his pipe, and occasionally he would spit into the fire, which induced a sizzling noise. I amazed at the distance he could spit, and at his accuracy when he did so. Now, I suppose I should regard his behaviour (some might calll it skill) as rather disgusting. Like most people who had a garden, they also grew vegetables, and kept chickens, in their garden.
The story he told me was that he had a tough time, and when he came out of solitary confinement an officer asked him: "Well, have you learnt your lesson?" My uncle was so cross that he hit him. So he was promptly returned to the cells. I don't know how true this tale is.
The only other detail I can remember was, that on the return journey from Newcastle, we were held up for a long time in Crewe Station. But, I do remember that the train was pulled by one of those magnificent streamlined L.N.E.R. steam engines, the Silver Fox (Nigel Gresley, A4 Pacific), it went very fast at times. This sticks in my mind, because I had gone to the toilet, which was located at the end of a carriage, where most movement would be felt. I couldn't get the door open to come out, and I seemed to be stuck in there for some time. The train was rocking and shaking about quite alarmingly, this old train would touch over 100 miles per hour (160 km.p.h.). Steam trains could be smokey, and sooty; and one could often get quite dirty when travelling on them. The local railway line then was only electrified (Southern Railway from London) as far Sevenoaks, and as far as Maidstone East. When trains pulled by a steam locomotive passed through a tunnel, then it was imperative that the windows were shut! Passengers used to pull the windows up (to shut them) as we approached a tunnel, so knowledge of the line was important, so that you knew when to expect a tunnel.
Whilst we had been away, we had left all our house doors and windows open. They were held partially open by a piece of string. The object of this was to reduce the impact of bomb blast - hopefully only the string would break if there was any blast from an explosion. Everything was in order when we returned home. These days, one can't imagine anyone going on holiday, and leaving their doors open, and expect to find everything to be in order.
My Grandparents (Stephensons), and now some of my other uncles and aunts, are buried in Hebburn (Near Newcastle) cemetery. They lie not far from the combined graves many of the crew of the Kelly (HMS. Kelly). The Kelly was a naval destroyer. She was badly damaged in naval action, [She was torpedoed by E-boats on May the 9th. 1940, and very badly damaged. For 90 hours, while under tow, she and escorts fought off attacks by further E-boats and enemy bombers, but under the command of its Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten she was brought back to the Tyne (sadly this popular hero was later murdered in Ireland by an IRA. Bomb attack). The Kelly was repaired, but it was sunk by an enemy 100lb. bomb during the evacuation of Crete, in the Mediterranean in 1942). Many of the crew, including, Lord Mountbatten, were rescued from the sea. He was certainly regarded as a hero at the time. He was an Uncle to the Queen.
FOOD & RATIONING etc.
As far as I can remember, we never went really hungry during the war.
The village grocer, Mr Foster, used to call on us every Monday to take orders. He did his 'rounds' by bicycle. All tradesmen ALWAYS called at the back door, they would not have dreamt of knocking on the front door. No way! Mr Foster was always dressed the same way, with a suit and a flat cap, and he wore black gaiters. He never took off his cap, and he always wore the same suit. He had a small moustache, and I though that he looked a bit like Hitler (from picture of the Fuhrer!
I can remember distinctly when rationing commenced, because Mr Foster found it rather a nuisance cutting out coupons from the ration books. My Mother produced a pair of folding scissors of hers, and they formulated an agreement that Mr Foster promised to return them after the war. He tucked them into the breast pocket of his suit jacket, and off he went. Every time he called, out came the scissors to cut out coupons from the ration books. When the war was over, my mother naturally asked for her scissors back, on every occasion that he called on us to deliver our orders, but each time she did, he argued argued that rationing was not over yet, and he would return them when it was. My Mother had to wait another nine year to get her cisssors back! But, true to his word, he did eventually return the scissors. It was a long time after that before such things as sweets appeared back in the shops again.
