Wedding Bells on the Home Front

by Annie Clarke

  Annie Clarke

  * * *

  WEDDING BELLS ON THE HOME FRONT

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  About the Author

  Annie Clarke’s roots are dug deep into the North East. She draws inspiration from her mother, who was born in a County Durham pit village during the First World War, and went on to become a military nurse during World War Two. Annie and her husband now live a stone’s throw from the pit village where her mother was born. She has written frequently about the North East in novels which she hopes reflect her love and respect for the region’s lost mining communities.

  Annie has four adult children and four granddaughters, who fill her and her husband’s days with laughter, endlessly leading these two elders astray.

  Also by Annie Clarke

  Girls on the Home Front

  Heroes on the Home Front

  For Cass and Ben with so much love

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sunday, 1 March 1942

  Fran Hall sat on the back seat of the bus that carried her brother Stan, his bride, Sarah, and half the wedding party. With Bert at the wheel, they were travelling from St Oswald’s Church to the wedding tea in Massingham pit village. She could see Cyril’s bus carrying the other guests just in front of them.

  Fran grinned because she knew that Bert would be right fed up that he’d been slow off the mark and Cyril’s passengers would be first at the food and drink. Oh aye, she thought to herself, they’d be clustering around the buffet table like gannets.

  The buses were travelling slowly, as snow had come out of nowhere just as they’d left the church. It was beginning to lie on the road. She looked through the window, seeing the flakes tumbling, then speeding up into flurries, blocking the view of the fields where sheep would be huddled in the lee of the drystone walls. The snow was blocking out Auld Hilda’s slag heap, too. It didn’t matter, for she knew exactly where their village pit was, and the pithead, and Massingham itself, all of which were as permanent as – well, Davey.

  Davey who was even now sliding his arm around her, kissing her cheek and saying, ‘By, I’m right pleased Stevie finished the photos quick, so we could get on board and not end up like snowmen.’

  ‘Aye, but look what it’s doing, bonny lad.’ Fran nodded towards the front of the bus, where the snow was settling on the windscreen, making the wipers labour and screech. In an instant the chatter was stilled, and everyone watched, and waited. Fran grinned along with the other passengers.

  Davey squeezed her closer, and then breathed, ‘Wait … Wait …’

  It took a few seconds, and then she heard the clearing of Bert’s throat. Any minute. Any min—

  ‘You keep yourselves going, you bliddy wipers,’ Bert shouted. ‘I’ve a bliddy beer waiting at the bliddy wedding tea, you bliddy hear me?’

  She cheered, along with everyone else, for here, on this bus, was her world, strong and sturdy, and aye, permanent. These were her family, friends, neighbours, fellow munitions workers, and pitmen. She pressed into Davey, aching with the need for him to stay and not return to Bletchley Park and the code-breakers. Stay. Stay. For he belonged here, with his pitman scars, his blue eyes, his soft lips. Davey kissed her and she pressed harder against him, not caring that her cracked ribs were not completely healed, nor her fractured arm. Not completely, but enough, and she was home, working at the local munitions factory, not the Scottish one to which she and Sarah had been temporarily transferred, only to be injured in an explosion.

  Davey was whispering and pulling her back from the accident, to the bus, to him: ‘I do love you, Franny Hall, sister of Stan and Ben, and soon to be me missus. And as me missus, you’ll have to do as you’re told. Clean the windows, scrub the step—’

  She slapped him. They smiled, and kissed. Around them the easy chattering and bursts of laughter continued. She was safe, but the memory of the pain still seeped back, the explosion … She chanted in her head: Stan had just married Davey’s sister. They were squashed together on the other side of her. Beth sat alongside Davey. Viola was jammed in next to her. So, all three bridesmaids were together.

  She had given the words a rhythm and Fran continued chanting: Viola, whom they had brought back from Scotland. Viola, who was without her parents. Without half a hand. With half an ear and a scorched scalp. From that same accident.

  Davey whispered, ‘Makes me feel good, pet, being home amongst them all.’

