Liverpool Angels

by Lyn Andrews

  ‘We’re more like “can lads” and “gofers”. “Go fer this, go fer that!”’

  ‘“Get the can, lad, and make the tea.” That’s mainly what we seem to do all day,’ Alfie enlightened them. The tea was made in a billycan, with the tea, sugar, condensed milk and hot water all mixed together.

  ‘Well, it should start to get better soon, Alfie, we begin at the Mechanics Institute next week,’ Eddie reminded them, not wishing for what was always referred to in reverent tones as their ‘apprenticeships’ to be viewed in such an unfavourable light. He turned to Jimmy. ‘Mind you, I might have to miss a few midweek games,’ he added a bit ruefully.

  Alice was totally bored with this conversation, which she had known would eventually include the dreaded football. ‘This is supposed to be a celebration, Eddie. Can either of you two play the piano?’

  Derek and Alfie looked at each other and shook their heads. ‘You never said anything about there being music, Eddie,’ Alfie commented.

  ‘There won’t be, seeing as no one can play,’ Alice said flatly.

  ‘Shame that, I don’t mind a good sing-song,’ Alfie replied.

  A silence fell during which Mae looked hopefully at Harry Mercer, willing him to introduce a fresh topic of conversation, but he seemed lost for words, sipping his drink in an awkward manner, although he was finding it tasted quite pleasant.

  Alice was about to say she’d sooner sit in the parlour with the old ones and listen to stories of when the old queen was alive than sit here in silence when her mother appeared, frowning.

  ‘You’re all very quiet in here! I thought you’d be nattering away ten to the dozen. Usually I can’t shut you up, our Alice.’ She beamed at them all. ‘Well, come on into the parlour. Mrs Ziegler is going to play for us,’ she announced delightedly.

  ‘I never knew she could play,’ Alice responded, stung by her mother’s description of her as a chatterbox.

  ‘Well, apparently she can and Harold has nipped home for her music. She’s got all the popular songs. We’ll have a great evening,’ Maggie said firmly, ushering them out of the kitchen and away from the food and drink, which she noted was rather depleted already.

  They started with ‘Happy Birthday to You’ in honour of Eddie, which everyone sang heartily while Eddie felt his cheeks growing pink with embarrassment, then progressed to ‘Shine On, Harvest Moon’ followed by ‘Down by the Old Mill Stream’. John gave a solo of ‘Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly?’ in a surprisingly good baritone while Harold Ziegler’s rendition of ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart’ had his wife’s cheeks pink with pleasure. After this Maggie decided it was time Esther had a break and urged everyone to go and help themselves to the food.

  ‘Your da’s got a great voice, Mae,’ Derek said admiringly.

  Mae smiled politely, aware that the attention he was paying her was causing some amusement to both Alice and Jimmy.

  ‘I don’t see what you and Jimmy Mercer are finding so funny,’ she commented sotto voce to her cousin as she helped herself to a cold beef sandwich.

  ‘He’s been giving you the eye all night, Mae, and Jimmy said every time he gazes into your eyes you look as though you’re sucking a lemon!’ Alice giggled.

  ‘I thought I was smiling! I’m just trying to be polite, Alice.’

  Alice helped herself to an iced cake. ‘Jimmy also said their Harry doesn’t like the way that feller was looking at you when Harold Ziegler was singing.’

  Mae was exasperated. ‘Oh, honestly, Alice, I don’t care what either Harry or that Derek think. Stop teasing me! Although it certainly makes a change for you and Jimmy to agree on something.’

  Alice decided to let the matter drop. ‘Well, having a sing-song has livened up the evening – it was getting a bit dire to say the least. Mam’s idea of a party hasn’t been much fun up to now.’

  Mae’s good humour was restored. ‘I wonder who we can persuade to sing next? What about you? You know the words to “By the Light of the Silvery Moon”, I’ve heard you singing it often enough.’

  Alice looked horrified. ‘That was only when there was just us! I’m not singing in front of everyone – especially Jimmy Mercer. He’d skit me something shocking for months!’

  Mae laughed. ‘Maybe I can get that Derek to sing something.’

  ‘Oh, don’t do that, Mae, please. He’s bound to sing something soppy like “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now?” while gazing at you.’

