Toni and Jessie

Jessie: The ATS. And I went from…what dates? 1941? I was in the army four years anyway, and as I say we used to go to the American camps and they always had a dance band and one particular time we were given tickets, we went to see the eighth army air force band which was a huge band.

Jessie: During the interval, wonderful band, and during the interval eight players came down into the audience and they had a jam session they played jazz. And it was the most wonderful jazz I’d ever heard. It was wonderful. But we used to go to the American camps. They used to come and pick us up, so many of us, take us back to their camp, to their dance, and we’d have cigarettes, American cigarettes which we couldn’t get, we used to have cigarettes that were on ration. Cigarettes were rationed to us. We had coupon to get cigarettes. And sweets, we couldn’t have sweets because we had coupons. And we went to the American camps it used to be wonderful because sweets and cigarettes came forth, and food that we never had, and myself, I had an American boyfriend who passed away two years ago and we kept in touch all that time. Interviewer: How lovely.

Jessie: Yes, and he married two months before I did. I married a merchant seaman and he married a girlfriend over there. And we each had children. He had two girls and a boy and I had two girls round about the same time. And I used to hear from his wife until she was killed. And we kept in touch all those years and he died two years ago.

Interviewer: Gosh!

Jessie: And he was then 90. Now I’m coming up 92. So wonderful memories.

Interviewer: Wonderful memories. Despite it being a bad time there were good times to be had.

Tony: Well I was in the land army to start with. And VE Day, when the war was finished they came ‘round saying we could all go in to Colchester. Go in our uniforms and we could live it up. So, we had Liberty trucks taking us in. I changed my uniform into an American and the American changed into my uniform. And I think there was a hotel in Colchester called ‘The George’? I’m not really sure. We were climbing up the drainpipes.

Interviewer: To get in?

Tony: No to get on the roof. Cos we were all singing. Oh, it was absolutely fantastic. Of course, then I went into the air force and we had some wonderful, wonderful times. Again, we were always picked up in trucks to go to the camps, they were nearly always American camps that we went to. There [were] no air force camps that had a decent band. So we really lived it up, we really, really did. But that thing in Colchester, we got arrested. And I said that I was Corporal Hank! And they took us to ther… what [were]their canteens called? PP deck PJ? P?

Jessie: PX

Tony: PX! Go into the PX camp.

Jessie: That’s where we used to get our sweets and cigarettes.

Tony: They’d have doughnuts. Ring doughnuts and they gave you a stick and you could take as many as you liked, like that. I mean we’d never saw anything like that did we?

Jessie: Oh no everything was rationed.

Tony: It was absolutely fantastic, really fantastic. We’ve got some marvellous, marvellous memories. Really marvellous memories.

Interviewer: And you were taking about, were you interested in the music before that time?

Jessie: Well not really because I joined the forces when I was seventeen.

Interviewer: So that’s what got you, because the Americans bought the music over.

Jessie: Yes.

Interviewer: And you were talking about going up to the West End as well weren’t you.

Tony: Oh yes. Going up to the West End, my husband and I used to go to the 101 Club in London which was down in the cellars. We had some fantastic times there, but some of the bands that played there, nearly all American again, and they were so old, they were really old men. But I can’t remember any names.

Interviewer: When were you going to the 101 Club what period was that?

Tony: John’s been gone twenty-one years… About thirty-five years ago I suppose, ‘cos I lived in Westminster then.

Interviewer: This would have been in the sixties?

Tony: Yes. Oh, we had some wonderful days. And we used to go to pub right alongside the Old Bailey. I can’t remember the name… was it called The Rambo? And every Sunday lunchtime… the jazz club. And that was absolutely fantastic, we used to go every Sunday John and I.

Interviewer: Fantastic.

Tony: Came out pie-eyed. Oh, it was absolutely fantastic, we had some wonderful times, didn’t we? We really did.

Jessie: Certainly did.

Tony: Go to the Lion’s Corner House. Oh my God! Those were the days. And I know when mummy and daddy took me when I was quite young.

Jessie: We used to go dancing, didn’t we? I used to go to The Lyceum.

Interviewer: How did you dress for that?

Jessie: Oh, Lyceum oh yes! Well...

