Olga - A Daughter's Tale

by Marie-Therese Browne (Marie Campbell)

  I should have insisted that Sydney brought her back. Lucy was right all along when she said Hitler couldn’t be trusted and had invaded Poland. It’s all very well for people to say that the war between Britain and Germany won’t last long, but how do they know, it could go on longer than the first war. No one knows for sure except God.

  There are reports that people are starving in England. Could this be true. Olga starving? The Daily Gleaner says that the predicted bombing hasn’t happened and many who evacuated London when war was declared are returning to their homes. So maybe things will not be as bad as everyone first thought.

  Olga says she hasn’t seen Martha for weeks. Why, I wonder? What has been happening between those two? Now I have something else to worry about. There was no mention of anything wrong between them in Olga’s last letter. There wasn’t much of anything really because there was so little to read since most of it had been censored with heavy black ink.

  But she has passed an exam we are all very proud of her. I went down to the meat market for the first time for years, just to tell Henry. Olga’s status seems to have gone up a lot already as far as the younger girls are concerned and she has certainly impressed the rest of the family with her resolve to come home a fully qualified nurse. As Birdie says “beats working in a bicycle shop”.

  It sounds as if Olga has become very fond of her friend Joanne.

  Do you know what I think? I think the hand of God was at work there. He sent Joanne to look after Olga. But even so, we will still continue to pray for Olga’s safety.

  ******

  Chapter twenty three

  Olga’s Diary

  Dear Diary

  Life goes on: A strange thing happened this morning, a gentleman called out.

  “Nurse”

  It took a few moments before I realized he meant me. It was a bit of a shock, but a very pleasant one.

  Sister Tutor says even in wartime there has to be a routine in hospital. The day always starts the same with Sister re-arranging the flowers and potted plants which had been taken out of the ward the night before and put in the sluice room because Matron says they give off poisonous carbon monoxide during the night. It’s a hospital superstition, too, that no lilies are allowed in the wards because they’re considered to be unlucky and you never have red and white flowers in the same vase either because that means death.

  I have to clean each marble-topped locker next to the patient’s bed and wipe out the fruit bowl that stands on it. Then the beds are pulled away from the wall for a maid to sweep the floor and which Matron likes highly polished, which is fine if you are wearing rubber sole shoes, but for the patients wearing slippers it can be a difficult.

  I was helping an old man to the toilet yesterday morning and he was fairly steady on his feet to start with, but suddenly he slipped, lost his balance and ended up on his bottom and me with him. The other patients had a good laugh at our expense and I thought it was funny too, but Sister Tutor was furious with me.

  Everything and everyone has to be neat and tidy ready for Matron’s mid morning inspection. The staff, including the doctors, have to line up in a row and woe betide us if the ward isn’t up to Matron’s standard. She expects us to know all the patient’s names and their medical condition.

  When war was first declared I was frightened, especially because normal every day things changed. The cinema and theatres closed, and that upset me, because I’m crazy about films and I used to go every week with Joanne, but now we have to find other forms of entertainment.

  Moores discovered a pub near the hospital and she and some of the other student nurses go there quite a bit, but I don’t drink, so I haven’t been there yet.

  Moores and I are working on the same ward at the moment, which is fun, and when we’re doing beds together we get the chance to talk and I hear all about what happened in the pub the night before.

  This morning we were changing the bottom sheet of a bed, with the patient still in it, and Moores was telling me about this Canadian soldier who said he can get her some French champagne and silk stockings. Each time we moved the patient he broke a little wind and at first we ignored him and carried on chatting, but then he did it again and we started to laugh and couldn’t stop and what’s more neither could the patient, which made him break wind louder and more often and then all the other patients joined in and they didn’t even know what they were laughing about.

  But it was a wonderful moment especially as there was no one around to tell us off. You need little moments like that because it helps to take away the tension and worry for a little bit, and it’s amazing how much better you feel afterwards.

  Moores is such fun, you know, she says to me

  “Olga, eat life or life eats you”.

  So I’ve decided to have some fun and go out with her tonight, but I won’t tell Joanne because she thinks Moores is a bad influence on me. Joanne says the first year examination is not easy and I should be studying hard for it.

  ******

  Dear Diary

  The Rose Public House: I’ve never been inside a public house before but, apart from being very smoky, it was really quite nice. Moores always finds someone to talk to but I was happy to sit quietly drinking my ginger beer. For the first time since the war started I felt safe there, perhaps, because it’s used by soldiers and watching people enjoy themselves, laughing and having a good time makes you forget about how worried you are about the war and exams.

  I never go out on my own at night because it’s so dark with all the street lights turned off, but at least the lamp posts are painted white so we don’t bump into them and the edges of the pavements have been painted white too. Moores, Ethel and I each carry a little torch which we have to shine downwards onto the pavement. But we had a nasty shock on the way home from a night out.