  ‘I don’t think he would; Da wouldn’t be very happy about that,’ Mae replied.

  The soirée resumed with first Maggie, then Agnes being persuaded to sing. Then Bertie launched into a lively, if not altogether tuneful version of ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ to which everyone joined in and finally Isaac’s haunting ‘My Yiddishe Momme’ brought the evening’s entertainment to a close and Maggie and Agnes went to put the kettle on.

  When Eddie bade his friends farewell Mae was relieved to see them go for she’d found Derek’s undisguised admiration a bit embarrassing.

  ‘If we ever have another one, I hope he doesn’t invite those two,’ Alice confided as they cleared away the dishes. ‘That Alfie is a bit of a loudmouth and that Derek is just a … pain!’

  ‘It wasn’t a bad evening though, Alice. I never realised that Mrs Ziegler was such a good pianist. Usually she’s really quiet.’

  ‘It’s a good job someone could play otherwise we’d all have ended up just chatting or having to listen to all the men going on about flaming football! You know what they’re like: once one starts there’s no stopping them.’

  ‘Well, Aunty Maggie seems happy that it went off well and it did make a change,’ Mae said, thinking that now they were all growing up they would no doubt get invited to more parties. She said as much to Alice.

  ‘You and our Eddie might but I’m a bit too young for grown-up parties and too old for kids’ parties – not that kids round here ever have a birthday party. We never did.’

  ‘Well, I think that all went off very nicely,’ Maggie said, pouring herself another cup of tea. ‘And those two mates of our Eddie’s weren’t bad lads at all.’

  Mae and Alice exchanged glances, which John noted and deduced that his daughter and his niece had a different opinion. He smiled to himself. They were both growing into beautiful young girls and no doubt in time they would both attract attention from the lads. Not too soon though, he thought. There was plenty of time yet for that sort of thing.

  Liverpool, 1914

  It wasn’t much cooler out here sitting on the step, Mae thought as she drew aside her long skirt to make room for Alice.

  ‘It’s like an oven inside that house even though Mam’s got all the windows and doors open. It’s no wonder she’s got a headache,’ Alice complained, thinking that this summer had to be the hottest she could remember and now that it was August it was bound to get even warmer.

  ‘I had a bit of a headache myself earlier on,’ Mae confided. ‘But that walk by the river soon got rid of it; there’s always a breeze on the waterfront.’ This time she hadn’t gone down to the Mersey to look for the Lucy for her father wasn’t due home for another week. She’d gone to try to sort out in her mind her feelings for Harry Mercer. It was a week now since he’d confided bashfully that he’d been sweet on her since last Christmas. Of course she’d known him all her life, they’d grown up together, and she did like him. Now at eighteen he was a handsome lad, tall with fair hair and hazel eyes, and he’d certainly calmed down a lot too, far more so than his brother Jimmy, who was dark-haired and was the more outspoken and reckless of the two. But she wasn’t at all sure that she liked him enough to walk out with him and that was the problem. She liked him the way she liked her cousin Eddie. Yet she didn’t want to hurt him. She had promised to give him an answer this week and she still hadn’t made up her mind. She glanced sideways at Alice. When they’d been younger Jimmy Mercer and her cousin had always been at loggerheads but they got on much better now although there was still the occasional row, for they w
ere both stubborn and a bit outspoken. She thought that Alice was now in fact rather fond of Jimmy, although she wouldn’t admit it.

  ‘Well, it will be great to have the day off on Monday and not be stuck in that stuffy, poky office,’ Alice replied, thinking of the Bank Holiday tomorrow as she tucked a few stray tendrils of curly dark hair back up into the loose chignon, a hairstyle her mother said suited her. Both she and Mae had gone to a private school to learn typewriting after they’d left St George’s, paid for from hard-saved funds by her mam and Uncle John. Despite all their efforts neither of them had been able to master the Pitman’s shorthand so were employed as copy typists, Mae in the elaborate, brand-new and still not fully completed offices of Cunard Steamship Company at the Pier Head – a fact of which John Strickland was inordinately proud – and Alice in the offices of a large shipping agent in Water Street. She had started work six months ago and unfortunately often found the work boring but she did admit to herself that it was far better than working in a factory where conditions were terrible and you came home covered either in flour, molasses or jute dust depending on what was processed there. And the pay was better too. They’d both get an increase when they were eighteen but for her that was still two and a half years away. ‘Will we go somewhere on the Bank Holiday?’ she asked her cousin. She’d been looking forward to a day off for some time.

