Authors: Jenny Telfer Chaplin
The war years had been good to Becky and Ewan Graham.
Apart from the evacuation upset right at the beginning and the odd broken
window, they and their children had been spared the heartache and the utter
horror which had blighted so many lives in different countries over the course
of the conflict. In some ways the war had actually been good for them as the
busy shipyards kept their restaurant – now named Graham’s – packed with hungry
workmen and queued out every dinner hour at the carry-out counter.
Ewan sighed. “I had thought the children would follow
us into the business. I could see us ending up with a chain of restaurants like
Miss Cranston’s Tearooms …”
“We can’t live their lives for them, Ewan,” Becky said.
“Val’s the teacher I never became. Scott’s got a place at the university to
study engineering. We’ve done well by them. It’s up to them now to make their
own way.”
London, August 1945
Isabel stood immobile in
the middle of the street. A flimsy airmail letter fluttered in her hand. Only the
chirrup of the bell on the postman’s bike broke the silence of the airless street.
Wheels wobbling, it rounded the corner to disappear into the suburban maze. The
perfume of roses, over-ripe vegetation and backyard chickens scented the sultry
atmosphere. The dazzling sun baked the dusty gardens, crimping the edges of leaves
and petals into crisp frills.
Isabel’s sandals stuck to the molten tarmac; treacly
residue clung to the heels. Her shriek pierced the air. She rushed from the road
and in through the gate of her little rented house, hardly aware of what she was
doing. It felt as if someone had punched her in the chest, knocking the air from
her lungs.
‘Penny, Penny! Daddy’s
coming home!’ Isabel waved the letter, with the familiar BFPO sign on the envelope,
around her head like a flag. Her eyes swam with tears of relief; the pupils wide
as a cat's at dusk. Her hand shook as she read the contents again. She tried to
absorb the message, to register its meaning, as she stumbled into the house. For
once the censor had not defaced the letter with the heavy black lines that gave
earlier communications the look of a school essay corrected by a stern teacher.
A letter at last! They hadn’t heard from Bill for months, even after the War ended
in May amidst universal jubilation.
Throughout the war news
from abroad had arrived belated and haphazard. Anticipated with foreboding or eagerness,
it had broken the spirit with despair or filled the recipient with hope. Now, finally,
it brought joy; this could mean an end to loneliness, to drudgery and a meaningless
grey existence.
‘He’ll be back from Italy next week!’
Isabel slumped onto the
shabby sofa, teasing her fingers through her dark curls as she read the letter again.
The drab uncut-moquette rubbed like sandpaper against the bare skin of her legs;
she wore no stockings during the day. Her head span with giddiness. Could happiness
make you giddy?
She panicked for a moment. Oh God, what will it
be like? When you haven’t seen someone for ... two years since his last home leave?
He might seem like a stranger. Trepidation and delight tumbled through her head.
She drew her knees up and hugged them close to stop her fears from overwhelming
her.
The need for Bill that
she had suppressed for so long came flooding back in a great warm tide. A shiver
of desire ran through her as she imagined his arms around her, his warm, strong
body pressed against hers, his kisses on her face. A soft breeze of a sigh escaped
her lips. I can’t believe it! He’ll be home in just a week; the wait will seem like
an eternity.
Penny had followed her
mother from the front door, where she had been watching. She advanced shyly, clearly
not comprehending. A straight bob framed her heart-shaped face and, as usual, a
thumb was stuck in her mouth. She watched Isabel dubiously and came close to her
knees.
‘We’re to meet him off
the train in Town,’ Isobel said, grabbing the perplexed Penny onto her lap and giving
her taut little body a huge hug. ‘Oh, darling, isn’t it exciting?’ She rubbed their
cheeks together, realising Penny could have no concept of what this news might mean.
Four-year-old Penny regarded
her mother in silence; a worried frown creased her porcelain-smooth brow. Something
unusual was happening. Trying to capture Isabel’s mood, she wriggled off her lap.
‘Daddy’s coming home!’ she repeated, turning a
ragged circle around the settee, waving her arms above her head as she attempted
to generate some excitement.
