Nella Last in the 1950s

by Patricia Malcolmson

  My husband, after wondering and wondering what to do, decided to go to see Happiest Days of Your Life [starring Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford], so after I’d washed up and he had relaxed a while, we went. It began so well, but as it went on seemed to lapse into the amateurish way of so many British pictures. We have such polished, experienced actors, marvellous photographic scenes – as good if not better ‘types’ for every imaginable crowd scene – yet so often, however good the story, I catch myself saying in my mind ‘tich tich’, let’s do that again. The stars I’ve blushed for from Gracie Fields, George Formby to Margaret Lockwood and poor Tommy Fields [brother of Gracie]. I’d have liked this picture run through again with frequent stops, to really find why, with everything to hand, it petered out. I wondered if it could be the attempt to blend rapier wit and flannel-footed slapstick. Then there was a travel picture of a London typist going on a Mediterranean trip on a cargo boat – boring and tedious and far too long. I love travel pictures of any kind, but when most of the film is taken on board and of people so commonplace in looks and actions as these, it seemed a waste of time. I felt that a lot had gone to destroy people’s interest in pictures. When I see poor ones I long to remonstrate, if even by getting up and walking out!

  Wednesday, 10 May. Such a lovely summery day, and the sun so warm. I got Mrs Salisbury to do all the windows and she seemed pleased to be outdoors in the fresh air. She had been to the Co-op dairies to find out why her eldest lad had been sacked, and was told it was because of his ‘poor educational standard’. The manager had held forth about the lads he had sent from the Labour bureau. He told Mrs Salisbury the bulk hadn’t the standards of a lad of 9–10 of the old days. He said, ‘Twenty years ago boys took milk out, or papers, or took basket meals to the shipyard. There was no cheap meals or free milk yet youngsters were bright and intelligent and mannerly when spoken to and didn’t pretend to know it all.’ He told Mrs Salisbury she must send George to evening classes and see he sticks to it. He said, ‘whatever he is, at least he wants to be able to count beyond 12, and write plainly, and at least spell simple words’. Mrs Salisbury said, ‘I told you my lads were only workers and the extra year was no good to them at school’ – and I could only agree. [The school leaving age had recently been raised from 14 to 15. ]

  Thursday, 11 May. After tea my husband ran Mrs Higham home and then said he would like to go for the last time to the Coliseum, which goes back to pictures next week. I looked at the orchestra – such good musicians but all grey headed. There isn’t any hope they will get another similar job. Two I know gave lessons and I suppose still do. Life must be cruel to all musicians – and stage people – unless they are on the top. A good comedian, several good turns and a ‘Title’ trained team of eight chorus girls didn’t compensate for the rest of the bill, which would have been more suitable for the Windmill! I never saw quite so little worn on the stage – and the really comic part was the pudgy starch fed girls which instead of allure radiated bath night. Two had definitely lost any virginal curves.* It was a shame to be in on such a lovely night. We walked slowly home, the sun still shining.

  Saturday, 13 May. I had a chat with Mr Helm, my next-door neighbour. I think Mr Helm is one of the most honest men I know. One eye after an operation is sightless, the other is so dim that he is blind in bright sunlight – and he has the awful uncertainty of success when he has the next cataract operation. Yet he potters about his garden whenever the sun is not too high, always working busily till dusk. He listens to talks and plays and news of every kind on the wireless, ‘blessing it more every day’, and is cheery and pleasant always. This morning he and his wife were full of concern about his brother, who has been in hospital with pneumonia. We talked about mutual acquaintances returning after being in India for over 12 years, and wondered how they would settle to life and conditions in England. The wife went to school with Arthur. Such a pleasant little gossip. I sighed as I saw my husband made no attempt to join in. He just sat back, aloof as always. I thought, ‘What pleasant companionship there could have been between the two “crocks”’.

