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Jump to navigationJump to searchCargoes & Capers: The life and times of a London Docklands man by Johnny Ringwood (view source)
Revision as of 14:15, 27 June 2017
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Johnny Ringwood was born in 1936, just three years before the start of the second world war, as he says, ''slap bang next to the Royal Victoria dock''. His education was somewhat limited, not least because it was regularly interrupted by the Luftwaffe. You might therefore be surprised at what he has managed to achieve in the intervening eighty years. I certainly was.
Like many children from the East End of London he was evacuated, in this case to the Yorkshire Dales. I was unaware until I read his account that children were lined up, almost like a beauty parade, and were selected by the householders with whom they were to live. Unfortunately for the author, he was left until last and then sent back the next day! The heartache of evacuees was highlighted by the fact that he and his younger brother were separated, despite the fact that his mother had expressly told Johnny that they should stay together. They would both return to the East End before the end of the war. Ringwood's recollections of what the conditions were really like in the East End before, during and immediately after the war brings home quite dramatically the difference between conditions now and then, but it is perhaps at the expense of the loss of the camaraderie in the neighbourhood.
