Uncle Bill and The General Strike (page2)

During the strike, essential services were enforced by the military, and food deliveries in particular were guarded, partly to ensure that they were not delayed, but mostly to prevent looting. People did not have fridges and freezers, so food supplies were not well stocked in houses. Most women were housewives and so shopped for food daily."

A food delivery under military escort.
This shows how serious it really was!

Grandfather’s daily fish order came from Billingsgate fish market, which in those days was just to the north east of London Bridge, alongside the river, near to where ‘The Monument’ is today. Fish was either collected by fishmongers themselves, or transported by rail. Grandfather used to pick it up from the railway station, but even though the ‘General Strike’ only lasted nine days, transport was seriously disrupted for several months, and pickets were likely to turn up at any time, and physically restrain those going about their work.

1922 Austin Tourer with running boards

Grandfather owned an open roofed tourer like the one above, and as you can see it was common for cars in the 20’s to have running boards next to the doors, so people could quite easily run alongside and jump on like ‘The Keystone Cops’.

Reg and Bill used to travel together in Grandfather’s car, up to Billingsgate to collect the fish. They were rarely troubled on the way up to market, but after stacking the fish boxes in the back of the car, they would head off across London Bridge to The Elephant and Castle, thence to The Old Kent Road, and Woolwich. They tried to use different routes each day, but inevitably at some stage they would meet a picket, who would try to stop them from passing, and destroy the fish if they could.

A dockworkers picket during the strike
Note their immaculate dress and those brilliant shoes!

Reg of course was only 16, and didn’t have to have a driving license then, and although he was probably slightly taller and tougher, he did the driving. Bill was absolutely fearless, and armed himself with a big stillson wrench (plumbers pipe wrench).

A Plumbers pipe wrench or ‘Stillson’