Anne Bennett - Keep the Home Fires Burning

‘Where is the place of safety they’re going, anyroad?’ Magda asked as they walked home.

‘No one knows,’ Marion said. ‘That’s the terrible thing. Phyllis, Mary and Raymond’s mother, said all they were told was that wherever it was there would be host families ready to take in the children and care for them. She has no idea where that place is or what sort of family her two will end up with.’

‘Mary dain’t want to go,’ Magda said, ‘cos she was blarting her eyes out on the bus.’

‘Her mother was as well,’ Missie added.

‘Ah, yes,’ Marion said. ‘Poor woman was in a right state about it. One of the problems is that she doesn’t know whether she’s doing the right thing or not. She was just thinking that if the raids do come, she has to see to the two other little ones at home, so the eldest two would be better out of it for a while. If there are no raids she will have them back quick as lightning, I think.’

No one made any response to this because as they turned into their road, right beside their front gate women had gathered, earnestly discussing something.

‘What is it? What’s up?’ Marion said.

Marion’s next-door neighbour, Deidre Whitehead, answered, ‘News just came through on the wireless. Hitler’s armies have invaded Poland and they are fighting for their lives.’

Marion felt quite faint, although it was news that she had been expecting.

Ada Shipley said, ‘That’s it then. The balloon has definitely gone up. We’re going to have another war and if my lad’s right it will be bloodier even than the Great War. God help him, wherever he is tonight.’

Hear, hear, thought Marion as she hurried the children indoors. God help all of us.

The gas masks that Marion brought home for them later that day were just as awful as Mary had said, and they didn’t look a bit like any picture of Mickey Mouse that Magda had ever seen.

‘I can’t wear that,’ she complained, frantically tugging off the mask that Marion fitted on her. ‘I can’t breathe with that flipping thing covering my face.’

‘Of course you can,’ Marion said unsympathetically. ‘You will be glad enough to wear it if there are gas attacks. This is not the time to make a fuss about little things.’

‘If you ask me, not being able to breathe is a pretty big thing,’ Tony said. ‘I can’t breathe either, and I’ll tell you summat else as well: they won’t have to bother with sending no gas over here; the stink of rubber will do the job for them.’

Sarah felt sorry for the children. The gas masks were hideous, very smelly and uncomfortable to wear, and breathing once they were on was not easy. However, she felt she had to show the lead in this and so she said, ‘All right, so they’re not nice, but if we have to wear them then we have to, and that’s all there is to it. I’m sure that it’s just a case of getting used to it.’

‘Huh!’ said Tony contemptuously, but Marion threw Sarah a look of gratitude.

That night the talk around the tea table was all about the news that day. ‘The bosses heard it announced and came and told us lot on the shop floor,’ Bill said. ‘We have no option now, so I told the gaffer I’m off to enlist on Monday morning. He was prepared for it because I told him a while ago what I intended, once war was official, like.’

Marion swallowed the lump that seemed lodged in her throat and said, ‘Did he mind?’

‘Ain’t no good minding things like this in a war situation,’ Bill said. ‘Anyroad, he didn’t. He actually said if he had been a younger man he would have done the same thing and I weren’t the only one to go, by any means.’

‘He ain’t either, Mom,’ Richard said. ‘Remember them Jewish apprentices I told you about? Well, they’re all enlisting too. One of them said that he’s avenging the death of his parents because he thinks they must be dead or they would have got word to him by now. I can quite see how he feels. There were others as well. There was a right buzz in the canteen over dinner, wasn’t there, Dad?’

‘There was, son. And if all those who said they were enlisting actually do it, the foundry will be very short-handed. Although women can take on a lot of the men’s work, like they’re talking about, some of the foundry tasks will probably be too heavy for most of them.’

‘So what will they do about that?’

Bill shrugged. ‘Search me,’ he said. ‘But every man jack of us that can get out there and fight should, because we have to stop the Nazis while there’s still time.’

Bill’s words brought a chill to all of them.

‘I can’t help wishing you didn’t feel this way, just as I wish that we were not at war with anyone,’ Marion said, breaking the silence, ‘but I know what you have to do and though I can’t say truthfully that you go with my blessing, I’ll support you the best way I can.’

‘You can’t say fairer than that,’ Bill replied, and as he put his hand over hers on the table, Marion saw his eyes were very bright.

No one dawdled at Mass that Sunday for the Prime Minister was going to speak to the nation on the wireless just after eleven o’clock. Polly and Pat, and other neighbours without their own wireless sets, were crowded into the Whittakers’ and at a quarter past eleven they learned ‘this country is at war with Germany’. As the broadcast came to an end, some of the listeners had tears trickling down their cheeks, yet no one was surprised by the news.

Just then, a dreadful, ear-splitting sound rent the air. They all knew what it was – the siren signalling an attack ? and they all looked at each other fearfully, not sure what to do. It proved to be a false alarm but it galvanised Marion into action. For days, both in the newspaper and on the wireless, the Government had been advising householders to get together a shelter bag and put into it anything of value, such as ration books, identity cards, saving and bank books, insurance policies, treasured photographs, and maybe a pack of cards or dominoes, or favourite books for the children.

Marion hadn’t done it, as if not doing it was going to change what had been staring her in the face for weeks. Nor had she cleared out the cellar, though now that it had been reinforced it was where they might be spending a lot of their time. Their cellar was bigger than most, but this just meant that there was more room to house junk. As the all clear sounded, Marion said to Polly, ‘I went down yesterday and I had quite forgotten the rubbish we put in there, like the rickety wooden chairs, and that battered sagging sofa that we bought when we were first married.’

‘You might be glad of places to sit when the raids come.’

‘I know,’ Marion said. ‘I shan’t throw anything away. But I will ask Bill to look at the chairs. He’ll soon make them a bit sturdier; he’s very handy that way.’

‘Oh, I wish Pat was,’ Polly said. ‘He finds it hard to knock a nail in.’

Marion said nothing, because that was best whenever Pat’s name came up. Instead she said, ‘I wonder what Mammy will say about the recent turn of events.’

‘Well, you’ll know soon enough, won’t you?’ Polly said. ‘I suppose they’re coming to tea as usual?’

Marion nodded.

‘You might not be so keen on having them over every week once Bill joins the army,’ Polly went on. ‘I doubt a soldier will get as much money as Bill picks up now, and you may find it a bit of a struggle. If you’re strapped at all we can help you out. God knows, you’ve helped us out enough in the past.’

‘Let’s just see how we go for now,’ Marion said. ‘We’ll likely know more when the men come back from the recruiting office tomorrow.’

It was a fair step to Thorpe Street Barracks, the other side of town, near the Horse Fair in Edgbaston, not a place either Pat or Bill had been to before. They kept up a steady pace, though as they passed the White Lion pub Pat looked at it longingly because the day was warm one.