  Tuesday, 16 May. My husband suggested going to Spark Bridge. I’d not sent Aunt Sarah her little parcel last week, for some dripping I had seemed [too] soft to send by post when it was so hot. I soon made tea so we could have an early start. There was enough cold meat I could have minced for sandwiches but my husband snapped, ‘Oh give it to the cats’ and we had cheese, lettuce, honey and bread and butter and fruit cake, and were off by 6 o’clock. It was a cloudy evening with a heaviness in the air that brought out the smell of hawthorn blossom, and as we neared Greenodd the wood smoke hung in the air and filled all around with that smell that always spells home to me, perhaps because my happiest childish memories are of my Gran and her quiet serenity, though the boys too always speak of wood smoke and the smell of baking bread as if it’s part of them! Aunt Sarah and Joe both looked as cheerful as usual, though she had been baking and he had just put in a hard day’s gardening. I thought at 85 and 82 they were as nature intended old people to be, full of memories, content to slowly go downhill, savouring every little pleasure or blessing coming their way. I had to hear all the local gossip. A confirmed old bachelor of over 60 had been to Manchester, his home town, and brought back a wife at Easter. As it’s an isolated cottage, I can only hope the bride of 62 settles after a city.

  Saturday, 27 May. I heard Mrs Howson come in and knew she had come to tell me all the news of the wedding. I made a plate of mixed sandwiches – tomato, cheese and lettuce, and cheese and grated onion, a favourite of hers – and there was sponge sandwich and bread and butter and strawberry jam. The bridegroom was a cousin of hers, a year widowed, and we knew the bride from childhood. She is older than Cliff but not quite as old as Arthur. There seemed to have been a little shadow cast by an unforeseen muddle at the church. The groom and best man and big taxi cab of guests had arrived at the church before a very sad little funeral was over – that of a three-year-old baby who had been drowned last week. The mother’s wild cries of ‘My baby, oh my baby’ had echoed round the church as she was half carried out, to meet on the steps another lot of wedding guests. Mrs Howson said it was surprising what a gloom was cast, and the pouring wet and cold day didn’t help, or the fact that ten more guests were squeezed in to the tables originally laid for 50 at a not too convenient café. I felt glad of her prattle about what everyone wore, how they looked, who had aged – or not – in the few years since they had been out of town. It helped hold my husband’s interest without effort on my part.

  Wednesday, 31 May. We relaxed and listened to Twenty Questions. I wondered as I sat if all the gossip in the papers about the effect television was having on the home life and make-up of American people could be exaggerated, and if we were in for a general change in amusement and entertainment, as in the rest of things today. We seem to have got into a whirling mad hurry that could carry us over the rapids to smooth strong waters, or draw us into a deep whirlpool. History seems to be ‘made’ in deeper and deeper swathes and spasms as each upheaval comes. I felt a sick shock to realise Australia is taking over in Malaysia, that there’s a growing need for action if peace is to last our time, never mind the next generation. Such a dreadful thought. From where I sat, Cliff’s tree showed at its best in the sunset. It’s different from the laburnum trees in the surrounding gardens. They have tassels, it has a long golden-scented fringe that isn’t at its best till the laburnums are finished, and has a long-lasting perfume. ‘I’ll see you again’ – but I won’t, not ever. Whoever I meet, if Cliff and my paths cross again, however dear, however he has fulfilled hopes and ambitions it’s ‘just the echo of a sigh’ for so much, and the sick wonder if another generation of mothers and wives will anguish over loved ones – for nothing at all. Worriers are always losers.

  Thursday, 1 June. Mrs Higham and I sat and talked. She spoke of all the undercurrents of unrest in the Yard,† as men wondered if their ‘responsible’ jobs would last. It’s always been th
at the key men who attained a good position kept it till retirement, and didn’t have to fear the axe from London. I laughed at little jokes the men in some offices had played on each other when petrol rationing was abolished [this had just occurred], like ringing up and saying, ‘Interested in a few petrol coupons for Whit, Bob? I believe I could get you ten or a dozen for 3s 6d each.’ They were largely accepted and ‘Bob’ went up to Mr Higham rubbing his hands saying, ‘Thank goodness I’ve got fixed up for petrol for Whit. I’ve managed to get hold of a dozen coupons.’ He joined in the laughter at the leg pull, but Mrs Higham said there had been a strong rumour rationing was being abolished the day before, and real offers of ‘bargains’ in coupons were being made. I thought of petrol at 3s plus 3s 6d for a coupon and gasped, but Mrs Higham said, ‘My doctor was in debt to the garage for nearly 200 coupons, and it’s been a general thing at some garages to pay your money and then hand over coupons and say casually as you fingered a 10 shilling note, “This any more use to you than the coupons?” – and it more often than not worked’. I began to feel a very simple kind of bumpkin!

