King's Cross Kid Read online

  ‘The money’s not great but the work is interesting, take it as a type of apprenticeship.’ So I started my tenth job in two years.

  Grandfather softened up and took me around to a second-hand bike shop and bought me a bike for ten shillings. ‘Can’t afford bus fares and the exercise will do you good.’ Mum and Gran were also well pleased.

  Eddie Wilson was spot-on when he said that the money was rotten, but this was because he and his two mates valued their freedom. Eddie’s motto was ‘I’d rather live on cheese sandwiches than work for wages’. The firm’s income came mostly from the orders it got from sports conversions plus the occasional odd jobs that found their way in via the back door, when some crooked dealer needed Eddie’s skill at altering the bodywork of a stolen car so that even its former owner would never recognise it.

  Eddie had a contact who used to pop into the shop twice a week to ask him what he was going to need for the next week. Eddie gave him a list and a couple of days later the goods appeared. Everything needed was acquired bent, ‘to keep costs down’.

  As usual I was on the bottom rung of the hierarchy so all the dirty and boring jobs came my way. A customer might bring in an old clapped-out Austin Seven, Morris Eight, Ford Ten or any car that we used to call a ‘light car’. The team immediately set to work stripping away all the bodywork, which was then dumped in the backyard. The next bit of the operation was to remove all ancillary parts until the chassis was laid bare on the long bench and then it was my job to clean off all the rust and grime with a wire brush, then emery paper and, finally, a degreaser. Next I put on a coat of primer and when that was dry a second and third coat. Then the painter came in and applied the finish, usually a bright-red high gloss. As soon as the chassis was done I could start on the axles, springs and all the other parts that had to be bolted on before the new bodywork arrived. This was all made out of aluminium sheets and made by one of Eddie’s mates. The body had to be screwed and bolted to wooden struts which were made of seasoned ash. The engines were supplied by the customer and so long as the chassis was strong enough any engine could be used.

  Eddie and his mates were true craftsmen but the work took a lot of man hours, and while the finished product was a work of great precision the numbers of sports car enthusiasts who could afford it were few. There were occasional visits from the law, but they never came to anything and were just part of the game. So for the second time since leaving school I felt good about going to work in the morning. Eddie taught me the importance of getting things right. ‘If they have to bring a car back, Vicky boy, you can safely say you’ve lost a customer.’ Eddie’s light cars may have started life as a load of rubbish but by the time they had been through his hands the rubbish had been turned into a work of art.

  Peggy, meanwhile, was still hanging on and still a virgin. She and I used to take long walks together in the evenings. I can’t remember what we talked about but I know that she had feelings of which I knew nothing. Her hints that ‘I could do what I liked’ hit a blank wall, so finally Peggy decided that she was wasting her time and gave me the boot. She began to transfer her affections to a tall ginger-haired chap.

  26

  . . . and Fred

  My grandfather seemed to have given up on me (even if he’d softened up a bit when I started working for Eddie), my mum thought I was going to be a famous violinist, my gran had her doubts and said that I would probably end up as a jack of all trades and master of none: myself, I wasn’t too certain of things.

  It was one of those cold and blustery evenings, pelting down cats and dogs outside, typical English February, and I was giving my granddad a hand. One of his hobbies was keeping God happy by printing the monthly hymn sheets for the local church. I used to help by placing the sheets on to a metal plate while the old man operated a handle which sent the inked rollers over the sheet. Then I had to remove the sheet and put in a new one. Helping him like this saved grandfather a whole load of time and effort and I know he appreciated it. He had once offered me extra pocket money to do this little chore but I had refused it and my gran later told me that he never forgot that episode. That was why he never completely gave up on me – goes to show that little things mean a lot.

  Anyway, when we had finished Gran said to me: ‘Victor, go round to the fish and chip shop and we’ll all have a nice supper.’ ‘It’s pouring with rain, Gran.’ ‘Take the umbrella, then, four tuppennies and a pennorth and a piece of fourpenny skate for Granddad.’ Which meant that Granddad was going to get a nice big piece of skate, while us lesser members of the household would get a helping of so-called ‘rock salmon’, in those days the lowest of the low. Out into the cold and rain I went, en route for Leigh Street which was a turning off Marchmont Street, about a thousand yards or so, no big deal,.

