by AJ Pearce
He helped himself to a broken biscuit.
‘Mrs Bussell has a soft spot for you, Mr Collins,’ said Mrs Mahoney, which was slightly disloyal to our tea lady, not least as Mrs Mahoney (who would have rather died than admit it) had a soft spot for him all of her own.
‘Much appreciated,’ said Mr Collins with his mouth full and leaving us unclear as to whether he was referring to the biscuit or the revelation about Mrs Bussell’s ardour. ‘Where shall we start?’
Kathleen handed him the agenda. It was the same every week.
‘Thank you, Miss Knighton. Patterns and Fashion please.’
Kathleen looked eager and started her update, as ever meticulously prepared. Easily the cleverest person I knew although she would fiercely deny it, Kath and I were firm friends and I had been thrilled when Mr Collins promoted her to Chief Sub-Editor. Now she was in charge of all the contributors who sent in patterns and articles, as well as overseeing Hester, our new Junior.
Hester was a good-natured, pasty-faced girl of fifteen, just out of school and prone to uncontrollable giggles. Kath was teaching her, with marginal success, that working at a magazine was not the same as being in a Cary Grant comedy, and instead involved trying to remain calm for almost all of the time.
As a result, Hester was improving, but still alternating between taking things Very Seriously Indeed and shrieking with laughter at the drop of a hat. She was trying hard and as Mrs Mahoney said, it wasn’t her fault she had been blessed with Boisterous Lungs.
With Hester taking notes, Kath quickly listed what was coming up on the fashion front in the next couple of issues. Almost everything was now on the ration, and she had become an expert in making coupons go a very long way.
‘We have ten ways to update an old hat, and an ever so easy men’s pullover where you hardly get out of a basic stitch,’ she said, her green eyes earnest. ‘Lots of readers wrote in liking the feature on outsize coats, and Mrs Stevens has come up with a marvellous pattern for a knitted brassiere using unrationed yarn. Honestly, Mr Collins, people will be chuffed to bits at that.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Collins, who tended to be foggy on knits.
‘Yes!’ said Kath, fervently, thinking he shared her delight. ‘That will perk everyone up.’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘Right,’ said Mr Collins.
Mr Newton, who had been staring fixedly into his tea since Kath had said the word ‘brassiere’, looked pained.
‘Nurse McClay has had lots of letters asking how many coupons people need for maternity brassieres,’ said Mrs Mahoney, which didn’t help. ‘I’m just saying in case Mr Newton could get some advertisers in on the subject.’
Mr Newton didn’t look as if he would like to in the least, but he nodded weakly.
Hester joined in with a random guffaw.
‘Thank you, Mrs Mahoney,’ said Mr Collins. ‘No need to elaborate, I’m sure Mr Newton is on top of it. Father of three and so on.’
For men who worked on a women’s magazine, they were both hopeless about anything to do with what they called That Sort of Thing.
Mrs Mahoney gave a small snort. ‘They should be coupon-free in my view. Being a mother during a war isn’t exactly beer and skittles. Imagine how you’d feel if Baby needs a feed but you’re sitting on a Tube platform in the middle of an air raid.’ She looked at the men in the room as if they were wholly responsible.
‘Thank you, Mrs Mahoney,’ said Mr Collins. ‘I’m afraid I can’t, but I shall remember it next time I change at King’s Cross. Thank you for raising the point. Now then, if we have covered the issue of support garments, shall we move on? The readers, please, Miss Lake?’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Tons of letters have been coming into “Yours Cheerfully”, including lots of people writing to say they were terrifically grateful for the advice about A Difficult Nan. It’s getting hard to keep up with all the problems, but that’s all right. Although I wondered if we might print some advice leaflets, so that we can help them out that way. It would be quicker than writing to everyone individually.’
‘I’m all for it,’ said Mrs Mahoney, supportively. ‘You gentlemen wouldn’t believe the pickles our readers face. Emmy’s done a very good list of the questions we get asked the most.’
