CAREER CHANGE and GOLDEN OCTOBER
WORK as a milk roundsman was still largely enjoyable and I stayed with the Dairy until well into the summer of 1947. That summer was extremely hot and I remember that the heat made pushing the barrow very difficult as the metal-rimmed wheels dug deep into the softening tar on the roads.
One particular problem for me was the expectation for a milk roundsman to work seven days each week. When I asked for a day off and the foreman insisted that I had to work seven days each week, I decided there and then that they needed someone else, and my life as a milk roundsman was over.
After the years of war service there was a determination on the part of working people for a better way of life, and a return to the old inflexible relationship between employers and the workers was intolerable: the old way’s of working and doffing one’s cap wouldn’t wash any longer.
After leaving the Dairy I applied to work for London Transport and was taken on and trained as a conductor working on the trams, largely on ticket recognition and control. I worked from the New Cross Tram Depot, initially operating on a variety of services until, with sufficient experience of the whole network, I was allocated a regular route and driver. I worked on the number 54 route that ran between the Victoria Station terminus and Grove Park terminus at the top of a huge council estate in South East London.
I enjoyed working on the trams that seemed to glide along and sway gently as they went. Dealing with the electrical pickups both in the road and overhead was interesting, and dealing with people as well as handling money was of course already familiar to me.
My driver was a skilled operator, but when one had a relief driver who was less skilled the difference in the ride was most noticeable, particularly to the conductor who naturally spent the journeys on his feet; one soon learned to balance and move with the movement of the tram!
As time went on plans were being made to replace the trams with buses, and in 1952 my route was converted to buses. This also necessitated a change of depot from New Cross to Peckham. The work of a conductor remained much the same, except that the buses were prone to shaking and jolting and were much harder on the legs of the conductor; sadly the buses did not compare with the gliding smoothness of the trams.
During this time work and home life settled down. Helen’s mother, who had been widowed many years before, had remarried in the final years of the war and now lived with her husband Alf on the lower storey of the house whilst Helen and I lived on the upper floors.
On the 10th of October 1947 in the top floor front room of 64 Malpas Road my daughter Barbara was born, and in 1951 on the 12th of October my son Paul was also born there. On both occassions it had been a beautiful sunny October day.
The 10th of October 1947 was my first day in control as a conductor under the supervision of a regular conductor, on the 46 from Lee Green to Eltham. It was an early morning shift and I remember that conductor calling out to the passengers that ‘the conductor this morning had a baby girl’ – the passengers all cheered!