Pierce folded up his News of the World as he sat at a table in the George Inn in Hailsham, took a large gulp of beer and sighed. More bad news was to come. In the middle of August, more than 6,000 predominantly Canadian soldiers attempted to seize the German-occupied French port of Dieppe but suffered heavy casualties and were forced into a humiliating retreat just six hours later.
As the autumn leaves began to fall and the first frosts of winter started to set in, nobody was expecting the coming Christmas to be a peaceful one. However, there was to be a turnaround on the war front that lifted the British people’s spirits. Throughout September and October, General Montgomery, that master of manoeuvre, had put in motion a plan to overwhelm the Germans at El Alamein, North Africa, with an influx of troops, tanks and artillery guns. It resulted in Allied forces breaking through enemy lines at the end of October, with Germany in full retreat on 4 November. After a bad run it was the victory that Churchill desperately needed.
CHAPTER 7
Dancing and Romancing
Aunt Nell and Aunt Rose with Joan (left) and Mary.
A LOCAL BOY named Ron Hoodwin, whose parents owned a farm, took a shine to Mary. In return, she thought he and his older brother, Geoff, quite handsome. When she saw Ron walking towards her along the High Street one Sunday afternoon, she noticed that he was looking straight at her. They exchanged small, shy smiles and had almost passed each other when she heard him speak.
‘Would you … Would you like to go out sometime?’ he asked haltingly. Mary turned to face him. ‘Pictures, dance or … anywhere you like,’ he added.
Mary was flattered but it took only a moment or two for her to reply, ‘I don’t really want to go out with anyone in particular right now. But thanks, anyway.’
Ron nodded in acceptance and continued on his walk.
‘Why didn’t you say yes?’ Joan asked Mary when she told her about it at home. ‘He’s really good looking. So’s his brother.’
Mary shrugged. ‘I prefer the Canadians to the local boys,’ she said. She didn’t know it yet but one soldier in particular was about to attract her attention.
In the winter of 1942, Mary, now eighteen, arrived at the Drill Hall with her friend Iris Packham. A dance was taking place there but they’d barely got through the door before a Canadian soldier approached Mary and drawled, ‘Can I have this dance, Red?’
She was taken aback by his cheeky remark and replied, ‘When I take my coat off.’
Mary exchanged an amused glance with Iris as they handed their coats to the cloakroom attendant.
The soldier introduced himself as Frank Marshall. He was swarthy and dapper, with a thin moustache of the type sported by Errol Flynn. Mary liked the look of him but things got off to a rocky start when they took to the dance floor.
‘Are you Italian?’ Mary asked. Frank took this as an insult.
‘Christ, no!’ he spluttered, appalled by Mussolini’s pandering to Hitler and the Italian hostility against British troops in Africa. ‘I’d sooner you ask me if I’m German than Italian!’
However, things warmed up and he told her that he was from Calgary, Alberta, but had been born in England, in the northeast city of Durham.
Mary found Frank easy to talk to and he made her laugh with his seemingly endless supply of jokes – and Mary had always enjoyed laughter, even when it was at her own expense. After the dance he walked her home. As usual, as they approached the house Mary could see her father outside, throwing a cigarette onto the pavement and treading on it before going back inside. He was often to be found smoking out front, but Mary suspected he was also keeping an eye out for her.
As she said goodnight to Frank, he asked if he might see her again.
‘I expect you’ll see me at the next dance, if you’re there,’ she said, smiling. Frank nodded.
‘I’ll be there,’ he said, and they held each other’s gaze for a moment or two before he turned and walked away. Mary watched him for a while before closing the door. She smiled to herself.
‘Who was that?’ Pierce asked her as she walked into the kitchen.
‘Just one of the Canadians,’ she replied breezily. ‘We had a few dances together and he was walking back this way.’
