The Blitz

by Vince Cross

  Thursday, 14th November

  I’ve thought about this very carefully, and we’re not going to get two chances. We’ve got to make our escape work first time.

  Thank heavens for the money Shirl gave me. If ever there was a “rainy day” this has got to be it!

  After school today, Tom and I went to spy out the land at Llantrisant station. The timetable on the platform says there’s just two trains a day to Cardiff, but the good news is one of them’s at 8.25.

  If we say we’re going down to school ten minutes early tomorrow morning we can be on that train. Most of our luggage will have to stay here: all we can carry is our school bags.

  I said a special prayer tonight for the train not to be cancelled. What’ll happen when we get home I’ve got no idea, but the only way to convince Mum and Dad about this is face to face. A letter won’t do.

  Friday, 15th November

  The man in the ticket office peered over his glasses very suspiciously when we bought two singles for Paddington. It was exactly 8.22 and down the platform the little tank engine was already champing at the bit in front of the three carriages that made up the 8.25 for Cardiff.

  We had the money, didn’t we? I looked him straight in the eye when I handed it over, as if this was what we did every day of the week.

  He stared right back, knowing he’d seen us before, but not quite able to make the right connection. I held my breath and waited for him to say something, but then he dropped his gaze and slowly, oh so slowly, gave me the change. This time there were some other passengers on the train so he couldn’t keep them waiting just because we looked a bit dodgy, could he?

  All the way to Cardiff I think we both expected the train to creak to a halt any minute, and a copper to come and haul us off. But it rumbled on into the grey stone suburbs, and just after ten we were standing scanning the destination board inside the station canopy.

  There was an express for Paddington at 10.45. If we made that, we were safe. Once in London, even if by chance they rounded us up, I reasoned they’d have to take us home and not back to Llantrisant.

  Every time a ticket collector banged his way down the corridor on the express, every time the door of our compartment slid back, every time someone in uniform passed down the train, I thought the game was up. Now I know what it must feel like to be a spy behind enemy lines.

  Whenever the train pulled up at a signal, our hearts began to beat faster. At Swindon, wherever that is, it stopped for a full fifteen minutes though it wasn’t meant to, and I thought we’d had it. But no one came, and eventually the train wheezed back into life.

  Every chance I got I talked quietly to Tom, encouraging him, telling him why we were doing what we were doing and how well we were getting on. He was as scared as I was. I knew he didn’t normally look that pale and wan, but nobody else did so that was all right. As the day went on, hunger made us even more edgy, but I didn’t want to spend any of our precious cash till we were safely in London. Food could wait. We weren’t going to die of starvation.

  Finally, after hours of sitting on the edge of our seats, the train drew slowly into Paddington. As we handed our tickets in at the barrier I felt like doing a dance, but of course the worst bit was still to come. Facing the music at number 47!

  Tom must have been reading my mind.

  “Food?” I said. “Or home first?”

  “Home,” he said decisively.

  Saturday, 16th November

  I was dog tired last night, and almost fell asleep over the diary. And there was a miracle! No air-raid sirens. No bombs! I slept through till nine in the morning, and I don’t remember a thing.

  Now where was I in the story?

  Well, we caught the tube to Charing Cross, and then the Southern Electric to Lewisham. It was easier than working out which buses were running. I haven’t been in the tube for months. The Circle line runs only just underground, not like the Northern where you have to go down hundreds of stairs, so it isn’t great as a shelter. Even so, tonnes of people move in every night from the look of things. They’re supposed to clean up every morning, but there’s still lots of stuff left around. And the disgusting smell hits you in the face the minute you walk inside. I don’t know how the people who camp out there don’t catch dreadful diseases.

  When we walked in the back door of number 47, Mum was doing the washing. When she saw us her face was a picture. In an instant the colour bleached out of her, and I thought she was going to faint. She caught hold of the mangle for support, and then without a word the three of us hugged till we cried.

  She knew. Just from the fact we were there, she knew. “You’re a truthful girl, Edie,” she said later in the evening, when I’d stopped explaining. “I know you wouldn’t have done it unless you had to.” Finally, she relaxed and leaned back slightly in her chair. Pursing her lips in a half-smile, she said, “So what are we going to say to Mr and Mrs Dragon, then?”

  Tom had been subdued and serious all through the evening, but as he caught the twinkle in Mum’s eye, he laughed and laughed with relief until his sides ached. I’d forgotten the smell of home, of cosiness and baking and polish, and now I want to stay here for ever.

  As I was falling asleep last night, Shirl came and put her arms around me and planted a kiss on my forehead “Good on you, girl,” she said. “I hope I’d have done exactly the same.”

  Tuesday, 19th November

  We came back at the right time. Jerry’s leaving London alone now, but from what I read in the paper yesterday, that means other people are having it even worse than we did. Last weekend they say Coventry was badly hit, and pretty well burned to a cinder. And today they’ve sent all the Lewisham regular firemen and a lot of the auxiliaries up to Birmingham. The fires there are burning right out of control. Who knows when Dad’ll be home!