  His words resonated – home amongst them all. She clung to them, finding a laugh. ‘And with me, of course?’

  Davey kissed her temple. ‘Them, I said, so no, I don’t care whether you’re here or not.’

  She poked him and this time they laughed together, as they had since they were small bairns, and all right, and the cries of those trapped beneath the debris had no place in this moment, and no place in her dreams. She touched his hand, so warm, rough. Davey, her Davey, was being a pest, and that’s as it had always been and she loved him for it. She dug him in the ribs. ‘Then maybe don’t come back in a month for our own wedding, eh?’

  Davey grew serious, and he lifted her hand and kissed it again and again. ‘I would crawl on my knees from the south to marry you, my dearest lovely Franny. Besides, everyone would be right irate because they’d miss not having pheasant sandwiches for the wedding tea. Mr Massingham sent birds down from the Hall, didn’t he, so he’ll likely do the same for us?’

  ‘Oh aye, I reckon so. He’s a good man. You might have heard that the bridesmaids’ mams and the marrers have been up before dawn making them into sandwiches, but I’ve done a few spam as well. It’s them I’ve put aside for you.’

  ‘Best not do that for the wedding tea, or it’s out into the cold you’ll go.’

  Fran laughed, pinching his hand just below a pit scar.

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Serves you right,’ she said, looking past him to Beth and Viola. ‘I reckon Davey thinks if he doesn’t turn up for our wedding you’d be right cross because you’d miss the tea, not because he’d left a lonely bride waiting in tears at the altar.’

  Beth raised her eyebrows at Viola. Together they nodded. ‘Aye, that’d be right,’ said Beth. ‘Canna have enough wedding teas, or them with a bit of pheasant on the menu anyway.’

  Viola smoothed her dress. ‘Will you wear Sarah’s dress, and will we wear these?’ She pointed at their summer frocks.

  Fran raised her eyebrows. ‘Depends if we can find any more discarded curtains at Massingham Hall. There’s not enough left of the nursery ones we found for Sarah, so maybe I’ll just swan down the aisle in me pinny and little else. What d’you think, our Sarah?’

  Sarah was far too busy listening to Stan’s sweet nothings to reply.

  ‘Come here, Franny.’ Davey eased Fran closer to him, and she kissed his hand better, but saw Beth peering past them to the brida
l couple, squashed together at the end of the back seat. ‘Sarah’s going to look as though she’s been dragged through a hedge, with all this hugging.’

  Viola sniggered. ‘It’s a brocade curtain, so I reckon any creases will drop out with a bit of a shake.’

  Sarah heard. ‘No one’s shaking me or my dress, or I’ll set my husband on you.’ There was more laughter, this time from the seats in front of them too, the sound rippling down the bus.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ Fran muttered to Sarah, ‘and get back to being squashed, eh. But I reckon the wedding photos will be quite something. There’ll be you, blonde and blue-eyed, looking like a queen in your finery, wondering who these three lasses are cluttering up the place in their mams’ summer dresses. There’ll be me with hair as dark as Ben’s and Stan’s, Beth red-haired, and Viola a dark auburn, all with munitions chemicals streaked through. Howay, a line up of right beauties.’

  ‘What about me, I’d like to know,’ huffed Stan, ‘the bridegroom in his best bib and tucker, shiny boots, no chemical streaks, and a come-hither smile?’

  Sarah laughed. ‘Don’t forget your blue pitman scars, you daft apeth.’

  ‘’Tis your only bib and tucker,’ called Ben, who was sitting in front of Stan.

  Stan flicked the lad’s cap. ‘Enough from you, little brother.’

  Viola sighed. ‘I couldn’t get over the confetti – all that colouring and cutting by the evacuees up at Massingham Hall. Must have taken an age.’

