Pierce, Annie and Mary occupied just two rooms on the middle floor – one used as a bedroom; the kitchen in the other – and they would often spend time sitting downstairs with Annie’s parents. All of the adults in the house were protective of their private space and everyone was careful not to invade others’ rooms. The house itself might have looked quite grand from outside, but there was very little money around for this traditional working-class family and every penny counted.
All of the houses in the neighbourhood, which, in a previous time, would have been owned by individual families, were now divided up and rented out to various families or individuals. The house next door to the Jarmans, for example, was home to one family downstairs, another on the middle floor and one more on the top floor. At least the Jarmans didn’t have to share their home with strangers – they were grateful for that.
However, conditions became ever more cramped for them over the following years as their family increased in size. Two years after the arrival of Mary came their second child, Joan. Three years later, in 1929, came Sheila, followed by Kathleen in 1932 and Patricia in 1933. Five years after that, when Annie was forty-five, she had her last child, Anne.
In the back yard the girls’ granddad did his best to create a makeshift garden by growing sunflowers, and the children would marvel at how tall they would get. He had also planted an elderberry tree, which had matured over time. Every year, he gave the abundant crop of berries to Mrs Bradley across the road to make wine. In return, Tom would receive a small glass of elderberry wine as a thank you, which he accepted graciously, although Annie thought it far from generous, suspecting that Mrs Bradley had made bottles of the stuff to enjoy herself or to sell. However, Annie kept her thoughts to herself, as her father seemed quite happy with the neighbourly arrangement.
Living – and particularly sleeping – conditions at 103 Abbey Street were challenging. In their bedroom, Pierce and Annie would have their youngest child in bed with them while their other daughters would top to toe in the other double bed. Each newborn would sleep between Annie and Pierce, which led to some confusion for Mary when, at the age of thirteen, a school friend told her how babies were made.
Mary was shocked and replied in disbelief, ‘They can’t do that. They have a baby sleeping in the middle of them.’
The girls, including Mary, believed that the midwife brought new babies to their house in the basket on her bicycle because every time they saw her bike they knew they would soon hear a new baby crying!
Annie was always singing around the house – usually hymns – and hankered after owning a piano to accompany her singsongs. Prams were more of a necessity, however, and anyhow, apart from financial concerns, there was a distinct lack of space. Luckily Dot, up on the top floor, did have a piano, which she envied, and she would sneak upstairs while he was at work and play it to her heart’s content. Annie had never had any lessons but, although her repertoire was limited, she could certainly knock out a tune. She would start off with ‘The Blue Danube’, which was usually followed by ‘The Skater’s Waltz’, and would perhaps finish with a hymn, to which she would sing along. Either Mary or Sheila would keep watch downstairs for Uncle Dot’s return.
Their uncle moved out eventually and was replaced by a couple named Mr and Mrs Morris. When they left, Pierce, Annie and their brood – with some relief – spread their wings to the top floor, giving them a much-needed extra bedroom, though the increase in council rent was a huge toll on their limited resources.
When Kit moved into her own house after she got married, the girls were excited about getting another bedroom, but Annie – who aspired to the luxuries in life – had other ideas. She had always wanted a nice sitting room, a phrase which sounded very middle class to her and so, despite the lack of money, made monthly instalments on the purchase of a three-piece suite instead, which she thought looked very posh.
‘No feet on it,’ she would scold her daughters whenever they went near the precious new furniture. Then one day, to the girls’ surprise, they returned home from school to find a piano in the sitting room. Now Annie had the freedom to play music whenever and for as long as she wanted … or so she imagined. A worried Pierce had cautioned her that money was tight and that they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the repayments of 2s 6d per week for the piano on top of those for the suite.
‘We’re overstretching,’ he would say, but he knew that once his wife had set her mind on something it was near impossible to deter her, and so he gave up trying when he realized how much the piano meant to her. He was proved right all too soon, though, when, a few months later, Annie’s bursting pride at having a piano delivered in full view of her neighbours was replaced by the shame and sadness she felt at having it taken away equally publicly.
