Unsung Heroes

 ??/??/1961?

The unsung heroes that I am going to tell you about are myself and two friends but before I do I feel it necessary to tell you a little bit about me and set the scene.

As best I can remember it was the summer of 1961 and I was seventeen years old and experiencing the happiest and carefree days of my life. I had a job I really enjoyed working in a stockbroker’s firm, money in my pocket and girlfriends on a regular basis. My Saturday nights were spent either at the Ilford Palais (occasionally the Tottenham Royal and one visit to the London Lyceum), going to a     party thrown by a friend or a friend of a friend or, if I was wooing a young lady, I would usually take her to the pictures. I now have no idea as to what films I saw then and probably didn’t at the time because I was too busy, stealthily, trying to put my arm around her without being shrugged off or slapped and also hoping to get a snog at some time during the proceedings. What an awful word to use for such a delicious and wonderful past time. The number of days that my relationships lasted was pretty much in line with the number of snogs I achieved which was not many. Such happy days. Where did it all go wrong?

I was born and brought up in East Ham and lived there for the first 20 years of my life and the house we lived in at the time of the incident I will soon be relating, was in Grosvenor Rd just a short walk to the East Stand (affectionally known as the chicken run) of the West Ham Utd football ground commonly known as the Boleyn ground or the Upton Park ground. 

The main entrance to the stadium was in Green Street and right opposite on the other side of the road were terraced houses interspersed with a few shops. One of those shops was a cafe which forms a central part of this story.

The cafe was frequented by most of the West Ham players who spent a lot of their time there just talking football and came to be known as ‘The Acadamy’ because so many of them went on to become Managers after their playing days were over. At that time it was players like Noel Cantwell, John Bond and Malcolm Musgrove. It was also the home of the unofficial West Ham mascot which was a Parrot.This is where the story commences proper.

I can recall the events with exceptional clarity but not the dates. It was a Saturday night during the summer and myself and my two friends had gone to a party at the Greengate which was an area in West Ham. East Ham and West Ham have since merged and are now known as Newham which no longer resonates with me as the place I was brought up in. My two friends were George Kingston (his name was actually Alan but for some unknown reason everyone called him George) and David Scott who we all called Dave. The party had been a good one and didn’t wind down until well after midnight and the three of us left in the early hours of Sunday and decided to walk home. There were no mini cabs in those days or Ubers and Black cabs in that area were few and far between and much too expensive for the likes of us.

It was definitely summertime as even in the early hours of the morning it was a comfortable and pleasant walk. Our route took us eastward down the Barking Road until we reached the Boleyn pub situated on the corner of Green Street which we turned left into. Green street not the pub. We crossed the road and onto the football ground side and as we passed the main entrance our attention was taken by flashes of light emanating from the cafe across the road. These lights were sufficiently strong to arouse our interest so we crossed back to get a better and closer look. The ground floor of the cafe was on fire and it had taken a strong hold and was consuming the whole downstairs area. One of my friends, I don’t recall which one, ran to a telephone box a hundred yards or so away and phoned for the Fire Brigade while, in the meantime myself and my other friend threw stones at the upstairs windows and hammered and kicked at the front door. The was no mobile phones in those days and phone boxes were not vandalized the way they are now. We had no way of knowing for sure that there were people living above the cafe but we weren’t taking any chances. Eventually and luckily we did wake the occupants who were a couple with two children who would undoubtedly have died from smoke inhalation had we not been in the right place at the right time. The Fire Station was situated very close to where we had been to the party which was not far away and the attendance of the Fire Engines was very quick.

Entrance to the premises from the ground floor was impossible so the family, still in their night attire, were brought out of the premises via an upstairs windows and down a ladder. A good job it wasn’t me because I don’t wear anything in bed. Don’t get excited ladies. With the evacuees wrapped in blankets and safe the Firemen started to write their report and asked for our names and addresses. It had been a bit of excitement but to us it was no big deal so we declined and continued our journey home.

I never told anybody about the episode, not even my parents, although I don’t know why except that we probably had not understood the enormity of what we had done until it was reported in the local newspaper under the heading ‘Three shy Teenagers’. I had a clipping of the newspaper report but I can’t post a photo of it because I have yet to learn how to do this (tardy) and also because I can’t find it. It’s here somewhere but has not come to light as yet.

This however is not the end of the story. A little after a year later I was sitting at home in our living room when there was a tap on our front door. I know it’s a strange place to have a tap but we’ve always been a strange family and anyway my Dad couldn’t find a doorbell that suited. My Mum went to the front door and returned a short time later with a woman who, to me, was a complete stranger. “You have a visitor” she announced with that look that can only be interpreted as    ‘what have you been up to now?’ I was bemused to say the least and could only assume that it was the mother of one of the young ladies I had been wooing, which one I was at a loss to know. Self preservation being what it is I was already forming my defence of not guilty. “You don’t recognize me do you? the lady asked which I thought was very astute given my completely blank countenance. “Eh no” I meekly replied wondering just what bombshell she was about to drop. “Do you remember a fire” she prompted. The look on my Mum’s face was a picture to behold and I could tell she was thinking “Have I raised an arsonist?” Talk about think the worst. The memory was slowly rising to the surface as I hadn’t thought about that night any longer than a week or so after the event. The lady went on to explain that it was her and her family that we had saved that night and she had come to say thank you and tell me that she was sorry she hadn’t contacted me sooner because the whole family had moved to Australia shortly after the fire and had only recently returned to the U.K. and also because she had had considerable trouble in tracing the three of us. How she did find us I will never know. She gave me an envelope within which was money as a reward for what we  had done. I don’t remember how much it was probably because I was sighing with relief that I wasn’t in trouble of any sort. What I didn’t know until she told me was that the only casualty was the parrot which was as dead as the one in the Monty Python sketch.

Is the above the TRUTH or a LIE. I can assure you 100% it is the TRUTH and is without exaggeration.

Now that I have broadcast this event to the world I am hoping that Newham Council will consider fixing a blue plague on the wall of             No 16, Grosvenor Road, London, E.6. to commemorate a local hero. Some hope.