by Katie King
One of the first things that Connie saw was a rotund woman in an expensive fur-collared tweedy two-piece suit that was at least a size too small for her, but who looked nevertheless like an imperious head of an exclusive girls’ school. She was standing on an upturned wooden beer crate while her quaking voice was veering towards the tone that the twins associated with an oncoming tantrum.
Grown-ups were feeling out of their depth, clearly, and tempers were being frayed in the noisy hubbub of the station. Connie whispered to Jessie with a nod towards the portly woman on the wooden box, whose cheeks were quickly taking on puce undertones, ‘King’s Cross… And it don’t look as if the Queen’s too happy either!’
Of course, everybody from St Mark’s needed now to go to the toilet, and there was an almighty queue for the gents and a spectacularly huge one for the ladies that was snaking to and fro in great loops.
Miss Pinkly had come to King’s Cross to help with making sure no one got lost at the station, although once they’d chugged out of the station finally she would be going home later by hopping on a number 63 bus. Connie heard her and Peggy joke to one another that at this rate the children could go to the lavatory and then rejoin the queue at the back, as by the time they’d get to the front once more it would be time for them to relieve themselves again. At least Connie thought they were making a joke, but after spending thirty minutes edging forward a couple of inches at a time and still not having made it into a cubicle, she wasn’t so sure.
St Mark’s headmaster Mr Jones huffed with obvious disapproval at the chaos and promptly disappeared into an office marked Evacuation Orders for what seemed an age. When, finally, he returned with his bristly moustache quivering in indignation to where the pupils and teachers were standing with their luggage, he announced that they were to get the next train that would come in at the furthermost platform on the far side of the station. The train had been specially commissioned and they would see B:71 in the driver’s window at the end of the train closest to where they would get onto the platform; this meant, apparently, it wouldn’t have any ordinary passengers, as some of the other school evacuee trains did.
It was going to take them to Leeds, after which they would be transferred to another train that would take them on to Harrogate which was, apparently, where the powers that be had decided the schoolchildren of St Mark’s, and Peggy too, would be billeted.
At this news, Peggy’s heart sank. She’d hoped they’d be heading for somewhere within – at the most – an hour of London by train. Kent, possibly, or Hertfordshire or Berkshire, or even, at a stretch, Bedfordshire.
Harrogate seemed without doubt a ridiculously long way for them all to go. It had to be close on two hundred miles between the two places.
In addition, it was already past one o’clock, and so with the best will in the world it would be late afternoon by the time they got to Leeds, and then they’d still have another train to take before their journey would be completed and before they would end up presumably at some sort of reception centre, and only at that point would they finally be allocated their billets.
It was hard to think that there wouldn’t be tears before bedtime from most of the children, as this was a punishing timetable for them, and Peggy wondered too if she might also be faced with her own sobs before the day was out. Her ankles felt uncomfortable, and the baby seemed to have picked up on her own anxiety as now and then she had a stab beneath her skirt waistband of something that felt not too far away from pain.
However, the children were being told right now to make sure they had the right suitcase or bag, and that they should get into pairs and then form an orderly line, all of which was easier said than done on such a busy day at the station.
Peggy and Susanne embraced and said farewell. Then Peggy tried to concentrate on making sure she and the pupils were as organised as they could be rather than allowing herself to think of how peaky she was feeling personally.
Then, once some sort of order had been established, a nice woman with a megaphone and a small triangular red pennant held aloft on a bamboo stick walked with them to the platform they needed, with Miss Crabbe saying repeatedly, ‘Children, follow that red flag and look sharp about it – no stragglers.’
When the party from St Mark’s got to the right platform they discovered they were to share the train with a school from Camden that was apparently destined for somewhere over near Sheffield or Leeds. Apparently there was confusion as to where that school was going and so everyone from this other school had been told to go to Leeds and the local officials could sort it out from there.
Oh well, thought Peggy, thank heavens for small mercies, I suppose. At least we know what town we are destined for, which is more than can be said for those poor pupils and teachers from Camden.
Once the St Mark’s group had shuffled past the other school to the far end of the platform as the lady with the flag had directed, and then put their cases and bags and gas masks down on the platform to wait for the train, which was being brought to them from a rail siding nearby, Peggy clapped her hands for attention.
‘Right, St Mark’s school pupils, please go and stand with your own classmates. And when we get on the train and have sat down, there will be a headcount and your names will be ticked off against each class register. While the teachers do that, I want you all to eat your packed lunches and then try to have a nap. It’s going to be quite late by the time we get to Harrogate, and you will feel tired, and so you will definitely find it of benefit to have a snooze on the train if you can.’
‘Do yer know where we’re going, miss?’
‘’Ave yer been there yerself, miss?’
‘Is it in the country, miss?’
‘Is ’Arrowgate posh, miss?’ were the questions the children wanted to know.
