Lizzy May – Chapter 11

Murky Waters

‘Poor Ted’ by Steve Fendt

Spring 1977

Now, Pauly, I think I told you that when I left home, I moved in with my friend and ex-colleague from the council, Louisa, and her husband Jimmy?

Well, anyway, I did.

In fact, we got on so well, I stayed with them for six years. Our friends used to joke about ‘Jimmy and his two wives’, but I can tell you, there was nothing of that sort going on.

During those years, Louisa gave birth to two babies, both boisterous little boys, and the two-and-a-half-bedroom flat in Fulham was getting cramped. We decided something would have to be done.

We struck it lucky, as we thought.

I heard from a colleague at the Daily News that there was a three-bedroom flat going in Hammersmith, on the Thames, for a very reasonable rent. So after work, we dashed straight round to have a look.

It was a ground-floor flat on Hammersmith Terrace, with a sunny, south-facing garden. That was a rare luxury in inner London.

It was lovely.

Jimmy was doing well in his job in the City, and with my salary as well, we could afford the rent. So we took it and moved in. That would have been in the autumn of 1927.

Back then, the Thames Embankment was lower than it is now, and there were houses all along the river front, on both sides of the river.

The Thames is a powerful and unpredictable river, Pauly. In the old days, big ships used to sail all the way up to London Bridge, with their passengers and cargoes from all over the world. It was what was called the Pool of London. The river is tidal for a hundred miles inland from the sea, all the way up past Richmond.

So, anyway, there we were, in our new flat, with a glorious view across the majestic River Thames. We were very pleased with ourselves!

We celebrated Christmas and New Year there, and were looking forward to the spring, thinking about what vegetables and flowers we might grow in our lovely garden. We thought we might even get ourselves a little rowing boat and have picnics out on Chiswick Eyot, come the summer. It’s a little island just off shore, as quiet and pretty as can be.

It was Saturday the 7th of January, so just after New Year. We’d had a quiet Friday evening in, and gone to bed early, for a change. I remember it was bitterly cold. There had even been snow in central London, which was very unusual.

My bedroom was on the north side, facing the street.

I woke up in the middle of the night. There were voices outside my window. I thought it was just party-goers coming home drunk. So I turned over and tried to get back to sleep.

Well, the commotion got louder. It seemed to be a lot of people now, but it was pitch black outside. Then someone started banging on the front door.

‘The river’s flooding!’ I heard. ‘Get out while you can. Look sharp!’

I woke Louisa and Jimmy, who slept at the back, and we got the little boys up. We peered out across the river, and though we couldn’t see much, it seemed that the boats and ships were riding much higher than usual. Above the level of the streets. Surely that couldn’t be right?

Then we opened the back door and shone a torch out into the garden – and all we could see was water! Dark, swirling water.

It was the most awful thing. I tell you, Pauly, I lived through the Zeppelin raids and the Blitz, but I was never as terrified as I was that night.

We debated what to do. Should we risk the streets, or go upstairs to our neighbours? How high would the river come? Meanwhile, there were more and more people outside, shouting and screaming and carrying on.

And then we thought, what about the Barkers?

You see, we had downstairs neighbours. In the basement flat. The water was nearly up to our back step, so that meant the basement must be completely under water. Jimmy wanted to go down into the floodwater and look, in case they were trapped inside. Louisa and I made him see sense.

We grabbed what we could, and hurried out onto the street – which was already ankle deep in water, and rising fast. All we took was the clothes on our backs, overnight bags and the two little boys, Theo and Jack, wrapped in blankets against the cold.

We found a policeman on a horse, carrying a lantern, and told him about the Barkers. He said he thought they were already out, and directed us up the street, to St Peter’s church, where all the people driven out by the flood were being looked after.

There were so many we recognised there. All our neighbours. Many of them just in night clothes and blankets. Some of them bewildered, some angry, some just seemed to take the whole thing philosophically. Among them, we found old Mr and Mrs Barker and their big tabby tomcat, Asquith.

The flood didn’t take long to subside. By the time it was light, the worst was over.

I learned later, it was an unusually high spring tide combined with snow melt from the Cotswolds flowing down the river all the way from Oxfordshire.

But the mess it left behind! Our whole street was uninhabitable for months – but we actually got off quite lightly. Further downstream, the embankment collapsed, houses were carried away, more basement flats flooded and several people drowned.

So we counted ourselves lucky.

In the longer term, though, the ‘Great London Flood’ as the newspapers called it, left me homeless.

Louisa and Jimmy moved out to Essex, you see, to stay with Jimmy’s parents. But I couldn’t go with them – and I certainly wasn’t going to go back to my own parents’ house, south of the river.

Most of my possessions were ruined, including clothes and all my books.

My colleagues were very kind to me, and put me up wherever they could. Some of them were also affected by the flood, though. The weeks wore on. It looked at one stage as if I’d have to stay in one of those horrible hostels for single women, or maybe move out of London altogether and go to stay with my country cousins, who were still in Sawbridgeworth, although that would have meant giving up my job.

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Well, with all this going on in my life, it was some time before I could think about going to lunchtime concerts at St Martin’s, I can tell you!

But when I did finally get back, there was that familiar figure, sitting on the front pew, with an empty seat next to him that he was guarding.

‘There you are!’ he said. ‘I wondered what’d happened to you! I was getting quite worried. I knew you lived down Hammersmith way. I’ve been asking around all the bally newspapers on Fleet Street but nobody could tell me a blasted thing. So much for British journalism, eh?’

While the rest of the audience shushed and tutted, I explained the situation to him in whispers: that I’d been flooded out, had lost all my possessions, and was basically homeless.

‘Ah, I see. Don’t worry, old girl! Leave it with me. I know just the right people for you to talk to. May I pick you up from work this evening?’

Well, I wondered what I was letting myself in for. But I didn’t see that I had a lot of choice. It was either rely on Percy, or go back to my parents with my tail between my legs.

It was wonderful, actually, to be taken care of.

Nobody had ever done that for me before. Your grandfather had a way of just coming along and sweeping troubles out of the way.

That evening, he picked me up from work in a cab, and took me to Hampstead, to see his friends Esther and Robert Lennox.

And my life changed again.

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Coming up:

This Friday in Tales from the Wood: Pauly is asked to help make a decision, and can’t believe his luck. Neither can Dad. (Paid subscriptions.)

Next Tuesday in Lizzy May: Lizzy May moves up in the world – and meets Percy’s wife and children.