Beginnings

Abstract

Louis Harold Gray (Hal) was born in Barnes, South London, on 10 November 1905, into a world very different from London of the twenty-first century. Transport was mainly horse drawn, with few motor buses. Skirts swept the ground, milk came from a dairy or was delivered to the door, men wore waistcoats and hats (typically flat cloth caps, bowlers or top hats) and the many poor were often devastatingly poor. It was common to see children without shoes, even in winter. Clothing was scanty and for many, underwear was unknown. Children played in the street and gas lights and coal fires provided light and heat. The European political situation was stable, although there was a challenge to Britain from the German Navy, and relations were not good with France. In Britain, there were some continuing effects of the Boer War. However, socialist ideas were starting to become popular and the British Labour Party had been founded five years before Hal’s birth.