‘What about Irma? Is she still with them?’
‘Sadly Irma died, in that bad winter of 1947. She must have gone outside for something, kindling perhaps and was found frozen to death in the farm yard the next morning, in a huge drift of snow. It’s believed she was suffering from confusion or some sort of senile dementia, or perhaps had a stroke, fell and banged her head. No one is quite sure. The sad part was that Adam wasn’t home at the time, or he could have gone and looked for her. He’d been moving his stock on to lower, safer ground. Rose was asleep upstairs, so didn’t realise there was a problem until too late. That was a bad time for them both.’
‘I’m so sorry. Poor Irma.’
‘Yes, poor Irma. And you?’ Lou looked directly into Gracie’s eyes and found something there which prompted her to say, ‘Oh, I’ve missed you. So much. I was thinking of the waste. All these years gone by and not a word. What happened to us, to you? For God’s sake, tell me. Where did you go after - after that night? I need to know everything.’
They sat facing each other across a small table in a dim corner of the Eagle’s Head, a cosy fire burning in the old grate, and Gracie told her story. It didn’t take long.
‘After Erich was shot and Karl moved to another camp, I thought I would be in huge trouble too. But since the two men never reached me in the clearing, and no one in authority was aware that I’d planned to help them, I met with no difficulties; save for losing you, and all my friends among the squad.’ She gave a half smile. ‘I went back home for a while, needing to recuperate, I suppose. That was a mistake I quickly recognised. Mum and Dad were as bad as ever. Nothing had changed, and I missed you all so much.’
‘We missed you.’
They exchanged a telling glance, like an unspoken apology, given and accepted. Lou said, ‘I hear from the others occasionally. Jeannie went back to her beloved Scotland and married a widower. Lena and Tess set up in business together, running a market garden.’
‘Good for them.’
‘Lena swore she’d never go back to working inside again. But you were telling me your story. What happened next?’
‘Fortunately, the Timber Corps were happy for me to stay on and sent me to Scotland. I worked there for a couple of years and then moved back down to Cornwall. Ended up pretty well where we began, would you believe? Which reminds me. Remember Eddie, Rose’s brother?’
‘Once seen never forgotten.’ Lou pretended to tidy her bangs, though her chestnut hair had been cut years ago and she now wore it in a short, fifties style bob. ‘What a randy bugger he was. Creepy-crawly eyes.’
‘They found his body in the cellar of Clovellan House. Must have got trapped in there when he was drunk one night. Nobody found him for years as Lord Clovellan was away. Didn’t even knew he was missing. Apparently Matron assumed he’d gone off with Rose. Makes you shudder, doesn’t it?’
‘No wonder she never heard from him. Oh, poor Rose. I don’t think she knows. We must tell her carefully, with tact.’
‘Yes, of course. She was never very fond of him though, was she? I mean, there was far more to that story than she ever told us, don’t you think? Anyway, as I was saying, there I was working back in Cornwall by the end of the war. Restrictions were lifted, at least in the respect that Karl and I were allowed to see each other, although in theory fraternisation was still not allowed. We got married in September 1946 and had a marvellous celebration with a wedding cake and everything. Even Mum and Dad came. Amazing! Not that they were speaking to each other, of course.’ She laughed, but the sound faded as a shadow flickered across her face.
‘There were huge difficulties, of course, even after we married. Karl was still held in a camp for one thing, as were most PoWs, so we spent our wedding night, every night in fact, apart. And, as expected, I was no longer considered to be British. Is it such a sin to fall in love?’
‘There must be plenty worse,’ Lou agreed, with some sympathy.
‘Exactly. When I had my first child a year later - oh yes,’ she added with a smile, ‘we did manage to get together sometimes. As I said, restrictions were easing but every night he always had to go back to the camp at dusk. Well, when I went into labour, no hospital would take me. They told me that since I had married a German I should go to Germany to have the baby. Can you believe it? Crazy! I complained bitterly. Loud and long.’
Lou grinned. ‘As only you know how.’