  As was usual on a Friday the fish shop was full to bursting. ‘Hello, Vic.’ I gets a dig in the ribs and I turns round to face the foe. ‘Hello, Fred, ’aven’t seen you for years.’ Fred was the chap I had the bust-up with when I first went to Cromer Street School. ‘Keeping going, yer know, a bit of this and a bit of that.’ ‘Nuffink regular, then?’ ‘No, but I have got something going that could interest you.’ If Fred said he was doing a ‘bit of this and a bit of that’ it meant only one thing: up a drainpipe one night, in through a basement window the next.

  But I was wrong. ‘You still keeping up with that violin playing you was so good at when we were at school?’ ‘Not really, Fred, get it down now and again, no time to practise.’ Fred carried on. ‘There’s four of us, we got a little band together, you remember Joe Brown, he’s got hold of one of them new mini pianas, we’ve got two other blokes, one is a drummer, got his own drums and a clarinet player. I play the trumpet.’ By now we’d lost our place in the queue. ‘I tell yer what, Vic, come down to the Tonbridge on Wednesday at seven, we need someone who can write down music, don’t forget, next Wednesday.’ When I finally got home with the supper, ‘Thought you’d fallen down a drain hole, you’ve been an hour.’ ‘Sorry, Gran, the queue was awful big.’

  My last encounter with Fred Munday had been quite bloody but here he was four years later greeting me like an old friend. So the upshot of it was that I turned up at the Tonbridge Club the following Wednesday night and my next little adventure began.

  27

  Joe Brown’s Masters of Rhythm

  The arrival of De Hot Club de King’s Cross and Joe Brown’s Masters of Rhythm:

  Joe Brown

  leader and piano

  Fred Munday

  trumpet

  Roscoe Barnato

  clarinet

  Smudger Smith

  drums

  Vic Gregg

  violin and arranger

  I arrived just after seven. Directly I set eyes on Joe Brown I remembered him from years before, but now, instead of the rundown appearance he used to have, he was togged out in the latest gear, with his hair smoothed down as if it had been ironed into place. Joe had charted the course he was going to take: he was going to be a bandleader, so he started a band – Joe Brown’s Masters of Rhythm. I didn’t know the other two lads. Joe introduced me, then said, ‘Get yer fiddle out and let’s see if you can fit in.’ He sat down at the piano and began bashing away at ‘I’m Nobody’s Sweetheart Now’, a well-known number that had been around since the twenties. Then I realised what was going on: Joe was laying it on in C major, while Fred and the lad with the clarinet wanted B flat. As for me, it didn’t make any difference what key they played in. I could cope, but not so the wood and the trumpet. Joe stopped playing and asked me, ‘What you think, Vic?’ I had to lay it on the line: if he wanted to play piano he had to learn his scales. C major was for the birds.

  It appeared that the mini piano had come into Joe’s hands because of a painting job he had done for a local pawnbroker who gave him the piano rather than part with any cash. Fred and the other lad had also acquired their instruments via a pawnshop and, to learn their musical skills, Fred and this lad, whose name was
Roscoe, and who was Jewish, became members of the Salvation Army band. Twice a week they were expected to play their part outside the local pubs while the female stalwarts of the Army went around with the hat. Roscoe’s Jewishness never caused the Sally Army any concern. As for Roscoe himself, he just said, ‘So I’m a Jewboy, so what, anybody want to make somefink of it?’ Roscoe was known for being able to handle himself so nobody wanted to ‘make somefink of it’.

