A short while later, with his frustration increasing, Morton was glad to hear the front door opening, heralding Juliette’s arrival from work. With a satisfying shove, he closed the laptop lid, vowing never again to touch a genealogical case involving a popular surname. His spirits instantly inflated as he thought of the evening ahead of them: wine, television and relaxation. No Smiths. No wedding talk.
‘Hi,’ he greeted Juliette, meeting her on the stairs. ‘You get changed, I’ll get the wine.’
She kissed him on the lips. ‘Have you remembered that Lucy’s coming over tonight?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Morton said exasperatedly, dragging out the word. It was a lie; he had no idea what she was talking about. ‘You need me to go out—it’s fine.’
‘No,’ she said, taking a tone. She had seen straight through him. ‘We’re talking flowers. Stay or go, it’s completely up to you. I’m sure Lucy will be delighted to hear your opinions on boutonnières, corsages and chair swags.’
Morton stared at her, unblinking, as he waited for the words that he had just heard to make any sense. But they didn’t. And so, following a quick dinner, he found himself with a large glass of red wine, back up in his study, reopening the laptop lid.
He couldn’t face any more research into William’s family; he needed a fresh angle.
In light of what he had learnt at Barbara’s house, Morton decided to try the 1939 Identity Card Register on the FindmyPast website. Starting with Elsie, he entered her name and year of birth. From the list of possible matches, it was obvious which Morton needed, so he clicked through to see the original household.
Address: Bramley Cottage, Nutley, Sussex
Surnames and other names: Finch Goodall, Elsie
M or F: F
Birth: 7 Aug 1919
S, M, W or D: Married
Personal occupation: Unpaid dom. duties
The entry was exactly as Morton had been expecting. Even the strike-through on her surname, showing that she had later remarried, was standard. Next, he rather pointlessly tried William Smith. Not only were there three hundred and sixty-four William Smiths born in 1919 alone, but it was also very rare for anyone serving in the military to be included in the register, so the exercise was fairly useless.
He sipped his wine and ran a search for Lawrence’s mother, Agnes Finch. Her entry was the top of the results list. He clicked to see the original household and the sepia page, replete with blue ink splodges, loaded onscreen. Agnes was listed as a fifty-year-old widow, her occupation given as ‘retired midwife’. Four solid black bands ran through the entry below, stating This record is officially closed, which meant several possibilities, the most likely being that that the four people who had been living there in 1939 were either still alive, or their deaths had occurred since the register had closed in 1991 and had not yet been opened.
Below the four blacked-out entries was the name of one further person living at Cliff House: Daniel Winter, born 1917. He was listed as single, his occupation given rather vaguely as ‘home’.
Morton remembered what Paul and Rose had said about their aunt Kath and her daughter, Tamara still living up at the house. One of those blacked out entries must be Kath, Morton reasoned, because she’s still alive.
A quick search in the online electoral registers confirmed that Mrs Kath Forsdyke and Miss Tamara Forsdyke were the current occupiers of Cliff House. He laced his fingers together behind his head, sat back and stared at their names and address onscreen. Despite what Paul and Rose had said, he had to try speaking to them again. Perhaps the daughter, Tamara would be more approachable. His eyes lingered on their phone number, wondering whether or not to make the call.
A lightness from the wine rose inside him and he picked up the phone and dialled the number. It was answered quickly by a female voice, but, from the brevity of the greeting, Morton was unable to determine who had answered.
‘Hello, could I speak to Tamara Forsdyke, please?’ he asked courteously.
‘Speaking.’
‘Oh, hello,’ he greeted, practically singing, so cringingly sweet was his voice. ‘My name’s Morton Farrier and I’m a forensic genealogist. I’m working on a wartime case at the moment, which I believe you might be able to help me with.’
‘Well, that sounds jolly exciting. I’d love to help out,’ she extolled. ‘But I’m not sure if I can. What is it concerning, exactly?’