Pierce looked at her for a while. ‘You’re a bit late,’ he said pointedly. Mary was no later than usual, but she had learnt that it was best to say nothing whenever Pierce made this customary remark after she returned home from dancing. It would only lead to further questioning and accusations. He cared about her, and she knew he was just looking out for her, so instead, she just kissed him goodnight and took herself off to bed.
It was some time before she fell asleep that night. Her thoughts kept returning to the dance and to Frank, and she felt herself smiling even as she finally dozed off.
The following weekend couldn’t come soon enough for her, and when she walked in to the Drill Hall with Iris and saw Frank watching her, she turned and hid a smile as he promptly made his way over.
‘Like a dance, Mary?’ he asked.
‘Well, at least I’ve taken my coat off this time,’ she replied.
Frank made sure that no one else got to dance with her that evening. He wasn’t the best dance partner she’d ever had. He could manage the slow numbers all right, but was quite clumsy when it came to anything upbeat. Yet she enjoyed every moment in his company, and the feeling was clearly mutual. He also made sure that no one else got to dance with her in the weeks that followed either and slowly a romance developed. As well as the dances, they would go for walks in the rec together and occasionally to the cinema. It was six weeks before Frank kissed her and their embrace left her with a warm glow and a heady sensation. So this was what love felt like, she thought to herself.
Mary didn’t invite Frank into the house during the early days of their romance but after they’d been seeing each other for a while she told Pierce about him. Not for the first time, Pierce wished Annie was around to say the right thing. He was anxious about his eldest daughter’s growing interest in men but found it difficult and embarrassing to engage in what he felt should be a traditional mother−daughter conversation. In particular, he worried about his daughter getting too involved with a soldier who could be moved off anywhere with his regiment at a moment’s notice.
The Jarmans’ next-door neighbour, Mrs Goldsmith, whom the girls had come to call Nursey Goldsmith, was attentive to the comings and goings at the house. When observation was not sufficient she craftily questioned young Anne, who was too innocent to sense that she was being nosy. Having noticed Frank’s regular visits, one day Nursey leant over the garden fence to ask Anne, who was playing in the garden on her own, ‘Does that soldier stay at your place?’
Anne said that he didn’t, so Mary’s reputation in Battle Road remained intact, but Mary was furious when Anne later told her what Nursey Goldsmith had asked.
‘Bloomin’ nosy parker!’ she exclaimed indignantly.
There was no stopping their neighbour’s inquisitive nature, though, and in another incident, not long after, Anne’s response to questioning left Nursey Goldsmith speechless.
Mary had strained her back trying to move a full milk churn on the farm, and the doctor told her she needed to take a week’s rest.
‘I’m going to be under the doctor for a while,’ she told her sisters, secretly welcoming the opportunity to relax at home. When Nursey asked Anne why her sister wasn’t at work, she was startled by the reply, ‘She’s underneath the doctor!’
German planes were still flying over the south coast of England and there was a sharp reminder of just how dangerous it could be, living in Hailsham, after one unusual incident in February 1943.
A German bomb in Hailsham town centre caused an extraordinary chain of events which had people fleeing for cover. The aircraft flew in low over the rec, then dropped its bomb, which fell on the post office in George Street. The missile didn’t go off immediately but instead bounced along the ground, damaging the sorting office, telephone ex
change and fire station, before trundling along to the church where it came to a halt and detonated. The windows of the church and many of the nearby shops were blown out by the explosion and there was the loss of one life. The incident shook everyone living in Hailsham and made them even more apprehensive when German planes flew over.
Another of Mary’s friends, Nora Collins, had started to date a Canadian soldier in the same regiment as Frank. However, in the early days of their courtship she didn’t want her parents to know about him, so she arranged with Mary that she would meet the soldier at the Jarmans’ house in Battle Road. The Jarman girls were puzzled by this new young man – in particular his lack of social graces. He would come into their home, sit down and not say a word to anyone. This continued until he arrived one Saturday evening when Pierce was down from London. Walking in, the soldier took a seat as usual without saying a word. When Pierce came downstairs, he was surprised to find a stranger sitting in his favourite armchair.