  The bus crawled around a bend and Fran saw that though the snow was easing, it hadn’t quite stopped yet. A few flakes were still falling, and somehow it made the day even better, because everywhere was so white, clean and magical. She looked down at her hands, tinged yellow by the explosive chemicals. It was daft to have to be so secretive about what they did when half the women on this bus were walking posters that declared We’re working in munitions, helping to win the war. But all they could actually say was that they worked in a factory, making – whatever lies they came up with.

  Davey covered her hands with his. ‘All right, lass?’

  ‘I’m always all right,’ she said.

  The bus crawled around another bend, skidding on the icy road, then straightening. Fran smiled at Davey, responding to the tightening of his grip. He murmured into her hair, his breath warm on her skin, ‘It’s so grand being here, and look, the snow’s on the point of stopping, bonny lass, and there’ll be elderberry wine any minute, which’ll make you sweetness and light. Makes me think that while you’re rushing about gathering up my posh sandwiches—’

  She slapped him. He laughed and continued: ‘While you’re doing that, I’ll have a bit of a word with Bert, because I noticed the front off-side tyre is bald, and could be dangerous. I’m not having me girl at risk, for I need her fit and well to look after me.’

  Viola peered along at him and said, ‘You are bliddy joking. A bald tyre dangerous? And our work at the Factory isn’t, you daft pitman?’

  ‘And the snow’s just about stopped,’ called Beth, ‘so Bert can give over swearing at the wipers, for I reckon he still is.’

  Beth’s husband, Bob, who was sitting in front of her, asked, ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘He nods his head when he blathers away driving us into the Factory. Have a good look – he’s doing it now. Enjoys it, I reckon. Likes any old excuse.’

  They all sat back as the wipers jettisoned the last of the snow and began to sweep cleanly across the windscreen to reveal the smouldering Massingham slag heap, and the pithead standing against the grey sky. Aye, thought Fran, and that’s just as good as the magical, dancing snow. Davey was hugging her again and whispering, ‘You know, lass, since you told me over the phone about our mams nursing Ralph Massingham up at the Hall—’

  She nodded as Beth cut in: ‘Aye, the pus from his pit cut got into his blood – near killed him. Right grand the mams’ proggy-makers’ co-op were, for Sophia Massingham couldn’t manage to nurse him on her own, what with the evacuees as well. Day and night them women slogged, took it in shifts – with Sophia taking her turn, mark you. Fore shift, aft shift and night shift, saved his life they did, using the sphagnum moss to suck the pus out.’

  Viola pulled a face. ‘Must you keep saying pus? I’ve gone right off eating.’

  The call was taken up by the next few rows.

  Over the complaints, Davey took up where he’d left off. ‘Well, I reckon they performed a miracle, for it not only drew the poison, but something deeper that were making him the beggar he’s always been. He’s paid towards the booze, hasn’t he? Not his da, but the whelp? And he’s different – spent time talking to people at the church.’

  Beth wagged her finger at him. ‘Don’t let the co-op hear you calling him the whelp. They got fond of him when he were poorly, and reckon the change in him could well last. Me mam said there’s just something different about him.’

  ‘But what I say is, can we trust the turnaround?’ Davey muttered. ‘Can the stuck-up owner’s son switch to be someone human?’

  Fran couldn’t understand the change either, except that her mam could charm the worst into being angels, and Ralph had been the worst. Always a bully, right from a bairn, lording it about the village. Nothing like his da at all.

  Bob dragged out his Woodbines and threw the packet to Davey. ‘Pass them along – and put your hand down, Ben.’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ Ben moaned.

  Stan swatted him. ‘It is – you’re still a bairn.’

  ‘I’m twelve,’ Ben protested.

  ‘Aye, still a bairn,’ they all shouted.

  Ben sulked as Stan lit everyone’s cigarettes.

  Bert ground the gears. Near the front of the bus, Mrs Oborne broke off from her chat with Fran’s mam and yelled, ‘Been on the booze, our Bert?’

  ‘Chance’d be a fine bliddy thing. Even when I get to the Miners’ Club I can only have a bit, since I have to get the old besom back to the depot after.’

  ‘You’re not taking me to any depot, you dirty old man,’ yelled Mrs Oborne.

