The Diaries of Nella Last

by Patricia Malcolmson

  I turned to cook a good hot meal for three sailors – real Cockneys. One had a curious jerk to his hand and when he saw I noticed it – he nearly knocked a plate of cakes off – said ‘I was in an open boat for four days and must have got cold, or knocked it as we were torpedoed, for I was not wounded at all’. I was busy but I could have taken the floor mop and charged those conchies who sat over their empty plates and left my sailors to eat at counter. I said ‘There will be a seat in a few minutes’ but when there was a vacant table they stayed at counter and one told me he had been blown up and in life boats on three occasions, and the other two, including the boy with the jerk, had been in the evacuation of Dunkirk. Such ‘beardless boys’ – the oldest would not be as old as my Cliff.

  Sunday, 2 November. We had an alert again last night and I thought we would have a raid, so bright and clear the night. It did not last long and we settled off again, so thankful for the bed under the indoor steel shelter. I shudder at the thought of some of the damp – even wet – outdoor shelters and wonder how ever people can stand the damp and cold …

  At my own grocer’s there was one girl assistant who was a very heavy smoker and who once hinted to me she would like the packet of cigs I get by being a member of the Co-op and having a cigarette ticket which entitled us to 20 a week. I’ve seen several women hand over a packet to her and have a shrewd suspicion that they got more than their share of extras. One woman in particular never went without slab cake each week. I don’t buy it and in my innocence thought that she got it through people like myself not taking it but on reflection the large piece she got and the packet of cigs she handed over so secretively seemed connected.

  Tuesday, 4 November. Mrs Lord has got such a good char and says she can spare me half a day – rather more for she will come on Wednesdays from 9 to 2.30. Things have got a bit on top of me lately for scrubbing or reaching soon knocks me out and in spite of the spirit being willing the flesh cannot be driven past a certain point. She will do outside work – windows and paths, the scrubbing and polishing. In spite of war and a certain slackening of standards I find I cannot go below a certain ‘set line’ and for happiness sake as well as comfort I find my standards fixed. Lately I’ve felt tired to begin the day and when Wednesday has to be a hard work day and Tuesday and Thursday a hard Centre day with Canteen Friday, it has rather got me down.

  Friday, 7 November. The ‘working party’, as the conchies are called, all clumped in [to the canteen] and the place was empty as they called in on their way to docks and we had not even had time to take our outdoor things off. I was nearest ready so moved to counter to be greeted with ‘Cup of tea and a kind look’. I heard Isa giggle in the cupboard where we hang our things but her face was straight as she brewed tea and put it on counter. The one who had asked counted the 22 cups in a row and then said with a leery kind of smile ‘And the kind look?’* There was a sound of laughter and feet jigging in the passage and two young sailors came in stepping to the tango on the wireless. The way the counter cleared and the conchies drifted to one end all together and sat quietly talking was really funny – the sailors were such boys and several of the conchies had greying hair. We had to laugh at antics of the sailors – and that egged them on and they danced a dance of their own that was a cross between a Salome dance, a hornpipe and an Apache dance and was clever enough for the halls!

  When Mrs Thompson came in she brought a friend and they were busy talking of the Russian crisis and the bills that have sprung up overnight on all the hoardings, ‘Russia’s Crisis is Britain’s Peril’, in vivid scarlet on a white background. [German forces were encircling Leningrad and threatening Moscow.] The friend was emphatic about it – we should and must take part of the strain off Russia and attack Germany while we had the chance. Mrs Thompson and one of our squad said ‘Oh, I don’t know. Germany is definitely cracking – 4½ million of her soldiers gone. She cannot hold out at that rate.’ Another one said to me in a quiet voice ‘It’s so easy to rile and govern from a safe place’ and I said ‘Well, I cannot see how we could get all our soldiers and supplies across. I feel Hitler would like us to start something and then he would smash his way into Britain from his scattered points of invasion vantage, and the Navy could not be everywhere.’

