Nella Last in the 1950s

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Saturday, 25 March. The sun pouring into my bedroom window this morning suddenly gave me the ‘wanders’ and though I did feel I was wearing someone else’s feet and ankles, as I dressed I made up my mind to clear off for the day and go to Ambleside on the 9.30 bus. I took an orange and some chocolate, meaning to get lunch. It was a perfect spring day, one to make a poet sing. Woods and gardens golden with daffodils and forsythia, or purple with crocus and petunias, and the early almond and rhododendrons were a glory of pink. Little lambs skipped in the sunshine, old people and children sat on steps and low walls of cottage gardens. Windows were wide and doors propped open, as if everyone wanted to take full advantage of the lovely sunshine. The bus kept filling to bulging, then emptying a little as market people got off and fishermen, hikers and walkers, and people with children with baskets, eagerly talking of the daffodils they meant to pick.

  The Ambleside bus from Barrow takes nearly two hours, and there’s a two-hour service. I decided to wait for the next one, and sauntered through the town to the Lake. It was too early for lunch, and I didn’t feel like any of the proffered menus – made up dishes mainly – so I bought a meat patty and a cake and ate them, together with the orange and plain chocolate, down by the Lake. I’d have sat longer in the sun, but when I’d no more bits of pastry to throw to the swans, they began to come out of the water to know the reason why, and looked a bit formidable, so I walked slowly back to the bus terminus and got a cup of tea. A pack of young huntsmen with about the most mixed pack of dogs imaginable devoured big tea cake sandwiches of egg and cress, cheese and lettuce or meat, and spoke of the rough going over Coniston and Hawkshead fells. A girl walked slowly up to the snack bar, leading a French poodle, and we talked of animals as I lost my heart to the silly black-haired clown, who, evidently realising how I admired him, did all his tricks. When he put one paw on the side of his nose and peeped up sideways so roguishly, I felt I could have taken him home – and chanced my spoilt cats’ reactions to him!

  If my feet and ankles hadn’t throbbed and burned, I’d have waited for the next bus, but I knew it would go colder quickly as the sun sank behind the hills. I was home at 3.30, and meant to go downtown, but the settee in the sun tempted me and I stretched out and read the paper.

  Sunday, 26 March. It’s been a marvellous day. I thought wistfully of Coniston Lake. I thought I’d better turn out the little front room and air the mattress and pillows in the sunshine. If as I suspect my husband will be coming home at the end of his fortnight, I’ll not want a lot to do. With working all morning I could have a rest this afternoon whereas if he was home I’d have had to go out, and even in the car, if I’ve had a busy morning, I’d rather relax.

  Mrs Howson came to see if I’d go to church, and took my letters to the post. We had to be there by 6 o’clock. It’s a small church, only holding about 300, and was packed before they rang the bell. It was a very good sermon by the Archdeacon of Westmorland, a simple sincere ‘talk’ rather than an actual sermon, on trying to see ‘God’s plan’ behind everything. It could have been my old Gran speaking.

  Will returned home on Monday, 27 March, as gloomy and ‘nervy’ as ever, and for several days thereafter Nella found little to be cheerful about. Her son Arthur arrived from Belfast on 1 April for a ten-day visit, so she could at least enjoy his company; but it was her husband’s low moods and neediness that darkened much of her writing this month. ‘As I sat I realised suddenly how all fight has left me nowadays,’ she wrote on 15 April, ‘to be replaced by a calm acceptance of the fact my husband dislikes most contact with the outside world, that his life-long shyness has somehow soured, and settled into a “keep out” fixation. Now I feel I don’t want people to look at him in surprise when he says unthinking remarks, or behaves in a pettish way. I feel I’m growing reserved to a degree – a kind of pride no doubt. I hate people to pity me!’