Tony: We’d have two or three petticoats, didn’t we?

Jessie: Not when I went because I used to go just after the war and if you remember the long look came in first of all.

Tony: That’s it the long look.

Jessie: The long look came in first of all before it went very short and then it was the miniskirts wasn’t it.

Tony: It was the miniskirts yes.

Jessie: But we had the long look, we used to wear petticoats underneath to make then stand out, proper stand out.

Interviewer: Because you had the long look didn’t you and then it went sort of below the knee and you say sticky out? And then it went to the mini which was my era.

Tony: Your skirts could do that, and that was your skirt right the way round. Oh, it used to be marvellous we had some lovely colours, didn’t we?

Jessie: The long look came in didn’t it because I know we used to have to wear our skirts below the knee didn’t we?

Tony: Yes, that’s right.

Jessie: In the forces and of course when the long look came in first of all, before the short look.

Tony: It was a fantastic time.

Jessie: Covent Garden we used to go to dances.

Tony: Oh yes, Covent Garden.

Interviewer: What kind of dances did you do?

Jessie: Well it used to be mostly ballroom dancing but you always got the Jitterbugs, you always got the session when you got the jitterbug, but mostly it was ballroom.

Tony: Ballroom dancing yes.

Interviewer: You were telling me about your Jitterbugging experience.

Tony: Yes, we went to this American camp, and I think I might have been in the land army then I was only about fourteen, and we went to this American club and there was all these Americans there and they were nearly all black American. Because they weren’t allowed to mix.

Interviewer: Yes

Jessie: Oh yes, we had a black one, and a white night up in Derby, up in Nottingham where I was you had a black night and a white night where they used to bring the white in one day and the black in the following day. And going to the American camps you found that most of the people that did the menial jobs, like the cooks [and] the cleaners weren’t white.

Tony: Yes, but this particular time, we were all sitting around in a ring like this and the band was playing and all that. This American he came across the room, quite a big man like this, he came up to me and he went ‘Honeybunch’, he said you just keep those tiny little feet of yours moving’ I went ‘what?’ I was on the floor and we were dancing! He threw me all over. I mean, I was only a tiny little tot then but we won it.

Interviewer: It was a competition

Tony: Yes. And I got a great big… was Max Factor going in those days?

Jessie: Oh yes, Max Factor’s been going for years!

Tony: I had a great big box of Max Factor makeup. And I said to him ‘have you got a wife?’ ‘No honey I haven’t’ you know ‘but you keep that, and always remember me’ but I never ever saw him again, isn’t it strange isn’t it? Didn’t exchange…

Interviewer: Didn’t know his name?

Tony: No didn’t know names or anything. They were always Hank, never any other name.

Jessie: But of course, when I had this boyfriend I used to get invited to camps more often didn’t I?

Interviewer: Yes

Jessie: But his friend Corky was the camp, what would you call it? [A] handyman, and he had a shed. And there used to be about three couples, and of course they could get the food, they could get the eggs, they could get anything and we didn’t used to go to the dance, we would go to Corky shed and he would cook us a meal on his little stove, yes, and we would have eggs, we would have bacon, we would have tinned tomatoes - something that we had never seen. And it was wonderful. As I say, it used to be marvellous because, you know, it was out of this world; we’d never seen it before.

Tony: No, they used to bring great big crates of oranges, bananas, to bring to us girls. It was absolutely marvellous the way that looked after us.

Jessie: They were very good to us.

Tony: And nylons, you got your nylons.

Jessie: I think at one time they told us that they used to give the local farmer twenty cigarettes for one egg! [laughter]

Tony: One egg, yeah. Cos you didn’t have eggs did you.

Jessie: No, we didn’t have eggs at all.

Interviewer: Because it was all rationed, yes.

Jessie: We used to have dried egg. You could mix it up with water. But you never had ordinary eggs.

Tony: Never saw an egg.

Jessie: Never saw an egg no.

Jessie: But that’s what they used to say, they used to give the local farmer twenty cigarettes for one egg.

Interviewer: Expensive!

Jessie: For eggs and bacon, you know, it was a few packs of cigarettes.

