ABSTRACT
The First World War had made a great change in Bethnal Green. Before then it was practically impossible to find work. But with the war every firm was getting busy and the people they said was ‘unemployable’ became the people to fill the jobs. Even the people round the comer in Gibraltar Buildings got jobs. People who’d been scroungers all their bloody lives. They got to Aldershot, building the army huts, and on Hounslow Heath. I was asked to go down there in 1916 when I come out o f my five-year term. I said, ‘Oh blimey, I can think of something better than that to do.’ The Hollys out of Gibraltar Gardens — four o f them went to Aldershot, building huts. And Arthur Gardiner, he lived round the comer in Gibraltar Walk. And the two Halls. But you couldn’t go there if you were o f military age — not unless a doctor certified that you were unfit. At Lebuses,1 the great furniture place, instead of cabinets they were turning out ammunition boxes and cases to put the shells in. Many people went to work there. They got a good living. As long as you could use a saw and a hammer you were all right. Making packing cases. They got much more money out o f ammunition boxes than out of furniture. They didn’t get conscripted. It paid the top people at Lebuses to say that a man was a good workman and couldn’t be spared.