I liked the smell of Mr Foster's shop. Nothing was pre-packed, and it was fascinating for me to watch him cut the bacon on his hand driven bacon-slicer. Butter was in wooden barrels, and he made them up in to small blocks by cutting the butter to shape using wooden 'bats', and weighed them on his scales, using counter weights. He would cut cheese to shape with a piece of wire. He had become expert in cutting the correct weight allowance, but he checked the weight of each piece on his scales. With lots of other things (e.g.: perhaps flour, or rice ~ if he had any) he would sell in a paper cone, using a little scoop or shovel, and then pour the commodity into the cone of brown paper (Which he neatly pre-formed), and sealed the cone by folding over the top. He also sold paraffin, out of a metal barrel, which had a brass tap. We used the paraffin as fuel for a "Valour" heater we had. We had a metal gallon container with a handle, and a spout, and a metallic screw stopper for that purpose.
We had a large garden (½ an acre), so we grew a lot of vegetables, soft fruits, and apples etc., some of the fruit was preserved by bottling. We tried keeping rabbits, but some creature got in their runs, and killed them (Possibly stoats). A lot of people kept chickens, and everybody kept their potato peelings for boiling up as chicken feed - the smell of boiling chicken mash was awful. A bit of bartering went on for, and with, eggs. Sometimes we had the luxury of a chicken, which had become available, but only because it had stopped laying, known to us as a 'broiler'. Nothing was ever wasted. On one occasion I went with a school friend (whose surname was 'Offen', and whose father had a butchers shop in Shoreham) to collect Plovers eggs in the fields there. People ate them, like small or Bantam chicken eggs, but I only collected them once. To get to Shoreham to village, we would have had to get there by bicycle. We would have managed without a parent to accompanying us of course.
There was very little choice as to what we had to eat. You ate what you were given, or go hungry. "Bubble and Squeak" was quite often on the menu. This was mashed- potatoes and cabbage all mixed together, and then baked (I think). There was only one type of breakfast cereal, and that was porridge. For 'afters', we quite often had bread-and-butter pudding with a few sultanas (if we were lucky), which is really quite nice.
Our near neighbours, the Bridge family, kept chickens (their house was called: 'Palstree', now number 25 Childsbridge Lane). Because of the chickens, they were bothered with rats. Mr Bridge made a snare. We had to go off to find, cut, and bring back, a straight hazel frond. Mr Bridge had identified on the ground, a well used 'run', used by the rat, or so he thought. Anyway he set up an ingenious trap using the hazel stick, and a wire noose. The green hazel stick was stuck in the ground at one end. The noose was attached to the top end, it was then bent in a bow to hook under a twig, which was also stuck in the ground.
If a rat ran into the noose with his head, then the bowed stick would pull clear of its restraint, and the rat would be suspended in the air when the stick had whipped back to its original straight shape, and be strangled. It worked! And, their son 'David' invited us round to see the victim. It was a large black rat. The trap had worked perfectly. We also learnt from Mr Bridge how to make simple, but effective, traps to catch birds, but I was rather upset when I caught a robin. That wasn't what I was after. The bird wasn't hurt, and I let it go. He also showed us how to make a type of flute out of a branch from an Ash tree. I don't think Mr Bridge was called up for active service because of his poor health. He, and his neighbour, Mr Duval, both died of T.B. at about the same time (During the war). I remember the never-ending coughing only too well. There was no cure in those days. It was before penicillin had become generally available.
My school friend John Hall (he lived in Percy Lodge just east of Cotman's Ash cross-roads on the Pilgrim's Way) and I, got hold of a ferret (probably near the end or just after the war). We had permission to catch rabbits in Peter's Hollow, off the Cotman's Ash Lane, on the hill part of the road. Mr. Peter owned Peter's Hollow. He ran Peter's Diary in the Malt House Dairy, on Heverham Road, Kemsing. The problem with ferreting is that it had a tendency to clear all the rabbits out of a warren. It was too efficient. Once a warren had been ferreted, we had to move on, and leave that one for a while, to allow it to recover. So, I'm afraid, we extended our activities much further afield where we did not have permission. Technically we were poaching. The local gentry did not like us ferreting, because they liked to shoot the rabbits. However we had a ready market with a Mr Hilder who lived on the Pilgrim's Way, and who had a butcher's shop in Plumstead, London. I can't remember now whether we got 9d. (4.5p) per rabbit, or 9d. per lb. We bought our ferret for 15 shillings, and then we had to buy quite a lot of special nets, which closed like a noose when the rabbit ran into them, - so it wasn't all profit.