Fondly Isabel watched the
child run off through the open French door into the garden, realising that she couldn’t
be expected to join wholeheartedly in her own joy. The poor mite was a baby; she’d
never known her father. She must be thinking – who is this Daddy person of whom
I have heard so much yet seen so little? Isabel knew she had to reassure the child
that her world would be unchanged, but now she would have two parents to dote on
her; even to spoil her a little.
As soon as she had recovered
from the surprise, Isabel dashed round to her sister’s house. Doris lived only a
couple of streets away with George, her husband, and their two lively boys.
‘Doris!’ she called from
the path at the side of the house. Not waiting for a reply, she rushed straight
into the kitchen through the back door. ‘Bill’s coming home. Next week. The postman
just brought the letter.’
‘Ah, that’s wonderful!
You’ll be wanting some help then, to get ready for him,’ Doris said, observing the
grin on her sister’s face and wiping her flour-covered hands on her apron. ‘Come
and sit down, let’s have a cup of tea and talk about it.’
Isabel meekly did as she
was told and sat at the kitchen table, pushing aside the pastry-making paraphernalia.
‘Do you think Grace will be able to help too?’
‘Of course, she’s not too
busy at the Post Office at the moment,’ Doris replied, ruthlessly disregarding the
fact that the third sister frequently worked double shifts due to the shortage of
qualified staff.
A frantic week of preparations
followed the news of Bill’s imminent arrival. The modest little house where she
lived with Penny needed a thorough spring clean to satisfy Isabel. She wanted everything
to be perfect. She needn’t have worried, her two sisters eagerly mucked in. Their
merriment filled the house with laughter. Always a garrulous trio, they accompanied
their work with non-stop chatter.
‘Let’s get on with it then!
There’s no point just sitting around talking about it.’
‘No slacking, you. Give
it some more elbow grease!’
‘I’m so grateful – you’re
a couple of godsends!’
‘Don’t be daft, Bella!
We don’t mind. We’ve got to make the place spotless for Bill. Lots of spit and polish,
he’ll be used to that.’ The sisters laughed with a hint of irony, for they viewed
with some mirth their elder sister’s view that Bill was a superior being worthy
only of the best in all things.
‘Stop hanging around like
a wet week – go and make another cup of tea, we’re gasping.’
They cheerfully tied floral
pinafores over their frocks, round slim waists; figures kept trim by the deprivations
of war. They arranged scarves about their permed curls - Doris’s blonde and Grace’s
as ginger as the marigolds in the garden - turban-like with a bow at the front.
Behind the semi-detached cottage – two up, two down with a tiny kitchen and inadequate
bathroom – stood a pocket-sized garden given over almost entirely to growing vegetables
to supplement the rations. The neat rows of stately leeks, feathery carrot tops,
purple beetroot leaves and chubby dowager cabbages elbowing out the rest, represented
a tribute to hard work. Established by George and rigorously maintained; everyone
shared in the crop. The sisters weeded and hoed and harvested whatever produce was
available.
‘There’s enough cabbages
here for a small army!’ said Doris.
George normally put his strong back and arms into
the gardening. In a restricted occupation, he hadn’t been in the fighting War. He
worked as an unpaid air-raid warden and on the railway, Southern Region. ‘Someone’s
got to run it,’ he said with a note of pride. But they all knew he still felt a
sense of guilt at being relatively safe at home whilst his contemporaries lost their
lives all over the world. His guilt was particularly unjustified as he suffered
from chronic asthma and would have been rejected for service in any case. He came
to help the women with the heavy work whenever he could.
The girls vigorously polished
the windows with vinegar and old
Daily Mirrors
until they gleamed. They recoated the doorstep with the red tile paint their Dad
had found in his shed. They collected as many clothes-ration coupons as could be
mustered and piled them on the oilcloth surface of Isabel’s kitchen table.
'I was saving some coupons
for new shoes for Jimmy,' said Doris, ‘He’ll have to wait till next month. His sandals
still fit him. You have 'em, love. Go up to town and get something nice. No need
to go to
Smartwear
for this, it’s a special
occasion!’