  Friday, 21 April. Mrs Higham had rung up while I was out, saying it was uniform for the WVS† dinner on Saturday. To hear my husband natter you would have thought I intended going as Lady Godiva. He thought I should have gone in my dinner dress and defied whoever had decreed uniform. I felt a bit peeved myself, but when they were all going to wear it I naturally fell in. After all, I feel happier in my old shabby frock and overcoat than in any Paris creation. It represents something in my life that is a mixture of effort, gaiety, comradeship and purpose that outweighed all the darkness and anxiety of war years …

  My husband laid down for an hour and then decided to get out the car and go and sit over Walney. I’m sure he is suffering from a kind of poisoning from taking sleeping tablets constantly again. He was saying how ill all over he felt, and I said a bit crossly, ‘You are the only one who can do yourself any good. You have drifted back to that state you were in before when you were over-drugged. You must stop taking them as a habit and concentrate on simple things like windows more open, drinks of water, reading when you cannot sleep, etc. You haven’t any worries about the business wind-up – or your mother – to blame now, and you must take some liver pills or Fynnons.† They won’t do harm if they don’t do good in the way of making you sleep.’ I tried not to be ungenerous but couldn’t help wondering if he will be better after the St George’s dinner is over. He does so hate me going anywhere he cannot go.

  He wouldn’t go for his usual walk in the sunshine. He said it was too windy, so we sat with the windows of the car open on the sheltered side. The sea was thundering in at high tide and smelled sweet and fresh. Several beachcombers staggered up the stones with good oddments of wood that had been washed up. Some of the squatters have been luckier than others, as if the RAF huts were in better repair than others. I noticed a group of huts were being repaired and the roofs tarred. That section had little gardens – even hen runs – cultivated, and rough fences from, apparently, driftwood. Other huts had been utterly demolished as soon as tenants could be put into Council houses. I suppose as this big new housing estate gets finished they will all have to go. They will find a change from the freedom of sea coast and wide spaces – and having to pay as high as 24–28 shillings a week compared to the 10 shillings they pay which now includes electricity for light.

  Saturday, 22 April. Mrs Howson ran in to ask if I’d go down early to help receive guests [at the WVS dinner]. She had been helping Miss Willan and her sister set serviettes with wee red rose buds (cotton), fudge in little silver bonbon dishes, cigarettes, silver candlesticks with red and white candles, and had had a busy afternoon. It poured with rain, and kept several members away who had been last year. The organiser from Birkenhead was the speaker. I’d met her in the war, but wouldn’t have known her. She had so gone to seed, not only put on weight but badly needed a decent corset and hairdo. She still wore her rather unruly hair in a long bob, most unbecoming when it is now grey – and she has grown fatter. She and Mrs Diss, who has put on at least three stones since wartime days, teased me with my ‘girlish’ figure, asking the secret. I said, ‘Perhaps a nervy tummy that keeps me more or less on a diet – and I don’t like chocolates’, a little dig at Mrs Diss, who rarely has one out of her mouth, eating her husband’s and son’s share as well as her own! … Perhaps I’ve so many real worries and problems nowadays, but the speeches about WVS seemed either a rehash of past efforts or a little ‘make believe’ effort to recapture the undoubted value of the movement. Perhaps in Barrow there isn’t the need or call for ‘meals on wheels’, ‘good mother’ schemes – and the Hospital Outpatients Canteen and Trolley service seems like another leg on a cat.

  Monday, 24 April. When Mrs Jones began knocking at the window and ringing the bell just after 8 o’clock, I felt my day had begun badly, but when she insisted on taking the two bottles of milk off the milkman and bringing them on to the window sill and dropped and broke one on the step, I felt really cross. It went off like a bomb and splinters of glass flew everywhere. The milkman gave me another in its place, but that didn’t help clean up the mess. To make matters worse a needle-like splinter go
t into Mrs Jones’ instep – she had court shoes on – and with it being so cold the blood flowed quicker. I felt I couldn’t be bothered with her. I put on my coat and hat and took her home, telling Mr Jones what had happened. He looked distraught. He has aged terribly these few months and has the unkempt look elderly men get with no woman to keep him up to scratch. Years ago, his perky, bustling ways used to amuse us. His droll witticisms kept people laughing. Now his eyes look tired and have no humour, only weariness. He said, ‘I hope Mrs Jones doesn’t worry you like she did?’ I said, ‘Oh no, don’t worry. She loves our chiming bell you know.’ And when I saw a bit of worry lift off his face as he smiled goodbye, I thought, ‘Odd how a lie can make you happier than the truth!’

