Millions Like Us

by Virginia Nicholson

  Nina Bawden’s creative talents were shelved when she turned down a £900-a-year job in journalism because of her pregnancy. The newlywed acquired instead a substantial Rolls Royce of a perambulator, immensely heavy and cumbersome. Getting this monster up the steps to the front door left Nina exhausted, but it was ‘light and springy on the flat’. Nicholas, born in summer 1947, lay in it, and was now the focus of her existence:

  I would have given my life for him had the need arisen. But I was alone with him all day and longed for someone to talk to who could talk back to me. Eventually, I met another girl in a similar plight. We pushed our prams to the park together on fine afternoons and, when it rained, sat in each other’s houses smoking and drinking gin or whisky while our babies played behind the sofa and pulled each other’s hair. Babies and boredom, boredom and babies – when the whisky ran out, we made up our faces, exchanged clothes, did our hair, and the afternoon still yawned ahead.

  *

  For too many women joining the ranks of wives and mothers in the second half of the 1940s, it felt as though the war had offered them a glimpse of how life could be – a tantalising taste of liberty – only for it to be snatched away again. ‘Grossly unfair’ was how ATS volunteer Hilda Marter described her own situation in 1945. Hilda, who had married shortly before the outbreak of war, joined the ATS after her husband was posted abroad and spent four years seeing action on the command post of an anti-aircraft battery. It was ‘an important job … that I enjoyed and … being my own person – instead of a housewife pandering to my husband’s every need … gave me a confidence I had never had before.’ At last her husband got leave – just as she was expecting to be sent out to Belgium. At such a time it was out of the question to ask him to use a condom – ‘tantamount to asking for a divorce’ – and to her utter dismay, Hilda became pregnant. All hopes of promotion, travel and status were suspended. Her husband departed again, and she was left alone with a new baby in an insanitary, run-down cottage. ‘I often wonder what sort of career I might have been able to follow had I been able to choose my own destiny.’ Despite her unchallengeable competence and professionalism, women like Hilda still felt incapable of challenging their husbands.

  The sexual stereotypes were as axiomatic for many women as they were for men. Ursula Bloom, who came from a slightly older generation, struggled to express the misgivings she felt at modern men helping in the home:

  Men and women have drawn level in the race for life, but the condition is such a new one that any woman worth her salt still cannot bear to see a man doing the jobs that should be entirely hers, without a sense of embarrassment.

  It is a difficult matter trying to re-educate oneself to the new system.

  In the same vein, Barbara Cartland was unable to countenance outside careers for married women. She herself had declined an invitation to stand for parliament because the hours conflicted with the children’s bedtime and the peaceful after-dinner interlude ‘when a man likes to sit beside the fire and talk over what has happened during the day.’ She was lucky, as a novelist, in being able to drop everything when her husband returned from his office. And if confident, privileged women like her felt unable to make claims, how much more so did the working-class factory women interviewed by the social researcher Ferdinand Zweig? ‘The one thing which struck me in my inquiry was the sense of inferiority which many, if not most, women have. They accept man’s superiority as a matter of fact.’

  In the later 1940s, despite all that they had proved both to themselves and to men, most women still lacked any sense that they were entitled to stand equally beside their ‘lords and masters’.

  *

  In 1947 a galaxy of distinguished women came together who, over the course of the next four years, would meet to discuss where their sex stood in the mid-twentieth century. Eminent representatives of the business, charitable, employment and educational fields, scientists, journalists, feminists and trade unionists attended.* This rolling conference, entitled ‘The Feminine Point of View’, set out to explore how far emancipation had really come, why its impact had been restricted, and what could be done to enable women to achieve their potential.

  In 1951 Olwen Campbell, one of the sponsors of the conference, wrote a report of its deliberations and conclusions. The great and good who had gathered over that four-year period had concluded that a feminine influence would unquestionably have a benign impact on our world. Women’s contribution was, they now urged, of the utmost value – ‘We believe that the world desperately needs her point of view’:

  The ultimate aim, which we should never lose sight of, is nothing less than a society shaped and run equally by men and women and pursuing the best ideals and hopes of both.