They exchanged glances but, in his usual fashion, the soldier said nothing. Pierce was so perplexed that he couldn’t think of anything to say either. He stood for a moment, staring at the soldier, then walked out to the kitchen where he found Mary washing some dishes.
‘Something funny just happened,’ he said, frowning.
‘What’s that?’ asked Mary.
‘Some bloke is sitting in my armchair and hasn’t said a word. A Canadian soldier.’ Pierce stared at Mary. ‘Who the bloody hell is he?’
‘Oh, he’s waiting for Nora,’ said Mary easily.
‘Well, why doesn’t he go round to her house?’ Pierce asked.
Mary explained the arrangement and Pierce shook his head. ‘Oh, no, he isn’t. Not any more. You can’t have soldiers coming and going at the house. Word will get around,’ he said, thinking of the neighbours who were already twitching their lace curtains. ‘I’m not having you get a reputation. And we don’t want the younger ones being taken away to be looked after by someone else.’
Mary was horrified at this thought and quickly reassured her father that she would put an end to it.
‘I’ll sort it,’ said Pierce. He went back into the front room and, as politely as he could, explained to the young man that he did not want him waiting at the house any more. If he wanted to see Nora, he would have to go to her house or meet her somewhere else.
When he was through, there was a moment’s pause before the soldier got up calmly and, to Pierce’s surprise, walked out, still without saying a word.
While the dances and soldiers were a great source of excitement for Mary and other girls of her age, Joan felt a certain resentment at being stuck at home day and night, weighed down with the pressure and responsibility of ‘being mum’ and the daily chores it involved.
She was now dropping off Anne every day at the nursery part of the school that Kath and Pat attended. There, all the toddlers would play a few games in the morning and then sleep on camp beds in the hall in the afternoon. Nursey Goldsmith had also kindly offered to have Anne for an hour or two after nursery. At her house, she would give Anne cake and a drink, and had even bought some little rag dollies for her to play with. Anne looked forward eagerly to her time spent with Nursey, and Joan appreciated her neighbour’s help and generosity.
Annie had been proved right after all, when she had told her girls that Mrs Goldsmith seemed kind, despite her telling them off for stealing her loganberries.
In quiet moments at home, with Mary at work and her younger sisters at school and nursery, Joan would feel depressed. Circumstances had forced her to grow up too quickly and since Annie’s death she had been missing out on the joy of youth. That was to change a little, though, when at sixteen she too started going to the dances – causing Pierce double the worry.
Pierce told Joan and Mary that if they both wanted to go to a midweek dance, they couldn’t go at the same time because of the younger girls at home. So, they came to an arrangement. Joan would go for the first half of the evening, then return home so that Mary could go for the remainder.
They would often get a lift back home, along with some of the other young women, in one of the army jeeps or lorries, and at weekends Pierce wouldn’t be able to relax properly until both of his older daughters were home safely. He wasn’t keen on them getting into jeeps with soldiers but he didn’t want them to walk home alone either. Both options caused him to worry.
He would often pick up a photograph of Annie from the mantelpiece, which showed her pushing Mary and Joan in a pram on the seafront, alongside himself, and wish with all his heart that she could pass on her advice. Annie had always known what to do. Even when she was wrong!
On Saturday nights, he would wait restlessly, straining to hear the sound of Mary and Joan’s return. Even if they were just a few minutes later than expected, his anxiety would increase so much that he would have to go outside and lean on the garden gate, smoking a cigarette apprehensively, peering down the street, hoping to see them coming. The girls became used to seeing him there when they arrived home and were never convinced by his nonchalance and casual remark of ‘Just having a cigarette’.