‘Fortunately I had my baby, a daughter, safe and well. They even allowed Karl to pay us a visit. Eventually, by the spring of that year, 1947, Karl was repatriated but he wanted to stay here in England and, after a flurry of letters to various MPs, courts and goodness knows who else, he got his wish. We now have two more children, both boys, and have been as happy as Larry ever since.’
She smiled at her friend, and Lou grabbed her in a fierce hug. ‘I’m
so
pleased. And so sorry for - for how I reacted. It was just...’
‘…there was a war on, I know. Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge now. Forget it. So what about you?’ Gracie’s face was suddenly serious. ‘What about Gordon?’ At that instant, a movement outside the pub window caught her eye. ‘Oh, here comes Karl now. Don’t you think he’s as handsome as ever? Still got those lovely thick blonde lashes, and those adorable pale blue eyes. Oh, and Rose and Adam are with him, and another chap, walking with a stick. Who…?’
‘That’s my Gordon.’ Lou said proudly, her grin seeming to stretch from ear to ear. ‘Stick thin after years in a PoW camp himself, a bit frayed around the edges, and wounded when his ship went down in the campaign off Italy. But he still limps along, if not with quite his old sailor swagger.’
‘Oh Lou, how lucky we are. All together again, after all these years.’ Then Rose was flying in through the door straight into her arms and they were all weeping together, making no attempt to stop the tears. It was some long moments before any of them could speak again.
‘Did you see that notice, ‘
The Forest Code
’ on the board where the side entrance to the compound used to be?’ Gracie asked. ‘It says, “
Leave nothing but footprints.
” Do you think we’ve left ours in this forest?’
Lou smiled. ‘I’m sure we have. Footprints in time. Some of them rather muddy ones. But I like the last line best, “
take away nothing... except memories
.” For me, a memory is the most precious part of friendship, the greatest treasure of all.’
When in 1942 an emergency appeal was made to recruit members for the Women’s Timber Corps, a branch of the Women’s Land Army that is now barely remembered, critics didn’t believe it possible for young girls, many of them typists, hairdressers and shop assistants, to tolerate the cold and mud of winter, the long hours and heavy work involved in the vital task of timber production. Timber was needed for pitprops and telegraph poles but with young foresters having been called up, there was insufficient manpower available.
Training centres were set up to which volunteers came at a rate of 250 a month, and after a general introduction to crosscutting, sawing and felling, clearing and measuring, as well as haulage with tractors and horses, the girls specialised in the branch for which they were found to be most suited. They could not be expected to learn all the tricks of the trade in a month but were taught the basic skills, a respect for their tools, and an understanding of the importance of sound timber to the extent of being taken down a mine to view it in situ.
The two women I interviewed: Elsie Taylor and Betty Kirkland, joined as young girls, Betty only 17, because she was too young to get in the WRNS, while Elsie simply fell for the uniform. This comprised corduroy breeches with a green sweater to work in, and alpaca for best. ‘The overcoat was lovely and warm,’ Elsie remembers, ‘in a reddish brown with a fleece lining.’ Both women felt proud to wear the crossed brass axes stitched on to it, and the Timber Corps hat which was later changed to a green beret. They wore halfway boots which laced up over wool socks, turning these down when it was fine, up when it was wet. Of those first days in training, Elsie remembers huts of corrugated iron, accommodating up to thirty girls in each. She was provided with a blanket and a pair of sheets and matron insisted on hospital corners which she didn’t know how to do, so was made to do them over and over until she got it right. Every morning they would be woken by a loud bell followed by a bellowing voice telling them to, ‘Stand by your beds’. It made Elsie feel as if she truly had joined the army.
At the end of the month of training, qualified candidates were formally enrolled in the Timber Corps and sent to work up and down the country, some to timber merchants, the rest employed by the Home Timber Production Department, often far from home so that they had to be billeted with farmers or forestry workers.