‘All I know is that we are definitely going to Harrogate as that is what Mr Jones said to us just now,’ said Peggy, ‘and I don’t know much about Harrogate other than that it is famous for its water spas and it was very popular with Victorian visitors, and that it is in Yorkshire. Aside from that, you all know as much as me, which isn’t very much, is it? Won’t it be fun having a whole new town to explore and find out about?’
Not many pupils agreed with her rather rash assertion, it seemed.
A loud whistle behind her made Peggy jump very obviously, which caused a few ribald comments, and she turned to a black puffing billy chuffing at walking pace along their platform. The driver brought the train to a halt, and a hissy screaming noise came from his cab’s whistle before a gust of steam was released from somewhere near the large steel wheels.
Very few of the children had even been across the River Thames before, let alone on a train. And as they went to find their seats, the level of chatter intensified and sounded more cheerful, and suddenly it seemed quite an escapade they were all just about to start. Even Peggy’s spirits felt raised as she climbed on board.
Their adventure was about to begin.
*
Unfortunately this sense of optimism wasn’t a feeling that could last indefinitely, the St Mark’s contingent discovered, as the delay between the change of trains at Leeds was lengthy, with the air distinctly chillier than in London and the sun well hidden behind a seething mass of battle-grey clouds.
The children had eaten their packed lunches a considerable time ago and everyone was tired and thirsty. Peggy hadn’t seen anyone napping, although she had managed a crafty twenty-minute forty winks herself, even though it was well short of the hour she had found herself needing during the afternoon most days. And so it was with huge relief to all when some WVS ladies in uniform eventually bustled onto the train platform bearing trays of sandwiches and bumpy rock cakes, large jugs of lemon cordial and long stacks of melamine beakers.
Peggy was feeling distinctly wobbly despite her nap, even though actually the children had been very well behaved, all things considered.
She found herself worried all over again about having made the decision t
o leave London; if anything went wrong with the pregnancy now, or with the birth, she was going to be a very long way from Barbara. And she discovered that already she was badly missing Fishy’s pretty little face and soft, soothingly strokable fur too, and suddenly it all felt a bit much, and the effort of not giving in to her shaking lower lip gave Peggy a sudden bolt of headache.
Seeing that the other adults from St Mark’s were supervising the doling out of the sandwiches and the continual head-counting of the pupils, she sank onto a wooden bench on the platform, leant back and closed her eyes. She wished Bill were with her – he felt a very long way away, and this added to a crest of sadness trying to overwhelm her. Peggy screwed her eyes up tighter. She mustn’t cry, she mustn’t. To give in to tears when she was supposed to be looking after the children would be unforgivable, it really would.
She fought back these hard-to-bear feelings with a determined swallow and then she heard someone sit down beside her but then a new wave, this time of exhaustion, made the thought of opening her eyes seem impossible.
After a while Connie tried to sound very grown up as she said, ‘Mummy said I was to look after you, Auntie Peggy, and so if you want to be quiet for a minute or two, I’ll look out for your handbag and such.’
And right after that Jessie arrived with some sandwiches and tea for Peggy, and as soon as she had eaten she felt much better, the world looking just that little bit brighter.
A few minutes later, Peggy felt up to explaining to a curious Connie, and Angela Kennedy who was now sitting with them, that the WVS initials stood for Women’s Voluntary Service, and that their motto was ‘the WVS never says no’.
‘Right, children, you tuck in,’ she announced then to other children from St Mark’s who had now come to sit cross-legged on the concrete of the platform near to their little group in order to eat their sandwiches. ‘It will be quite late, I suspect, by the time we arrive at Harrogate, and so I’ve no idea when we will all be eating again.’
It was a whole hour and a half later before a train arrived to take them to Harrogate. What a long day it felt, Peggy thought, as she shepherded the pupils from St Mark’s on board, but at least the queues for the lavatories at Leeds station had been significantly shorter than at King’s Cross that morning. Maybe every cloud really did have a silver lining.
Chapter Ten
The children’s first view of Harrogate wasn’t promising in the slightest, even Peggy had to concede that, although she tried to keep a cheerful enough expression firmly glued to her face.
First of all, the train had headed away from Leeds through an unruly-looking mix of open countryside and factories, which hadn’t gone down well with the children, who were used to endless streets of terraced housing or the brown expanse of the River Thames – or, on a day out, perhaps the hilly parkland of Greenwich where a family might picnic on a very special occasion – and so they seemed of the opinion that this West Riding farmland looked distinctly suspicious and the sort of place still to have highwaymen. They’d been content to travel through open country when they knew they still had a long way to go, but now they felt they were on the home run, countryside of any sort seemed to be much less appealing.
Peggy tried to point out how many travellers new to the area would find the undulating ground of the countryside, the stone walls and the sturdy cottages they occasionally passed to be very pretty, but Larry seemed to sum up the general mood with, ‘Where’s the offy? An’ ’ow’s the rat-catcher going’ to kill the vermin out ’ere?’
Peggy pointed out that some areas they were going through were built up, and then she added that in the more rural areas she expected that the wild foxes would keep the rodent population down – she wasn’t sure about this actually, but she deemed it a sensible assumption – and that there would be public houses in the large villages and, of course, also in the towns.