We tried using snares, (some we bought, some we 'found'). These were made from pliable wire, simply had a noose, but we were not very successful with them. I would frown upon such activities now, but then, when the needs must.......!
We had asked for permission to ferret in a field, which had a very large warren, just below "Kestrels" (which, I have now realised, should be correctly called: "Kester"), which was a large house on the crest of the Downs. Our request was abruptly turned down. The house overlooked this warren, and the resident owner was a person, who was (I believe) called: Air-Vice Marshall Lywood (or some similar name and of distinguished rank). He used to shoot rabbits around the warren from out of his bedroom window, or so I was told - and it was said that he even that he shot out of the upstairs bedroom window whilst still dressed in his pyjamas. No way did he want us ferreting there, spoiling his 'fun', and depleting his stock of rabbits. So we sneaked up there at night and ferreted the warren in the dark.
[It should not be forgotten that all this took place before the terrible rabbit disease Myxomatosis was introduced, and there were many more rabbits about then, than there are now. Myxomatosis was introduced in the early 1950's, it was an awful disease, and it was intended to wipe out the rabbit population, which it nearly did. Dead and dying rabbits littered the roads during that time. They seemed to seek open ground, probably because their sight was affected. It was not a pleasant sight. We would kill any we saw that were suffering. They didn't, or couldn't, run away.] Rabbits, from almost being wiped out, have recently staged a come back.
I can remember my friend John's father (Mr. Hall) referring to this gentleman as: "Air-Vice Marshall DSO, DFC, and whatever-he-calls-himself: Lywood".
Once, in daylight, we were working a very large warren in a shaw, which was composed largely of hazel and brambles. It was on the Downs above the Pilgrim's Way, to the East of Cotmans Ash, when a posse of shooters came along with dogs. We could hear them coming, but the ferret was 'down' working, and we couldn't leave the spot. They got very close. We laid on the ground keeping as still as possible, praying that a rabbit wouldn't bolt. We continue to lie there. We could clearly see the shooters, who were silhouetted against the sky-line, on the higher ground at one side of the shaw. They had their guns at the ready. They hadn't seen us. We knew that they had dogs with them, we had heard commands being given to them, and the odd bark, or whimper. We heard them rustling about in the brambles, and general undergrowth. We were praying that a rabbit wouldn't bolt! Then the dogs broke out to the small clearing to where we lay. Too scared to move. Each of us, holding our breath. Too scared to even move a muscle. John groaned quietly: "Oh no!". Surely this was 'IT'. The retriever spaniel dogs sniffed, and rummaged, earnestly about us. They came within inches of us, sniffing eagerly here, and there. Amazingly they ignored our prostrate forms completely. I was expecting any moment, for one, or both of them, to go for us, but they didn't.
Why? Possibly that their brief wasn't to go looking for humans.
Then we heard the characteristic thumps from underground below us, some rumbling, and a rabbit bolted from a hole into a purse net. We dived on the net. Recovered and smothered the frantically struggling rabbit. "Don't you squeal you blighter, don't squeal!" Then our ferret emerged from the hole, and started to look about and sample the fresh air. One of us dealt with the rabbit, and the other coaxed the ferret, with a softly-softly approach, and then it placed quickly into his sack, before he went dashing back (as he sometimes did), and disappeared down the hole again. It was a large warren, and we had a lot of nets to collect up. We were content to have had only the one catch. Even though the possé of shooters appeared to have moved on. We wanted to get away from the area, a.s.a.p. with out being seen, or caught.