  Mae looked thoughtful. ‘If it’s going to be as hot as this everywhere will be crowded and after saving up for months for a new hat I don’t want it getting ruined in a crush.’

  Alice nodded her agreement. They both had to dress plainly but smartly for work but they liked to be fashionable too, which wasn’t easy with their limited amount of spending money. In fact when they’d both turned up a percentage towards their keep, after tram fares and lunches there wasn’t much left at all. ‘You’re right. It won’t be much fun being packed on to a ferry or in a stifling railway carriage but I just hope all this talk of war won’t spoil the day entirely. It’s not often we get a day’s holiday.’

  It was Mae’s turn to nod her agreement. For months it seemed as if everyone was concerned with what the Kaiser was doing and planning but during the last weeks the very real prospect of war had become the only topic of conversation everywhere. ‘I saw the headline “Will Britain Fight?” in the paper this evening and everyone seems to think we should and that we will.’

  Alice sighed. ‘I don’t know how we’ve got involved. I don’t understand politics or tsars and emperors or foreign archdukes getting shot and the like. What’s it all got to do with us? I wish someone could explain it but it’s all so … complicated! But it’s all everyone seems to be talking about, and they seem quite excited about it too, as if it’s some huge adventure.’

  ‘Eddie’s full of it and so are Jimmy and Harry,’ Mae said. Like her cousin, she didn’t fully understand the situation. Her da had often talked gravely about the ever-increasing size of the German Navy and the threat to British superiority at sea, and also the serious implications of the situation in Europe and the Balkans, but she wondered if he in fact understood it all. Her Aunty Maggie often said the Kaiser was getting too big for his boots but the fact that the Mauretania had taken the Blue Riband of the Atlantic from the Deutschland and still held it should surely have served to take him down a peg or two. She looked down the street to where the lamps were slowly being lit, little pools of yellow light in the increasing darkness of the summer night. ‘At last, here’s old Ned. He’s late tonight,’ she remarked as the elderly lamplighter made his way towards them. ‘It’s nearly dark, Ned, did you get held up?’ she called.

  He nodded as he lit the gas light, which threw out a golden circle into which moths and other insects were instantly drawn; the glow cast shadows on Mae’s blonde hair, piled high on her head, and softened Alice’s rather sharp elfin features. They were both pretty lasses, he thought. ‘Aye, I was. Everyone wants to stop and talk about this war, that’s what delayed me, and you can’t move along Lime Street for all the Navy reservists going for the trains to Chatham and Portsmouth. And you’d think they were all off to a picnic, the laughing, joking and cheering out of them! Well, they’ll soon find out it’s not. I had a belly full of it fighting the Boers but you can’t tell them, they won’t listen. It’s all “King and Country” and wanting to take a pop at the Hun.’ He shook his head and moved on up the street.

  ‘Well, that certainly sounds serious if the Navy has been called up. I think we can say goodbye to a day out on Monday,’ Alice pronounced gloomily.

  Maggie appeared in the lobby behind them. ‘I’ve made a pot of tea. Are you two coming in or do I have to bring it out here to you?’ She frowned. What on earth were they doing, sitting on the steps of the house? They were young women now with decent jobs, not children in short petticoats and pigtails.

  ‘We’ll come in, Aunty Maggie. It’s not much cooler out here. Old Ned said the Navy reservists have been called up so it looks as if there really is going to be a war,’ Mae informed her.

  Maggie thought of John and the thousands of miles of ocean between him and home. ‘Well, I don’t suppose there’s much any of us can do about it. The damned Kaiser’s been spoiling for a fight for months and now it looks as if he’s going to get one. We’ll just have to wait to see what Mr Asquith has to say about it all,’ she replied stoically. She’d expected as much for things had become too serious to ignore.

  The girls followed her inside to have their tea but the conversation faltered, for each of them was deep in her own thoughts.

