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About a quarter of Nella’s diary from 1943 has been lost, including all or almost all of May, June and September; and none of her diary survives between 31 December 1943 and 3 May 1945. Her writing from 1943 has less of the sparkle of earlier and later years. This is partly because her life was much more constricted. Lacking petrol for the car, she did not get about much and thus missed out on the sorts of experiences she had once enjoyed in Morecambe or Spark Bridge or the Lakes or even at Walney that had often inspired some of her best writing. But now her life had narrowed noticeably, and her writing reflects these limitations. Moreover, her sons were never around to boost her spirits – Cliff was abroad and Arthur in Northern Ireland – and her husband was no font of vitality. While WVS work afforded satisfactions, a lot of it was now routine. Gossip and complaints in her diary tended to overshadow observant storytelling, wit and crisp descriptions. Moreover, this fourth year of war had an air for Nella, and probably most Britons, of plodding dreariness. The following selections highlight a few of the livelier passages from her 1943 diary.
Thursday, 18 February. The other day I was glancing at the paper at the breakfast table where Mary [her cousin, now working at the Yard and boarding with the Lasts] and I sat and I read out an article about people being unkind to girls who had been billeted on them and wondered if it was not exaggerated. Mary’s reply surprised and saddened me. She told of far worse things in Preston than printed in the paper, of women who would not allow poor chilled girls warmth of a fire or a hot drink and who left the windows open in the bitter weather till the bedrooms were cold and often the beds damp where rain had blown in; of never speaking to the girls – just laughing mockingly when they had left the room. It made me think Barrow was not quite as bad as I thought for although I’ve heard of places where girls have been happier than others I’ve not heard quite such dreadful things. Yet if peace came tomorrow, those landladies would be the ones to cheer the loudest and carry little Union Jacks and talk of how WE won. There is so little we can do about people like that, either, until they think rightly. No force or coercion will alter them. Mary said ‘You know Nell, if you wanted boarders I could get you dozens, on the strength alone of my packed lunches and teas, and no one really believes me that I’ve a hot bottle in my bed and dainty supper tray waiting for me. You would either “make a fortune or break your heart” if you ran a boarding house. Some people would put on you, you know.’ That’s life, anyway. But it must be a hard, hard heart that denies warmth and comfort to unhappy people.
Friday, 5 March. It was nearly 7 o’clock when I got home for Mrs Parkinson and I waited [at the canteen] till three of the next shift came before leaving. Such a lovely evening, with branches roughening with buds against the blue grey of the darkening sky. The winter has flown by and the cold of the last two seemed a dream. Soon it will be high Spring – and then what? I’m really very lucky in that I have to keep on with work that tires me so that I cannot think too much. I’ve always had a very active mind but even active minds can only think to a certain point and if tired are bemused and drugged and the big terrifying things lose their sharpness. News of a ship sinking, of men lost, used to wring my heart and make me ill with horror. Now I can serve them and laugh and chaff with them, remember their different likings – this one with a waffle with his sausage, this with chips or fried bread – see their plates are hot, that I have a little hoard of the particularly messy pastries they all seem to like. I feel in a dim way that I’m rooting for them, as my boys used to say, that I’m part of the Plan and march with them. The soldiers accept my preference for the Merchant Navy and the Navy and beyond looking at the counter and asking ‘Have you got any jam puffs or cream slices hidden away?’ they only laugh.
It was good to rest and I’d left meat roll and salad on my lovely gay tea table with its snowy lace and linen cloth and bowl of amethyst crocuses. Mary had got up and had a meal of toast and egg and gone off for a walk, and when she came in sat and wrote letters so I wrote to Cliff and Jim Picken [Edith’s brother] and it will be two less on Sunday.
Saturday, 6 March. Mary works with a Russian Jewess, daughter of a man who has always lived here and kept a furnishing shop. She likes Mary and asked her if she would like a piece of matting and today she had to go down for it. It was such an Easter like day and I said to Mary ‘Let’s go on in the bus to Walney and have a walk along the Bank and we can shop afterwards’. Never do I remember such a warm lovely day so early in the year. People loitered and sat about on the sea shore, the larks – such a feature of Biggar Bank – sang their little throats out as they mounted into the summer like sky. Daisies pied† the short grass where soldiers and RAF lay about reading or writing as they lay face downward. Happy dogs played their own little games on the edge of the full tide and made believe floating sticks had been thrown in for them to retrieve. A haze hid the Cumberland hills. It looks as if it will be fine for a day or two. Mary is such nice company and we strolled happily along and picked up a lot of rotting oyster shells and I’ll pound them up and sift them and use the finest for the new chicks when I get them and the coarser will do for those I have.