I smiled gratefully and began to go through my plans. Despite her initial reluctance to take on the problem page, Mrs Mahoney had quickly come to view the entire Woman’s Friend readership as an extended family to be shepherded through the challenges of growing up, settling down, and tackling middle age, all with the current possibility of death or bereavement at a moment’s notice.
Almost as soon as “Yours Cheerfully” had started, her calm, down-to-earth advice had worked. The more letters we answered, the more we received. At the same time, she had been teaching me too. Many of the worries that readers wrote about came up time and time again, and I had learned from her response to each one. Bit by bit I had taken on more of the problem page myself, to a point that now, hundreds of letters later, I was writing much of the advice on my own. Mrs Mahoney had final approval of everything, and I still asked her about the trickiest concerns, but after working on nearly twenty issues together, “Yours Cheerfully” had become almost entirely mine.
‘Emmy,’ she had said after we had worked together for some weeks, ‘you may be young, but you care about the readers. Don’t underestimate how important that is. Caring about getting things right is worth its weight in gold.’
It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me, and it struck a chord. I very much did care.
When I had dreamt of becoming a Lady War Correspondent, I thought it meant you had to be chasing political stories or reporting on world-changing events. I hadn’t considered that there was an equally important job to be done on the Home Front. I may not have been crawling over bombsites or going undercover to get an earth-shattering scoop, but at Woman’s Friend I was trying to do my bit and knew we were doing something that was worth doing well.
In the past I had been at pains to tell people how I volunteered at the fire station four nights a week and I had rather downplayed working at a magazine. Volunteering with the National Fire Service felt the bigger contribution to the cause. Now, I was proud of what I was doing in my daytime job.
‘So that’s “Yours Cheerfully”,’ I finished, pleased that Mr Collins said that if the paper shortage would allow it, my advice leaflets sounded a worthwhile idea.
The discussion then moved on as Mr Collins read out updates from other contributors. Mrs Croft from “What’s In The Hotpot?” had received multiple letters following ‘Five New Ways With Haddock’, while Mr Trevin who did the horoscopes was sadly behind schedule as he had fallen over and broken his wrist.
‘I should have thought he would have seen that coming,’ said Mr Collins.
Hester giggled and was rewarded with a small smile from our Editor, which I knew would make her entire week.
‘I should say,’ he continued, ‘that things are going very well, apart of course, from the fact that we will be up the spout when Kathleen leaves. I must tell you all I haven’t been able to even contemplate recruiting her replacement.’
‘I’m bound to be here for ages yet,’ piped up Kath, looking awkward. A month ago, she had put her name down to join the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Twenty-two and unmarried, she had tons of potential. None of us wanted her to leave Woman’s Friend, but the war effort needed her more.
‘Kath’s right,’ I said, backing her up. ‘We’ve had half a dozen letters this week from readers complaining they’re having to wait for months before they even get an interview for a job.’
‘Hopeless,’ said Mr Collins. ‘But good news for us. Don’t look so horrified, Mr Newton, I’m not being unpatriotic, I just don’t want to think about it until we have to. We all know Miss Knighton is irreplaceable.’
Kath looked chuffed, and Mr Newton said, ‘Hear, hear,’ rather violently, to show he agreed. Unfortunatel
y, this set off Hester, who wasn’t at all keen on the thought of losing her mentor, and let out a loud, ‘Boo.’
‘That’ll do, Hester,’ said Mrs Mahoney, softly. ‘You’re not at the circus.’
Hester went puce.
‘On to advertising, please, Mr Newton,’ said Mr Collins, much to her relief.
The usually congenitally pessimistic Mr Newton reported good news, with revenues up and several new advertisers, including Sta-Blond Shampoo who had paid the full rate for a half-page, and Hartley’s Jams who were taking out a series of adverts to tell people there wasn’t any.
‘Well done, Mr Newton,’ said Mr Collins.
‘It probably won’t last,’ said Mr Newton, confidently. ‘The National Skin Institute are late paying for their psoriasis series in the Classifieds, and I’ve had to have a stiff word with Senior’s Meat and Fish Pastes about the same thing. I’ll get it out of them, don’t you worry.’
Mr Collins sympathised, and added he had heard rumours circulating about something big coming up for blancmange.
