[The author’s biological father died of typhoid shortly before her birth in 1904. Following a period of destitution for herself and her mother, her mother remarried in 1908. The author refers to her stepfather as Father or Dad in the memoir, and indirectly names him as Mr Hart; he worked as ‘a Mains Foreman with the Electricity Company at Charing Cross’, p. 7]. 

Dad used to go to work at six a.m. so as to take advantage of the “workman’s” cheap fares on the trams, which meant a tram from Stepney to Aldgate (two pence), and then the underground train to Charing Cross. As soon as Dad was up, I used to creep down (very cold on the bare lino) and get in bed with Mum, and when Dad came in to say goodbye, we’d enquire if it was raining or foggy, and sometimes I’d sing a little rhyme:-

We wake up every morning when the cock

Begins to crow,

We say, “Good morning Father”,

And off to sleep we go.