The Departing
St Chad's Road was an old path, an old track. Not even a proper road. It was where all the army in the First World War went past. Off to the docks, to fight Germany. They all came through Tilbury to get the boats overseas. Lorries, tanks, carts. They couldn't come along the main road, so they came along St Chad's Road and Montreal Road. I'm getting all this from my next-door neighbour, he was born and bred here. There were drainage ditches either side of the road, and the horses that bolted went down in the ditches.
The children watched it all.
WW2 was the same. The traffic all lined up. All the army lorries on the old A13, waiting for D-Day. We had to show a pass to get to school every morning. "Oh, we've forgotten it, we don't have to go..." One time when we were cycling, the air raid sirens went off. We dived into one of the shelters, and couldn't carry on to school until the all clear went. That was a good excuse, wasn't it?
The lady at number 4 was the postmistress down the dock. She died in '61. She had boxes and boxes of postcards from the First World War. And what did we do as kids? We used to play a game where we'd squeeze them and flick them out of our hands and see how far they would go in the wind. All those pictures, all gone now.
From stories told at Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Choir and Orsett Knit and Natter.
The children watched it all.
WW2 was the same. The traffic all lined up. All the army lorries on the old A13, waiting for D-Day. We had to show a pass to get to school every morning. "Oh, we've forgotten it, we don't have to go..." One time when we were cycling, the air raid sirens went off. We dived into one of the shelters, and couldn't carry on to school until the all clear went. That was a good excuse, wasn't it?
The lady at number 4 was the postmistress down the dock. She died in '61. She had boxes and boxes of postcards from the First World War. And what did we do as kids? We used to play a game where we'd squeeze them and flick them out of our hands and see how far they would go in the wind. All those pictures, all gone now.
From stories told at Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Choir and Orsett Knit and Natter.