The Hoodwin brothers proved to be doubly unlucky in love when it came to the Jarman sisters. When Geoff Hoodwin asked Joan on a date, she was flattered and excited but found herself declining politely, explaining – as Mary had done with Ron – that she didn’t want to date anyone for the time being. Joan surprised herself with her decision. It had been a chance to have some romance and excitement in her life but in the back of her mind was the thought that if Ron was considered to be not good enough for Mary, then it followed that Geoff was not good enough for her! Besides, Mary was right. The Canadians were more glamorous. Indeed, shortly after rejecting Geoff, she started dating an eighteen-year-old Canadian soldier named Bob Wall, who was billeted a few miles away in Eastbourne.
She had met him at a dance when he had asked her to be his partner for one of the slower numbers and, although she thought his dancing left much to be desired, she had warmed to him and thought him good looking. She also liked his ginger hair – she knew they made a striking couple. They had a couple more dances that first evening and, when the band eventually stopped playing, he asked if he could walk her home.
‘But you’re not going my way,’ said Joan.
‘I’d like to,’ replied Bob, smiling.
‘You’ll miss your lift to Eastbourne. You can’t walk back. It’s nearly nine miles.’
Bob laughed. ‘Why don’t you let me worry about that?’
As the two of them neared the house in Battle Road, Joan became apprehensive when she saw her father leaning on the gate, smoking. Worried about what he would think of seeing her alone with a soldier, she turned to Bob and said, ‘That’s my dad ahead. I’m fine now. Thank you for walking me home.’
Bob asked if he might dance with her again and Joan quickly agreed before hurriedly walking the remaining few yards to her house alone.
‘Had a nice evening?’ asked Pierce.
‘Yes. Lovely,’ said Joan.
‘Who was that who walked you home?’
‘Bob,’ said Joan, heading inside.
‘Bob?’
‘One of the Canadians.’
Another daughter with a soldier, Pierce thought gloomily as he followed her inside. Their hearts will surely be broken once the young men either move on or return home.
However, it was Joan who did the ‘moving on’ from Bob after he had walked her home regularly for a few weeks, leaving her without so much as a goodnight peck on the cheek. Indeed, all of the Canadian soldiers were very courteous and respectful towards the local girls and didn’t rush things. Pierce’s misgivings were entirely misplaced.
Before long, Joan started seeing another Canadian soldier named Al Hudson. He too was charming and considerate, and after they’d been going out together for a while, she even allowed him to call for her at the house, despite noticing Nursey Goldsmith’s twitching lace curtains next door. Joan was finding tha
t more and more men were interested in her and she was enjoying it – let the neighbours talk. She had grown used to feeling like a girl amongst the older women and like a mum to her sisters. Now she felt like a woman. And it felt good. So did swapping her apron for her best dress and make-up, and getting out of the kitchen to go on a dance or a date.
However, her newfound confidence also brought with it a certain insensitivity at times. Al, like Bob before him, was rejected rather brusquely before he had even managed a kiss with Joan. The suddenness of the termination surprised not only Al but Joan, too.
He had arranged to call for her one evening to go to the cinema and she had got ready as usual. As the day wore on, she found herself becoming less inclined to go, though. She was sitting in the armchair, waiting for his arrival and thinking that she really didn’t fancy the evening ahead, when he knocked on the door. Mary let him in and, as he entered the living room, Joan made an on-the-spot decision.
Without rising from the chair, she told him, ‘I don’t want to come.’
Al looked down at her, his ready smile fading fast. ‘Are you not feeling well?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine,’ Joan replied. ‘I just don’t want to go. I don’t want to go out with you any more. I’m sorry, but that’s the way I feel.’
Al was crushed and didn’t know what to say. After standing in the Jarmans’ living room for a few moments longer, feeling foolish, he uttered a brief, ‘If that’s the way you feel, then …’ before turning and walking out.
As soon as he had gone, Joan felt wretched about the dismissive way she had treated him and vowed never to be so brusque with anyone again. He had been considerate and kind, and his feelings had clearly been hurt. Now she shared some of his pain.
The Sisters of Battle Road Page 16