  Polite and moderately worded as it was, the professed aspiration of these thoughtful and educated ladies was not so much to engage in a battle with men, but to redeem humanity itself. Like Vera Brittain five years later (in Lady into Woman) they were pursuing not so much equality for themselves, but a ‘woman’s service for peace’, a future for the human race. A lofty aim indeed, which might have carried more weight had their rhetoric not been so polite, so conciliatory. They had perhaps heeded the fate of those activists whose campaign for equal pay had been sidelined.

  These women were as sick of bombs and battles as everybody else, and even in dissent the participants saw themselves as more ‘feminine’ than feminist. They came from a world, and spoke to a public, in which ‘all girls want to marry and nearly all will marry’. They held firmly to their interpretation of the female character, with its traditional qualities of compassion, intuitive sympathy, aversion to violence, selflessness and reverence for individual life. They accepted that the ministrations of home and family fell primarily on the female. Olwen Campbell and her company were not about to jettison their foundation garments, march as sisters or chain themselves to railings. That was still a long way off.

  And perhaps that was why – despite their excellent analysis, compelling arguments and the conclusive need for a new approach that would break the cycle of aggressive wars – the 1950s would see the institution of marriage enjoying unprecedented stability, with little change either in women’s status or women’s self-estimation. Perhaps, too, it was why change, when it did come in the 1970s, had to be played out according to men’s rules: those of noisy protest, angry demonstration and belligerent force.

  Millions Like Them

  The children of the Armistice had travelled a long road since 1939. We have a tendency to romanticise the Second World War, to build up comforting pictures of heroism featuring armadas of small ships, defiance of danger on the high seas, the gallantry of Spitfire crews, the fearless comradeship of the Blitz and feats of bravery on the Normandy beaches, all to the accompaniment of wailing sirens and the ringing rhetoric of Winston Churchill. We tend to see it as a man’s war.

  The woman’s war had its moments of glory too. But they were often simpler: celebrating a sinking with a bottle of cheap wine labelled ‘Matapan’; the joy of a double-yolked egg; beautiful shiny lace-up shoes; a mattress remodelled from sugar sacks; cream cakes on the Cobb; jitterbugging; floating on Martini … And the tough times were correspondingly banal: days on the factory floor, followed by ‘straight to bed, buggered’; rising at 4 a.m. for a working day on the Sheffield trams; frozen early mornings in the conifer plantations of northern Scotland; grief and ennui; ‘Missing, presumed killed’; pouring rain, and counting the bricks in the wall; rubble; destruction; death on the ward; the swabbing of shit from traumatised soldiers after D-day; lisle stockings and snapped knicker elastic; waiting, hoping and despairing. And this time the accompaniment is Vera Lynn’s crystalline voice singing:

  There’ll be bluebirds over

  The white cliffs of Dover,

  Tomorrow, just you wait and see.

  There’ll be love and laughter,

  And peace ever after,

  Tomorrow – when the world is free.

  Though the perfect peac
e was as empty a promise as the bluebirds, not everything had been lost. In jungles and deserts, the ideal of home had kept many millions of soldiers going through the weary years of war. Treasured in each wallet or kitbag, the creased and dog-eared black-and-white photograph of a smiling girlfriend or wife would sustain its memory. From all the struggle and heartache of the war Home and Hearth had emerged as the repository of all things good, all things worth fighting for, with Woman at its heart. Electricity and technology were transforming it from a prison to a power base. For the next decade and onwards, Home would be woman’s empire.

  ‘With these modern inventions housework’s a pleasure.’ In 1946, a Hoover seemed to promise true joy.

  War had brought her pride, and a sense of value. Friendships forged out of common experiences endured. Voluntarism thrived. A generation emerged from ten years of rationing unable to contemplate waste or debt, incapable of using more than a quarter of an inch of toothpaste, resistant to the modern culture of excess. Many who lived through the war continue to share a powerful patriotism and sense of national unity. And ten years of suffering and boredom bred millions of stoical survivors. If the women who came of age in the 1940s have just one thing in common, it is their characteristic quality of patience. Their mantra: ‘We didn’t analyse. We just got on with it. We lived from day to day.’

