The Tower and the buildings underneath were now playing their part in the war effort, and not only by providing entertainment for the troops billeted in Blackpool and the holidaymakers – the many folk who were still visiting the town for a brief respite from the gloom and, in later years, the boredom of the war. The Tower top had been taken over by the RAF as an emergency radar station. A forty-foot section of the spire was replaced by a wooden structure bearing the receiving aerials, and a number of steel cantilevers were inserted into the iron girders of the Tower to carry the transmitting aerials.
The Tower top was also used as a lookout by the men of the National Fire Service and the Home Guard, and the buildings below were used by the RAF and the Royal Artillery for training purposes. The ballroom and the circus became the venues for training sessions and lectures; and in the evenings they both reverted to their normal roles.
Barbara and Dorothy joined the queue of young women to deposit their coats in the cloakroom. When they had been handed the little pink cloakroom tickets they joined dozens of other girls at the mirrors in the washroom, titivating their hair, and applying a dusting of powder or a smear of lipstick before moving on to the ballroom.
Barbara renewed her lipstick. It was a brighter red than the paler shades she usually favoured, but it had been the only colour that was available at the local chemist’s shop; all types of make-up had been in short supply since the outbreak of war. Anyway, it matched her dress much better than a paler pink or coral shade would have done. She pressed her lips together, then, on second thoughts, wiped some of it off again; she hated to think that she might look tarty.
Her dress was a couple of years old, but it was one that she liked and thought suited her; new dresses were a luxury anyway, and considered an extravagance. She had toyed with the idea of wearing her wedding dress. She had chosen it believing, at the time, that it was one that she might wear again, but she had decided it was too pale and ‘weddingy-looking’ for a winter evening. The one she was wearing that night was of a silky rayon. It had a red background patterned with a bold design of black and white daisies; it was knee-length and had the fashionable padded shoulders.
‘You look stunning in that dress,’ Dorothy told her. ‘It really suits you, with your dark hair and eyes and everything. You’ll have the fellers queuing up asking you to dance.’
‘Thank you … but that’s not really the idea,’ replied Barbara; she was feeling, again, for a brief moment, that she shouldn’t be there. ‘You look very nice as well.’
Barbara and Dorothy were complete opposites as far as looks were concerned. Dorothy was blonde and petite. She had let her hair grow and it fell in a pageboy style almost to her shoulders; she had trained it to fall over one eye, in the style made popular by the film star, Veronica Lake. Her blue and white candy-striped dress with the puffed sleeves and sweetheart neckline enhanced her fair prettiness. She looked angelic, but she was a high-spirited lass, and Barbara looked to Dorothy to give her the confidence she needed to face the crowds in the ballroom.
It was, indeed, crowded, the girls two or three deep in some places at the edge of the ballroom floor. The dance floor itself was a rainbow of bright colours: red, blue, orange, green, pink, yellow, on the flowered, striped, and spotted dresses worn by the girls and some older women. They were a vivid contrast to the darker uniforms of the men: air force blue, khaki, the navy blue of the Royal Navy, and the brownish green of the Yanks’ uniforms; there was scarcely a civilian man to be seen amongst the hundreds of couples circling round the dance floor. Many girls were dancing together, as Dorothy had said they would.
‘Come on, let’s give it a whirl,’ Dorothy said to her friend, taking her hand and pulling her towards the ballroom floor. ‘Can you lead, though? You’re a few inches taller than me.’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Barbara. ‘It’s a quickstep rhythm, so I should be able to manage that.’ They stepped out to the music of ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’, the song that had been made famous by the Andrews Sisters.
The organist on the mighty Wurlitzer organ was the talented lady, Ena Baga. She had replaced Reginald Dixon, whose name had become synonymous with Blackpool, when he joined the RAF in 1940. His signature tune, ‘Oh, I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside’, had come to typify the jollity and the carefree mood of a holiday in Blackpool. Now, however, Ena Baga’s signature tune, ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, was becoming almost as familiar to the dancers as that of her predecessor.
