It was important for me to pass my driving test. I had never passed any exams at school and wanted to prove to myself that I was good at something. This was something for me, not for my father or my brothers. I wanted to get out on the road and be my own boss, at least for a little while, even if it was only going to market or delivering potatoes to another shop.
I had a few more lessons with my friend in his truck with the awkward gear box and then borrowed Alfred’s van for the morning and went off by myself to the Test Centre in Romford. I was used to driving in and around Barking but there was much more traffic and different obstacles to negotiate in Romford. I was worried that I would get lost or take the wrong turning.
I met the examiner outside the centre. He was a very formal looking man, a bit like Neville Chamberlain, dressed in a dark grey suit and a black homburg hat. He checked my provisional licence and insurance before we even got in the van. As we sat inside, he asked me questions on the Highway Code and I had to show him I understood the correct use of signals. I wound down the window, put my arm out and did left and right, and up and down, as commanded.
When I finally drove off, he gave instructions such as ‘Go straight on,’ ‘Turn right at the junction,’ and ‘Keep left here,’ that sort of thing. I was keeping my eyes on the other cars and the bicycles, clutching the steering wheel while working out when to change gear. I was nervous and forgot that I was driving Alf’s van and not the vehicle with the peculiar gate–change gear box and got a bit confused. What I did was to take my right hand off the wheel, lean across, nearly into the lap of the examiner, in order to get a good grip on the gear stick which is what I was used to doing.
‘What are you playing at?’ said the examiner and banged on the dash board with his clip board. I braked sharply and stopped and the examiner nearly hit his head on the windscreen. I apologised about my attempts at double-declutching and explained about the other vehicle. He looked at me a bit odd but said. ‘All right, Mr Waite, you can proceed now.’ That’s it, I thought, my licence down the Swanee at the first attempt.
We went on a bit more until we came to a road which went up an incline. ‘Stop,’ he said. ‘Hand brake on.’ Then he got out of the van and disappeared round the back. What’s going on? Now I’m on my own in the car. A couple of seconds later, he got back in and said, ‘Pull away, please, and then stop on the hill.’ I did as instructed and then he did it again – jumped out and went round the back. What he had done was put a match box behind one of the rear wheels so that if the car slipped back, when I was doing my hill start, he would know. Fortunately, he found the matchbox still standing up. After an emergency stop and reversing in the road he signed a bit of paper and handed it to me. He told me that I had passed.
Having my driving licence felt wonderful and gave me a real sense of freedom. Out on the road, window down, wind in my hair. This was better than roller skating behind the bus as it comes roaring round Ripple Road, down the hill and into Movers Lane. There’s ten-year-old me, hanging on for dear life to the rail at the back of the bus, ducking down so that nobody can see me, as we sail past my house. Yippee! And letting go as the bus slows down at the corner and I come skating to halt outside the Park gates. Freedom again.
I had my driving licence now and I felt I could do anything although the reality was that I was very limited. I could drive my brother’s van on my own and when my father bought a car, I became the family driver as he didn’t have a licence. Most Sundays I took my parents out somewhere for a change of scenery. Sometimes I was allowed to borrow the car and I would go off on my own. Of course, as a young fellow who had just started courting it meant I could boast to my friends, ‘I’m taking my girlfriend out for a spin in my car this weekend.’
It was Easter 1938 when I first saw Lily Mathers. I didn’t know it at the time but it was love at first sight. I was coming up to eighteen and like any young man, just wanted to enjoy myself and have a bit of fun. I wasn’t looking to get serious with a girl or get married but I felt we had something pretty special early on, Lily and me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her and knew that I wanted to be with her; I thought she felt the same although we didn’t talk about it. I assumed we had an understanding but things don’t always go according to plan.
Most weekends, I used to go out with a group of friends, working fellows like me. We used to put a shilling or two a week into a kitty and when we had enough we would decide what to do. A favourite activity was going up to London by bus or train and catching a pleasure steamer from Tower Pier down to Margate. I remember sailing on the Golden Eagle, the Royal Eagle and the Medway Queen. We had a marvellous time. Funny to think, years later, that many of these boats were requisitioned for war work. While I was being detained at Herr Hitler’s pleasure in East Prussia, they were travelling up and down the Thames, sweeping for mines or ferrying evacuees from the East End to the coast; and even into the English Channel to help with the evacuation of Dunkirk.
A return ticket cost about five shillings and we were happy walking round the decks, breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the change of scenery. Day trippers with a bit more money paid extra for a deckchair and sat outside or in an enclosed lounge area. There were kiosks selling food and drink and there was a posh dining saloon with waiters in uniform but I never saw the inside. If we fancied it, we followed some of the other fellows ‘to see the engines’ as they called it. The bar was situated near the engine room and there was a lot of drinking during the trip and some very merry people by the end. I never got drunk as I only drank lemonade or ginger beer.
After we arrived and docked, we usually had a couple of hours at the seafront, strolling along the Promenade, enjoying an ice cream or paddling in the sea with our trouser bottoms rolled up. Sometimes we went off to Dreamland Amusement Park where there were rides and sideshows but that could get expensive and it was all a bit of rush not to miss the boat home. At other times, back in Barking, when we had less money in the kitty, we went to the cinema and ate fried eggs on toast in a cafe or fish and chips wrapped in newspaper while sitting on the quayside and then larked around town.
One long weekend, which stretched over the whole of Easter, my pals and I went round to a friend’s house in King Edward Road. His parents were away so we decided that it would be fun to have a party and stay over. The obvious thing to do was to let all your pals know and make sure that some girls were invited. There were six of us fellows and eight girls, friends from work or church, someone’s sister; you know the sort of thing. It was only a small terraced house so it was cosy, you could say, but we moved from room to room, chatting, listening to music on the wind-up gramophone and my pal on the piano accordion and eating and drinking. We didn’t make much of a mess but I remember being the one tidying up afterwards, putting things back where they belonged.
I suppose that, by today’s standards, our behaviour was pretty tame. The lads didn’t go in for binge drinking like now, although some of them used to get a bit merry. A few smoked but I didn’t until I became a prisoner of war. I began smoking seriously when the tins of cigarettes started arriving in the Red Cross parcels. I remember receiving a load from a vicar in Surrey who adopted me. I don’t know how this came about, whether he drew my name out of a hat for some ‘Help a Soldier at the Front’ appeal in his parish, I never found out, but he used to send me 400 cigarettes at a time. Of course, I didn’t smoke them all. I used some for bartering for extra rations from the German guards.