  I looked at Miss Butler as I spoke and remembered her life story. She had two brothers in the last war, handsome fair-haired lads of 19 and 22, and both were killed and later the man she was to have married. Her dress was made and guests invited, even the wedding lunch cooked, and he was killed. She took up the broken threads and learned to manage – they are well-to-do people and she had no fixed job of any kind – and her life has been given to the poor. She goes managing little bed-ridden children, often in poor and not clean homes, and has made her life full of thought for others. She said something that set me thinking for she asked ‘Don’t you think all this waiting and waiting will have a rather bad effect on our soldiers? I mean it will give them too much time to think of what is in front of them – to realise how very little they can look forward to. You know I’m not in sympathy with flag waving and shouting but somehow it must be extra nerve wracking for the soldiers of today. My brother went out in a flame of enthusiasm that carried them along and did not let them think of tomorrow while these boys have so much time to think of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.’ I looked over counter and at the group of talking men and the quiet ones who were writing or reading long letters of many pages. Perhaps it was Miss Butler’s words but the ‘shadowed’ look seemed so plain. It’s a dreadful thought – so many hells, so many heartaches.

  Tuesday, 11 November. Somehow I cannot feel that religion as we know it will outlast this war. It got a shaking last war and I feel that after this one is over people will turn more from priests who offer things that mean so little – not turn from God and a feeling of goodness and order somewhere but from old fashioned and out-of-date creeds and shibboleths and of beatitudes that Oxford Group curates [preaching moral rearmament and spiritual renewal] twist into defeatist utterances that lose their value either as a comfort or guide. John McLintock came the other day and I was glad I was out. Why that man ever looks at me I don’t know or bothers about asking for Cliff’s address. Cliff collects the oddest friends but that lonely curate is one of the oddest and I will not have him round me. He annoys me and raises a devil of contention in me that could quickly be turned into an abusive manner. His Oxford-Group-cum-Conchie attitude is like a red rag to a bull to me and I know it’s only in a spirit of mischief that Cliff bothers with him now. I did not mention his note to Cliff [who was at home on leave, with a friend, George].

  Wednesday, 12 November. After tea Cliff and George insisted on their Tarots being read and George thinks it is uncanny. I don’t think he has ever had them spread and read for him before and what to me sounded an odd jumble of events and people to him were understandable. I told him they were ‘not sailors’ cards’, and there is a job at the Admiralty [George was in the Fleet Air Arm] in the offing that he feels keen about as it would allow him to go on with his chemistry. A girl either slightly older or taller would re-enter his life and unless he cared enough to marry her would cause him to feel a ‘fool or a cad’, and a quarrel with a man who limped, and a surprise in the way of a little money from an old woman – grandmother probably. The two latter were laughable for George’s father gets gout and is very cross and they get at variance and his grandmother died a fortnight ago and there is a suspicion in the family she has a little hoarded away somewhere in her effects and it is being searched for! Cliff has changes soon – and the ‘island plainer’ – but no immediate going overseas. What looks like another course of training and a queer ‘calamity’ round him – might be a bad raid wherever he is. To see their interested faces was amusing. I am always tickled at the boys’ attitude to my ‘parlour trick’ of card or tea cup reading. I never mention it or offer to ‘read’ and they hint and hint and then rather sheepishly pass their cup over, or I find my cards on top of my wor
k basket or on table by me! My husband won’t ever have his read – just because I once ‘saw’ a ‘blank’ in his cards and a strange bed for him – and he had six months illness of sciatica and was unable to work and was at Buxton [in rehabilitation] for nine weeks.

  Thursday, 13 November. When I think of the slap happy way ugly little houses were strewn for miles along roads, with no thought of a centre or plan of living, my husband says ‘ribbon building’ was cheaper for the builder who had no street planning – I do so hope there are definite plans for the future and not vague hopes. When I recall Greenodd in my childish days it was a centre and magnet for all the countryside. Church on Sunday. Band of Hope. Sports and hound trails on Bank Holidays, always followed by a dance. Field day for the Sunday school scholars – a glorified garden party – Harvest Homes etc. We seemed to be all friends together and when people were sick or in trouble it was known and helped. I don’t care what George says – it’s that indifference to little things that has got us into the mess we are in. If we don’t stop to pick up a kiddie that has fallen or ask after a sick neighbour and do her shopping or mind her baby we will not worry about Poland or Russia’s feelings and hurts or try and understand big things.