When the dance came to an end they moved off the ballroom floor. ‘I don’t know about you,’ said Dorothy, ‘but I don’t fancy standing around with all these wallflowers.’
‘No, neither do I,’ agreed Barbara.
‘Let’s have a saunter around, then, and see if there’s anybody we know, shall we? And in a little while we could go and have a coffee, or something stronger if you like.’
‘No, coffee’s OK for me, or tea,’ said Barbara. ‘Not just yet, though. We’ve not been here very long.’
She had been brought up with the belief that nice girls didn’t go into bars on their own, or even in the company of another girl. She had learnt, though, that Dorothy had no such inhibitions. She, Barbara, and her fiancé, Mike, had not frequented pubs and bars very much either. They had both been very young, only nineteen years old, when the war had started. Albert had enjoyed a drink, though, and probably still did, in the company of his fellow soldiers. Barbara had begun to feel more at ease in a bar when she was with Albert, but it was rather different now. She hoped that Dorothy would not consider her too much of a killjoy.
They made their way round the edge of the ballroom floor, pushing their way, as politely as they could, between the crowds of girls and servicemen. After a few moments Ena Baga struck up with the music of the ‘American Patrol’, a tune made popular by the Glenn Miller Orchestra and one which was being played more and more often in dance halls up and down the country.
As Dorothy had already told her friend, there was some jitterbugging going on in a space away from the ballroom floor where the music could still be heard, loud and clear. The couples on the dance floor were dancing a normal quickstep or, in some cases, a milder form of jitterbugging. Here, however, there were two couples who were really letting it rip.
‘Hey, that’s my friend, Mavis!’ exclaimed Dorothy. ‘You know, the one I was telling you about.’
‘You mean the one who gave you the nylon stockings?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I’ll introduce you to her when they’ve finished the dance. And I suppose that must be the famous Hank who’s with her.’
Barbara’s first impression of the girl, Mavis, was that she was the word ‘glamorous’ brought to life. ‘Glamour’ was a word much used with regard to the stars of the silver screen: Betty Grable, Vivien Leigh, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers and countless others. This Mavis, to Barbara, was a Rita Hayworth sort of girl. Her bright-ginger hair, worn in a pageboy style, bounced around her shoulders as she danced. She was very pretty, and small, but curvaceous in the right places. Her tight-fitting emerald-green dress accentuated the swell of her bustline, and clung alluringly around her hips as she jigged and jumped about to the rhythm of the music, affording a frequent glimpse of shapely knees and thighs. Hank, if that was who it was, swung her around in an uninhibited way, pushing her away from him, then grabbing her and whirling her around in a frenzy. Barbara found herself gasping as the American lifted her off her feet then flung her over his shoulder, giving the onlookers a momentary glimpse of her stocking tops and frilly pink panties. The next minute she was back on the floor and upright again, seeming not a jot embarrassed.
The couple next to them were dancing in an equally reckless manner, and quite a crowd was gathering to watch the fun.
‘D’you fancy a try?’ said a voice at Barbara’s side. She turned to see a pair of humorous grey eyes smiling down at her. A GI, of course; she could tell by his accent at first, and then by his uniform. She knew in that instant, though,
that he was not aiming at a ‘pickup’; he was just trying to be friendly.
‘No, not me!’ she laughed. ‘Fun to watch, but … no thanks! Not my scene at all.’
‘Nor mine,’ he smiled. ‘But I wanted to see Hank doing his stuff. I’ve heard such a lot about it.’
‘You know him, then?’ she enquired.
‘Yes, we’re in the same unit, stationed at Warton. And the other chap, that’s Marvin. Quite a lively pair, as you can imagine. And I’m Nat, by the way.’ He held out his hand towards her. ‘Nat Castillo. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance …’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Whoever you are?’
She didn’t hesitate to shake his hand. He seemed such a nice fellow, or ‘guy’, which was what the Yanks said. ‘Oh … I’m Barbara,’ she said. ‘Barbara Leigh. I’ve come with my friend, Dorothy.’ As she glanced around she could see that her friend, too, was talking to another of the GIs. ‘I’m … I’m pleased to meet you too.’