Tuesday, 16 March. A queer girlish conchie came in to the shop – I’d seen him a few times at Canteen – and wanted something for his mother and his friend’s birthday. He is about Cliff’s age and never have I met such sweet girl of a fellow, in looks and softly waving hair, gestures, voice – and ideas! For some reason – hard to say for I felt I could not be chatty – he sat down and with his hands clasped round his knees and sweet smile he told me of his love for his job as batman, the way he tried to ‘please his gentleman’ – I heard an echo of ‘Can I do yer now, Sir!’* – and his passion for the sea and country and his distaste to go back to London where he was a waiter. He sat and talked and talked, of recipes for ‘his gentleman’, his loneliness on his days off, his distaste for ‘rough canteens’ and preference for British Restaurants, his longing to get a job as waiter after ‘all was over’ in some quiet spot in the Lake District. I wondered if he had been over-mothered, he was so gentle and confiding. With all my distaste of the conchie type I felt I could have taken him under my wing and said he could come to our house when he felt lonely. I had to give up hinting and say plainly that I was going to close the shop and go for lunch – and he asked if he could come back when I opened again! If there are any really nice boys at Canteen they never like me like the ‘oddments’ it always seems I attract.
We were short handed at Centre for Mrs Higham and Mrs Woods had to go to a Moral Welfare meeting,* and Miss Heath had forgotten her glasses so was not a lot of use in booking up. I heard more war talk than I’ve done since the blitz for people are puzzled because all the balloons and most of the anti-aircraft guns are away. We wonder if they are wanted elsewhere and feel a bit worried. When I think of the outcry there was when the balloon were brought ‘to advertize us’, as one woman put it, I never thought they would be so lamented.
Tuesday, 23 March. A woman came in to the shop and upset me for the rest of the day. She was a stranger and drawn faced woman with a cultured accent and beautiful clothes. She bought a little cart for her granddaughter and we got chatting about the war and prisoners and the worry of mothers with lads in the Services and I think I said something about women with daughters being on the whole happier today. Suddenly she started to cry so bitterly and I got her to sit down on the little stool by the radiator and got her a drink of water and gave her two aspirins. She looked up and said ‘I feel I’m going out of my mind with worry’ and told me such a pitiful tale of her daughter of 23 who is a WREN and whose husband has been a prisoner of war since Dunkirk. She ‘loves life and dancing’ her mother says and goes off night after night in a clique of girls and Naval men from the Depot, married and single. She has had flu this week and it’s discovered she can expect a baby in four to five months. Her story is that she ‘knows nothing about it – it must have happened when she was “tight” some time’ – all t
he parties she goes to there is ‘everything to drink’. Her father, an officer at the Fort, says she is a ‘slut’ and ‘that be hanged for a damn fool tale’. Her mother says ‘I don’t know what to believe’. I said ‘You must believe her, my dear. She has no one but you to turn to. Do believe her and if that is too much don’t tell her you doubt her story.’ The poor woman said ‘Her husband’s a prisoner – who is to tell him, or that proud family of his?’ I said ‘Well, if it was my girl I’d find some way to shield her and that poor lad in Germany should never know till he was back and she could tell him herself. What good will it do to torture him while he is so helpless?’ Her grief was distressing when she had to ‘let go’. I persuaded her to go in the passage behind the shop and rest and dropped the latch and went for a taxi to come the back way.