  On Tuesday 5 August the announcement that war had been officially declared was met with an outpouring of patriotism and excitement throughout the country. Overnight, recruiting posters appeared all over the city declaring ‘YOUR KING AND COUNTRY NEED YOU!’ and ‘A CALL TO ARMS’.

  That evening after work Eddie and the twins met up as usual on the corner of Albion Street. Jimmy and Harry both worked in Ogden’s Tobacco factory where their father Bertie was now a foreman. Eddie was an engineering apprentice at Cammell Laird’s shipyard over the water in Birkenhead where the workers’ annual week’s holiday had been summarily cancelled.

  ‘Have you seen the posters?’ Jimmy asked excitedly as Eddie got off the tram – he always arrived later, having the furthest to travel.

  ‘You can’t exactly miss them,’ Eddie replied. ‘So, what are we going to do? It says they want men aged nineteen to thirty to go and join up but I’m not going to pass up the chance of this adventure. I’m going to join up. What about you two?’

  ‘Good idea, Eddie,’ Jimmy agreed eagerly.

  ‘We’re only eighteen, they might not take us.’ Harry was doubtful.

  ‘What’s the matter with you? It’s the biggest opportunity of some real adventure that we’ll ever have!’ Eddie demanded.

  ‘I know but we’re not the right age.’ Harry was still reluctant. Over the years Eddie had always been the instigator and ringleader in their escapades, which had often resulted in disaster followed by punishment of some kind.

  ‘You’re not scared, are you, Harry?’ Jimmy demanded. He was as keen as Eddie about joining up.

  ‘Of course I’m not! I’m just as eager as you are but I don’t want us to look fools if they turn us away. What would … everyone think of us then? We’d look right idiots!’

  ‘You mean what would Mae think of you?’ Jimmy put in.

  Harry ignored him.

  ‘They won’t turn us away. We won’t tell them our proper age; we’ll tell them we’re nineteen. We will be next year anyway,’ Eddie reminded them.

  ‘There’ll be thousands of other lads lying about their ages. No one is going to miss out because of a few years,’ Jimmy encouraged his brother.

  ‘We’ll go tomorrow after work,’ Eddie stated firmly. ‘Everyone is saying it’ll be over by Christmas so we don’t want to miss out on all the excitement, do we?’

  ‘Where do we have to go to sign up?’ Harry queried. Despite his misgivings, the others’ enth
usiasm was making him feel excited now too.

  ‘St Anne Street at half past seven. It’s the King’s Liverpool Regiment, so the poster I read said,’ Eddie informed them. ‘We’d better not mention it to anyone. I don’t think my mam will be very pleased and I bet yours won’t be either; they might even try to stop us. So don’t let on we’ll be going out tomorrow night and, Harry, don’t go saying anything about it to Mae.’

  Reluctantly Harry agreed, though it was just what he wanted to tell Mae. Surely she would agree to walk out with him now? He’d be a soldier; he was certain she would be proud to be seen on his arm.

  They went the following evening to St Anne Street and were astonished when they got off the tram to find crowds of men and boys waiting outside the drill hall, standing three and four deep.

  ‘I didn’t expect there’d be so many!’ Eddie exclaimed.

  ‘Most of this lot are office wallahs. Maybe they won’t want us,’ Harry pointed out to his companions as they joined the long line waiting to get into the hall. ‘Do you think we’ll have to go and sign up somewhere else? Did it say “Clerical workers only”?’ he asked, looking concerned. He felt uneasy amongst all these other lads who were better dressed and obviously better educated.

  Jimmy looked at his brother with some scepticism while Eddie looked irritated.

  ‘No. Besides, your mam’s got a shop, hasn’t she? So say you’re in “Provisions”. I’ll say “Finance” – Mam lends money. That’s if they ask and I don’t know why they should: what does it matter what kind of jobs we’ve got?’ Eddie replied confidently.

  The crowd packed into the drill hall where some officers in uniform stood on the platform. It was so crowded that the overflow spilled over into a basement. The Earl of Derby addressed the crowd, thanking them all for coming and responding so enthusiastically to the call. He gave a short speech about the honour and the spirit of Liverpool, which brought resounding cheers; along with all the rest, Eddie and the twins shouted themselves almost hoarse as they threw their caps in the air. Then they were directed to tables for attestation.