Annie Groves - The Grafton Girls

‘Who was that you was talking to?’ Maureen had demanded to know when they had finally been told to stop work for their dinner break.

‘She was on the bus this morning,’ Ruthie had answered her.

‘Well, just remember that you’re my friend, not her’s,’ Maureen had told Ruthie sharply.

‘Jiggered, are yer, Ruthie?’ Jess asked Ruthie sympathetically as the bus made its way slowly along Edge Hill Road. ‘It gets everyone like that on their first day.’

Ruthie forced her eyes open, nodding her head. ‘I’ve been trying to memorise the rules they told us this morning,’ she said tiredly, repeating, ‘No jewellery of any kind but married women can wear their wedding rings so long as they are bandaged up, no hairpins or metal hair adornments, no cigarettes, matches or lighters, and nothing that could ignite or cause an explosion.’ She knew she ought to feel more scared about the work she would be doing, only she was far too tired.

‘Like milk, I hope, only yer going to be drinking a lot of it. I reckon if I’d knowed in time I could ’ave told them I can’t stomach milk. Then they would have put me somewhere else,’ Jess told her with a grin.

‘I don’t mind the milk,’ Ruthie admitted, ‘but I don’t know how you can pack the shells so quickly.’

Jess laughed. ‘Oh, you’ll soon get the hang of it. You wasn’t too bad at all – better than that girl you was chatting with over dinner. Bit of an odd sort, if you ask me. Know her well, do you?’

‘No. She was new today too. She said that we should pal up because we’d both started together on our own.’

‘You wasn’t on your own, you’re with us,’ Jess told Ruthie stoutly. ‘Look, we all go down the Grafton Ballroom on a Saturday night – why don’t you come along with us?’

‘Oh, that’s very kind of you but I couldn’t…’

‘Don’t be so daft. Of course you can. We meet up outside at about half-past six, then we can get in early and get a decent table. And we allus stick together so that none of them lads start thinking they can get away with any funny business. Having a dance is all right, but that’s as far as it goes.’

‘Sez you,’ one of the other girls chipped in. ‘Like you wasn’t smooching wi’ that soldier the other week.’

‘What? Charlie?’ Jess tossed her curls. ‘I’ll have you know that him and me was at school together. Like a brother to me, he is. Gone off to serve abroad, he has now.’

Wide-eyed, Ruthie listened to the talk. She would have loved to have gone to the Grafton. She had never been to a dance hall, but it was impossible for her to go. How could she leave her mother? But she couldn’t tell anyone about her mother, of course. It would be disloyal.

Half an hour later, having got off the bus, Ruthie turned the corner from Edge Hill Road into Chestnut Close. She could see the slim figure of a young woman several yards in front of her. Sighing enviously over the smartness of her WAAF uniform, Ruthie realised that she must be one of Mrs Lawson’s billetees. Mrs Lawson had complained vociferously at first when she had learned that she was to have service personnel billeted on her, but Mrs Brown, Ruthie’s mother’s neighbour, had confided to them that Mrs Lawson was doing very nicely indeed out of her billetees.

‘It’s not just the money – they bring her all sorts of extras from the Naafi canteen, they do.’

Mary Brown was a bit of a gossip but she had a kind heart and Ruthie was grateful to her for the way she tried to cheer up her mother. She was standing in her small front garden when Ruthie walked past, so Ruthie stopped to say hello to her.

‘How did it go, Ruthie love?’ Mrs Brown asked. ‘Only your mam got a bit upset at dinner, like, wondering where you was.’

‘Oh dear, I was worried that something like that would happen. I’ve bin explaining to her all week about all women between the ages of twenty and thirty being called up by the government to do war work, and that with me coming up for me twentieth birthday I needed to get meself a proper war work job so that I could stay at home with her, instead of being sent away to work somewhere or go into uniform, but I could tell last night, when I was talking to her about it again, that she didn’t really understand. I thought there’d be ructions. I’m really sorry that you’ve had to deal with it, Mrs Brown,’ she apologised guiltily.

‘There, Ruthie lass, there’s no need for you to go feeling bad about anything,’ Mrs Brown told her firmly. ‘You’ve bin a good daughter to your mam, and I’d have summat to say to anyone who tried to say different. Not that folks round here would do that. They can all see how hard you’ve had it with your mam since your dad died.’

Ruthie gave her neighbour a grateful look, but she couldn’t relax.

‘You didn’t…you didn’t say anything to Mum about me working on munitions, did you?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘Only, with Dad dying in the way he did…’

Her neighbour’s vigorous shaking of her head stopped Ruthie continuing.

‘No, Ruthie, you needn’t worry about that. The minute your mam started fretting and asking why you hadn’t come back from getting in the rations, I did what you’d said and reminded her that you’d had to go to work because Mr Churchill had said so, but I didn’t say nothing about it being in munitions.’

‘Oh, thank you. Mum thinks such a lot of Mr Churchill that I was hoping that that would stop her from worrying,’ Ruthie admitted. ‘It’s difficult for her to understand the way things are.’

‘No, she’s not bin the same since she lost your dad. Took it hard, she has, and no mistake. I’ve done a bit of bubble and squeak for me own tea and there’s plenty left, if you fancy some. It will save you having to cook.’

Ruthie smiled her thanks. All she wanted to do was crawl into her bed. She hadn’t realised how tired she was going to feel but she would have to get used to it, she told herself firmly.

‘You’re a good girl, Ruthie, like I just said, but you should be having a bit more fun, like other girls do, going out dancing and that,’ Mary Brown told her kindly.

‘I’ve been asked out dancing by some of the girls I’m working with,’ Ruthie told her quickly, not wanting her to feel sorry for her.

‘Well, I’m right pleased about that.’

‘I won’t be able to go, though,’ Ruthie felt bound to point out. ‘Mum wouldn’t understand and she’d fret.’

‘Well, I can go and sit in with her for you, don’t you worry about that. It will give us both a bit of company, what with my Joe going off and doing his ARP stuff.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that, Mrs Brown,’ Ruthie protested.

‘Who said you was? It’s me as is doing the offering, not you doing the asking. And don’t you go telling me that you don’t want to go. Of course you do – any young girl would. And if yer mam was in her right senses she’d be wanting you to go as well. There’s a war on, Ruthie, and you young ones have to have your fun whilst you can, that’s what I say. It’s different for us; we’ve had our lives, but you…’

Ruthie shivered as she heard the sadness in their neighbour’s voice. It was true that she longed to go out and have fun as she saw other girls doing but she felt that it was her duty to take care of her mother now that her father was dead.

As though she had guessed her thoughts, Mrs Brown said gently, ‘It would break your dad’s heart if he could see you and your mam now, Ruthie. Thought the world of you, he did, and the last thing he would want is for you to be tied to your mam like she was the little ’un.’

‘Mum doesn’t understand…about the war,’ Ruthie defended her mother quickly. ‘She thinks if I’m not there that I might not come back like…like Dad.’