I told Mrs Higham and Mrs Waite and was interested with their reactions. Mrs H is getting a really bitter ‘jaundiced’ outlook on the girl of today through her work as Secretary to the Social and Moral Welfare. Mrs Waite is a magistrate and sees the seamy side and tells me I am ‘soft’ and ‘sheltered’ and don’t know what a rotten lot the youth of today are at heart and when out of sight of home. Yet I cannot believe it. The boys knew such crowds of nice boys and girls, ordinary busy happy young things who never talked of ‘getting sozzled’. Why poor Jack Gorst, whose nerves went after the accident which killed his mother and who drank heavily at times, stopped it when he was drawn into happy company. People said ‘I’d not let a boy of mine go round with Jack Gorst’ but Cliff never suffered from his impulsive actions of bringing him home. Mrs Waite thinks young things want more discipline. Mrs Higham thinks the same and in addition would like corporal punishment by parents more general. I believe in treating children as ‘people’ with responsibilities to themselves as well as others, and felt in my heart ‘Well, I’ve made lots of mistakes but my boys like me as well as love me. They are my friends and I am and always will be theirs.’ ‘Odd ways’ of upbringing are sometimes better than ‘You-sit-there-till-I-tell-you-to-move – and keep quiet’ …
Luckily my husband was a bit late for tea and I got all ready by the time he came in. We had whole meal toast and cheese and egg scrambled together, strawberry jam and bread and butter and gingerbread and Mary went out as she had only had her meal at 4 o’clock when she rose. My husband said ‘I suppose I’d better get into the garden’ and something made me say ‘I think I’ll do a bit at the borders’, for I’ve got 2s 6d of sunflower seed and must find room for every one. I’ll need everything I can grow for my feathered folk next winter. He looked so happy as he said ‘Righto, I’ll help clear away and wash up and we will get an early start’. I dug and raked and got the soil a bit finer and the cat and dog of course came to superintend and the hens lined up inside their fence begging for any stray worms and we laughed quite a lot about nothing at all. I like to be gay. We worked till dark and when we got in my husband said ‘What a pleasant night. It flew past and I’ve got such a lot done. It’s nice to have company when gardening.’ I’ll try and go out more. He used to have that ‘Now-don’t-do-that, leave-THAT-alone’ attitude which kept us all out of the garden and made the boys feel that they would not even cut the lawn if he was about … I was not a lot more tired and the air was fresh and sweet. I never remember so fair a spring, never, not in the golden happy days we look back on as ‘faery times, when we were young’.
Saturday, 10 April. I rested awhile before tea, after Mary went, and I had such a passionate longing for Jaffa oranges, for golden juicy fruit, that I decided I’d open a tin of sliced peaches – and went reckless and opened a tin of cream too. It made such a lovely surprise for my husband and he teased me and said ‘I’m going to have a turn out some day and see what you have tucked away’. I felt rewarded for not using my little store recklessly for the golden fruit tasted like sunshine itself. When I felt so picky and ill, it felt like a tonic. I could not help but chuckle as my husband went to make sure the garage door [to the house, giving access to visitors] was locked before we started tea. Anyone would think I’d stolen it! All the same, nowadays things are too precious to share as at one time.
Thursday, 29 April. The rush I had to get home made me more inclined to pity war workers who rushed home for their meals and I thought of women with children and shopping to do as well as part-time work. Lunch was hot and I only had to heat the soup. I decided to get some shoes at the weekend and by what I see – and hear – there is not a lot of choice in Barrow shops. As I cleared the table I thought ‘Market day or not, I’ll go to Ulverston’. It meant taking the town bus into town and standing 20 minutes for the Ribble instead of picking it up at the corner for lots of housewives go shopping there from Barrow, particularly on market day. Everything seems plentiful there and the shoe shop where I went much as usual. I was ‘hailed with choice’ actually! And got such a nice pair of Killic shoes, only utility, it’s true, but not any different to what I’d have chosen for I wanted plain ones. I could have got a very good pair of brogues and was tempted, but they were heavy walking ones and now summer is here I felt I’d like a lighter pair. They were only 26s and a few coppers – I forget whether it was 8d – and I felt my trip out justified. Such a different class and grade of vegetables – lovely big white cauliflowers and piles of carrots and I’ve not been able to get carrots for a fortnight for what was in the shops were sold before I got down. Cooked meats and sausage and nearly all cakes and pies had gone, but with the hundreds of Lake District folk who throng the town on market day that could be understood.