  CHAPTER THREE

  SNAPSHOTS OF SOCIETY

  May–August 1950

  Wednesday, 3 May. We decided to go tonight to the Coliseum, mainly to see Albert Modley’s brother Allen, who was a comedian – very good too and a well balanced show [billed as ‘Strippingly Saucy’]. I often think I must have a queer kink – the turn that interested me above all others was judged by most standards revolting! A supple limbed man with a toupee, but with the rest of his hair long, and with an unmistakable air of perversion, did little more than ‘dress the stage’ and join in generally. Then came his scene – two Chinese immobile opening curtains, a pallet bed piled with cushions on the floor, in a corner a table with a life-size silver idol with contorted limbs, silver mask with stiff upstanding spirals of hair. The curtains parted. A golden-haired girl came through and was helped off with a gorgeous fur coat, and led to the divan where she was given an opium pipe and settled herself to sleep and dream. The idol quivered into life and stepped down. His supple silver body only had a G-string with silver fringe. Few realised the utter perfection of his writhing as his arms wove bonelessly in what looked like a true altar dance. His body had lost the perfect sinuousness of adolescence needed for perfect interpretation. The music was marvellous and puzzled me at first as it whispered and throbbed with the true temple beat – a gramophone record of course. I heard a man behind say, ‘You see a lot of this kind of thing in India, you know, but generally in back street shows’. The dreamer on the pallet bed tossed and moaned. The ‘idol’ with the perfectly masked face – like a real idol, so impassive, sexless, ageless – bent over her, and then sprang silently back onto the table as she stirred to consciousness. The attendants brought her coat and firmly led her to the curtains, which parted. She went through. They fell in silent folds. The ‘Chinese’ attendants tucked their hands in their sleeves and bowed their heads slightly. The spotlight flickered on the immobile silver idol, and the curtain fell quickly as the music died. A real gem of production, timing and performance. I suppose it was revolting. It was perhaps a ‘wonder it had been let escape the censor’s eye’. The half whispers round showed that people recognised what the man was by inclination if not an ‘accident’ of birth, but somehow the perfection lifted it above all else for me. Allen Modley is good. Pity he models his toothless grimaces on Norman Evans, and his witless type of humour – ‘gormless’† is the Yorkshire word – on his brother Albert.*

  Thursday, 4 May. The sun shone. I persuaded my husband to go to Ulverston market and felt glad we did for I got such nice fillets of sole and a halibut head for my cats – IS1s 8d for the fish and only 3d for the good meaty head. Beside two country lorries drawn up in the square, a line of women queued. Feeling curious I went to the top of the queue to see – then hurried back to the end to wait my turn for cauliflowers when I heard the price – 1s for bigger and cleaner looking ones than for 2s 6d in Barrow. When it was my turn I said to the pleasant-faced girl, ‘I wish you came to Barrow market’. She said, ‘Nay. Dad and Mother say it’s wasted time and petrol, and it means we can sell them cheaper here in Ulverston. We sell all we grow direct so our prices are generally about half.’ She told me they had had plenty of young spring greens at 6d each but all had been sold. I saw onions on several stalls at 1s a pound, but they found few buyers. Women bought green scallions at 6d a pound. Though not so strongly flavoured, they were better value. Plenty of nice fowls, huge whole salmon, and every kind of ‘good’ fish in the fish shop where I got mine. I felt shopping was easy with a full purse! We had a cup of tea at a snack bar, and then were home by 11.30.*

  Friday, 5 May. Mrs Howson came in after tea, in one of her very worst ‘I’ve no time for that’ humour, and sat waspish and bitter tongued about all and every subject that cropped up. I felt puzzled and wondered what had possibly upset her. I’ve not seen her quite so nowty since Canteen days. I think I found what was the root of her bad humour. I asked if she had filled in her Civil Defence form, and she snapped, ‘Yes, if there’s any decent job going we might as well have them and not the folks who have only been in WVS five minutes’. She and I differ widely on WVS policy. She ‘doesn’t want strangers poking into meetings and dinners – folk that never helped when there was work to be done’. I feel we who have gone through the war have had enough and should encourage and help others to take over in the dreadful event of being needed again. Perhaps because I myself feel so depleted nowadays, I think others will feel the same. She said suddenly, ‘What do you think of that newcomer, Mrs Todkill?’ I said, ‘I don’t know much about her at all. She was a stranger. Her husband is an Admiralty man, and she came to the WVS to try and make friends and when introduced to me I pounced on her and asked her if she would take over and help Mrs Higham in the trolley scheme, and be stand-in for me at the hospital outpatients’ canteen.’ I got such a look as Mrs Howson said, ‘So that’s how she got pushed into things – and now she is going to be organiser for the Civil Defence. I was asked but felt I wasn’t smart enough, but she took it without demur.’