When the van arrived to collect it, the girls, who were playing outside in the street with a skipping rope, were already primed with what to say to their friends. ‘Just tell them that it’s going to make room for another bed,’ Annie had briefed them. They did just that, heads held high, well-versed as they were in the art of keeping up appearances.
Annie thought about all this, now that she was effectively homeless, stranded in a barren church hall far away in Sussex. She missed her familiar surroundings, however cramped and crowded they might have been.
The air-raid panic over, the church hall residents were paid another visit later that morning by the billeting officer. He explained that he was still trying to find them somewhere to stay but that they would have to remain where they were until then. Local volunteers brought them more food for lunch, then an evening meal and, although the two mothers were worried about their accommodation, the children were having a delightful time playing in the sunshine in the pretty grounds around the vicarage and church. Annie and Mary Eddicott also walked around outside, trying to enjoy the clean air and the sound of their youngsters’ laughter. It was comforting to be with their children and each other.
Once the sun set, the cool of the evening drew in and they all returned inside the hall, which felt soulless, with its bare floorboards and no furnishings other than the camp beds and a trestle table with emergency provisions arranged neatly on top. The girls continued to chatter excitedly as they got into their nightdresses and clambered into their beds, and it was some time before all of the children fell asleep. Annie, however, lay on her own bed and stayed awake for most of the night, wondering just how long they would be in temporary accommodation, how long before they could start to live their lives again.
CHAPTER 2
Battle Road
Pierce (centre left) in the First World War with clasped hands and wearing a hat.
‘GOOD NEWS. WE’VE found you a house,’ said the billeting officer with a beaming smile as he arrived at the church hall.
Annie was pleased but apprehensive at the same time. She desperately wanted somewhere to live, but it needed to pass muster.
‘Who with?’ she asked, barely hidden suspicion in her voice.
‘Each other,’ came the reply. ‘You’ll be sharing. The house is empty. It has some furniture there already but we’ll sort you out with some extra bits and pieces. It’s just a short walk away in Battle Road.’
This was very good news indeed, Annie and Mary decided, and the children were cock-a-hoop. After all the upheaval and anticipation, it was a huge relief to know they would be living with friends rather than strangers.
After packing up their belongings, the two families set off with the billeting officer on a walk that took them past Market Square at the heart of the town, with its council offices, police station and post office, and along the High Street, where they looked through the windows of an array of shops and office buildings, including a tobacconist, newsagent, grocer, fish and chip shop, the grand-looking Grenadier Hotel and the historic Old Court House.
‘Everything looks so clean,’ Joan said excitedly to Mary. While the girls ogled their new surroundings, taking in the contrast with their dirty corner of London, Annie was acutely
aware of curious eyes turned on them. She straightened her back and held her head high as she walked with an air of confidence that belied the apprehension and uncertainty she was feeling, so far away from the familiar faces and sights of home.
Turning into Battle Road, which was lined on both sides with terraced Victorian houses, they finally stopped outside number eighteen, where the name plaque beside the front door read ‘Heywood’.
‘This is it,’ said the billeting officer.
From the roadside they took in the red-brick, two-storey house with a bay window at the front and a door, underneath a porch, to the left.
‘It looks lovely!’ said Kath, suddenly gooey-eyed.
‘So pretty,’ added Pat.
Even Sheila, who liked pretty things, was starting to think that evacuation was maybe not so bad after all.
Squealing excitedly, the little ones ran through the garden gate, followed by the rest of their families who, having liked the look of the exterior, could hardly wait to see inside. Once through the gate, a path led through the small front garden to the house. From here, another path led down the right side of the house to a side door and continued on to the back garden. There was a raised flowerbed near the side path with a dramatic copper beech tree at its centre.