  We were passing a doorway when Ethel let out a scream. We looked up and there was a woman’s face lit up in the doorway. She had a little torch pinned to her coat so that the light shone on her face and she was wearing a fox fur around her neck. The fox’s eyes were glinting in the light, its tiny teeth bared in a snarl and it had little paws and a bushy tail that hung loose. I’m not surprised Ethel screamed, it was a frightening sight. Moores said the woman was a prostitute waiting for clients. Moores knows about everything, you know.

  ******

  Dear Diary

  We’re being blitzed: It has been difficult for me to write because we have been so busy in the hospital and to be truthful I haven’t felt like it.

  Everything has changed.

  Germany’s planes have been dropping bombs on London day and night and the devastation is awful. Hundreds of people have been killed, thousands injured and hundreds of thousands are without homes. The bombing raids can last for hours without any let up. But, most of all I dread it when the Germans bomb at night, which they do frequently. Every part of London is being bombed including here in Camberwell.

  A landmine exploded nearby and several homes were blown up, many of the casualties were brought here. There seem to be fires burning somewhere in London day and night. Other cities are being bombed as well but the Germans certainly seem determined to destroy London.

  I start to shake when I hear the air raid siren sound and even when the all clear is given I’m too frightened to go out. I’ve been keeping away from Moores and Ethel, using study as an excuse to stay in, because I don’t want them to think I’m a coward, but I’m ashamed of myself too, because the people who are homeless and have lost everything still have their fighting spirit and say they won’t be beaten by Germany.

  Joanne came to see me at St Giles during a break between bombings and made me go for a long walk with her. I felt much better afterwards, especially, when she told me that she was afraid too.

  “Olga, we must do our job and put our trust in God” she said.

  We talked about our families and wondered if they knew how bad things were here in London. The letters Joanne receives are heavily censor
ed too and so we think the ones we write home are as well. It’s heartbreaking; I’m desperate to receive news from Mammie and the family and when I do get a letter, line after line has been crossed out with black ink so I’m left with hardly anything to read. And you feel as if someone is spying on you. The censors know more about what’s going on with my family than I do.

  Joanne says “We should be grateful, at least they open the letters carefully and don’t tear them.”

  Any day now Joanne’s waiting to hear if she’s passed her final exam so that when the war’s over she can fulfil her dream and go back to Jamaica a qualified nurse.

  “And, if you study hard Olga, so will you”

  “Who knows, maybe we can work together in Jamaica”. she said

  I’ll tell you something Dear Diary, I struck gold when she sat down beside me that day in Regents Park.

  ******

  Dear Diary

  Oh, damn and blast, I failed my first year preliminary exam. Knew I would. There was so much I didn’t understand, but, Sister Tutor says I can sit the exam again, but if I fail the second time, that’s it, finished. Goodbye Olga. Moores failed too, but she doesn’t care as much as I do.

  ******

  Chapter twenty four

  Olga’s Diary

  Dear Diary

  Watch out, men about: After a nursing lecture by Sister Tutor, she kept us all behind to give us another one about soldiers and men in uniform.

  “A lot of women are being assaulted and worse, by airmen and soldiers from overseas” she told us. Care should be taken at all times because these men have thrown away all sense of propriety because they are away from their home, in a country where no-one knows them and are taking advantage of women and the blackout to behave how they like without fear of retribution”

  Moores said she’d never heard anything so ridiculous. All the overseas men she’d met were charming and treated her with respect.

  “They’re a darn sight more polite than any Englishman I’ve been out with. Of course, sometimes there are rotten apples in a barrel” she said.

  “But to give the impression that all airmen and soldiers from overseas do bad things and take advantage of women is wrong”.

  Moores was really quite angry with Sister Tutor.

  After the lecture Ethel and I were on night duty together on the men’s surgical ward and she asked me if I’d heard about Sara Donahue.

  “Yes, isn’t it sad. When is she coming back?” I asked Ethel.

  Sara is in our group but she had to leave suddenly and go home because a close relative died.

  “It’s not true about the relative dying, Olga. She left because she failed her three monthly medical. We think she had gonorrhoea”.

  “Oh,” I said. I’d never heard of that so I asked Ethel what gonorrhoea was.

  “It’s a sexually transmitted disease” said a young male patient, who had been listening to our conversation.

  “Couldn’t put it better myself” said Ethel.

  I didn’t know what a sexually transmitted disease was, but I wasn’t going to ask because I had a feeling I would look stupid. After all I am a nurse. When we’re on night duty and the air raids sound, we have to pull all the beds into the centre of the ward and put each patient’s gas mask on their bed. We’ve been issued with helmets which have to be worn when the bombs start dropping. The first time I put mine on I thought, thank God, the tots can’t see me. They’d never stop laughing, as a matter of fact neither could I. It was so big I had to keep pushing it back so I could see where I was going. I looked ridiculous in it.

  Ethel and I were sitting at the big table in the middle of the ward writing up our reports and whenever we leaned forward to say something to each other, our helmets would bang together. After a couple of times we started to laugh and then when we laughing so much we leaned back in our chairs and our helmets fell off crashing to the floor and made a terrible din and woke all the patients up.