‘It’s about your uncle, Lawrence and his wife, Elsie. Would you mind if we met up to talk about it?’
‘Absolutely,’ Tamara said. ‘Why don’t you come to my house? I’ve got a lot of meetings on at the moment, but evenings are generally free. How about tomorrow evening, or the one after?’
Morton smiled. He had found a way in. ‘Tomorrow evening would be perfect,’ he answered.
‘Excellent. Then I shall see you here around seven,’ Tamara said. ‘Goodbye.’
She ended the call, not having given Morton her address. She clearly assumed that given that he was in possession of her phone number, that he also must be aware of where she lived. He needed to go there prepared and so sat writing a list of questions to ask.
Some time later, he tiptoed down to the kitchen, not wanting to be drawn into the abominable-sounding conversation taking place between Juliette and Lucy in the lounge. Having quietly topped up his wine, he headed back upstairs and began sifting through a lengthy Google search of available wartime records.
He stopped scrolling when he spotted a link to the Mass Observation Archive. He clicked through and read about it. Between 1939 and 1967 ordinary men and women all over Britain were asked to keep diaries of their personal, everyday experiences, notably during the war years. It was worth checking to see if anyone had kept a diary in the Hawkinge or Capel-le-Ferne area. He went to the University of Sussex website and accessed their online index. He was presented with various search options. He left all fields blank except residence. Hawkinge—no results. Capel-le-Ferne. One result—diarist number 5059, a single female born in 1869.
Morton clicked for further information. The Mass Observation Archive is in the care of the University of Sussex’s Special Collections at The Keep.
Great. The one place that he was hoping that this case would not require him to visit. It was typical that the entire country’s mass observation diaries would be under the care of his arch-enemy, Miss Deidre Latimer, a dowdy spinster whose life’s mission seemed to be to irritate him.
Morton arrived at The Keep shortly after opening the following morning. On his way, he had collected his file-less laptop and posted the letters to the four Susans.
He stepped from his Mini and marched assuredly into the repository.
Instantly, he could feel his confidence shrinking away, like a deflating balloon as he spotted Miss Latimer behind the reception desk, leaning over a young lady, looking at a computer screen. Did she ever have a day off?
Their every meeting was a game, but one for which only Miss Latimer knew the rules. Sometimes, she would ignore him completely. Other times, she would paint on a dreadful smile and lay on a vomit-inducing amount of sickly-sweet advice. For the most part, she would slice through his questions with her sarcasm-laced tongue.
He wondered how today would go as he approached the desk.
‘Morning,’ he said brightly, braced for the bite back.
Without glancing up, Miss Latimer smiled and began to respond pleasantly. ‘Good morn-’—then she saw that it was Morton—‘Oh.’ Her smile fell and she folded her arms. She turned to her colleague. ‘Ah! Here he is, the only genealogist in living history who can make our sedate, sedentary little hobby into a dangerous sport. You’ve not been kidnapped, yet, today I see. Well done.’
It was going to be a sarcasm day, then. ‘No, not yet. I’m sure there’s still time, though,’ Morton said with a fake grin.
‘That would be a terrible shame,’ she said pleasantly.
‘I know; you’d miss me awfully.’
‘Oh, I don’t k
now,’ she chirped.
He continued to the lockers, riled. His only saving grace today was that the records that he had come to see were held on the internal computer system, so, with luck, he could avoid having to speak with her again. Or, ever again, if he had his way.
Having stowed his bag in a locker, Morton carried his laptop and notepad into the Reading Room; he had a choice of almost any of the fifty computer terminals, but he chose one close to the back of the room, way out of Miss Latimer’s view.
The Mass Observation Archive was accessed internally via a link on the desktop. He clicked it then typed Capel-le-Ferne into the advanced search box: as he already knew, one diary result.