‘The front door is stuck so the previous owner always used the side door,’ explained the billeting officer. He led them down the path and, taking the key out of his pocket, unlocked the door, which opened on to a rather bare kitchen, with a cooker, sink and some cupboards.
The most eye-catching ‘furniture’ in the house was in the modest front room, which was dominated by what looked like a large, rectangular, forbidding metal cage – which is essentially what it was.
‘It’s enormous!’ said Joan, chuckling.
‘That’s your shelter,’ said the billeting officer, less amused. ‘To be used whenever you hear the air-raid siren.’
‘I don’t want to go in there, Mum,’ said Pat with a fearful expression on her face. ‘It looks horrid.’
Kath reached out and put a protective arm round her little sister, and Annie gave her a reassuring smile.
The Morrison shelter, named after Herbert Morrison, Minister of Home Security, was assembled and bolted together inside the house and measured 6 feet 6 inches long, 4 feet wide and 2 feet 6 inches high, with an entry door through one of the wire-mesh panels. Whilst other shelters, such as the Anderson – named after the Home Secretary, John Anderson – were issued for outside use and made of straight galvanized corrugated steel panels with curved panels for the roof, it was thought that the Morrison’s flat top could double as a dining table. However, as the Jarmans were to discover, this was quite impractical because the sides prevented them from tucking their legs underneath. The shelter could accommodate six adults at a squeeze and took up half of the floor space in the front room.
To the rear of the ground floor was a large bedroom with a fine chest of drawers. In the hallway a narrow and rather steep staircase led up to three other bedrooms and a lavatory, which was perched precariously at the top of a steep step so that anyone coming out of it had to make a wide stride to the landing to avoid falling down.
‘The thinking is that you and your children, Mrs Eddicott, would live upstairs,’ said the billeting officer. ‘The small bedroom at the back can be used as a kitchen. We will get a stove put in. And Mrs Jarman, you would be downstairs with your family.’
The two women looked at each other for a few moments, each thinking the same thing. It would be cramped, but then their homes back in Dockhead were hardly spacious. In any case, they were happy because they had managed to keep their families together as they had vowed.
Annie smiled. ‘I think this will suit us fine.’
Downstairs, the children appeared to have already made up their minds that they were going to love it on Battle Road. They had found their way into the back garden and were running around excitedly. This was much more fun than their back yard in Abbey Street, thought the Jarman girls. Here, the garden backed on to fields, which stretched as far as the eye could see.
Kath’s face was already alive with wonderment but then she caught sight of something that made her even more wide-eyed.
‘Look!’ she shouted.
‘Where?’ replied Pat eagerly, wanting to be let in on her sister’s discovery.
‘Over there!’ said Kath, pointing into the distance.
‘I don’t see anything,’ said Pat.
‘Look to where I’m pointing,’ said Kath. ‘See them?’
Pat squinted until she finally saw the figures. ‘What are they?’ she asked.
‘Cows,’ replied Kath, beaming with delight. ‘We saw some on the way down on the train, remember?’
Pat looked puzzled. ‘What were they doing on the train?’
‘They weren’t on the train. They were out of the window, Pat. In the fields.’
The two sisters ran back inside to tell Annie what they had seen but she and Mary Eddicott were in conversation with the billeting officer, who was explaining that the camp beds from the church hall would be brought into the house for the first few nights until spare beds could be sourced, and that other provisions would be delivered later that day.
‘I’ll leave you to familiarize yourself with the house for a while and settle in,’ he said, as he took his leave in the hallway. ‘It will all be more comfortable and homely once you have everything you need.’
They had been given emergency food supplies, which included tins of corned beef, vegetables, bread, tea and orange squash and, while Annie put the kettle on, Mary made some soft drinks for the children. Then they busied themselves with unpacking their meagre possessions in their new home, relieved to have one finally. The past forty-eight hours had felt like an eternity.