‘You don’t mind me talking to you, do you?’ he continued. ‘I know we Yanks have got a reputation for being brash and too familiar. Some of us are, or at least that’s the impression we give, I guess. But me … I’m quite shy, really.’ He grinned as he gave a little shrug. ‘I’m just wanting to be friendly, that’s all …’
And that was how it all started. In that instant Barbara’s life was completely turned around, although she wasn’t aware of it at first. She was aware, though, of the immediate attraction between herself and the American soldier.
Looking back on how it had begun, a long time afterwards, she recalled a sermon she had once heard about temptation, and how one could either give in to it or turn away. She recalled the preacher’s words … ‘Maybe you can’t help yourself at the first look, but you can avoid the next look, and all the subsequent ones …’
What, then, should she and Nat have done? Should she have refused to go for a drink with him, which was the next thing that happened? They had been in the company of others, though, and it would have been impolite to refuse. And after that, although it had begun so slowly and innocently, it was as if they both had known that it was inevitable; there had been no stopping the attraction they felt for one another.
She had known very soon that she and Nat were what was known as ‘kindred spirits’. When she was in her early teens, Barbara’s favourite book had been Anne of Green Gables. It was in that book that she had first come across the term. Anne Shirley, the heroine, with whom Barbara felt a great affinity, had gone on at length about how she and her friend, Diana, were kindred spirits. They thought and felt the same about everything, like the two halves of a complete whole; they were truly compatible.
Barbara was not sure that she had met anyone before, of either sex, to whom the term could apply. But now she had. She and Nat Castillo were, without doubt, ‘kindred spirits’. And very soon they knew, come what may, that they belonged together.
Chapter Twenty-Four
When introductions had been made, the group of GIs and young women made their way to the nearest refreshment place, not far from the ballroom. It seemed perfectly natural for them all to gravitate there. The couples who had been jitterbugging were ready for some sustenance, as well as being too hot and dishevelled for comfort. Mavis and her friend Hilda, the other dancer, went off to the ladies’ cloakroom to repair the damage done to their hair and apparel. They rejoined the party a few minutes later looking spruce and composed again.
‘Over here, you guys,’ shouted the fellow called Marvin, standing up and waving. ‘We’ve already got yours in.’ Barbara was to learn that everyone was referred to, in the American parlance, as a ‘guy’, whether they were male or female.
‘Gee, thanks, Marvin,’ replied Hilda. She had obviously picked up some of their vernacular already. ‘Ginger beer shandy, for both of us? That’s just hunky-dory!’
There were eight of them, and it seemed inevitable that they should pair off. Mavis and Hank, and Hilda and Marvin, already seemed to know one another rather well. Dorothy had struck up an acquaintance with Howard who was Nat’s closest friend, or ‘best buddy’, as he called him. And so Barbara found herself with Nat …
Barbara had gone along with the rest of the girls and agreed that she would have a shandy, lemonade ones for herself and Dorothy. She and Nat were sitting side by side on a red velvet bench that ran along the side of the bar room, with Dorothy and Howard on stools opposite them. They were sharing a glass-topped table, and the other four were seated near to them.
Nat lifted his tankard – a pint of bitter – saying ‘cheers’, and so Barbara did the same with her smaller glass. They clinked them together, then smiled a little shyly and uncertainly at one another.
‘So … Barbara Leigh, are you enjoying yourself?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I am, very much,’ she replied. ‘I wasn’t sure that I wanted to come here tonight, but Dorothy persuaded me. It’s the first time I’ve been here for … ooh, for ages.’
‘The first time for me too,’ agreed Nat. ‘And I must admit I’m real impressed with your Tower Ballroom. I haven’t seen anything like this back home.’
‘Really?’ said Barbara. ‘I’m surprised. I thought everything in America was bigger than what we have over here.’ She had been going to say ‘bigger and better’, but realised it might sound rather rude.
