‘The Careers Officer expected Bermondsey girls to go into typing or hairdressing,’
Because the Hatch family lived in just 3 rooms with no bathroom in Camilla Road, Mary Hatch demanded her baby was born in a hospital. With no room in Guy’s, Ann was born in St Giles’ Hospital in Camberwell, not what this family with roots in Bermondsey going back to the 17th century wanted. Nevertheless, all went well and Ann grew up in the house off The Blue until she was 13, writes Michael Holland.
Ann’s parents worked locally; dad worked a few years at a shoemaker’s in Rotherhithe Street where the kindly man there taught him how to read and write properly after his education had been disrupted by the war. At 21 he became a docker. Mum worked in a Jewish dressmaker’s over the East End before getting into the office work that she always desired and retired after many years in the Borough Treasurer’s office in Spa Road.
In 1974 the family moved to the brand new Lucey Way flats, where all the kids would play ‘Tin Tan Tommy, Runouts, and Two Balls Up The Wall…’ Ann swore that she could still do it now, and even remembered some of the songs and moves that accompanied the balls bouncing off the wall. Skipping also got a mention and her love for playing football: ‘If I was young now I’d be a Lioness,’ she claims with confidence.
Family holidays would be spent at ‘quirky places that Mum found, which was great because we went all over the place and somewhere different every year,’ Ann ran off a list that included, Kingsdown, Isle of Wight, Hastings, Scotland and Germany. ‘Me and my brother Michael had a nice childhood, we done lots of things as a family.’
Ann’s education began in Kintore Way nursery and then Alma School where she left with very fond memories of teachers, all of whom she name-checks and even recalls some of the lessons.
Ann was a big fan of history and all the sports on offer, and these loves continued at secondary school, Aylwin: ‘I captained the hockey team,’ she says proudly, and tells of a Miss Killick who instilled in Ann a love of science and biology, both of which eventually featured greatly in her life despite the Careers Officer laughing at her when she said she wanted to work in those areas. ‘Bermondsey girls were expected to go into typing or hairdressing,’ she remembers. ‘That was our career options because we were from Bermondsey.’
While at Alma School, Ann was introduced to the Girl Guides: ‘The 3rd North Bermondsey Group – Forget-Me-Not Patrol,’ she recalls with her chin up and shoulders back. ‘I loved being a Guide,’ adds the woman who, many years later when her own daughter Katherine joined, marched right back into that world by helping out at camp before then becoming a Guide Leader, and the District Commissioner… Ann would still be there if it wasn’t for her mother’s current health problems.
Ann left Sixth Form with CSEs and ‘O’ Levels and joined the world of work. After a summer in a Bermondsey Street chemist’s she applied for an apprenticeship with the ILEA as a Science Technician, which involved three days at college and two days working in a school.
This was the beginning of lifelong learning for Ann in her chosen career that took in many exams, many schools across London(including several in Southwark), a degree, and finds her now as Senior Science Technician at Bishop Thomas Grant School in Streatham, where she has been for 25 years. She says of her work: ‘The best thing is the fulfilment you get from seeing the kids reach their potential – whatever level that is – there’s no other job like it… The rewards from it are astronomical.’
When school gave way to going out as grown-ups, Ann could be found in the Tiger Tavern on Tower Hill, The Fellmongers or The Victoria drinking ‘Cinzano and lemonade’ she laughs. ‘In the late 70s we would go to “The Best Disco in Town” in the Lyceum.” And, of course, there were several Old Kent Road pubs that Ann and her friends would also frequent in its heyday.
Ann Hatch met Colin Smith at the squash club in the Elephant & Castle Leisure Centre when she went with a friend and Colin went with his. They became closer and, miraculously, the two teams married each other! In due course, Colin, a true gentleman, got down on one knee in Davy’s Wine Bar, Greenwich, and proposed. ‘He did it all proper, he asked my mum and dad for my hand in marriage first.’ They had their wedding in St James’s Church, where Ann’s parents wed, and their reception on a barge on the Thames.
Their first home was in Blick House, Neptune Street, before moving to their current home on the Rotherhithe Peninsular where Surrey Docks once serviced the ships that brought and departed with cargo.
The wanderlust her mum instilled into her, Ann has passed on to her own children, Katherine and James. She likes to travel this country and abroad, and has a long list of places still to tick off.
For Ann the greatest thing about Bermondsey is the people: ‘You get what you get with them, you may not like it but they’ll tell you straight… Plus, the sense of community here.’
And community is something that Ann strongly admires; she is chair of the Southwark Park Association and also gives guided history tours of her beloved Bermondsey around the docks and where some of the area’s famous factories once stood when this area was mainly industrial: ‘Miss Pearson and Miss Gibbons were the teachers that reinforced my love of history so I try to keep the Bermondsey spirit alive and our history alive because we’ve got more history than you can shake a stick at,’ she concludes nobly.
Ann has researched her heritage and found records showing that her mother’s side of the family have worked on, or close by, the Thames for 400 years: ‘They were watermen back then – the taxi drivers of their day.’
I think that explains why Ann Smith has always lived close to the docks or the river – A life lived in SE16.