That afternoon, there was a knock on the door and Annie opened it to find a small, rotund woman, attired in a grey-and-green woollen jacket, skirt and hat, smiling at her and holding two large laundry bags in either hand. Attached to her jacket lapel was a badge bearing the insignia WVS.
‘Good afternoon,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’m Mrs Hassen from the Women’s Voluntary Service. We help evacuees to settle in here by providing … various things.’ She looked down at her bags. ‘I have some army blankets here for you, along with some sheets.’
‘Thank you,’ said Annie. ‘That’s very kind.’
Mrs Hassen smiled warmly. ‘And local people and businesses have donated items. Cutlery, crockery, that sort of thing. I’ll bring some over later.’
Annie, who had never been offered anything in her life without a price being attached to it, was taken aback and hardly knew what to say. Before she was able to utter anything else, Mrs Hassen, with another little smile, said, ‘Nice to meet you,’ and turned and walked away, leaving Annie staring after her.
Mary joined her mother at the doorway. ‘Is she a nurse, Mum?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Annie. ‘More like our guardian angel at the moment.’
As promised, Mrs Hassen returned later in the day, this time with a troop of boy scouts in tow, who unloaded the camp beds from a truck and set them up in the bedrooms. They also brought with them some dark-green blackout curtains, which they put up over the windows. The girls were unused to having boys in their house and so there was much giggling from the younger ones, who hovered nearby to spy on them before running away when seen … and then sneaking back again.
That evening, Annie and Mary Eddicott provided their sprawling families with a meal of cold meat, boiled potatoes and cabbage, which they ate in group rotation at the kitchen table. Shortly afterwards, the excited younger children were put to bed but found it hard to sleep as they lay in their camp beds in this new and strange environment.
‘Do you think we’ll stay here for ever?’ Pat whispered.
‘No. Not for ever,’ said Kath. ‘Well. I don’t think so.’
‘I hope we do,’ Pat replied. ‘I like it. Do you like it, Kath?’
There was a shuffling sound from a nearby camp bed. ‘I’m missing home,’ said Sheila.
‘But we’ve only just got here,’ said Kath.
‘I don’t care. It’s not home. It’s not our home. And, besides, Daddy’s not here.’
The girls thought about this for a while.
‘Do you think Daddy’s OK?’ Pat asked.
In the excitement of the past two days Kath hadn’t given much thought to her father but now she felt a pang of longing. ‘I expect so,’ she replied eventually.
Downstairs, just as her daughters were whispering about their father, Annie took out a writing pad and a pen from the kitchen drawer and sat at the table to compose a letter.
‘Dear Pierce,’ she began. And then sat back to gather her thoughts.
The following day was given to settling the children in to the new house before all of them, apart from Mary who had left school that summer, went to their new schools in Hailsham. For Sheila, Kath and Pat this was a temporary classroom set up in the village hall for evacuees of primary-school age while proper arrangements were made for them to attend the local school. The classes were run by Miss Mobbs and another teacher from a school in Rotherhithe, Miss Heywood, who had travelled to Hailsham with their pupils.
Although they only had to attend the makeshift school for a few hours in the morning, the Jarman sisters took an instant dislike to head teacher Miss Mobbs, who they thought was overly stern. Nevertheless, Kath and Pat mucked in and made the best of things, but Sheila was feeling so homesick that the morning seemed to drag until she was finally free to be back with her mother.
‘It will get better. You’ll see. It just takes a bit of getting used to because it’s all new to you,’ said Annie, as she poured Sheila some orange squash in the kitchen.
Sheila had her doubts, though. Having always loved reading and writing, she sat down to write a song about their new abode, choosing neutral lyrics that didn’t give any indication of her feelings, which she was trying hard to keep hidden. She sang it to a simple tune she had composed herself, and it proved to be so catchy that her sisters would also sing it on a regular basis during that first year in Sussex.
The Sisters of Battle Road Page 3