  There’s still a routine on night duty, but it’s not so hectic. By nine thirty the bed quilts must be folded in four and placed at the foot of the bed, thermometers in mugs, equipment trays fully laid up, false teeth deposited in mugs on lockers and all lights turned off except the green shaded one on the table in the middle of the ward.

  While some men snore, others light up cigarettes, not taking the slightest notice of us when we tell them they are not allowed to smoke in bed.

  But we do have time to write up our lecture notes and revise. By the end of night duty, when I get to my room I’m too tired to undress and fall asleep across my bed clutching my books.

  ******

  Dear Diary

  Horrible news: There’s a wireless in the student nurses’ sitting room where we all gather round and listen to the news to hear how the war is going. Before the war it was a games room but there doesn’t seem to be time to play games now, although we do sometimes play music on the gramophone.

  I was listening to the radio when Moores came in. Before she had said a word I could see by her face that something was wrong. But I wasn’t prepared for what she told me.

  As she sat down beside me she took my hand.

  “Olga, Joanne is dead. The rest centre in Morley College was bombed last Tuesday evening and it seems that Joanne was visiting someone there. Some people were rescued but most of them, including Joanne, were trapped inside. By the time they pulled her out, she was dead.”

  “No, it’s not possible”.

  She had told me she was on night duty all week.

  “Joanne changed shifts with another nurse, Olga. Joanne was off duty. I’m sorry”. Then she repeated it.

  “Joanne’s dead” .

  Alone in my room, I kept repeating the phrase “Joanne is dead” as if it would help me take in the terrible news. The thought that I would never see Joanne’s face again gave me the most awful feeling I have ever had, worse than all the bombings and scares that I had experienced these last few months. My world has changed. I feel helpless – as if an invisible wall that once surrounded and supported me has gone and without it I feel disconnected from everyone and everything around me, tiny and insignificant.

  I’m so lonely.

  ******

  Next day: I went mechanically through my duties until the last one when I was removing the flowers and potted plants from the ward and putting them in the bathroom for the night. I remembered Joanne telling me how she loved doing this job at Paddington General because it turned the bathroom into an exotic florist, rich with perfume and vibrant colour.

  “For a few minutes Olga,” she said ”I’m back home in Jamaica”. That night I cried bitterly for the loss of the best friend I’ve ever had.

  ******

  Mammie’s (Becky) Diary

  These days I spend most nights listening to the wireless for news of the war in Europe. It is so frustrating that I know more about what is going on there than how my daughter and sister are managing in London. It is months since I have heard from either of them and I feel helpless because there is nothing to do except pray.

  We now know Germany is bombing London relentlessly and the loss of life and injuries, as well as the devastation to the city, is enormous. I read in the Gleaner of how people have to go to use the underground tube stations to shelter from the bombs. They often sleep there all night and then have go off to work the next morning trying to avoid unexploded bombs or fractured gas mains. How dangerous is all sounds.

  I wonder if Olga has to do this too.

  What amazing people Londoners are, what spirit they have. The paper said it’s not true about people starving in England because there was no food. Irrational, I know, but the thought of Olga starving worried me almost as much as her being hurt.

  England needs more fighter planes badly because she is up against such terrible odds and Jamaica has agreed to send a squadron of twelve planes. Six have already been sent and another six promised. The whole island is being asked to rally together to collect money so we
can supply the promised six as soon as possible.

  The Daily Gleaner has set up the Jamaica Bombing Planes Fund and is encouraging communities to raise whatever money they can for the Fund with dances, concerts, fairs, sports events, etc. and every time £5,000 is raised it is sent to London to purchase another plane. There have been some unusual ways of collecting money. One elderly lady who has a dog called Pip had the bright idea of strapping a collection box to his back.

  “Pip’s own Bombing Plane Fund, please give generously” it says on the collection box. It’s difficult to walk past Pip without putting a penny or two in his box. I find it heart warming to see how even the poorest people are giving what they can towards the Fund; their generosity is humbling.

  The mother country tells us that the Germans don’t regard black people as proper people and see them in same light as Jews and their fate would be the same as the Jews so thousands of men enlisted to help Britain win the war. Thank God Sydney is too old to fight, and Boysie failed his medical because of his asthma.

  There are now United States air force and military bases in Jamaica and I see soldiers driving through Kingston and often hear planes flying overhead. People are very afraid because we’ve been told that the Germans want to get control of Jamaica because it is a stepping stone to the coast of America. The war is affecting us here on the island. Some goods like petrol, butter, flour, rice and oil are in short supply so we are only allowed to buy small quantities at a time.

  Of course, the cost of goods has also gone up a lot; but the rich are still able to afford most things. Thank goodness, Lucy is able to supply us with fresh food and we have plenty of fruit we can pick from the trees. We burn candles at night because, like London, we have blackouts too and have to keep curtains closed at night so that planes going over can’t see our lights although I don’t understand why if they are American planes.