Farewell To The East End

mother and applied a flannel jerkin under his school clothes. But the cough did not go away.
    Oliver wanted to be chosen for the school football team. He practised his kicking and passing skills resolutely; the cough was a nuisance. He didn’t really feel ill, and he didn’t see why it should interfere with his soccer career. When he started coughing up thick, yellowish phlegm, he spat into a bit of paper and put it in the dustbin. He didn’t tell his mother. Mothers fussed so, and he wasn’t going to be fussed. Not him. He was going to be captain of the team.
    When his mother found blood on his pillow one morning, she was very alarmed. She questioned him about his health, but he said he felt all right. Nonetheless she called the doctor, who on examining the child suspected tuberculosis and advised an X-ray and a pathology lab analysis of his sputum. Both results confirmed the presence of tuberculosis. As a precaution, the doctor arranged for all other members of the family to be X-rayed, but they were all pronounced clear. He also arranged for Oliver to be removed immediately from school because, he told the parents, the boy would probably infect other children. He would be sent to a special school attached to Colindale Sanatorium in North London. He would have to reside there, and he would have the latest and best medical treatment available.
    Oliver was deeply distressed. What about his football, and the athletics team he had joined? The doctor tried to explain that sports were played at the new school, but nothing would console the child. His mother was distressed for other reasons. Her adored eldest son, her pride and joy, was being sent away, and although she could visit him, it was small consolation.
    Oliver stayed for about six months at Colindale. He settled down and began to enjoy himself. The country air suited him, and all summer he played games and appeared to improve greatly. His mother was delighted, and was given permission by the doctors to take him away for a summer holiday by the sea. ‘It will do him good,’ they all said. Hope is so important during illness. But he never got as far as the sea. He never left Colindale. ‘Le Belle Dame Sans Merci’ had him in thrall.

    Oliver died, and the family was thrown into a state of shock. The poor mother nearly went demented with grief, and it seemed as though she would never raise herself again. The father became very quiet and withdrawn, but opened the pub as usual.
    Whenever Julia thought of that first death – her big brother, whom she had idolised – she was filled with anger and disgust. The family rooms were over the pub, and the child was lying in an open coffin for family and neighbours to come in and pay their respects. The children, aged from two to nine, were subdued and sad, their mother was weeping all the time, while their father said nothing. Women, some known to the children, some strangers, came in with flowers and small gifts. They laid their posies on the young body and sniffed. ‘You’ll have to bear up, Amy. Think of the others,’ they said. Her mother wept and could not answer. The women crept downstairs, leaving the family with their loss. And all the time the noise from the pub was rending the quiet. The piano was pounding out popular songs, raucous voices were singing ‘Pack up yer troubles in yer old kit bag and smile, smile, smile’. The stamp of feet shook the table on which the coffin was laid. The shrieks and screams of half-drunken voices continued until late evening, after which there came peace, which the poor mother yearned for. One night Julia went into the room and sat with her mother in the blessed quiet. They fell asleep together in the armchair. ‘You are my comfort,’ said her mother and stroked her hair.
    The day of the funeral was a nightmare. It took place on Whitsun Bank Holiday. Julia’s mother had begged her father not to open the pub that day, but he refused. There was a terrible row, and the children cowered in the attic, terrified. Their mother and grandmother and aunts all went at him, telling him to show some respect, but still he would not change his mind. ‘Business must go on,’ he shouted, as he ran downstairs to open up. On bank holidays, pubs could be open from 10 a.m. until the small hours of the morning and always did good business.
    The hearse drew up at the back of the pub while crowds of excited holiday-makers were pouring in the front. The mother had wanted a horse-drawn