Lost Voices of the Edwardians: 1901–1910 in Their Own Words

I used to collect nuts on the way to school in a park then throw these nuts to the children in the playground. I've been known as ‘Nutty’ ever since.

Bob Rogers

We did a lot of scrumping in those days. In Dalston there were a lot of fruit trees. There were orchards all round there.

Charles Watson

There were rows of small houses and we used to get a piece of string and tie it round two front-door handles next to each other. Then we'd knock on both doors and run across the road. One person would come out and pull the door, then the other person next door would pull their door. We were on the other side of the road laughing at them. They'd shout ‘We'll get you!’ But they never did.

Mary Keen

We used to make up our own games. The boys had iron hoops and the girls had wooden hoops. We had skipping ropes and we used to have games where we'd form a great big ring with one of us in the middle and we'd sing ‘Poor Julia's a-weeping on a bright summer's day’. About five o'clock on a Friday afternoon, a piano organ grinder used to come round, but mostly we made our own amusements.

Reece Elliott

We would make dolls from an ordinary clothes peg. When it came to the split in the clothes peg, that was the arms. For the feet it was all wires. There were two parts to the feet and a little bit and the clog, and you had a bit of string on the head. You sat on the edge of the cracket, and you hung the doll over a board and somebody would whistle a tune. It would be ‘Oh Sally does tha like pease pudding?’ and so on. That's what used to go on. Uncle Lance was the best of the lot, he could do owt with it. Get the feet go clack to the tune.

Albert ‘Smiler’ Marshall

Both girls and boys played marbles. There were large glossy ones called ‘alleys’, while the girls played with smaller ones known as ‘pimsells’. The girls enjoyed hopscotch, while the boys preferred ‘fox and hounds’. We'd choose three or four to be foxes and they would run off with a four-minute head start and hide or keep moving around in a wood or field with long grass. The foxes had a piece of wool round their arm. After the foxes had gone the hounds had to find them and rip the wool off. This was supposed to be the end of their life. The foxes could blow the whistle or howl to give the hounds a hint. Then when all the foxes were caught the game ended. It could go on for hours.

Louis Dore

Marbles came in three kinds. Small ones were made of plaster or cement and were painted various colours. Larger ones, similarly made, were called ‘bobsters’ and the most prized of all were ‘gallanis’, made of glass with strands of coloured wire running through them. You would sit, legs outstretched against a wall, and place a bobster or gallani a few inches in front of you. The punters would then bowl marbles at this target and the pay-out would be two or three marbles per hit. Then there were ‘peg tops’. These were rather top-heavy pear-shaped tops which were spun by first winding a length of string or cord around them and then throwing them hard to the ground. The tops had long iron pegs – hence the name – protruding from their bottoms and the object of the game was to throw your top at somebody else's so as to damage or split it. We also played with ‘hoops’ which were bowled along a road with a stick to guide them and keep them going.

Daniel Davis

In the courtyard at Rothschild Buildings, we used to play football with an India rubber ball, and if the porter got too near the ball he used to take it. He'd say, ‘You mustn't play football’ That was because we used to smash the windows.

Louis Dore

This is rather horrible but a game among schoolboys was that of seeing who produced the best and biggest gob. An ordinary grey one earned few marks, a yellow one was a good 'un, but a green one was a winner. That is except in the case of a much rarer green one with red spots. Such a consumptive gob swept the board.

W. J. Barfoot

We collected cigarette cards of different pictures in sets of fifty. Marbles were played all the time, and when conkers were in season we would string them through the middle of the nut and knock each other out.

Charles Watson

My pocket money was a farthing a fortnight. We used to go to Mrs Mallion's little shop and she'd have a strip of liquorice and tear it down in strips – and if there were two of us, we'd tear it up and have half each. She used to make her own sweets and we got four if we had a halfpenny. She used to screw up a piece of paper with four sweets in.

Albert ‘Smiler’ Marshall

Boys were always out to make the odd penny. In summer, coaches taking tourists to the sea passed through the village, and the boys used to call out, ‘Throw out your mouldy coppers.’ Boys fought each other for tuppence. One day I was set upon by four boys. On my return home, my father said, ‘Now you have met your Waterloo,’ and he treated my swollen eyes with raw meat.

Bob Rogers

The only bath we used to get was a swim in the Regent's Canal. All the old chaps used to go down the canal and toss money up on a stick and gamble on whether it would come down heads or tails. A lot of that money used to end up in the canal, and when they were finished, we used to dive down for it. We also used to get on the barges as they came along and then dive off them. In Queen's Road, by the bridge, there was a big gas works, and in the winter we used to go in the water behind there and it was boiling hot. We never knew it was poisonous. To us it was marvellous. It was a hot bath.

Ruben Landsman

We used to go down the side of the Tower of London to the Thames and paddle our feet. Sometimes we went across the other side. Warm water used to come out from Hayes Wharf and run into the river. We used to paddle there but there was often trouble with the local boys, so we had to run quick. Oh yes, there were gangs. There was constant fighting between the gangs – between the Jews and the Christians.

Bessy Ruben

Bethnal Green was a Christian area and we avoided it because we were afraid of being beaten up. I remember a friend of my mother's coming up to us with his head all bashed in. He had been attacked at the end of Brick Lane going towards Bethnal Green. I remember somebody saying, ‘Well, why did you go that way?’ He should have gone another way to avoid Bethnal Green. But where we lived, there was security for us children. We came home from school and we knew the area and that our neighbours were our friends.

Louis Dore

In the streets, certain unwritten laws applied. Alone you could walk through someone else's territory without coming to too much harm. A few taunts and insults and the occasional stone might be thrown at you but you were rarely assaulted. But for a group of you to do so amounted to an invasion, and an opposing army would rapidly be formed. For a real street fight, a declaration of war would be made, and armed with broom handles and sticks, not to mention a pocket full of cobbles, the invader would advance slowly, chanting insults. ‘Go home, your father wants his boots!’, ‘Get your hair cut!’ or if names were known, little jingles like ‘John, John, put your trousers on!’ Except among a very few, certain words used freely today were taboo. ‘Bleeding’ was acceptable, as were ‘sod’ and ‘bugger’.

Albert ‘Smiler’ Marshall

Guy Fawkes' Day was one of the highlights of the year. Boys leading a donkey, all dressed as guys, used to go round the village singing:

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,

The gunpowder treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

With a dark lantern,

With a light match,

Holla, boys, holla, boys, make the bell ring.

Holla, boys, holla, boys, God save the King.

If you haven't got no money, give us some beer,

Guy Fawkes comes only once a year,

Bang, crash, wallop!

Then they let off fireworks with a cannon and real gunpowder.

Jack Banfield

We used to make our own fun. There was no television or radio, we used to all get round the piano and sing. Sunday was a day when you couldn't enjoy yourself in any way whatsoever. You couldn't sing unless it was a hymn. If you were whistling and you thoughtlessly whistled a song, you were reprimanded and told, ‘Do you know what day it is?’ There were no toys – nothing on a Sunday. It was a miserable day.

Dorothy Webb

Imber, on Salisbury Plain, was a paradise for children. We never had toys or books, but we were never bored, as there were so many exciting things going on outside. This was a purely agricultural village, growing acres of corn and tending large flocks of sheep. As the seasons came round there was sheep-shearing to watch, then the harvest when every hand was called on to help. We loved to go gleaning the ears of corn left after the rake had been round. What a feast for the hens when we came home, tired out and bitten all over by harvest bugs.

Rose Bishop