We didn't feel guilty about our poaching activities. There were loads of rabbits about, which played havoc with crops. They (the shooting party) were shooting for the fun of it (though it wasn't fun for the game they were after!), we were trying to increase our meagre pocket-money, and at the same time: providing food for the nation! So there!
Our 'trade' then expanded when we discovered that Londoners liked Rook Pie! It so happened that the local 'squires', or 'gentry,' held 'rook-shoots'. There were (but not now) magnificent avenues of lofty beech trees on St. Clere Estate (much of them were destroyed in the October 1987 Hurricane), a top of which were extensive rookeries. These shoots took place in the evenings, when the rooks had returned home to roost, and to their chicks. The rooks never flew away from their nests, or roosting places then, so they were in a sense: 'Sitting-ducks' (if rooks can be sitting-ducks!). These 'sporting' Gentlemen used mainly 0.22 calibre rifles. We followed on behind the shooting party with our hesian sacks, and eagerly gathered up the fallen rooks they had shot (not all of them were dead, and when they weren't, we had to finish them off). The shooting party never picked any up, they were just there for the fun of the shooting. We then delivered them (with some difficulty - carrying sacks full of rooks on our bicycles) to our butcher friend. He paid us 3d. (1½p) per rook. We couldn't meet the demand, and unfortunately we were restricted, because we depended on whether, or not, any rook-shoots were taking place at the time. We had to keep our ears to the ground to find out as to when 'shoots' would be taking place.
I have recently found a recipé for 'Rook Pie' in an old copy of Mrs Beaton's Cookery Book.
Wood-Pigeons were pretty wily birds, with keen eyesight, and a keen sense of danger, and of course they flew very fast. People race them. They also ate them (they were just about large enough to eat), but shooting them wasn't easy. The shooters would make a 'hide' out of branches from bushes etc, to 'hide' the human form from the pigeon. Sometime they would cower in a ditch, behind a hedge at the edge of a field of cabbages, for example; then they would lay out some (dummy) decoy pigeons, which were good enough to fool the pigeons into thinking that it was a good, and safe place drop into. Even then the shooter had to be quick, and would probably let off both barrels in quick succession, before the pigeon veered of, and away. That would mean a long wait before another flock of pigeons happened to pass by.
We tried this ourselves a couple of times, and I think we succeeded in bagging a few. But, cartridges were difficult for us to come by, and expensive; ferreting was cheaper, more efficient, AND the creature we targeted wasn't damaged by lead pellet shot.
My memory of this incident is very vague, and I dare not name the individual concerned, in case the story isn't true, or what I remember of it isn't. The story at the time was: that a certain gentleman of the district was patrolling, with his gun at the ready. He was probably after vermin, such as: Pigeons, or rabbits, etc. He was reported to have seen, or he thought he saw; a rabbit running along at the bottom of a hedge. He took aim, and fired. Then he heard a clatter. On the other side of the hedge was the Pilgrims' Way; which at that point, as along much of its length, was a sunken lane. When the said gentleman went to investigate, he is supposed to have found a man lying in the road beside a bicycle. He had been shot in the head. The man was dead, or died later. One can imagine that the height of a man on a bicycle could well have brought the rider's head a level with the bottom of the hedge. I vaguely believe that there was an enquiry, and it was decreed to have been an unfortunate accident (or so I believe).
Now, reflecting back on our childhood; I am surprised to think that we were given so much freedom, and trusted with guns, even about anyway, who could keep an eye on us.
I wouldn't want to have anything to do with hunting wild animals now, I haven't any desire to even go fishing. But, we did learn quite a lot about nature. We knew, for example, that only rooks fly in flocks, crows not, and that the smaller Jackdaws would often mingle in with the larger birds. We wouldn't shoot magpies, because they could bring you luck. If we saw them we would chant: ~
One for sorrow, Two for joy, Three for a girl, Four for a boy. Etc., As we also did with Cherry stones and things.
I think it was a very healthy upbringing.
