The Return Of Sue Hadley

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Sue Hadley returned recently for an afternoon to revisit some of her childhood haunts and I had the privilege of accompanying her.

“From the age of three, I grew up here in James Hammett House on the Dorset Estate in Bethnal Green. It was a good old Labour council and each of the buildings was named after one of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Architecturally they are quite special, designed by the Tecton partnership. I used to slide all the way down the handrail of the spiral staircase, which is similar to the one they did for the penguin pool at the Zoo. We lived at the top of the building, on the tenth floor, and we were the very first residents to move in in 1957. But I stayed up at the top, I was not allowed to come down and play for many years – which was a disappointment. Once I was old enough to be allowed down, then the whole of the estate was my playground. Mum was a machinist working from home and Dad was a leaded light maker working in the Kingsland Rd.”

Sue on the balcony at James Hammett House

“This is Jones Dairy where I used to come with my Mum to do our shopping – cornflakes and tins. It was a proper traditional grocer with a man behind the counter in a white coat, Mr Evans. If you asked for a packet of cornflakes, he would get out his stick and stretch up to the shelf for it. My Mum was uncomfortable shopping here because she did not like people to know what she was buying.”

“At four years old, I started nursery school here at Columbia Rd School. I could see it from my house and I used to walk to school once I was old enough. It was a good school and I had a good education. The East End was being elevated then and we were lucky to have some excellent teachers. It was quite disciplined and I got told off once for being late for morning assembly. I got in with two children who said, ‘Shall we go to the sweetshop and buy sweets instead?’ So I spent my sixpence pocket money on sweets and then I went to school and I got told off. I was placed in front of everyone in the hall and my wrist was slapped several times as punishment. I wasn’t too riotous, I think I was quite academic. English and Art were my best subjects. I still have one long-standing friend, Carol, who I met here. My parents were completely thrilled when I got a place at Central Foundation School and  I left at twelve.”

“Round the corner from us was a bomb site known as ‘the black buildings.’ Subsequently, I found out it was the Columbia Rd Market founded by Angela Burdett Coutts. It was an open bomb site and the most dangerous of places to play. We used to dare each other to go in because it was so creepy. There were dead cats and boys threw things at you. It was a place of mayhem but it was fun.”

“When I was eight years old, my sister who was twelve years older than me, got married here at Shoreditch Church. My Mum made the bridesmaid dresses but my sister splashed out on a proper bridal dress from Stoke Newington. It must have been quite a stretch because my sister paid for most of her own wedding. She still has all the original receipts! I remember thinking how boring the service was, it just seemed to go on for ever and ever. They went on honeymoon to Canvey Island. It was a successful marriage, they were married almost sixty years until she lost her husband last year.”

Sue stands central as bridesmaid at the wedding of her sister Barbara to Ron

“When I was a kid, the most exciting thing to do on a Sunday was to come here to Sclater St with my Dad. He would buy sensible things like boxes of broken biscuits and tins with no labels on, he was quite a cheapskate. Afterwards, I would drag him down here to the shops with birds in cages. There was donkey for sale here once and people brought their puppies to sell. It was all a bit dodgy which was why they shut it down eventually. However, for me it was the most exciting thing because I could play with the puppies and kittens although I never got to own one. We always had a budgie at home, it was always called ‘Jackie’ because we had a succession of them. We didn’t keep it in the cage, our bird was free the fly around the flat. Some escaped.”

“Central Foundation School For Girls was prestigious and I had the best education, with the broadest range of subjects. It was the time of the equal rights movement and our teachers were quite right on. The hall was where we did sports and I remember playing volley-ball and smashing one of the lights. I did fencing and my teacher was in the Olympic team, she did well.

I was completely daft because I got engaged at fifteen when I was still at school. Although the world was moving on, in the East End we never quite got it. My parents’ aspiration for me was that I should not work in a factory, so I worked in an office. I left school and went to work at Central Electricity Board in Newgate St as a copy typist. It was clean, it was a step up. I also got married and moved to Gravesend, but it all fell apart after two years because I hated being away from London. I felt like a fish out of water and I came back. When I walk these streets, I feel like I belong.

Ten years ago, I became a Blue Badge Guide. I have always been interested in history, so I did an Open University degree at forty. I have Huguenot ancestry and am descended from Sarah Marchant who was buried in Christ Church, Spitalfields, in the eighteenth century.

It all came good for me in the end because I have so much knowledge in my head and it really helps me doing my guiding. I love it.”

Sue in the fencing team at Central Foundation School for Girls

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