  Surprising as it was, our little band gradually improved. Roscoe’s Mum and Dad supplied us with an old wind-up gramophone and we used to go down to Woolies (Woolworths) and buy the latest records at sixpence a time. I wrote out a simple one-line score on the special paper that Fred or Roscoe managed to lift from the practice rooms of the Sally. Now Joe had to learn to play the keyboard better and also to read a score. It said much for his dedication that inside a month he could place his fingers on the notes exactly as I had written them. I can also remember that the lad who had the drums was called Smudger, and he was the only one of us who had no problems: he had a natural bent for rhythm. It was Smudger who made sure we kept to the tempo.

  After a couple of months it was decided that there was no way that Joe could be our pianist, so it was agreed that he would be in charge and run things. So we had a bandleader who knew nothing about the complexities of music, couldn’t play an instrument but was as keen as mustard, as in fact we all were – it was infectious.

  Meanwhile, I was having my usual problems on the work front. Eddie Wilson told me the firm was going bust for lack of orders, so I acted the gentleman and jacked it in. Eddie gave me my cards and put in a good word for me at the labour exchange. I was on the stones again. So up to Penton Street once more where they fixed me up with a job as a junior mechanic with Pickford’s Transport. They had a big garage halfway along the City Road, which was no problem seeing that my bike was still in running order. I was now earning twenty-five shillings a week, a step up in the world, and as well as this there was the band. The garage at City Road was a huge affair. Already in situ were two lads I knew from Cromer Street, but because of Eddie’s reference the firm had accepted me as a junior mechanic which was a cut above the other two, who were only labourers on a ‘oncer’ (a pound) a week. Anyone who read the bull that Eddie had put into my reference would think that I could build any vehicle from a basket job to a market leader. When the foreman in charge discovered that I had no tools he rightly marked me down as ‘useful but don’t put him in charge of rebuilding a braking system’.

  I never dropped any clangers and, week by week, I earned my twenty-five bob without any trouble. Start at eight, finish at five, keep my nose clean and you’ve got a job for life, thus spake the foreman. If only.

  Meanwhile, back to De Hot Club de King’s Cross.

  Some weeks after we had settled into the small basement room at the Tonbridge Club, Fred brought along the big chief from the Salvation Army’s place in Judd Street, plus the chief’s wife, who introduced herself as Sister Evelyn but told us it would not be seen as rude if we just called her Sister Evie. This dedicated couple, dressed in their regulation Sally Army uniform, him with his gold-braided military cap and Evie with her bonnet complete with ribbon sitting neatly on the back of her head, had come along to see how their two protégés were getting on with the band that Fred had told them about. The upshot was that we were offered the use of the Salvation Army’s practice room for up to six hours a week spread over two evenings, nothing later than eight o’clock.

  Sister Evie took one look at Joe’s clapped-out mini piano and suggested that we could leave it where it was as there was a nice piano already in the Sally’s room. If there was a boss of the outfit, it was Evie. She was very interested when she learnt that I was doing the arranging. ‘But, Victor, why no bass clef?’ ‘Well, Sister, we don’t ever go down that low.’ This seemed to satisfy her. What I didn’t explain was that if I started messing around with bass clefs I would be the only one of us who could understand what it was all about. If the good sister had been given a taste of our repertoire it is unlikely that we’d have been allowed within a mile of the cherished practice room.

  So we offered our profuse thanks to the chap who ran the day-to-day business of the Tonbridge Club and went over to the other side of the street to the Salvation Army’s big, solidly built corner establishment.

  Joe brought along a couple of records by Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli and was super-keen to get us doing the jazz thing. ‘There’s only five of them in the Reinhardt band, should be a cakewalk, they ’aven’t even got a joanna.’ It seemed simple to Joe, who always looked for the easy way if anything had to be done. ‘Yes, but Joe they do have a string bass and two guitars, we’ve got a trumpet, a drummer and a clarinet, what we need is a bass player.’ Anyway we all agreed that if we could find a way to make it work then we would be the local kings of jazz. So we practised and practised again and again and again and then, all of a sudden, both Fred and myself and Roscoe discovered that things were falling into place. Sister Evie even presented Joe with an old conductor’s baton which he wielded with enthusiasm.