We always went about our ferreting very quietly. If the rabbits got to know that we were outside their burrows, and above them, they might be reluctant to bolt. When they did bolt, the purse nets would be drawn shut, like a noose. The draw-string ends were attached to a peg, which were pushed into the ground. We didn't hammer them in, for fear of the sound alerting the rabbits down below us. Or, we would tied the draw-string ends to a convenient tree root for anchorage.
I can't put a date to all these events, because our first ferrets was purchased from an Ex-soldier, called Sid Crawford, so it could have been shortly after the war. However food would still have been scarce then. He wore his khaki battledress all the time. We acquired the ferret from his home at West Kingsdown, and we got there by bicycle. The ferret was large, as ferrets go, and he was a rusty brown colour. John kept him in a redundant rabbit hutch. After a few days I cycled along to John's place, and whilst I was there, I went to view our ferret. I was surprised, because there was a now a snow-white ferret in the cage, with bright eyes, and a perky pink nose, and not the brown one I had expected to see. However it was OUR ferret, because, the cage was now kept clean, the ferret was able to clean itself up, and it looked a different animal altogether. Unfortunately we lost him when ferreting at night, despite his white appearance, we shouldn't have ferreted at night. We got some more ferrets after that, but they were nothing like as good to work with.
We didn't know what a banana, or an orange, tasted like, and we hardly knew what they looked like. We had no exotic fruit at all. Nor did we have any sweets. However we picked damsons, blackberries, etc. which were used in jam making (obtaining extra sugar was difficult, and there was little or no jam available to buy in the shops), and for desserts. Chestnuts and Hazelnuts were obtainable growing wild (in the Autumn). And we gathered some mushrooms (Here one has to know exactly what you are doing as some mushrooms are poisonous, and we did err on the side of caution). Eggs were sized (glazed) and stored in a large galvanised bucket. Carrots were stored in our garage, in sand in a large plywood tea-chest (a box), potatoes were stored in 'clamps' in fields; usually at the edge of the very field from where they had been harvested. I suppose that all our veggies were organically grown. Some of the summer fruits were bottled in Kilner preserving Jars; that is if you were lucky enough to have any. One of the latter must not have been properly sealed, or the fruit, such as plums and rhubarb, may have been already 'off'. The bottles were stored in the dark in the cupboard under the stairs. The contents fermented, and the bottle exploded! What a mess! My Mother learnt her lesson, and the bottled fruits had to be examined periodically. There was also a problem with the bottling jars, because they had rubber sealing-rings. These, being made of rubber, were very difficult to get hold of, and we had been forced into re-using them. So it could have been a perished rubber sealing-ring, that had let air in, and that had caused the fermentation, and subsequent explosion!
But we ate Rhubarb crumble, blackberry-and-apple pie, and steam pudding, and such like for dessert.
We also had corned beef, which came in a tin, I think mostly from Argentina, when we could get it. I liked it.
The Ration Book allowed us: ~ 4 ozs. Of bacon per week A small amount of cheese 8 ozs. of sugar per week. No chocolate and no sweats at all.
Of course we did not have a fridge, or a deep-freeze, not many people had such a luxury, but we stored things in our larder, which was pretty effective, keeping cool because it was on the North Wall of our house.
At school we drank a half-a-pint of milk every day. School monitors ticked your name off the list to make sure you did. We used to have to queue up outside whatever the weather, and I can remember times when the milk was frozen in the bottle. Milk was rationed, like most things, but I regret to say that my Mother struck an arrangement with a 'poor' family in Dynes Road for an extra pint. They had a baby, and as a consequence had an extra supply of milk. It was my job to go down to that family and collect the pint of milk, and to give them a shilling. It was an errand, which I detested, but I had to do what I was told. Apart from the morals, and principles of the thing, which I wasn't happy about; I used to I have to go into their living room, and they often kept me waiting for some minutes, often chatting, before I was given the milk, and I could leave. Their lounge had an unpleasant, and overpowering, smell; largely of urine, that seemed to hang in the air. I couldn't get out of there, and away, fast enough. There is more about school to follow later on.
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