Nat laughed. ‘Yeah … I know that’s how some of us Yanks like to talk. When we say bigger, we are sometimes implying that it’s better as well, but it ain’t always so. There are always guys who like to boast that everything’s giant-sized in the good old US of A, but it all depends on where you come from.’
‘And … where is that?’ asked Barbara.
‘Me? I come from a village called Stowe – well, a small town, really – in the state of Vermont. The loveliest little old place in the world to me, but we ain’t got nothing like this.’ He waved his arm around in the direction of the ballroom.
‘Oh, I see,’ replied Barbara politely. She sounded, and was aware that she probably looked, rather vague. She didn’t think she had ever heard of Vermont, although she had heard of lots of places in the USA: New York, and Chicago, and Tennessee …
Nat smiled. ‘Vermont is one of the New England states. You know … the Pilgrim Fathers sailed from England in the Mayflower and landed in Plymouth?’
‘Yes, I know a little about that,’ replied Barbara. ‘We learnt about it at school, but the facts are rather hazy to me; and so is my geography of the United States … I’m sorry.’
‘Nothing to apologise for,’ said Nat. ‘It can’t be as bad as my scanty knowledge of your little country, and that goes for most of us Yanks … Anyhow, the settlers called the area New England, to remind them, I guess, of the old England they had left behind. That’s why we have a lot of towns with the same names as yours. We have a Plymouth, of course, and a Portsmouth, Manchester, Boston, London, Norwich, Windsor … Dozens of them, I guess.’
‘You must be missing your hometown,’ said Barbara. ‘Stowe, did you say? I should imagine it’s nothing like Blackpool.’
He laughed. ‘You can say that again! Nothing at all. Except that we depend a lot on tourists, as you do here. It sure is a lovely place where I live, surrounded by mountains, and in the winter we get hordes of skiers staying there; we have some of the best ski slopes in the whole of the USA. And in summer there’s lots to do as well – rock climbing, fishing, canoeing, or just enjoying the scenery.’
Barbara smiled at him sympathetically. He surely must be homesick for that lovely place, although he was cheerful and bright, clearly determined to make the best of his exile in what must seem a very strange and different sort of land. ‘And … what do you do there, Nat?’ she asked. ‘Your job, I mean?’
‘Like scores of others, my family run a hotel,’ he replied. ‘We’re busy all year round with guests. I help out wherever I can, like the rest of the family, my parents and my aunt and uncle. I’m studying to be a chef, though, so that I can take over from my father, eventually
… God willing,’ he added. ‘And in the winter I’m a part-time ski instructor. We all learn to ski, from an early age.’
‘That’s quite a coincidence,’ said Barbara, ‘about the hotel, I mean, because that’s where I was brought up as well, in a hotel. We call them boarding houses here, though, unless they’re bigger and have more amenities, then they’re called hotels. And … my husband had a similar boarding house background. Actually, his family’s boarding house is just next door to ours, and he helps with the cooking and everything else, like you do. At least he does when he’s here. At the moment he’s in the army, stationed up in the north of England …’ She found her voice petering out as Nat looked at her thoughtfully.
‘Yes, I noticed you were married,’ he remarked. She was wearing her wedding ring, of course, which she never took off.
‘We were married in 1942,’ Barbara told him. ‘We have a baby girl, Katherine. She’s eight months old,’ she said, trying to smile brightly.
‘Gee, that’s swell!’ commented Nat. ‘I can understand why you were hesitant about coming here tonight. You must miss her.’
‘Well, yes, but I know she’s being well looked after, by my aunt and uncle. They brought me up, you see, after my parents died when I was quite small. And I’m still living there, because it just makes sense to do so. When Albert – my husband – comes back, no doubt we’ll move into a place of our own.’ Why am I telling him all this? she asked herself. She had only just met him, but already it seemed as though they had known one another for ages.
‘And … what about you, Nat?’ she asked; she knew she had to ask. ‘Have you a wife, at home in the USA?’
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