  And as the war receded into history, most of them were quietly relieved to have come through, grateful for what remained of life’s blessings.

  This story began with snapshots from the lives of some of the participants in 1939. It draws to a close a decade later with some pages from the post-war album. Here they are, a bit older, some with small children and husbands, in sepia and black-and-white, smiling bravely for the camera. Most of them by now will be familiar.

  First, a wedding photograph; taken at St Mark’s Church, North Audley Street, Mayfair. Blooming and smiling, with a long veil, ruffled full-length lace wedding dress and carnation bouquet, Helen Vlasto has married her long-term sweetheart Dr Aidan Long. Her private means, and his post in a London hospital, enable her to return to the life for which she was born, that of a lady of leisure. The Longs are rich, and outnumbered – even in these austerity days – by their staff: maids, a chauffeur and cooks. But grief is lying in wait for Helen when her baby daughter, born in 1947, dies after just a few days. Helen, who has relied all her life on her looks and good fortune, becomes ever more unwilling to engage with matters of substance. The days fill with aimless activity: letters to write, hairdressing appointments, cocktails at six. It is as if the war had never happened; Helen’s life has gone on hold. ‘[She] was an extraordinarily late-developer,’ says Helen’s son. ‘But [writing her memoirs] was a turning point. She was able to reinvent herself and in her late 50s and 60s acquired a rapidly forming “gravitas”.’

  Ilkley Road, Barrow-in-Furness: a December night in 1948, with the rain lashing outside, and a fire crackling. Diarist Nella Last is recording a tetchy row between herself and her husband, Will. Tea – a generous spread of hard-boiled egg with grated cheese, wholemeal bread, butter and jam and toasted fruit bread – has been cleared away, when Will (who continues to run his joinery business) starts to drone with misery about the threatened departure of one of his apprentices. Driven away by Mr Last’s grumbles and fault-finding, the boy is off to join the navy. But Nella has no sympathy with her husband. She lashes out and tells him plainly that the only thing that keeps her chained to the stove and sink is her own self-respect as a housewife. It’s not surprising you lose everyone who ever works for you, she tells him. ‘You never say a thing is nice or give a word of thanks for any effort, and you pounce on any little error or fault.’ And if he didn’t start trying soon, she’d be the next one packing her bags.

  A cottage in Slough, a few weeks later. Maggie Joy Blunt’s guests have left and, thankful to be on her own again with her beloved cats, she reflects on the isolation of her post-war existence: ‘I am at heart a solitary, selfish creature and am sure I should find marriage irksome eventually.’ Life holds challenges enough for Maggie; she has decided to put effort into changing the world through politics and will campaign in the next election for the Liberal Party. There is charitable work to do, friends, the theatre, a writing project that will occupy much of her time, and plans to open a bookshop. ‘My philosophy for years now has been to take things as they come, to live the life you have in hand as fully as you can, & let the future take care of itself.’

  A summer day in Piccadilly: Madeleine Henrey and her husband have returned to their Shepherd Market flat. Bobby is at school now, and Madeleine is writing the story of her Normandy farm. But Madeleine finds she can’t concentrate, and the Bond Street shops beckon. A sunny London morning and the thought of new hats still have the power to tempt a woman like Madeleine and, basket in hand, she heads out. Here in the West End many of the buildings have been cleaned up – at least on the outside – but the little shops with their heraldic crests which once sold kid evening gloves that buttoned up above the elbow all seem to have closed. Still, rumour has it that the price of knitting wool has come down and, even better, that nylon stockings are in. It is a matter of time before the big stores will yet again be full of lovely, shimmering fabrics. No man can experience the joy Madeleine feels at stroking the tempting softness of a bolt of crêpe de chine. ‘I am thankful to be a woman.’