  I laughed to myself at Mrs Howson’s being asked. At the Canteen she gave frantic signals for help to the counter if a coloured man, a foreigner who couldn’t speak English, or a lad who showed the least signs of having had drink came up. She got offended and was so touchy she had to be handled carefully, and disliked people at a glance. I wondered what job on her own she could have held. As for lecturing, she has no idea of speaking coherently, even about clothes and fashion. It’s difficult sometimes to grasp the idea she wants to convey. I said without thinking, ‘Mrs Todkill is a quiet little thing – but have you seen her firm decisive mouth? To me she looks as if she has been used to authority – perhaps been a teacher.’ Then I got Mrs Howson’s opinion of teaching, folk who were stuck up because they had been to college, etc. etc. I felt so out of patience. I felt she needed a sharp slap and a dose of syrup of figs like a disordered child, and I felt too I’d all the whims and moods to cope with that I was capable of doing. I often realise with a little sadness that I must have had a lot more patience in the war. Maybe, too, I felt more balanced. To make up for little annoyances and frets, there was the purpose, the laughter and the wide companionship, and the feeling you were helping – a pretty good feeling.

  Saturday, 6 May. It poured as we went in the bus but lessened as we hurried down the road to the Odeon. People in every shop doorway showed by their lack of raincoats they had been caught unexpectedly. It was a really good mixed programme – a short comedy, cartoon, an interesting but very misleading propaganda short. A foreigner would have said, ‘Ah, the wonder schools the English have. Now the Health Scheme is nationalised.’ Twice the commentator spoke of ‘free secondary schools for all’, and by what I hear, parents have even more worry than I had! Arthur got in the Grammar School sixth in the town; Cliff just failed the written exam, but got in on the ‘personality’ test. I can hear of many anxious parents – generally it’s mothers who worry most – who are waiting this week to hear how children came off last week when they had their interview. The Big Steal [starring Robert Mitchum] was the best picture we have seen for months – its action in Mexico alone would have been of interest – but the story, acting and production was all good. My husband has begun to take an interest in going to the cinema, a
nd though I’m very glad I’d be more so if he could find something to do – to build. He used to care. He could make toys for Peter, he could paste snaps in the album, help a little in lots of little household tasks – even go shopping – lots of retired men do.

  Monday, 8 May. A ring brought a dapper assured-looking man, with pencil and pad and the brisk manner of someone determined to have information. Yet he was only seeking customers for cleaning windows! I could only tell him two men did all the windows on the small estate and suggest he tried somewhere a little farther out of town. Such a nice friendly young man, really. He had just finished 21 years in the Navy, joining as a boy of 14. I can generally size up people. I said, ‘Why window cleaning? I think you have been used to waiting at table.’ When he said he had I recommended him to Thompsons, the brewers, who own a lot of the hotels in the district and where a cousin of my husband’s is managing director, and I’d heard his wife say they were short of part-time waiters often. When he thanked me he said, ‘A chap who knew Barrow said, “Glad you are going up there with the wife – there’s a friendly crowd”, but I didn’t realise what he meant. I am grateful for the suggestion and will go right away.’ He turned to wave at the gate – and for no reason at all I felt tears on my cheeks as I closed the door, and thoughts of Cliff, never far from my mind, rushed overwhelmingly over me.

  Tuesday, 9 May. For curiosity I called in to see if my naval caller had been to see about a waiter’s job. My husband’s cousin said, ‘He seems a very likely chap, and if he comes up to what he says of first-class waiting and understanding mixing and serving of drinks, he will have no need to think of a window cleaner’s round’. I got half a bottle of whisky to have in the house – the first in a long time I’ve been able to get, in spite of my husband’s connection with the managing director. Wines, rum and brandies as well as many brands of cocktails were plentiful, but sadly enough, no gin …