Then she thought she probably shouldn’t be encouraging the children to think about public houses right before meeting their host families, as if they were to mention them right away it wouldn’t be a terribly good first impression of what the London children were used to. The reality was, however, that public houses or ‘offies’ would in fact be something many of them would be used to hearing about at home from their parents as so much of the socialising in Bermondsey would – for the adults, at least – centre on one public house or another, an evening often ending in a good old sing-song in the bar, and hopefully not a round of fisticuffs in the gutter outside.
By now the sound of the train chugging along couldn’t disguise the fact that the wind had got up. There was a sudden rain shower buffeted around in a squall that battered the windows with sharp-sounding gusts and heavy raindrops, with some of the children claiming they could feel the train carriage rocking from side to side the wind was blowing so much. Even Peggy had to concede that just at that moment everything they could see out of the windows of the train carriage was looking forbiddingly bleak and threatening, with any farm animals out to grass looking wind-tossed and sorry for themselves.
Soon, dusk began to fall, and as they hit the final run to Harrogate station, they noticed that the grand stone buildings that were now on either side of the train looked shadowy and imposing, and not at all inviting. Occasionally hints that there might be wide roads in Harrogate, and formal parks and gardens, many of which had been planted with impressive-looking flower beds, could be glimpsed through the carriage windows.
It was all very different to what they were used to in Bermondsey, and not necessarily for the better seemed to be the general consensus.
‘Posh,’ Jessie muttered to Connie, ‘very posh indeed. We’ll all be minding our Ps and Qs.’
Silently but with a tight look on her face, Connie nodded her agreement, and the twins felt terribly shy all of a sudden and ill prepared for what might be about to come.
Peggy felt similarly too, although she didn’t want the children to see her own faltering of spirit.
She tugged at the clasp to her handbag to seek out the Cardinal Red lipstick Barbara had bought her as she thought a slick of scarlet could only bolster her self-esteem.
As she replaced in her handbag her small mirror as well as the Coty lipstick and Revlon cake mascara she’d quickly buffed up her lashes and brows with, Peggy caught a glimpse of the yellow hat she had knitted Connie the previous Friday night. She had worked hard to finish it before moving over to Jubilee Street the next day, and since then she had completely forgotten to give it to her niece.
What a dunderhead – I’d forget my own head if it wasn’t screwed on, Peggy thought, and then she hoped that once she was no longer pregnant she’d feel alert and quick-witted in the same way she had always prided herself on previously.
‘Here you are, Connie. It was done in a bit of a rush and I had to use knitting needles that were a little bigger than I’d choose normally, and so it might not be as warm as your last hat. A winter hat that, as we know, is sitting on top of that warehouse roof you threw it onto! But I daresay you’ll find this one useful for carrying something or other around in, if not for wearing when it gets cold,’ Peggy tried to joke as she lifted the hat from her bag and passed it over to her niece.
‘I love it, Auntie Peggy, thank you so much,’ said Connie, as she took it and then turned it around in her hands as she inspected it from every angle. ‘And thank you very much too for never letting on to Mummy what happened to my hat of last winter. She would have strung me up if she had found out, wouldn’t she?’
They shared a smile, and Connie pulled the new hat on. It really suited her, being a rich, golden hue that matched the shining autumnal tones in her shoulder-length hair and being too an arresting contrast to her intelligent blue eyes. The jaunty pom-pom was the perfect finishing touch, quite obviously.
It was a titfer of personality, niece and aunt decided, just as a harsh squeal of their train’s wheels on the metal rail tracks as the driver applied the brakes signalled that they were starting to slow down in orde
r for them to pull into Harrogate station.
Before the train had quite come to a halt, Peggy found a moment to say to Jessie she was very sorry but she hadn’t knitted him anything as there hadn’t been time, but that she would make it up to him soon, and in the meantime Jessie was to let her know if there was anything he needed and she would do her best to get it for him, or to make it for him if that were more appropriate.
With that the train shuddered to a dead halt, heralded by a final couple of clanking sounds and another ear-piercing tangle of brakes on track, and it was time for everyone to stand up, find their suitcases and their gas masks, and then clamber stiffly from the carriage and down the steep steps from the carriage to drop onto the platform.
Immediately they were met by a really quite chilly gust of wind that whipped Peggy’s skirt to slap sharply against her legs as it channelled itself through the station, announcing quite forcibly that the weather was going to be much brisker up in Yorkshire than they were used to in London. Luckily the rain seemed to have passed through, and although the air felt damp at least no ploppy drops were still falling.
Peggy thought the boys might well need to wear long trousers for the first time in their lives if the children had to spend all winter in the North of England, if this icy blast was anything to go by, although many of their parents would be too poor to be able to supply them and so goodness knows how that would all play out.
But before she could think further on this there was a shuffling forward of a motley line of several chilled-looking people with hunched shoulders who looked to have been waiting on the platform for just a bit too long to meet the contingent from Bermondsey.