"Fight. Fight. Fight."

Morden around 1969

My brothers and I arrived wearing sailor jackets with brass buttons. John and Nola, who were there for our arrival, propped us up against the Charing Cross monument, and, in the weak sunlight, took our picture.

Our rented house in South London was claustrophobic. None of us knew to consistantly wipe our muddy shoes clean on the doormat, remembered to always hang our duffle coats up and make our beds and we were always losing our gloves and spatting.

Dad bought a green Riley Classic which was difficult to start in the mornings and which made us late. It smelled of peeling leather and of the stuffing that burst through rips in the seats. In winter, once we had scratched the frost off the window pane at the front and off the window at the back with a knife, the car needed cranking and the choke needed pumping before it would go.

Primary school was in an old Victorian building. It had high ceilings and long corridors slapped with a bubbling layer of green gloss. Outside, the tarmac playground scraped raw any knee that brushed against it and there was an almond tree. We collected the almonds that fell from it, broke the shells open, and ate the raw nut inside.

There was food, but it was the kind of food that had probably been a lot more welcome immediately after rationing. At 12 o'clock the school began to smell of stewing. For lunch we were served various combinations of: boiled cabbage, peas and carrots. We were given thin slices of fried battered spam, leaves of boiled beef in gravy, gammon, baked beans on toast, canned spaghetti on toast, pieces of fish in a white flour and milk sauce. Everything drifted in flavoured cornflour sauce - zuppa inglese. Desert was something made from pastry or sponge, with jams and sugar - served with with a spoon of custard, yellow skin, slimy and cooling. 

Teachers were either violent or irrelevant. One used to hit the children on the hands with a gym slipper. The child came up and the teacher stretched out its arm and flattened its trembling palm. So the class would begin a chant, and the teacher to laugh. He encouraged them as they shouted louder and louder in unison until, finally, with gusto, he hit the little hand with the plimsole.

There was very little to do at break. There were small bottles of milk, which some of the students left undrunk. On the whole we were ignored and made fun of - foreigners. In Africa, of course, we had "lived in mud huts" and "danced around the fire". Chris and Andy chatted to each other in simple Swaheli, making fun of the boys who made fun of them.

We arrived in autumn and it was conker season. Pain was just part of the entertainment. One boy would take his small wizned little conker, and miss it on purpose to hit the other boy's knuckles. And then he would use the hard and ugly little thing to smash the larger, softer and shinier conker, probably selected out of ignorance for its beauty, size and weight. 

The English school tradition for boys is: "Fight. Fight Fight." In the bare playground there was nothing to do. Soon there would be a little entertainment. It was on a rather feeble pretext - that my brother had insulted his brother. I was challenged and when I refused to fight he started to hit Andy and Chris. So I hit him and he tumbled over and lay on the ground crying. The crowd murmered for a minute in respect, but then the boy's older brother, pushed his way through and thumped me in turn and I tumbled over.

Mom taught French classes as a supply teacher at a Secondary Modern. Like us, the girls were loud and liked to fight, pulling at each others hair as they did so, and scratching at each other's faces. Because most girls were to leave when they were 16, they saw no point in studying French. Mom shouted for their attention, but was laughed at, ignored and even threatened.

At around the same time, I stood by my mother by the side of the road in a London street, holding her hand. We were about to cross when we heard shouting and the police stopped us.  Members of the National Front marched past and then, embarrassingly, my Mom started screaming:

"Fascists! Fascists! Fascists!" in a piping, trembling voice.

I saw the cheery masculine grinning on the faces of the National Front marchers as they laughed together at the silly woman with her  voice breaking.

Dad worked for Drum. From reporting on events in situ in Africa he found himself relegated to working on a floundering magazine full of trivia.

Morden became a by-word in our family for a depression, but I hear it's changed. Mordon became the centre for the Ahmadiayya and they have managed to turn it into a more peaceful and tolerant place.

The Ahmadiyya mosque in Morden