You could buy an outfit
and pay on credit, one and six a week until it was yours, at
Smartwear
, a clothing store in Watford, near
the hospital. This innovative shop supplied many an emergency outfit.
During the bleakly frugal years of the War their
needs had been basic. “Make do and Mend” became their watchword. They seldom used
all the clothes coupons issued but shared garments amongst each other and passed
the older children’s cast-offs down to the younger ones. Luckily Penny was too young
to mind wearing boy’s shorts and sandals. So now they could scrape together surprisingly
quickly enough clothes coupons for an outfit and food ration points for a feast
for the homecoming. The little buff books with “Ministry of Food” written on the
cover were well-thumbed and full of retailer’s stamps where they had been cancelled.
‘We’ll make a cake with
the sugar and butter from the last Australian food parcel. Is there any dried fruit
left?’ Doris asked.
These welcome gifts from
Bill’s relatives in Australia arrived at irregular intervals. After months at sea
they often arrived battered and dented and sometimes crushed beyond usefulness.
But the family fell on the contents with delight. Packets of dried fruit, tins of
butter and boiled sweets for the children - often crystallised through long exposure
to the air but delicious nonetheless - all contained in these life-enhancing packages.
Tinned hams and tongue, dried egg – riches to those used to a measly ration of one
egg per week, and those usually went to the children, and treasure for those preparing
a welcome-home banquet.
A dry August; true to the
season. Brilliant sunshine blazed on the little house and raised their spirits.
The air and the neglected shrubs buzzed, thick with bees. The fragrance of roses
and honeysuckle mingled with the sooty aroma from the nearby railway line and the
less pleasant odour of the canal at the end of the garden. George spotted a rat
or two and contemplated getting a dog to keep them at bay. But what would they feed
it on? Their own meagre rations wouldn’t stretch to the nourishment of even the
smallest dog.
‘Well, at least we’ve got
a bit of summer for once.’ The sisters basked in the unaccustomed rays when they
took a moment to rest.
Isabel set an old galvanised
bathtub on the tiny patch of grass not dug up for vegetables and filled it with
water. Penny and Doris’s two boys splashed around in it for hours shrieking with
laughter.
'Mummy! Jimmy's going to
put worms down my neck!'
'She splashed me!' her
tormentor justified. Their shouting and squabbling split the viscous air of the
heat wave. The children’s skin tanned to a golden brown.
Grace, a prodigious knitter,
constructed a new cardigan for Penny from one of her own, unravelled and knitted
up again in an intricate Fair Isle pattern with coloured scraps left in her bulging
knitting bag.
‘You’re so clever,’ Isabel
said, holding it up to the light, ‘you’ve got such patience. I’d never be able to
do that. Penny will love it!’ She gently folded it away for Penny to wear when they
went to meet Bill.
Bill sent a parcel for Penny with some special
dresses from Italy, where he was serving at the War’s end, beautifully sewn with
smocking and frills in delicate fabrics. Florals and gauzes, checks and stripes
adorned with intricate embroidery. Penny greeted them with suspicion as she stroked
their fragility with careful fingers.
‘I won’t have to wear them
every day will I, Mummy?
‘No, darling, just for
best.’
Elaborately embellished
underwear, French knickers, slips, camisoles and nightgowns, light as spider’s webs,
accompanied Penny’s frocks. Made by Italian nuns out of parachute silk, Bill explained
in his letter. Isabel marvelled at the sheer delicate luxury of them. Twirling in
front of her mirror in the diaphanous, cloud-soft fabric she treasured in anticipation
the time when she would be able to wear them for him. Touched by his thoughtfulness
she still felt a little guilty about possessing such luxury in these days of austerity.
So much to treasure. Lovingly she packed everything away in tissue paper to await
his return.
‘Soon, my love,’ she whispered
to herself, ‘you’ll be here again.’
She gazed out of her bedroom
window into the bright summer sky, imagining the joy of their reunion. Surely, before
too long, life would be back to normal and they could be happy again.