‘Say no more, Mr Collins,’ said Mr Newton. ‘I’ll get on to it at once. We missed out on Custard for Christmas last year and I won’t let that happen again.’
With Mr Newton now on a mission, Mrs Mahoney gave a Production update which she managed without any mention of brassieres or feeding babies at all, and by a quarter to ten we had successfully arrived at Any Other Business.
As typically there wasn’t any, other than when Mr Newton issued a grim warning about fire hazards in the office (he was an Air Raid Precautions warden and took what he referred to as Lurking Dangers very seriously indeed), we all started to pack away our things in anticipation of the meeting coming to an end.
‘Hold your horses, everyone,’ said Mr Collins. ‘If I could just keep you a moment longer, I wanted to let you know that on Friday I shall be attending a meeting at the Ministry of Information.’
He could not have sounded more casual if he’d tried. Everyone stopped in their tracks. There were a couple of excitable I Says, and Mr Newton said, ‘Walls Have Ears,’ rather unnecessarily.
‘It’s all right,’ said Mr Collins, ‘I haven’t joined the War Cabinet, although if any of you turn out to be Fifth Columnists, I shall be sad. And in all seriousness, I would ask you all to keep this to yourselves, if you could.’
Everyone sat up straighter. Mr Collins at the Ministry. This was a turn-up.
‘It’s a magazine briefing. They’re a new thing, and I wanted to say that you should all give yourselves a pat on the back that Woman’s Friend has been invited. Six months ago, no one would have thought of us, but thanks to a notable team effort we appear to have gained something of a name. It’s taken the Ministry two years of war to talk to us all, and that’s only because they finally appear to have someone in charge who understands publishing.’
Mr Collins was not an enormous admirer of what he called Establishment Nitwits.
‘Anyway, it might be interesting. Or not,’ he added, looking sternly at Mr Newton, who had adopted the determined expression of someone about to be parachuted in behind enemy lines. ‘They’re calling it Doing Your Bit, so we shall see. It’ll probably just be a lecture about Digging for Victory, but you never know. By the way, thank you for the onions, Mr Brand, much appreciated in a sandwich.’
Mr Brand looked pleased. ‘I shall be planting out the broccoli in my allotment this weekend,’ he said in his soft voice. ‘And thinking about bulbs.’
‘Is that quite patriotic, Mr Brand?’ asked Mr Newton, his dander quite unusually up. ‘We need to concentrate on food stuffs, not flowers, surely?’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Brand, mildly. ‘And what of morale, Mr Newton? A pot of spring daffodils bringing a little beauty to a world that threatens to have none? I should think that would be a good thing, wouldn’t you?’
Mr Newton looked abashed.
‘We’re going to get last year’s bulbs out of the shed,’ said Kathleen, keen to support Mr Brand. ‘Mum says she’s going to plant them in a V for Victory sign in the grass on top of our shelter just to annoy any German bombers.’
‘That’s the spirit, Kathleen,’ said Mr Collins. ‘Why don’t you mention it to Mrs Fieldwick for “News From the Shed”?’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘Right, I think that’s about all. I shall report back from the Ministry, of course. Emmy, please put it in your diary, I imagine you’ll want to be prepared.’
‘What’s that?’ I said, sounding dim.
‘Miss Lake,’ he sighed, melodramatically. ‘You’ll be coming along, too.’ He grinned as I stared at him with my mouth open. ‘Don’t look so astonished, I’m not spending a morning with that bunch all on my own. Yes, you have heard correctly,’ he said again, as I felt a rush of blood to my head.
‘I have?’ I said, as if understanding him was beyond my field of action.
Mr Collins gave me a long-suffering look. ‘Emmy,’ he said patiently, as my heart began to do flip-flaps. ‘I may be regretting this already, but yes, you are coming to the Ministry of Information with me.’
CHAPTER TWO
A Meeting with the Ministry
‘THE MINISTRY,’ SAID Bunty. ‘I know I keep saying it, but how exciting! Watch out, this bit of road is awful.’