  Ham Spray House: at the foot of the Wiltshire downs, Frances and Ralph Partridge continue to lead quietly civilised lives, in which books and the company of friends predominate. Their son, Burgo, now fourteen, is entering a difficult adolescence. The summer of 1949 is sultry; the only cool time is the early morning, and Frances walks barefoot on her dew-laden lawn before breakfast. Later in the day, a circle of deckchairs under the beech tree is a shady refuge for drinks and conversation. On 6 August Frances rereads her wartime diaries and reflects on how life has changed since the days when her interest was exclusively, hectically engaged by public horrors:

  Now we have lived through three years of total peace; we still have rationing but don’t fear it getting worse (as we did then); there have been political crises and alarms for us to read and talk about ad lib. The chief change is that today our minds are much more often full of the books we are reading, the work we are doing, and above all the vicissitudes in the lives of Burgo and many friends whose troubles are very much our concern.

  Her pacifist convictions remain unaltered.

  Oundle, Northamptonshire: another wedding picture. Lorna is smiling for the camera, after trading her maiden name, Bradey, for Kite. Ralph, her husband, is a career soldier with the British Army of Occupation in Germany, a onetime patient of hers. In Hanover in 1948 they renewed their romance, and he proposed after a night at the opera. Lorna’s marriage to Ralph Kite means automatic resignation from Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. She has a child now, she works in the army thrift shop, dutifully attends coffee mornings, hosts curry lunches and tries to avoid becoming too like the other ‘kitten’ wives on the base at Sölingen near Düsseldorf. But there is nothing to do, and it is, in many ways, a mind-numbing existence. Lorna, high-spirited, sociable and sexy, is too uncompromising to fit neatly into the ‘devoted military wife’ slot. She has always lived life to the full, always loved to party, and the role of flirt comes more naturally to her than that of docile housewife. And, though their marriage is strong and loving, any spare energy is expended on stormy rows with her husband.

  A railway station in Sussex: Anne Popham, back from Germany since 1947, has found a job as an exhibitions organiser for the newly formed Arts Council of Great Britain, work which has brought her back into contact with the world of contemporary artists. One of these, a tall, talented man with red hair, asks her out. He seems kind, clever and impressively well informed about politics and current affairs and yet he also seems deeply unsure of himself. An invitation follows to his parents’ Sussex home, where Anne sits to him for her portrait. The family welcomes her; she
feels admired, appreciated. He sculpts a head of clay, caressing the terracotta cheekbones, moulding her lips with sensitive, spatula-like fingers. She feels beautiful. When he takes her to catch her train she reaches up and briefly kisses him. They look at each other with new eyes.

  Ontario, Canada: Mavis Lever, married name Mavis Batey, has travelled to Ottawa, where her husband Keith has accepted a position on the staff of the High Commission. After five years of fever-pitch work at Bletchley, Mavis is relieved not to have to keep up the pace. ‘We could never have slogged the way we did without the excitement of the war. Mercifully, I decided to have a baby.’ So she has packed her Harris tweed suit and boarded a liner for the other side of the world. She also takes with her her secret life of codes and intercepts, but for another twenty-five years she will not reveal a word about her wartime occupation. In Canada a second baby is born. Far from home in a land of plenty, Mavis enjoys the heaven of disposable nappies; also chocolate, and steak. Inexperienced as a cook, one of our foremost code-breakers is almost floored by the expectation that she will whip up a three-course diplomatic dinner for her husband’s colleagues – ‘How do you feed an Ambassador when your repertoire doesn’t extend beyond corned beef and bread-and-butter pudding?’ The Bateys return to England in 1950: with her family growing up, Mavis discovers a surprising new outlet for her forensic talents and love of literature, becoming the secretary and later president of the Garden History Society.

  Edinburgh: Jean Park (née McFadyen), has ‘landed on her feet’. After months of frustration living with the in-laws in Edinburgh, she has the luck to find a flat in the church manse. Brenda, the minister’s wife, is pregnant and has advertised the accommodation in return for help in the house. A happy time follows: ‘We got on great. I only worked for her up until lunchtime, and my time was my own after that.’ Brenda and she share out the washing, the baking, and – when the time comes – baby tips. Jean’s own daughter is born in 1948. How far has she come from her lonely teenage days, skivvying in the great landowner’s remote castle in the glens? In her view, cleaning for Brenda at the manse was a world away. ‘My life had changed completely. It definitely gave me confidence. I would never have done all these things if it hadn’t been for the war.’ Her relationship with her employer and landlady is one of mutual respect and firm friendship.