A kindliness and courtesy, rare nowadays, lingers among the country folk. I looked at them, weather beaten and wrinkled with sun, with good clothes built for hard wear and mellowed by rain and sun, battered shapeless hats on the men and women alike, at the features which seem such a type of the hills and fells – rather big nosed, clear cut features, wide mobile mouth with rather thin lips – rather like comedians and as if they found plenty to smile at if not actually laugh. A strange feeling of kinship woke in me. I saw old men so like my Cliff will be, God willing. I have thought at times in my life that I loved London and the bustle of cities, but I know plain as I grow older that my heart and roots are in the quiet places, that although I like people I love places.
While holidays for the Lasts were few and far between, they were able in August to go to Spark Bridge and stay for four nights in a cottage attached to Aunt Sarah’s. They travelled there by bus and were accompanied by their dog, Sol. Arriving on the 9th to ‘the perfume of wood smoke hanging over the whole village’, they settled in to the ‘beautifully furnished cottage’, feeling that ‘frets and discords seemed to melt – or take their proper places’. They went for a walk and in the evening visited the Farmer’s Arms to listen to the nine o’clock news, then retiring so that Nella could ‘scribble by candle light’.
Tuesday, 10 August. The papers come on the 12.35 bus into the village but there are no extra ones so we waited till Aunt’s old cousin had read his Mail. There is no wireless except at the two inns and it makes the war so far away. We can have a quart of rich creamy milk each day – as much as we like really, there is no shortage. The milkman would have let us have a pound of fresh butter if he had known we were coming but the milk all went in before he knew he would want extra on churning day. The peace and courtesy, the dignity of life, seem to linger in this quiet spot. The traveller from the Ulverston grocer’s where our family has traded for several generations, and where I would certainly go if I’d time to go to Ulverston, called. His country drawl came through the connecting door of Aunt’s two cottages and his patience as he repeated remarks to Aunt Sarah, whom time makes more deaf, the way little goodies like cornflour, shredded suet, cust’ powder were checked off a list, and seemingly she was ‘in the running’ for mint humbugs this month! They have a ‘no grab system’. Everyone gets ‘something extra’ with each order, no one is missed because they live far from the shop. I know I’m prejudiced about small town ways but often I wonder if all
the clever city ways have killed something special that after the war we would do well to re-capture. I sat and listened while Aunt Sarah made the traveller a cup of tea and they gossiped. It made me smile as I listened to the old time ‘broadcast’. This one had started well with harvest, another had got ‘t rat catcher in, aye, and caught dunno how many “king” rats’, which left alone would have led a band of females off and started a colony somewhere else! … I heard of births and deaths mixed up with the merits of fine versus medium meal for porridge, and a debate on fire lighters. He wanted Aunt Sarah to try them – ‘grand for a quickly lit fire’. He was tired – but had to go up the hill when he left. Gran’s old traveller had a raw boned hack and wore a caped coat that must have been older than himself. This one has an old but powerful motor bike.
The rain cleared and we went to pay a call on a friend from Barrow who bought a house in the country after the raids. She lost her husband recently, one of the cleverest men in the Yard. Poor Walter Machin. He was a dreadful sufferer from duodenal trouble and yet worked like two men. We were sorry to find her out and I left a card with a scribbled message – I don’t think we can get that far again this week. We sat over our simple tea of cheese and whole meal bread and butter, strawberry jam and cake. We don’t seem to do anything and yet the day passes quickly. It seems to be doing my husband some good for he is not as moody and talks quite often. After a rest we strolled up the hill to the Farmer’s Arms where all the visitors and many of the locals go for the evening. It’s not a large place – run by two Manchester business men who retired to the country and decided to keep a pub. This one, over 400 years old, was an old time brew house and only nut brown ale, posset† and sack were on the original license. They had rather a struggle to get a wine and spirit license and I believe their cellar holds wines and liquors for all palates, however exotic. I asked one of them if they had many visitors and he growled ‘Far too popular – 22 this week’. He said ‘This place is too darn popular and it’s getting that something will have to be done. We take only “friends of friends”, so to speak, but the problem of help grows more acute – and we don’t want to make money.’ I chuckled as I thought of the guinea a day – and all drinks extra. I thought it one of the best paying propositions I knew just now.
The Diaries of Nella Last Page 24