  Saturday, 3 June. Bowness was a throng of milling people being decanted from coaches and seeking hotels and cafés where tea had been ordered. I don’t think there would have been much chance of a meal without ordering. We went along to Ambleside Road. There was no chance of parking the car in Bowness, except in the big park, and we sat a while, and then strolled along the tree shaded road by the Lake. Our 10 horse Morris was the poorest car in a group of bigger and newer cars when we returned. We had parked in a little clearing where several big trees had been recently felled, and it looked as if it was a well known spot for car picnics. We felt very surprised at the type of people who like ourselves had brought tea, and the good stoves and little collections of picnic oddments showed it was not just a sudden idea but they were used to taking meals. One big car that held three abreast was full of luggage and wraps in the back seat. I felt amused at the couple who began to light the stove while the third (looked like the son) got out folding chairs and cloth and laid out the meal. They looked more the type to roll up to a super hotel and demand a good meal. It made me look round and notice similar well-to-do types contentedly picnicking and contrast it with the definitely working-class types getting out of the coaches or eating in the top class hotels where beautifully laid tables and men waiters could be seen through the windows from the road. It was 9 o’clock when we got home. I quietly made excuses for leaving till all the heavy traffic had gone. That sweet quiet peace was over all – residents out, yachts stealing out like moths, or bright red butterflies, replacing motor and steam boats, white clad chefs outside back doors of hotels, tired walkers returning to hotels and boarding houses for a bath and meal. We came down the quiet still Lake as in a dream, hardly a soul on the road. It compensated for all the rush and noise and I could relax and not wonder what would rush round a hidden bend and upset my husband.

  Wednesday, 7 June. We found Aunt Sarah relaxed on the couch. She admitted she was ‘a wee bit tired’ – she had washed two blankets and a heavy hand-knitted counterpane† and laid them on the grass to dry because ‘they felt too heavy to lift on the line’. I went out and hung them where the air would dry them better today. Joe was busy working in the garden – so awkward as he used his left hand and arm, and cheerfully said, ‘This pesky rheumatism takes all the use out of my right arm sometimes’. I felt at 80 and 84 they were indeed a marvellous couple. I don’t want to live to be old but if it’s my fate, I pray I can grow old like my serene busy little auntie, so content with all small blessings she thinks it is a sin to complain of things that would get a lot of people down altogether. I had to listen to all the bits of village news and gossip and yell my news – it was one of her very deaf days, poor old pet.

  We were home before 5 o’clock. I poached eggs and made toast, and there was bread and butter, apricot jam, shortbread biscuits and cherry cake. I’m having my yearly perm in the morning and had to wash my hair. Anyway, it wasn’t fit to go out far – rain threatened but there was no heavy fall. We listened to the wireless … It’s a lot colder tonight and we felt glad of the fire I made to dry my hair. I always pay for things like a perm out of my own money, and draw it out of the bank, but tonight my husband said when I mentioned it, ‘I’ve some money in the safe. I’ll give you the two guineas.’ I felt I gasped. He is changing so rapidly I feel at times I’m living with a stranger.

  Monday, 12 June. There’s a lovely sailing ship in for repairs. It was made nearly 30 years ago in the Yard for Brazil, to be used as a training ship, and has come back for some refit or repairs. The youths on it fascinate me. They look cultured and assured, as if from good families, and have the manners and deportment of well educated and poised people. Their clothes are cut so perfectly – ordinary sailor rig, slightly musical comedy in detail. The mariners have scarlet tunics. The officers I‘m sure had their uniforms made by a tailor-artist. They have this and that all over – cords and medal ribbons, chevrons and rings – and are in grey-blues as well as navy, and all of superlative material and cut. But it’s their faces and colour that so fascinate me – deepest chocolate, though every tone of café-au-lait to pale ivory, and all are young enough to have a haunting adolescent beauty, or the smiling candour of a happy child. It’s plain to be seen that where they come from there’s no ‘colour bar’ as we understand the word. I look at each couple or group and wonder what mixture of race and colour, tribe, ‘aristocracy‘, way of life and thought, and religion have intermingled to form their perfectly cut features, the different noses, mouths and brows. It makes my theory that some day there will be one race with no warring element of barriers that fear and greed make, and understanding of each other’s ways and thought.