  George said ‘You are rather a funny person, you know – you have some odd viewpoints’, but isn’t everyone funny and odd somewhere? My Gran was ‘funny’, and so is Aunt Sarah, but they are kind and their odd ways of looking at things hurt no one. George thinks if we batter and kill and kill and break up the Germans our troubles will be over, but you cannot kill all of them, and anyway there must be quite a lot of Germans who are good and sensible and ‘ordinary’. By Gad, I’d not like to stand or fall by lots of own townspeople never mind countrymen – you cannot judge in masses. George says ‘It will be over in nine months’ but pressed for a reason does not seem very coherent. Short of Europe being sunk under the sea for 24 hours, I cannot see his very decided opinion being worth much.

  Friday, 14 November. It gives you a feeling hard to describe when you have seen a ship launched and built and sailed away. It’s a person, splendid and powerful, and I can understand the white faces and tearful eyes in the Yard when one that has been there has gone down. [It had just been learned that the aircraft carrier the Ark Royal had been sunk.] … When I got in to make tea at 5.45 I found the boys already in – two very changed ones too. Gone was the gay irresponsible Fleet Arm lad and a quiet eyed man who said little after he had said ’1600 people on the Ark Royal. I wonder how many got off?’ Cliff had a withdrawn look and tea was a very quiet meal and soon after Isa came in to say goodbye to them and we then went to the station. I think wartime stations the nearest place to the old-time idea of Hell there is. Darkness and confusion and bitter cold. I feel as if I have a nasty cold coming on and got a bit of a throat, and standing round waiting for a train that was late chilled and depressed me and I kept thinking of the Ark Royal and all the valuable lives that might be lost.

  Nella’s new home help, Ena, had come for the first time the previous Wednesday, 12 November. According to Nella that day, ‘she is a scrap of a woman with a very troubled lined face although she is only 30, so perhaps I’ll not have her long’. Her husband worked in the shipyard.

  Wednesday, 19 November. When Ena came this morning she could hardly croak with a cold and said ‘Half Barrow seems sniffing and coughing’. I said ‘Are you fit to work, Ena? It’s good of you to come, really.’ She said ‘Well, I’d not have gone anywhere else but I said to my husband, I’m good at sizing folks up and Mrs Last will not insist on windows and outside work today and will find me a job indoors’! She is an odd scrap with that stunted look of malnutrition in childhood and the quick fierce pride of one who has had to fight a battle to keep up appearances in the face of odds. Her shoes were dreadfully broken and squashy and I decided I’d give her my house shoes that I use for lighter housework. I said carelessly ‘If your shoes are damp, Ena, you had better change them. See – I’m sure mine would fit you.’ She thanked me and put them on and I said ‘If you find them comfortable you could keep them’. She just said ‘Thank you’ but after awhile she said ‘I’ve never been lucky enough to work for anyone with small feet before’, and she looked down at her feet contentedly and then said quickly ‘But I’ll stop a bit longer this afternoon for you’. I smiled and said ‘That’s nice of you, Ena’, and nobody’s pride was hurt. She is worried rather at having to register on Saturday – so afraid of having to go into the Yard now her children are evacuated for she is not really strong and she says, if she had to work day in and day out, could not stand up to it.

  Thursday, 20 November. In walked my cousin Jean and her fiancé and started jabbering. I am not in tune with them one bit and their silly plans for their wedding. I felt rather sorry for Jean as I looked at her tonight somehow – and for all the girls of today who marry. They just ‘go on’ and there is not the thrill of a new life and house, just their job, ‘the only difference being you sleep with your husband instead of your sister’, as Jean put it. They will have two large rooms from Tom’s father and have really nice bedroom and dining furniture and will share the service of the housekeeper and maid and Jean will not be alone when Tom is fire-watching or on Auxiliary Fire Service duty and as Jean said brightly ‘If I get tired I can always have a baby and rest from work, can’t I?’ It’s like a union between a suet pudding – a cold one – and a feather plume. Odd how they have an attraction for each other. I hope it turns out better than I feel about it.