  She turned out to be our fairy godmother. When she discovered that our bandleader couldn’t play a note she came up with an old acoustic guitar. ‘I will arrange for you to have lessons, Joe, leave it to me.’ Within a month Joe was sitting in strumming the chords like a real old hand. This was good because we all sensed that Joe had been on the point of giving up; we were getting better while he was standing still. Now the hours flew by, and the Masters of Rhythm were taking shape.

  Joe came in to the Tuesday practice one day with the news that we had been asked to play at the Saturday evening dance at the Tonbridge, and what did we all reckon?

  Meanwhile, out on the street dear Peggy had been having second thoughts about Gingernut and decided to reclaim her property. She had heard about the new band and that we were playing all the latest numbers. What with Joe and Smudger strolling round the local manor with their brand new sharp suits, and hair all shiny with the latest grease known as Brilliantine, they looked the business and the girls were attracted to us like moths to a flame.

  While we were packing up our gear after finishing the evening practice, which included chatting up the girls, Peggy suggested we ‘go for a stroll’. ‘What, at eleven o’clock at night?’ ‘I want to, Vic.’ That was it, I was suckered, so we started going out once again. ‘I didn’t think you loved me any more,’ said Peggy, laying it on thick and heavy. ‘What made you change your mind?’ I replied, sensing that now I held the whip hand. Peggy came back with ‘My mum said you must be a good man, she asked me if you had ever tried it on and I told her that you wasn’t the type to do that. My mum said that she wished she had met a boy like you when she was young, and Daisy likes you as well.’ Daisy was Peggy’s younger sister and reckoned to be a bit of a stunner.

  Peggy was well aware of the unwritten code of conduct – we had announced our pairing, or at least Peggy had – so if I dumped her now without good reason I would be thought of as someone not to be trusted, so I couldn’t give her the brush-off without a good excuse. I was hooked and all it needed now was for her to reel in the line.

  One day in the summer, after we had enjoyed an evening at the Tatler News Cinema in Charing Cross Road, I took her into a little restaurant I knew just off of Greek Street. I asked if she enjoyed the meal. ‘I didn’t know that you could afford to come to a place like this, Vic. If you did it to impress me then you wasted your money. What you spent here should ’ave been put into the bank.’ ‘What for?’ says I. ‘It’s easy to earn a couple of bob round here.’ ‘Well, don’t you ever think about the future? Sooner or later we will get married and we will have to buy furniture and all sorts of stuff.’

  Well, there it was. Peggy had tied the message to the mast for all to see, and I couldn’t summon up the courage to tell her that getting married was indeed for the future – the very distant future. I was happy and proud enough to be in her company, bu
t getting married? Marriage was for old people and nutcases. My bacon was saved by the advent of the ginger-headed nutter himself. It was during one of our practice sessions, the room was full and along with the band there was the usual crowd of girls and some of our mates. The air was full of tobacco smoke. Smudger’s continual thumping of the pedal on his bass drum added to the general air of youthful exuberance. The hubbub slowly died down as a tall, ginger-headed geezer with two well-built muscle men came into the room and made his way over to the band. He started laying down the law about me messing with his girl. Apparently Peggy had gone on seeing him while she was seeing me. Roscoe, seeing that I was in trouble, picked up the leg of a broken chair and poked it in front of the lad’s nose.

  The trio were outnumbered and beat a hasty retreat. Peggy must have been impressed by her new lover’s determination, because she decided that, for better or worse, the new boy was the best bet. It wouldn’t be long before she was up the spout and walking up the aisle, her childhood over.

  28

  Saturday Night Dance Halls

  Now that I had a steady job and a place in the band my life was beginning to settle down. I was giving more money to Mum and I still had a couple of bob in my pocket. Brother John was toiling away as a delivery boy in a grocer’s shop in Pulteney Street Market. Mum was certain that I would become famous, and my grandparents both agreed that at last I had got my head straight. But if there was one thing that exercised its pull over us all it had to be the local Saturday dance hall. This was the rendezvous where girls met boys and vice versa, liaisons were made and most of the girls decided who was going to be their future husband and the father of their children.