  Mum says perhaps Hitler’s seeing sense. He thought he could bomb the spirit out of the British people, but now he knows he can’t. It makes me feel sort of proud. Back in September, when the RAF won the “Battle of Britain” by seeing off the German bombers, Mr Churchill said never had so much been owed by so many to so few, and I thought of how our Frank was one of those few. Well someone has to keep the planes flying, don’t they! Not everyone can get the glory of shooting down Messerschmitts.

  And now we’ve all done our bit by not giving in. Maybe even Tom and me, by not staying in Wales.

  The fact the bombing’s stopped made it easier for Mum and Dad not to send us back to the Dragons, though we’ve had some old-fashioned looks from a few people who knew we’d gone. Mr Lineham, for one. He didn’t mind having me back to help with the papers, though. (By the way, newspapers are shrinking every week. The government wants all the paper it can lay its hands on for the war effort.)

  On the other hand, I’ve heard they’re opening the elementary schools again next month. I’m too old now, but Tom’ll have to go. I think Mum’s relieved. Now at least she’ll know where Tom is every day.

  Wednesday, 20th November

  Dad’s still in Birmingham and there’s been no news. I’m not used to Dad being away, and when I think about it the hairs on the back of my neck go all hot with worry.

  One of the main reasons I’m glad to be back at number 47 is the food. I didn’t realize till I went away how good a cook Mum is, and Shirl too come to that.

  What with the shortages and the rationing, it’s getting harder to make do, but Mum says that’s where a good cook can really shine. Bacon’s rationed, and so is butter and margarine of course, and now tea. I suppose that’s obvious since it comes to England in ships, and the German U-boats are blowing up so many of them. There’s not much chance of proper meat anymore, so we have to put up with liver and kidneys. And ox tongue. Actually, I’m starting to really like that. Tinned salmon’s nice, too. We eat a lot more veg than we used to, and Mum makes us keep up our vitamins by drinking tomato juice, which I can’t s
ay I like. It’s far too slimy!

  We can still get fresh eggs, but Mum reckons we’ll be lucky if they’re not rationed too before long. She wants us to keep chickens, so at least we’ll have the eggs from them.

  It’s Mum’s puddings I like best: jam roly-poly and honey-and-walnut cake are my favourites. If I try to make them they just aren’t the same.

  The queues at shops are getting longer now that people are starting to think about Christmas, so I expect I’ll be doing a lot of hanging around in the cold. Everyone tries it on to get more than their fair share. When the war started you heard some dreadful stories about rich people turning up in their chauffeur-driven cars and cleaning out shops far away from where they lived. That’s why rationing was brought in, and why we can only get rationed goods from the shop where we’re registered – in our case, Nuttall’s for the meat, and Harrold’s for the groceries.

  You can’t always trust shopkeepers either. They might seem as nice as pie, but a bloke in Deptford was had up for watering down his milk the other day and selling eggs that were smaller than they were supposed to be.

  Of course, if you’re in with the shopkeepers there’s always the chance you can get something “under the counter”, on the black market. It’s funny how some people always seem to have cigarettes, and other people can’t get them for love nor money. Not that I want them, only Shirl!

  Saturday, 23rd November

  It’s rained cats and dogs for the last 24 hours, and the River Ravensbourne’s flooded. Half a mile away there’s mud and rubbish all over people’s houses, as if things haven’t been bad enough.

  Dad’s back from the Midlands, and I’ve never seen him like this. Even when the Blitz here was at its worst, he usually came up smiling, but this is different. He came home and went to bed without saying a word. He must have slept twelve hours solid.

  Sunday, 24th November

  It was just Dad and me this morning. He’d been tidying up the garden and I caught him when he was putting his tools away in the garden shed. I asked him what was wrong.

  “It was awful, love,” he answered in a low voice. “I’ve seen some things, but this was like nothing else. . .” And his voice trailed off into nothing. I could see he was close to tears. He pulled himself together, and this time when he spoke it was with anger, even hatred.

  “They hit a school where there were kids having a party,” he said eventually. “There were maybe 40 inside. We got there too late. It was just one great wall of flame. Choking fumes and smoke everywhere. We tried our best to get in, time after time, but it was no good. Do you know what they say it was, Edie? An oil bomb! I ask you, what kind of perverted minds drop bombs that spray burning oil on five-year-old kids? And I couldn’t do a damn thing to help.” He was openly crying now with the memory of the horrors he’d seen. I went and put my arms round him, but there was nothing I could do. There were terrifying pictures in his mind and nothing I said would ever wipe them out.

  Tuesday, 26th November

  With winter coming on, everyone’s talking about getting ill. What’s worrying is all those folk crowded together in the big public shelters. The bombs may have stopped for a bit, but everyone’s sure Hitler’ll come back to London one day soon, and most people don’t want to take a chance. It’s cold and dirty in the tube stations. People even go down to the caves in Chislehurst every night, because they think they’ll be safe. But what if there’s an epidemic of flu? Apparently, in 1918, it killed tens of thousands of people just after the Great War, and maybe the same thing will happen again this time. Except it might be diphtheria, or the plague. It just doesn’t bear thinking about. With all those people coughing over each other, any illness could spread like wildfire.