  Wednesday, 26 November. A wet cold day and Ena came half an hour late and looked so tired and fagged with her cold I felt sorry to see her working about, but she said she felt ‘not so bad’. She was railing about the rivetters – her husband is a labourer in the rivet store. She says they are selfish and make so much money the ordinary working days that they won’t work overtime ‘for the income tax’ and says boys who are barely out of their time can earn from £10 to £15 a week. Her husband can only earn £3 7s 0d for an ordinary week and, as she says, when 18s has to be sent for the five children who are evacuated – or them kept at home – it’s not much at all …

  There was a ring at the bell and my husband showed in two over-dressed women and I smelled new rich at once. The conversation started ‘Are you Mrs Last – the one who makes such wonderful dollies?’ ‘I’m Mrs Last’ (I felt ‘short’). ‘Oh, then perhaps Mrs Wilkins has told you about my order for them. I’ll buy any quantity but if you have a dozen now I’ll take them. I HAVE THE CAR.’ And I knew jolly well she had not had one long, or her lovely fur coat, or her earrings like chandeliers sparkling in the light, or her rings on her fat hands, or her really lovely perfume that spoke of matched cream and powder as well as perfume. My husband was in the kitchenette and he said afterwards ‘My dear, I never heard anything funnier. I was glad I was out of room and could laugh in peace.’ I was not amused. Flu and irritation at people like that cracked my manners badly and I said ‘I think there is some mistake. I have a hobby and I make dollies for my friends, or kiddies at the Hospital. Till last Xmas I had never taken money and if I average one a week all year it answers my purpose – to pay for tea, biscuits and sugar to “turn over” at Centre. There is six hours work in each dollie – pretty hard going. Where and how do you imagine I can mass produce them? Or do you realise that 5s is even yet a charity price – and I only as I said make for friends.’ She said ‘You are not at all obliging’ … She went on – and this is what made my husband laugh although like me he really felt angry – ‘Well, I’ll HAVE to have a doll from somewhere for my little girl, and I’ll pay extra if you will make it. I’ve just paid £5 9s 0d for a train set for the boy and all the girl wants is a doll. Look here, if you make me a really NICE cowboy I’ll give you SIX shillings! There now!’ If she had said £1 I would not have made it – not for anything at all.

  I felt mulish. My husband said ‘Well, you have often talked of the new rich and what mean streaks they had, but now I know’. I said ‘Ah, if I’d put a doll in
a shop window and marked it at 2 guineas – “exclusive” – she would have rushed to buy it and bragged of big price.’ My husband knew the family and she lives with her father and brother who ran a good tobacco shop. They have both gone into Yard and are either boiler makers or rivetters like her husband. Although the shop does little now she runs it and has a maid to do the housework – a rather mental although hard working woman who will not be taken off them – and they live entirely free, all of them, for the slight services she renders her father and brother in keeping the shop going. I looked at my little smiling cowboys – the four out of the six I must make for Hospital, for I cannot let Matron down altogether – and I thought ‘I’ll not let you go there, not if I cancelled all my Xmas orders and sent you all to the Hospital’. I like to think of them going to a good home or else to a child with no toys or a sick child. I felt so cross it made me sick.

  Saturday, 29 November. Yesterday when I was in the car with Mrs Diss she said ‘You really should have a WVS coat and hat for if there was bad trouble I count on you to take over a district or else the mobiles and be recognised as an official. Hospital Supply might cease to function, you know, and although I would never take you from there in ordinary circumstances, for I really do appreciate your work there, I have a job and place waiting if there was a blitz or invasion.’ Me – I don’t like to be rushed into things so said I’d think it over. I talked it over with my husband and asked for my Xmas present to be money and he said he would give me £1 which will buy my hat and scarf. The coat is £4 10s 0d and I’ve got £1 which I would use and as my coat will not come till after Xmas I could scrounge and save the other, for I’ve not much of my own wee income this year. My old tweed coat is now four year old and showing signs of giving out soon and anyway would not last much longer and if I’ve to go on ‘being a soldier’ I’ll need a heavy ‘good’ coat. Mrs Waite will be furious. She set herself so on being ‘on her own’ in Hospital Supply and not a part of WVS. She ran Hospital Supply last war and, poor old lamb, she hates either cooperation or being part of WVS. I’ll be tactful and not wear it to Centre. She is old and must not be upset for she is really a grand old trouper.