Farewell To The East End

funeral cortège for her eldest son, but it turned out to be a fiasco. The coffin was reverently carried downstairs and placed in the carriage, but at that moment a group of excited youths emerged from the pub and staggered round the corner, closely chased by four shrieking girls. The high-pitched voices frightened the horses, one of them reared, and this was the signal for panic among the other three. They bucked and lunged in all directions. The funeral directors lost their solemn demeanour and started shouting and pulling on reins and bridles in a desperate effort to prevent the carriage overturning. The coffin could be heard crashing against the wooden panels of the carriage. The group of mourners wearing black, the women veiled and the children carrying flowers, were distressed and terrified.
    The horses eventually calmed down and the funeral was conducted calmly, but with frozen silence between Julia’s mother and father. Neither tried to comfort the other for the loss of their first-born. Immediately after the ceremony, her father said, ‘I must get back to the Arms; it’s going to be a busy day. Are you coming, Amy?’ She shook her head, ‘I can’t go back to that noise, not feeling as I do.’ ‘Please yourself,’ he replied and walked off. The family stayed out all day, and most of the evening, but finally they had to return because the little children were tired and crying. The noise from the pub was deafening as they drew near, and a crowd of half-drunk holiday-makers grabbed Mrs Masterton and tried to get her to join in the dancing. With difficulty she tore herself away and shepherded her children upstairs, then slammed and bolted the door. The singing reached a crescendo at about eleven o’clock with ‘Hands, knees and boompsey-daisy, let’s make the party a wow, wow-wow’. Men and women clapped, slapped their knees and then banged their bottoms together to shrieks of laughter and cat-calls and lewd whistles. As it was a Bank Holiday, the grieving family had to endure several hours more of the high jinks.

    That was just the first death. Even though they had been screened and pronounced clear, one after another the three younger boys contracted the disease. The distraught mother nursed them. Two went to Colindale Sanatorium, but came home to die when the doctors said that there was nothing more that could be done. Julia could never forget the years spent with the hush of death upstairs and the din of drunkenness downstairs. Her mother seemed to be numb with grief, and her father increasingly morose and silent, but each time he said, ‘Business as usual,’ and opened the pub. This caused tension between husband and wife, giving rise to terrible quarrels as each vented their anger and frustration on the other.
    The last remaining boy was nine when he first showed signs of weight loss, fainting and sweating. He did not cough, but the doctor advised Mrs Masterton to take him away to the country to get more fresh air. They went to Skegness, where the sea air is bracing, so they say.
    Mrs Masterton took Gillian with them also. ‘Just to be on the safe side,’ she told her family and friends. She did not consult her husband. By then, husband and wife were barely on speaking terms. Gillian was the youngest, and her father’s favourite. She was a pretty, affectionate child, and she adored her father, who spoiled her shamefully. He had paid six months’ advance rental on a cottage by the sea and had assumed that just his wife and youngest son were going. They left during pub hours whilst Mr Masterton was working, and it was not until later in the day, when Gillian did not return from school, that he realized with a shock that she had gone.
    The impact was terrible. He had not reckoned that women could be so devious. He was filled with rage and his first instinct was to take the next train to Skegness and bring the girl back. But he was an intelligent man. After closing the pub that night he sat in his office to brood, head in hands. He felt hot tears coming, so he locked the door – he didn’t want anyone to see signs of weakness. Perhaps she was right. They had lost three boys, and now the fourth was showing signs of illness. He slumped over his desk and bit his lip until he tasted blood. If his Gillian, his pretty little girl, died, he felt he would die also. She was better off by the sea, away from the foul London air. She would be back in six months, and her chatter and laughter would fill