It was the morning of The Meeting and my best friend and I were on our way to the bus stop just down the street from where we lived in West London. It was the sort of day that had decided to make a real show of itself and throw everyone into the deepest of autumns. There had been heavy rain throughout the night and the pavements were now a bomb-damaged jigsaw of puddles.
‘Morning, girls,’ called a middle-aged man from deep inside a brown jacket with the collar turned up. ‘Don’t forget to pick up those cottons I’ve been keeping for you. Mrs Richards has asked twice if I have any and I’m not one for living a lie.’
‘Right you are, Mr Parsons,’ replied Bunty as I gave him a wave. Mr Parsons had managed the wool shop until it was bombed out earlier in the year, but after a month at his sister’s, he’d returned to London. Now he was running Durton’s, the hardware shop, which he’d promised to keep ticking over as Dickie Durton had been called up and his mother said she hadn’t the heart.
‘Not that there’s much to sell,’ Mr Parsons had said at the time, which was true. He got hold of whatever he could, including haberdashery which was where his heart really lay. Now he gave us a cheerful wave back and marched off towards the shop, shouting a hello at someone else as his apron flapped about beneath his jacket.
The street was busy with people on their way to work and if you tried awfully hard you might almost, for a moment, pretend that we weren’t in the middle of a war. But the swiftest look around would tell you it was all too obvious that we were. Although things had quietened down over the summer and the constant bombing of earlier in the year had eased off, and while everyone had done their best to patch things up, the results of the Blitz were everywhere. What had been neat lines of Georgian terraces were now all higgledy-piggledy. There were bits missing from buildings, windows boarded up, railings gone to make munitions, and worst of all, too many gaps where people’s homes had been. Now, heaps of rubble sat in their place – disrespectful reminders of what had been lost. It didn’t matter how much you stuck your chin up and said that everything would be rebuilt even better after the end of the war, if you weren’t careful, you would start thinking about the people who’d been lost with those buildings. It was then that things could sometimes feel a bit much.
Bunty was negotiating her way across the road, which had more than its fair share of craters and holes. I tried not to be over-protective, but she had been through the mill. In March she had been seriously injured in an air raid, and her fiancé, William, had been killed. Bunty was often still in pain, but she said the worst thing was that people treated her differently, either assuming she could shatter in a second, or turning her into some sort of plucky but tragic heroine. Either way, Bunty said, they looked at her with what
she called The Face, which she loathed.
‘I’m still me,’ she would say, always under-cooking what had happened. ‘Just with a gammy leg and some scars.’
She was doing terrifically well in some respects and the same old Bunty was still there, but anyone who knew her could tell she had changed.
It wasn’t the fact she walked with a stick, or even the splitting headaches that wouldn’t go away. It was when you saw her flinch at a sudden noise in the street, or when the siren went off. Or when she talked about Bill, the fleetest of shadows would cross her face before she smiled at a memory of him.
But as Bunts insisted, tons of people were in the same position, or even worse. With no end to the war in sight, the only thing we could do was to get on with it and try to enjoy what we could, even if some days she did just feel like staying in bed.
Now, Mr Collins’ dramatic announcement about the Ministry had given us both a real boost. Bunty, who was always keen on an event, was convinced it was a big step in one of us becoming the first female Prime Minister one day. I thought she was aiming quite high there, but Bunts said I was being defeatist and not to rule anything out.
‘It’s just a briefing,’ I said, trying not to let on that I was hugely excited and apprehensive in equal measures. ‘I’ll just be sitting quietly at the back. And after all, you go to the War Office every day.’
Bunty scoffed. ‘Em,’ she said, stepping around a sandbag which had fallen over outside the pub, ‘I could sit at my desk stark jolly naked and no one would give me a second glance. You’ll be there as an invited guest. It’s entirely different.’
‘I still think I’ll be turned away at the door,’ I said, as we arrived at the bus stop. ‘That would be awful.’
Bunty shook her head. ‘Mr Collins would never let that happen.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘As long as there isn’t a scene or he has to sneak someone five bob to let me in, which we both know he probably would. Anyway, I’m going to try to look serious and mature. Charles said I should practise in the mirror, but I’m not sure I’ve got it quite right.’