Tony: But a few years ago, my little granddaughter, she was about eleven then, and she was doing an essay on how we lived as children you know, and she said ‘Nanny what sort of clothes did you have?’ you know. I said ‘we have three pairs of knickers, three liberty bodices, three vests, three petticoats, three of everything.’

Jessie: One to wear one in the wash and a spare [laughter]

Tony: ‘What for the week?’, ‘Yes’, ‘oh’. So she thought about it cos she was writing down she said ‘Nanny, did you stink?’ and I said ‘no’ I said because we didn’t have fires. Did we? We never had fires so you never perspired or anything like that. But she thought it was horrible, to think that was all you’d got. She said ‘Nanny, I could wear three pairs of knickers in one day’.

Jessie: But we used to have one bath a week. One bath a week and you tell the children these days and they never believe you.

Interviewer: Well even I growing up, that’s familiar to me, maybe having a few more pairs of knickers but not many, and you certainly wore your vest more than once.

Jessie: Oh definitely!

Tony: Oh definitely!

Interviewer: Its funny isn’t it how it’s changed. You were mentioning also about the West End and seeing a musician and you thought his name was Hutch.

Jessie: That is, it was Hutch. Lesley Henderson.

Interviewer: Lesley Henderson, tell me a bit about him.

Jessie: Well I don’t know much about him, I know he used to play in the West End he used to play around a lot of the hotels. And he had a very deep gravelly voice, and he’d been playing for years, I think he’d played before the war, he was fairly old. But my husband worked at the Hilton. And he got his signature. I think he was playing there and as I say I’ve to a picture of him, I’m sure it’s a picture, I know it’s a signature. But I’m sure it’s a picture, but anyway I’ll let you have that because I’ve got a couple of signatures but they’re on the back of Hilton cards [laughter] I don’t know if that helps, I know I’ve got Adam Faith.

Interviewer: Oh yes, I know Adam Faith.

Jessie: I know I’ve got a couple because my husband used to get them for my daughter but they’re all on the back of Hilton cards. But I will let you have that picture of Hutch.

Interviewer: That would be lovely yes. And I suppose we ought to say for the recording who we are so would you just say…

Jessie: My name is Jessie Pentecost. Formerly Clark. [laughter]

Interviewer: And where did you spend most of your time, where did you grow up?

Jessie: I came from Hackney.

Interviewer: Hackney! I worked in Hackney for a while.

Jessie: Did you really?

Interviewer: I did yes. And I lived there for a while.

Jessie: Whereabouts did you live?

Interviewer: I lived in Stoke Newington. And I worked at Hackney College. Round in the centre.

Jessie: I lived Mill Fields, Lee Bridge Road, Chatsworth Road was the last address but I lived in Glyn Road which was the Hackney Hospital in those days.

Interviewer: Yes, I know that area I lived there for about seven years, but then I moved to Leytonstone and I’ve lived there ever since.

Tony: Well I’m Tony French.

Interviewer: Hello Tony.

Tony: What have I got to say? I was born in Stratford. We were bombed out in Stratford, I don’t remember much about that at all.

Interviewer: No that’s fine. I’m Judy Atkinson and I live in Leytonstone not far from Stratford and I’m from Liverpool originally so I’ve made my way down the country to come to London but London’s my adopted home now I’ve been here since, golly, late 1970s.

Jessie: Good gracious.

Tony: Well I’ve moved around the country, I’ve moved everywhere. I’ve lived on the Isle of White.

Interviewer: Oh, nice place.

Tony: I’ve lived in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Colchester, you name it I’ve lived there, since my husband moved I’ve moved six times because I just couldn’t settle down, but where we are now because I live right opposite Jessie, I’m really happy there. In Hornchurch. It really is, it’s nice in there isn’t it?

Jessie: It’s lovely.

Tony: We’re on the eighth floor.

Interviewer: Wow. Good views!

Jessie: The whole of London. A twelve-foot window you see across London.

Interviewer: Oh lovely.

Jessie: I’ve got a balcony that looks over to the Queen Elizabeth Bridge. When my husband died, I was going to move, my daughter said ‘Mum, settle yourself down. I wouldn’t move for the world.’

Interviewer: Having a view like that, that’s lovely isn’t it?

Jessie: Oh, it is nice there. We keep each other going.