  Davey spoke over the laughter: ‘Some things never change, thank the Lord.’

  Bob had taken off his naval cap and was fanning his laughing wife. ‘Calm yourself, Beth. You and all, Viola, or you’ll do yourselves a mischief.’

  Bob’s ‘Ouch’ as Beth clipped his ear was loud enough to make Sarah shout, ‘Man up, Bob, she’s only a bitty lass—’

  Just then there was a screech of brakes and they were flung forwards, then back. Bert bellowed, ‘Bliddy hell, it were a cat. It ran across in front.’

  ‘Black one?’ boomed Mrs Oborne.

  Someone who had a window seat yelled, ‘Aye, it were an’ all.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ shouted Mrs Oborne, ‘for it’s good luck for us all. So come on, Bert, stop making a meal of it and get your bliddy foot down. We need to get to the victuals before Cecil’s busload eat the whole bliddy lot, for it’ll be gobs open and no holds barred.’

  ‘Aye, and you could do to shut yours an’ all, Tilly Oborne, or I’ll turf you off.’

  The passengers were sniggering, and Bert’s tirade ended on a great guffaw as he drove on.

  Sarah felt Stan so close to her they could have been just one person, and didn’t think she could be any happier. She linked her arm carefully through Fran’s strapped one, and as the bus trundled along she couldn’t hold in her joy any longer. ‘Here I am, Sarah Hall – yes, Hall, not Bedley any more.’

  She stopped as those in the nearest rows turned round, smiling. ‘Aye,’ she called, not caring what anyone thought, ‘I’m the wife of Stan, one of the best hewers in the pit, and a scholarship lad who’s been to Oxford an’ all.’

  Fran leaned against her. ‘Aye, Mrs Hall, my brother is one of the best.’

  Sarah just grinned. ‘Well, in a month you’ll not be Fran Hall any longer, but Fran Bedley. It’s like a roundabout, isn’t it? Hall, Bedley, Bedley, Hall, and if you don’t have a black cat running in front of you
r bus, then you’ll share mine. Oh Franny, it’s all so wonderful.’

  Stan was laughing, and Sarah kissed his cheek. He was so strong, so brave, so certain. Well, he was a pitman, so of course he was. What’s more, she was strong too, especially after the dreams – or perhaps nightmares would be a better word – had faded. Night after night they’d come, the dreams of lying beneath the debris in Scotland, only stopping when they’d left hospital and finally returned to Massingham.

  Aye, Massingham, with its back-to-backs, the clop of pitmen’s boots in the early morning, and Stan, wonderful Stan, who had soothed her and put her to rights. She snatched a look at Fran, who was too pale, too short of sleep, and who still heard the cries from under the rubble. Night after night Fran dreamed it, and Sarah had told her it were just plain daft for they had not made a noise, but the lass seemed not to take it in.

  There was another screech of brakes, and they braced themselves as Mrs Oborne yelled, ‘For pity’s sake, Bert, get a bliddy grip.’

  ‘Aye,’ came Bert’s reply, ‘and the grip’ll be round that big gob of yours. Open your eyes, lass. We’re here.’

  Everyone had been too busy talking, but now they looked out of the windows and saw that they were parked behind Cecil’s bus, about twenty yards from the Miners’ Club.

  ‘All off the Skylark, and last one in’s a cissy,’ yelled Bert. ‘And I’ll have no more cheek from you, Tilly Oborne, or I’ll lock you in the luggage hold and your old man’ll not stop me, so you can settle back down, our Steve.’

  Steve sat down with a thump, laughing. Then he was up again as his wife shouted orders to join the queue and be sharp about it.

  Fran and Davey slipped into the aisle on the heels of the bridal couple, Davey’s breath warm on her neck as he said, ‘I know you’re still having them dreams, lass, but don’t fret, the dreams are your mind’s way of shifting the thoughts. Stan and I were the same in the pit when the coal came down and buggered our legs. Best to ignore them.’