Katie King - The Evacuee Christmas

Peggy sighed. She could already imagine how this was very probably going to work out for her.

Several minutes later, as Peggy made her way at long last over to Barbara’s, Jessie and Connie were walking along the street to school in the opposite direction, and they were so deep in conversation that they didn’t notice their auntie until they were almost level with her.

Peggy thought they both looked wan and anxious – the news of leaving their mother and father to head for pastures new with their classmates had obviously hit them hard.

‘Hello, you two. You’d better look sharp or else you’re going to be late,’ she said. ‘But first, I’ll tell you a secret. If it helps cheer you up, I think I might be coming on the train with you and your fellow school pupils on Monday. Won’t that be fun?’

They stared at each other with intent, serious expressions, and then they all laughed as Peggy had to add, ‘Well, maybe “fun” is the wrong word, but I daresay you know what I mean. If I can get a billet near to you, then you’ll know there’s always me to come to if either of you feel a bit miserable. And I shall be able to come to you if I’m feeling a bit sad about being away from home too. Is that a deal?’

Judging by their nods, it looked as if a pact had been made.

Chapter Six

Barbara was standing on the doorstep looking out for Peggy while polishing the brass door knocker, door handle and house number.

‘I’ve already told Mrs Truelove that I can’t go in today as I’ve got to get things organised, and she wasn’t thrilled but…’ Barbara’s voice drifted away as she’d already turned on her heel to stomp off towards the kitchen, her footsteps ringing out on the brown linoleum that floored the narrow hallway at number five Jubilee Street.

Peggy followed wearily in her younger sister’s wake (there was only the one year between them), very much looking forward to sitting down and enjoying a restorative cup of tea. It wasn’t yet half past eight but already Peggy was quite done in.

Half an hour later she felt much better, as Barbara had also made her eat some hot buttered toast while Barbara jotted down a long to-do list, and an equally lengthy shopping list.

‘Ted and I decided before we got out of bed this morning that we’re going to use our rainy-day money to send them away in new clothes. Let’s see how much is in the biscuit tin,’ said Barbara.

Peggy was surprised at this. Most families scrimped and saved to put a little by for emergencies, but now Barbara seemed happy to dip into this fund when actually, as far as Peggy could see, the children already had perfectly acceptable clothes that were always neatly pressed and mended, and that were nowhere near as threadbare as some that many other local children had no other option than to wear.

While Barbara and Peggy had been born and bred within the sound of church bells that they still lived within hearing distance of, their father had been a shopkeeper, and so they had grown up in relative comfort when compared to that of many of their contemporaries, Bermondsey being known throughout London as being a very poor borough. They had been allowed to stay at school past the age of fourteen, when a lot of their friends had been made to leave in order that they could go out to work to bring another wage in to add to the family’s housekeeping.

Peggy and Barbara’s mother had been very insistent that they had elocution lessons, and the result of this was that although without question they talked with a London accent, it wasn’t the broad cockney spoken by Ted and Bill, who joked that their wives were ‘very BBC’.

While this wasn’t strictly true as the received pronunciation of the broadcaster’s announcers was always distinctly more plummy (in fact, laughably so at times), nevertheless the sisters knew that their voices did sound posh when compared to most people in Bermondsey. Jessie and Connie had also been encouraged to speak properly by Barbara, another thing that hadn’t endeared Jessie to Larry, who had the slightest of stammers.

Barbara was always very set on keeping up family standards, and this required her taking good care of Jessie and Connie’s clothes, making sure they were always mended, clean and pressed, while Ted buffed and polished their leather T-bar sandals every evening. It gave both parents pleasure to see their children bathed and clean, and neatly turned out.

This sartorial attention was a whole lot more than many other local parents managed where either their children or themselves were concerned, although Peggy had some sympathy for why this might be as she could see it was very difficult for some families, who might have, perhaps, more than ten children to look after but with only a very scant income coming into the home each week.

Nevertheless, she suspected that when her and Bill’s baby arrived, she would find herself equally as keen to keep up the standards already heralded by Barbara.

Now Peggy watched with slight concern as Barbara climbed precariously up onto a stool to lift off the high mantelpiece above the kitchen hearth a slightly battered and dented metal biscuit barrel that commemorated King George V coming to the throne in 1910.

Peggy remembered this biscuit barrel with fond thoughts, as it had sat in their parents’ kitchen throughout her and Barbara’s childhood. Although Peggy was the oldest daughter, and therefore in theory should have had the first dibs on their parents’ possessions, when it came to closing up their house after they both died within months of each other, Peggy did a magnanimous act. It was just before Barbara and Ted’s marriage, which meant it was a year after Peggy and Bill’s own nuptials, when their mother succumbed to influenza and their father died not long after of, they liked to say, a broken heart. With only the slightest of pangs as she had always loved the biscuit barrel, Peggy had allowed her sister to stake, claim to the majority of their mother’s possessions, including the biscuit barrel, as Barbara was poised to set up her own home and Peggy had just about got herself and Bill comfortably fitted out by then.

Now, Barbara clunked the barrel down and onto the table, the number of large pennies in it adding considerably to its apparently hefty weight. She loosened the lid with her nails until she was able to work it off, before tipping the contents onto the maroon chenille tablecloth that adorned the kitchen table.

Peggy had long teased Barbara about her beloved tablecloth that had to be removed whenever the family ate, or when anything mucky was being done on the table. Barbara could be very stubborn if she chose, and so she resolutely refused to accept the tablecloth, with its extravagant fringing, was anything less than practical. Now, at long last, it came into its own as it turned out to be a good place to sort the pile of money that had been in the tin as the chenille prevented the coins rolling around too much, and it cushioned too the several notes that had tumbled from the biscuit barrel.

Barbara counted out five pounds and replaced them in the barrel.

Then she totted up what was left. It was a small fortune: a whole £37 15s. 7½d. With a raise of her eyebrows Barbara put another £20 back in the kitty, and then a handful of silver half-crowns and florins, and then she clambered laboriously back onto the stool to return the biscuit barrel to its home on the mantelpiece.

‘Goodness,’ said Peggy enviously, as her and Bill’s rainy day money had never broken the £10 barrier. ‘I had no idea.’

‘Ted’s been doing overtime, and of course I always try and put away all of my wages. But I won’t deny that a lot of scrimping and saving has gone into that blessed tin,’ said Barbara. ‘We’ve been saving extra hard ever since the children started school and we had even been wondering about a proper holiday next year, and a mangle for the washing and a new bed for Jessie. But now I want Connie and Jessie to be evacuated looking as if they are loved and cared for, and as if we think nothing of sending them away in new clothes. I think that might help them get a better class of family at the other end, don’t you think?’