Diarist number: 5059
Gender: F
Date of birth: 1869
Household status: Single
Occupation: Retired nurse
Place of residence: Capel-le-Ferne, Kent
Below the diarist’s information was written the available dates, 1939-1941 and some keywords that had been tagged in her entries. Morton grinned as he read them, quickly forming a picture of the seventy-year-old spinster. Soldiers, pregnancy, illegitimate war babies, fallen women, air raids, knitting, chutney, rationing.
He clicked the first page and the woman’s original handwritten diary appeared onscreen, revealing her name and full address, which confirmed that she was one of Agnes Finch’s neighbours: Doris Sloan, Wildridings, Folkestone Road, Capel-le-Ferne, Kent. He began to read through the first entries, which spoke of the minutiae and drudgery of the early years of war.
3rd September 1939
And so it’s begun, again. Yesterday, a flood of London evacuees descended on the village. My neighbour has taken in two boys. Nobody has asked me (thank goodness) to take any. Chamberlain gave a good speech. I felt more in tune with him than at any time since he let Mr Eden go. Two neighbours have started digging dug-outs. One has a vacant space and has offered it to me. My tomatoes are ripening fast, and I have made chutney from some and sent my sister three pounds at a cost of 7d for postage.
6th December 1939
Three months of war and what—nothing! I think it’s high time they reopened the cinemas and theatres. The rule that we must carry our gasmasks seems foolish in these country districts, and is not widely observed. With Christmas approaching and no sign of any German bombs, many of the Londoners are creeping back home. My neighbour’s boys have gone. I’m glad the BBC have cut down the number of News programmes—if they had not done so, they would have made the weaker members of the country twittering idiots before the end of the war.
As Morton continued reading into 1940, he began to fear that Doris’s seeming refusal to actually name her various neighbours would scupper his chances of gaining any insight into the Finch family during the war. But, as he read on, he caught snatches of a person who could very easily have been Agnes…
2nd June 1940
The ships and boats in the sea! My goodness—the view from my house over the channel is astounding. I knew what was going on before it was admitted on the wireless. A defeat has been turned into a great achievement. But how soon the Germans will turn towards Paris, or attempt the invasion of England, no one can say. The scenes at Dunkirk must beggar belief. There has still been no word, though, on my neighbour’s son who is out there with the BEF. Most days I see her standing on the cliff edge watching the exhausted boats coming and going—as if she would somehow be able to spot her son among the thousands of men. I do pity her. One feels so helpless over here.
3rd July 1940
The Minister of Health has urged for the immediate evacuation of children in this area. The government considers air raids to be imminent…Since Dunkirk, I have noticed several references in local conversation to the number, often quoted in exact figures, of girls in the various districts who are expecting children by the soldiers. Sometimes, the names of particular regiments are mentioned. “Since the Buffs were in Folkestone, 50 girls are in the family way!” In another conversation a woman said to another, “A young girl of 14 is expecting a baby by that soldier…only 14!” I’ve had a neighbour of mine—a church-goer!—collecting for the “fallen women of the area.” Did she mean air raid victims? No! All the hussies who have been getting into trouble—I wouldn’t give a penny to help them. “It’s a usual concomitant of war,” she said!
22nd July 1940
A neighbour gave me some vinegar for tomato chutney, because I couldn’t get any and I gave her some sultanas in exchange. Her evacuees have gone, replaced I noticed by her daughter-in-law—a girl in the WAAF. I admire her pluck, but honestly! This damn silly “officer” business is absurd. Glorified housemaids with a council education only need three more stripes to be equal to the Duchess of Gloucester! I ask you. No wonder the war is costing 11 million a day against 5 million in the last war. The army nurses served for fifty years with the army and no trouble and no army rank. No saluting. No route marches. No drilling. No nonsense.
Morton continued reading the diarist’s amusing ramblings, certain that the neighbour referred to, whose daughter-in-law was in the WAAF, was Agnes Finch. She was the person who had taken in the evacuees and who had stood on the cliff edge, hopelessly searching the incoming ships for sight of her son.
