William Street was born at 131, Woood Road Peckham on the 4th April 1939 the only thing i remember about the second world war is being in the anderson shelter in the garden of 83 Astbury Raod where we lived at the time, i think it was about midnight and a flying bomb went over i was looking out and saw the flames from the engine and the engine cut out almost above our heads and it crashed into a school in Woods Road, good thing we moved out of that road, went to school at Kender Street primary School while living in Astbury, untill the family moved from Peckham to a new council house on the Bessemer Grange Estate Denmark Hill Camberwell and went to school in Dulwich Village untill the age of eleven from there he went to Adys Road school at Goose Green for two years then went for the last two yars of school to Choumert Road Peckham both the last two schools were William Penn School for boys.
My first go at the work thing was for a Newspaper Wholesalers in Britton Street in Clerkenwell by the name of E. Marlborough Co Ltd it was one of the largest Newspaper wholesalers in London. untill i went into the Army i did every job that a boy could do and a few i shouldnt have done at the firm, packing in the book department with Jim Wilson, in the stationery department with Percy Atkins, collecting around Fleet Street for magazines and comics going out with the drivers when they needed a boy when there was a print strike at the Radio Times we had to pick them up from Gatwick Airport that lasted for about six weeks. i couldnt wait for collection day each week. getting the tea from the cafe across the road untill we got our own canteen in the firm that was another black day cos my fiddles went up in smoke because everyone went to the canteen, going past the Old Holborn factory along Clerkenwell Road used to make me feel sick from the smell of the tobacco. Got the sack one day for stopping the girls in the bookroom from working but luckily enough i got me job back, those were the days of good unions, untill Maggie got her hands on em and mucked it all up, the house we lived in was built on the grounds that Sir Henry Bessemers house was built on, when the new houses were built there his lovely house was pulled down i will find a picture of it somewhere and put it on the page (see pic below). What a man he was if anyone reading this has a chance to read his life story its well worth it. When i was 17 i think it was i bought my first and only motor bike it was an Ajs 350cc i rode that untill i went in the army and when the day came to go, i put the bike in bits in my bedroom untill i came out of the army two years later, one day i turned out of the estate on to Denmark Hill and drove straight into the back of a car over the top of the car i went and landed in the road carted of to Kings Colledge Hospital spent the morning in the hospital and went to work in the afternoon walked into Percy in the stationery dept and he nearly fainted they told him i was in hospital near deaths door, poor old percy must have thought he saw a ghost. the day came to go into Her Majestys Army the thought didnt thrill me one little bit, but eventualy i got used to it once i found out how to get round doing things it was quite enjoyable, the idea in there was to try everything they threw at you so the first opportunity i got i volentired for a change of unit the change was into the MIlitary Police the training was 16 weeks so that meant i wasnt going to Germany for at least 4 months the only problem changing was i had just got all my kit green and the polices webbing was white so we all set to to change the colour and get the boots like mirrors then the rotten bit learning, allmost did it but not quite so after 16 weeks they sent me back to where i came from, who guessed first, yes all the kit from white to green, but at least i was still in england, well those few weeks passed and they told me go home for the weekend and then go to Belefield in Germany and join up with all the lads i first went in with and for the rest of what was left of two years, but i stuck to my idea have a go at anything they asked, so i rode a motorbike for a month or two, just taking messages from here to there and back again, then i went on to driving the food wagon when ever we went on exercise, then i had a go at the post delivery so that got me of the exercises then it was on to the water wagon again got myself of the exercises, got callled out one night, had to fill the tanker up with water and join up with all the other units water wagons and went to the next barracks down the road joined up with all thier water wagons in the end there was about 60 water trucks and of we went no one knew where we were going we just had to follow the lorry in fron it ended up we went to fill the local brigadiers well up cos it had run dry, not a happy lot of bunnies when we found out what we were all doing up at three oclock in the morning
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