  I’ve started cycling over to help out at a Red Cross centre for bombed-out people in Deptford, and that’s opened my eyes I can tell you!

  At night there’s only buckets for toilets, and not even enough of those. I won’t go into it too closely, but sometimes in the morning there’s stuff leaking all over the floor. The smell’s unbelievable. And people are sleeping and eating in there. So now you see what I mean!

  Saturday, 30th November

  Yesterday evening Shirl told me that one day, when we were in Wales, the Germans dropped a delayed-action bomb down towards Catford. They cordoned off the area, but before the Bomb Disposal team could arrive, it exploded and demolished a row of terraced houses. (No one hurt, luckily.) Back in Lewisham half an hour later, it was raining feathers in the town centre. The rumour started to go round that a chicken factory had caught it, but really it was only bedding from the terrace up in Catford! Any excuse to laugh, these days!

  Wednesday, 4th December

  Mum tipped me the wink that Dad’s boss wants to put him in for a commendation after what happened in Birmingham. It sounds like Dad was a bit of a hero on the quiet. It’s just typical that to have heard him you’d have thought he did nothing at all.

  Frank’s written to say that he won’t be able to get leave at Christmas, but he can spend the weekend after next with us. Hooray! So we’ll just have to celebrate Christmas twice, won’t we?

  Friday, 6th December

  I went window shopping at Chiesman’s yesterday. I haven’t a clue what to buy anyone for Christmas, mostly because I haven’t the money to buy anything nice.

  And the way it is in England right now, you feel bad about spending anything on frivolous things anyway. There’s posters everywhere telling you about the “Squander Bug”, making you feel guilty if you’re not giving your money to help buy another new bomber, or putting it in the bank so the government can use it.

  I saw a brilliant green bus conductor’s set in the toy department. Two years ago, Tom would have loved it, but he’s grown up too fast. Anyway, five shillings and eleven pence is too much for me. Even a new football’s three and six, and I can’t afford that.

  If Shirl can get me the wool, I’ve still got the time to knit Mum something warm, and I’ll work on old Lineham to see if I can wangle some of Dad’s favourite pipe tobacco out of him. Mum’s given me the OK to make a collage of family photos for Frank. I’ll mount them and overlay them so he’ll have something he can put beside his bed to remember us by.

  Thursday, 12th December

  Mr Lineham’s a funny old stick. I asked him about the tobacco for Dad’s Christmas box yesterday and he tapped his nose and said, “No problems, young Edie. We’ll see Mr Benson all right for Christmas, you and me. Man like Mr Benson deserves a little respect and recognition.” Then he turned and asked, as if it was an afterthought, “What are you giving young Thomas?”

  I shrugged, and said honestly that I didn’t know if I could afford much. Then blow me if he didn’t fetch a few soldiers from the back of the shop, similar to the ones Tom had nicked, wrap them in tissue paper, put them carefully in an old shoebox, and give it to me.

  I didn’t know what to say, and stuttered an inadequate thank you.

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. “You’re a bright girl, and a good worker. It’s just a little something to show my appreciation.”

  Well I never!

  Saturday, 14th December

  Frank’s home! And he looks so well. I’d swear he looks tanned even though it’s December and near freezing. All that fresh air must be doing him good. Over tea he announced that he’s going to apply to train as a pilot, and I saw Mum’s face fall. Dad asked calmly if he thought he stood much chance, and Frank said what with all the pilot losses there’d been during the Battle of Britain, he thought there was every chance. He says he’s been thinking about flying every day for the past eighteen months – eating, drinking and sleeping it. It’s just that he hasn’t actually been doing any.

  I don’t know what to think. On the one hand I can see the glamour of it all. There’s this idea that it’s very dashing to be a pilot, and all the girls will think you’re wonderful. On the other hand, Frank’s
nice and safe if he stays as ground crew. I read somewhere that once you’re trained as a fighter pilot, your life expectancy’s three weeks. I just hope and pray Frank’s either very sensible or very lucky.

  He brought me a very beautiful, very grown-up blue and green silk scarf. It’s daft really, because I haven’t got anything to wear it with. He just looked at me and smiled and said, “It’s your colours. You’ll find something.” Then he gave me a big hug. I think he was really touched with my collage of photographs, and I know he meant it when he said he thought of us every day.

  Monday, 23rd December

  For a few days now Tom and I have been out collecting. There’s a party for the homeless kids in the Red Cross Centre out at Deptford tonight, and we’ve been after toys that we could wrap up to make some sort of Christmas presents for them. We’ve not done too badly, and Dad’s knocked up some trucks and boats out of the spare wood he keeps in the shed. They look all right once they’re painted up.

  Mum was home this afternoon, and she and I made a huge cracker from paper Shirl conned out of the management up at Chiesman’s. It’s about four foot long, and we’ve put lots of the smaller toys inside. The Red Cross van’s coming round to collect the cracker and us in a few minutes!