28th July 1940
A fortnight of storms, here! And all the while, the USA is under a giant heat wave that has killed more than 500. I have not been so well lately, but I simply do not trust the local doctor. I have heard several terrible stories of misdiagnosis. Someone staying with my neighbour had a terrible cough for two weeks and was vomiting. I went in. “Whooping cough,” I said, advising that she called the doctor. He came and said it was a “Stomach cough.” Idiot. It took four more days until he was called again and heard the poor girl “whooping” before he determined it to be “whooping cough.” Damned fool not to have known before. Whilst I was there, I discovered the reason that my neighbour—the one with the space for me in her Anderson shelter—is so heavily and suddenly concerned with the moral fibre of our young girls—her daughter is one of the “fallen women!” She didn’t say as much, but I spotted a green ration book, open on the table in her daughter’s name. I do have some sympathy—the woman (a widow) has already lost a son at Dunkirk but I cannot, for the life of me, condone her latest endeavours. Along with Mrs Potter, (an unholy alliance if ever there was one) she has set up her house as some kind of iniquitous refuge for women of low morals. I shan’t be using their shelter, again, I can tell you that much for nothing. I’d rather take my chances with whatever Hitler’s got.
It had to be Agnes Finch. Morton clicked back through to the beginning of her diary entries, photographing each page of the screen and trying to piece together all the various mentions of Agnes. If he was correct, then she, along with a Mrs Potter had set up Cliff House as a refuge for pregnant girls, one of whom was her daughter, Kath. It was little wonder, then, that Elsie had gone there to give birth among other women and girls in a similar situation.
He clicked on to the next entry, dated 22nd August 1940.
Last night – new moon – was by all the rumours, the zero hour for the Conquest of Britain! So far, no signs, apart from the air raids. The aerodrome near here has been struck several times. I noticed that my neighbour’s WAAF daughter-in-law upped and left last week. Her daughter—one of the “fallen women” gave birth last night—a still, apparently. I offered my services but they weren’t required. There are at least three other women there now in a similar condition. I really can’t see why the country being at war should loosen the morals of our young. If anything, it should take effect to the contrary.
As he had been reading the early entries, Morton had imagined that Kath’s baby had been Tamara, but it wasn’t. He flipped his notepad to a rough family tree that he had created for the Finch family and added an extra vertical line down from Kath Finch’s name, then opened up Ancestry to search for the baby’s birth and death record.
The birth had been registered: Richard Pet
er Finch, but there was no sign of the death.
On his notepad, Morton scribbled ‘baby born September quarter 1940 - still born?’ He double-checked the 1916-2005 marriage register and found Kath’s marriage to John Forsdyke in 1945; Tamara had been born the following year.
Morton added the information to the family tree, then returned to the wartime diaries, picking up where Doris Sloan had continued, following a nine-month break.
May 1941
I have been feeling wretched for some months now. I am convinced that the war situation is making it worse. Barely a night goes by where we are spared the dreaded sirens. Some nights Jerry flies right over and hits London, other nights they target the ports. Some nights it’s as if the pilots are lost and they circle above, drop their load and then head home for the night, which is what happened last week. Mr Wren’s house was hit and a pilot was killed. I saw him passing my house in his uniform, poor blighter. More dead in Folkestone and Dover. When will it end?
August 1941
It is Bank Holiday Monday and the anniversary of the outbreak of war, 1914. How little any of us thinks of it, now. Several of the Bank Holidays were cancelled last year because of the seriousness of the war, but everyone except munitions workers are having a holiday this year. I haven’t written much of late and don’t think there will be too many more MO diaries from me. Last week I gave in and saw the wretched doctor. I told him what it was that was wrong and he agreed – probably glad not to have to second guess at a diagnosis, for once. A neighbour has kindly dug my potatoes. I’ve not made any jam, yet.
The Spyglass File (The Forensic Genealogist Book 4) Page 16