Charles Waite - Survivor of the Long March

A bus drew up and the conductor was hanging off the rail at the back. As I got on, swinging my kit bag on ahead, he said, ‘Steady on, mate,’ and ducked.

‘I’m sorry but I haven’t got any money,’ I said, showing him my travel warrant.

‘Not valid on this, mate. Sorry.’

I thought he was going to refuse to take me. I told him who I was and where I had come from and just enough about my long journey back across Germany for him to take pity on me. He picked my bag up, put it on a seat inside and said, ‘You get in and sit there. Nobody’s going to turn you off.’

When we got to Barking station he helped me off, carrying my bag across the road and put it down against a wall. He shook my hand and said, ‘Cor! Haven’t I got something to tell my missus when I get home.’

I started walking, taking in familiar sights: the junction at Ripple Road, pubs, shops and the Park. I had imagined walking down Movers Lane many times over the last five years. I passed a woman I knew who was sweeping the front step. She looked up but she didn’t recognise me. All she said was, ‘Oh, another one home.’ And I said, ‘Yes,’ and walked on.

When I got to our little row of shops with the newsagents, grocers, our greengrocers and my aunt and uncle’s butchers, I was expecting (or hoping) to see all the family out in the street waiting for me. A bit of a welcome home. Of course, when I got nearer and saw the blinds down in the shops and the closed signs up, I remembered that it was Monday and they didn’t open. What a pity! They had probably gone out for the day somewhere and missed my telegram. I knocked on the door just in case but there was nobody home. I wasn’t worried so I tried next door at Auntie Elsie and Uncle Joe’s.

Their shop was shut but I tapped on the little glass window in the front door and after a few minutes I heard footsteps. The door opened and Auntie stood there, looking at this strange man in uniform on her front step. Then the penny dropped and she just stood with her mouth open, speechless.

‘Yes, it is me, Auntie Elsie. It’s Charlie,’ I stood outside holding my kit bag.

‘Who is it?’ Joe called out from the back.

Elsie still hadn’t spoken to me but shouted back, ‘It’s Charlie. Alice’s boy, come home.’

‘Well, don’t leave him standing on the doorstep, woman,’ Joe shouted from the back. ‘Bring him in.’ He appeared in the hall in his shirt sleeves and no collar. ‘Come on in, lad. Come on in,’ and he put his hand out and shook mine so hard I felt my poor bones cracking.

I followed them into the back parlour where three of my girl cousins were sitting at the table. Of course they had changed a bit since I had last seen them, as had I.

‘Look who’s here, girls. It’s your cousin Charlie.’ Gwen and Joyce, the older ones, got up and came round to give me a hug. Little Jean followed; she’d been just a toddler when I had last seen her.

‘When will they be back?’ I said, indicating next door.

‘Your parents. Didn’t you know? They moved out to Leigh-on-Sea,’ Joe said.

‘Bought a house. Your dad still works in the shop,’ said Elsie.

I told them I hadn’t received any letters for at least six months so was out of touch with the family.

‘Never mind that. What about something to eat?’ Joe rubbed his hands together. ‘You look as though you could do with a good square meal inside you.’

I nodded. ‘I could eat a horse,’ I said.

Joe laughed. ‘Sorry, no horse but I could do a nice rump steak or some tasty sausages. What you fancy for your tea?’

My mouth was watering. ‘A pork chop, please. That would go down a treat,’ I said and Joe went off next door.

Elsie put the kettle on in the kitchen and the girls kept me company. It was lovely to hear their girlish chatter and giggles. Joe went into his cold storage room to check what he had and came back with two enormous pork chops, lovely and pink with a thick ribbon of fat on the side of each one. Sadly, I only managed to eat a couple of mouthfuls. I wasn’t used to eating meat or anything much really, and my poor stomach couldn’t take it – or my teeth. I had to be careful what I ate for a very long time.

What happened next was that Joe rang one of my brothers with the good news of my safe arrival home and asked him to come round and pick me up and take me to Leigh. All I remember is that on the way there I was looking out of the window taking in everything. We stopped at some crossroads and right on the corner was a big dairy company shop and I could see the window display with a huge cheese on a stand in the middle.

I said, ‘Cor, look at that! There’s us been crying out for food all this time and you’ve got cheeses the size of a house.’ But you know what, it was a dummy and there wasn’t much real cheese around anywhere. Everybody at home was struggling with a ration of 50gms per week, and there I was one night, 1000 miles away, stuffing my face with huge chunks of cheese stolen from the railway truck and a load of horrible rats eating the rest.

We reached my parents’ home which was a fine mid-terraced house in what was known as ‘the good part’ of town. When my mother opened the door and saw me she was lost for words. She wrapped me in her arms and held me tight for a very long time. My father shook my hand, patted me on the back and took me into the front parlour. When my sister Elsie saw me she burst into tears and ran out of the room.

Lily and I were reunited on the platform at Leigh-on-Sea railway station. I nearly missed her getting off the train as I didn’t recognise her in uniform. She was given compassionate leave and had come straight from Slough where she was stationed. She was about to be made a sergeant in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). Her third stripe was waiting in the office for her to collect and sew on her uniform, when I re-appeared.

Lily made a life of her own while I was away, working to support herself and be independent. She wrote to me and told me about what she was up to so I knew a bit about her work. She was always a hard worker and a year or so after the war broke out she left her job as a seamstress and applied for war work. She was a fitter at a Spitfire factory out somewhere in Hertfordshire, fixing fire guards (special protective windscreens) to cockpits. They were designed to help protect pilots from the serious burns which many suffered when their planes were shot down. That was a good thing to do. Always clever with her hands, my Lily.

She joined the ATS in May 1943 and soon after was promoted to Corporal and put in charge of a whole hut of women. She was involved in training girls for their various jobs in supporting the work of the army. She learned to drive on a little Austin motor and became a staff driver. She took officers out to meetings just like me in France. She was so well thought of that one of the officers said that she could come and work for her after the war. And now I had come back to spoil everything.

Lily didn’t run away in horror when she saw me. She rushed towards me and we fell into each other’s arms. We hugged and kissed and that was it. She said nothing about how awful I looked or how thin I was. She didn’t say that she didn’t love me any more and didn’t want to marry me because she had met somebody else. She just said, ‘Oh, Charlie,’ and looked at me with her big brown eyes and smiled her lovely smile, ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

Three weeks later I took her to a branch of Herbert Wolf, the jewellers, in Oxford Street and bought her the biggest engagement ring I could afford. Buying Lily a ring meant a lot to me. I had always felt guilty about the gold signet ring my mother had given me, which I had exchanged for half of loaf of bread with a German guard. A ring is a powerful symbol of love. Once I put the ring on Lily’s finger, I hoped she would never take it off.