  Saturday, 17 June. Margaret Atkinson came in.* She seems to be looking forward to beginning housekeeping in a house of her own, but said a bit thoughtfully, ‘It’s going to be a bit strange having to ask Arthur for money. With working a year after marriage, it will seem worse than if I’d begun being “dependent”.’ We talked of the queer unrest in the Yard [managers were being laid off]. She said, ‘No boss feels safe. I can tell the way they talk they wonder round our office who will be next.’ Margaret is near enough the Cost Office to know the real undercurrent of worry for the future for work. There’s no more lines in view, and we don’t build the cruisers and submarines now that made up the orders before ‘private’ ships were built. Within two years, unless other big orders are obtained, or fresh subsidiary lines are developed, it looks as if Barrow will have had it. We will be worse than Jarrow in the big slump, for beyond the steel works – working at a loss and on the borderline of being closed within a short time – there’s practically nothing. What few small industries there are rely on the Yard’s prosperity.

  Nella sometimes remarked on the state of the wider world, and usually with alarm. There was a lot to be distressed about, not least the threat of atomic weapons. On 17 May – her wedding anniversary – she was thinking about ‘the account of 70 foot atom proof shelters being built at Stockholm, recalling a forecast by Naylor the astrologist, quite 15 years ago, that humanity was approaching an age when they tended to go underground, and build deep in the earth to work, live and “play”‘. These were, once again, and so soon after a world war, troubling political times. On 29 June she and Mrs Higham ‘talked so sadly of the news, both with a sick feeling that anything will happen, wondering if Korea will start the war in the East that is to destroy civilisation as we know it, talking and conjecturing about Russia and what she may have behind the Iron Curtain, recalling half forgotten memories of our war work together, or air raids, blackout, shortages.’ Civil Defence became, once again, a major concern, as it had been just a few years earlier.

  Talk of war was much in the air, particularly because of the crisis in Korea (a country that many people had barely heard of and probably could not locate on a map): on 25 June the North invaded the South, and the United States responded throu
gh the United Nations by organising resistance to this aggression, as the North Korean action was widely perceived to be. At the end of this first week of crisis, on Sunday, 2 July, Nella and Will drove to the Coast Road. ‘A group of elder people sat near where we parked, not near enough for me to hear clearly their conversation, but sentences with “Korea” and scraps of conversation about the Navy and RAF and “our Robert”, and their expressions of concern, showed their thoughts were on the future, and what it would bring. I wonder if this “firm gesture” will put a stop to Communist drive and urge.’ (Perhaps she had in mind the words of John Gordon, ‘Why America Must Not Fail’, in that day’s Sunday Express, p. 4: ‘Britain responded with inspiring swiftness to the call of America and the United Nations. It was a tremendous gesture we made. But, in fact, no other course was open to us. And in the crisis every man in Britain stands behind the Government.’ Britain had, among other things, promised immediate naval support to the Americans in the Far East. In response to the Korean crisis, the period of National Service was soon to be increased from eighteen to twenty-four months.)

  Monday, 3 July. It was a glorious day for the seaside – the tide at full and a land breeze. The cadet training camp is full of boys 14 to 18, some from Bolton and some from an approved school. It seems the policy to mix the latter with ordinary youths. In healthy windswept Barrow-in-Furness we are too young to have history of any kind, especially industrial. I looked at some of the young badly built youngsters with real horror. They looked as if they had been badly bred for generations of tired warped parents, few really nice-looking, some who shambled along with dull eyes and aimless limbs looked subnormal. I like boys. One group were throwing stones for an eager little dog, and I suggested a stick so as not to chip the dog’s teeth as I’d often seen. I said, ‘No national aid for dogs’ teeth and when they cannot chew their food they die young’. I expressed surprise they went swimming or bathing and was told, ‘Want us in jankers,† I can see. But I wish you would talk to our sergeant. He doesn’t like water himself and hates to see anyone else have fun there.’ The crowd who were unable to bathe seemed to just lie round and I was horrified to see how some of them chain smoked, with the ease of long practice. Others bought mineral water of the colours of red ink or a hideous greeny lime, ice cream and sickly cakes from a trailer ‘café’ that was stationed. A penny was charged on each bottle, but many who sat fifty yards or even less from the ‘café’ set the bottle on a heap of stones and aimed till broken, and left the glass scattered.