The farmer provided the tools, which must be kept sharp. Blisters were common, as were aching muscles but there was little time for sympathy or pampering. Elsie shows me her hands, happily explaining that they have been scarred ever since.
‘Mother had a fit when she saw them. But over time the skin went hard and you never felt it after that,’ she told me.
Neither Elsie nor Betty had any complaints but rather recalled with good humour back aches, chopped fingers, sun stroke, and spiders in their clothing. They undoubtedly loved the work, and claimed to be stronger and feel fitter for being outdoors, ailing little in the way of coughs and colds. But undoubtedly it was a hard life, and many Timber Jills were not so fortunate, suffering much worse problems, even attacks from unsympathetic farmers or foresters.
The Timber Corps recruits were taught how to take trees down, how to use a bushman saw, and a longer cross-cut type which needed someone at each end. Betty explained how the tree must be cut close to the ground, leaving no stool that you could trip over, or a tractor bump into. She used a 5lb Ellwood Felling axe which she still uses to this day, for all she is passed eighty. On all of my visits there was always a good stack of wood standing outside her cottage, that she’d chopped herself.
‘At seventeen, and quite small, it was a hard job to peel off all the bark, and take out the knots with a draw knife,’ she said. ‘The final task was to burn all the remaining small twigs and leaves, known as brash, to avoid bugs which could infect the remaining trees.’
Elsie recalls her first felling with some amusement. ‘I was so excited I called out timber, and one of the men working nearby shouted, ‘Look out, there’s a match-stick coming down.’ She furiously informed him that when she was as big as him she’d take a big one down.
Betty worked for most of the war in Grizedale Forest close to the German POW Camp, which was strictly for officers. She remembers the PoWs used to march up and down the road for exercise. They’d make comments to the girls and the guard would shout at them: ‘Eyes front.’ There was a machine gun trained on them the whole time, much to the outrage of the prisoners. ‘We are German Officers, and if we say we will not escape, we will keep our word.’
Of course, escape attempts were common, particularly when they were out working in the forest, and the incidents in my novel are based on a true event. If they could reach the coast they could get to Ireland, but none succeeded. They would all be caught later on the fells in a sorry state. Trouble-makers were taken up to London in a blacked-out car for interrogation.
Betty told me she had to show a pass at the camp gates to reach the forest to work. There was a sentry on guard who would say: ‘Halt, who goes there? Friend or Foe?’
‘Friend,’ she would say.
‘Advance friend to be recognised.’
So Betty would show her pass and be allowed through.
They’d ride up on a bicycle which had a dynamo. The police would stop them to check their lights to make sure they were properly shielded by a hood like a black peaked cap. Betty became a measurer. Before any felling could be done, she had to select the right trees and mark them with a white blaze. She used callipers to get the diameter, and then estimated the height. The men were supposed to take the marked trees out first, using horses.
‘Sometimes’ she told me, ‘they took out a different one, just because it was easier to get at, which they really shouldn’t have done.’
The girls worked from eight till five most days and were rarely allowed a full weekend off, with four weeks a year leave. Betty sometimes got a lift to the station at Ulverston to go and see her mother who was a seven shilling widow. Betty earned twenty-eight shillings a week, less insurance. Fourteen shillings went on board and lodging at the camp and she sent her mother five shillings.
After the war Betty worked in twenty-two different counties over a period of three years from 1947- 49 on this task. Restocking was then the priority, involving planting in sample areas.
The pessimists and cynics were proved wrong. The Women’s Timber Corps played a substantial part in what was termed ‘the victory of production.’ They effectively demonstrated that women could fell light timber as neatly as men, drive and maintain heavy lorries and tractors, and they even gained the respect of old hands on the saw-benches. They dealt with an increasing complexity of records and returns and played a valuable part in the countrywide census of standing timber.
Betty stayed on with the Forestry Commission for all her working life, much of it employed as a cartographic draughtsman. She showed me examples of her work, which were impressive. Elsie left towards the end of the war and settled into marriage but both women look back on their years with the Timber Corps with deep affection and pride.