‘Well, that’s as may be,’ Bet agreed, ‘but I can’t stand by and watch, and Barrel said she can’t live there any more, it’s not good for her. So we’re going to have her move in with us. My Sheila and Chrissy love her, and I think if she’s away from Mum and gets herself a job, it’ll do wonders for her confidence and she may make some friends.’
Nodding in agreement, Ann spoke as if she’d just had an idea. ‘Here, I reckon she’d be alright as an assistant for a bedder, like Jane Granger was doing a while back.’ Bet laughed at her sister’s continuing obsession with the colleges, but Ann continued, ‘Actually my neighbour Rose is a bedder, why don’t I ask her if there’s anything going?’
Bet looked sceptical, but nodded her assent, and gratefully Ann continued, ‘Yes, I’ll see what Rose says, let’s hope there’s something for Joy. You know, that’s really good of you and Barrel. I reckon our Joy would love that.’ She wished that she had been able to offer Joy the chance to live with her, but that would have meant Glenis sharing her room, and Ann wanted her eldest to have her own room. Ann had never had a room of her own, so when they finally moved to the council house, she’d told Fred, ‘Dot and Shirl can share, but Glen needs her own room. She’s the eldest. It’s only right.’
Ann visited Joy a week after she moved in with the Reynolds, and it was clear that for the first time Joy felt like she was part of a family. ‘I don’t want to do bedding, as it’d only be for a few hours a day,’ she said apologetically to her big sister. ‘It’s good of you to have got me the chance of something, but I need a full-time job. You know I like cooking so I should go for something like that.’ Which is what she did, with G. P. Hawkins on Parsonage Street, where she made short pastry and cakes. The pay wasn’t great, but she loved the job and stayed for many years, which made Ann and Bet happy.
When the time came for Derek to do National Service, Jack and Grace decided to move from Chesterton to Fisher’s Lane in Cherry Hinton so they’d be closer to their grandchildren.
Ann really liked living on the green, and along with the other mums (which sometimes also included Rose) she’d stand at the gate at the end of the day and call the kids in for tea, just as their dads got home. Her children played in the orchard and fields that surrounded the estate and had a much more active time than she’d ever managed when she was their age. During the summer holidays, on warm evenings, the families of Queen’s Meadow would sit around small bonfires built on the green out of wood they collected from the orchard, and any broken furniture or rubbish that would burn. It reminded Ann of VE Day and the fun that she had dancing and singing along with what seemed like the whole of Cambridge.
Ann watched her children grow up and was content, if not completely happy, to keep house, wash, cook, clean and raise them the best way she knew how. Fred’s job at the building firm could be for life, if he wanted it, but pretty much any job was safe if a man was any good at it, he reasoned. As the fifties wore on, the Adams family, like many other working-class people they knew, for the first time began to forget the privations of wartime, and found that there were lots of new things to spend their newly earned money on. It was true, thought Ann, just like old Macmillan the prime minister had said, ‘we’ve never had it so good’.
Fred loved having three daughters, but he really, really wanted a son, and when Ann became pregnant again, they both hoped for a boy and were delighted when Kenneth arrived in 1956. ‘He’s named after Kenneth More,’ Ann told her family. ‘It’s Fred’s idea. I would have liked Errol but Fred weren’t having any of it.’ Fred hadn’t suffered any sympathetic pregnancies since Glenis, and he cared for the girls when Ann went to hospital for the delivery of their fourth child. She was admitted a few days in advance, the midwife having suggested it ‘just in case’, without making explicit reference to the miscarriage.
When Ann and Kenny had been home a few days Fred told her that Shirley had been hit on the back of her head by a swing while out playing at the park with her sisters. She wasn’t knocked out, but a big bump developed, and her dad put her to bed telling her she’d be alright in the morning. Ann was inclined to agree with him. They weren’t to know the terrible consequences of the bump on Shirley’s head.
JOYCE
Cambridge 1953–62
It took Joyce a couple of weeks in her new job as a bedder to feel that she was entitled to walk into the rooms of the two students she’d met on her first day and shout, ‘Come on, get out of bed, I want to do your rooms.’
She would inevitably hear, ‘Oh Joyce, don’t be like that,’ from one of them and, ‘No! Please let us have five more minutes!’ from the other. To her they became known as the ‘Terrible Twins’, not that they were related – or really all that terrible. They were good friends and seemed to enjoy sharing their sitting and gyp rooms, and were very happy to have someone even younger than they to talk to. ‘We’re so glad that they gave you to us, dear Joyce,’ Terrence told her after the first week. ‘Yes,’ Oscar added, ‘the old girl was frightful and left the rooms feeling as dirty as they’d been before she came in.’
Joyce was pleased. Not exactly flattered, but proud to be appreciated for her work. The Twins didn’t flirt with her, but they spoke to her as if she was an equal. ‘Morning,’ they’d call to her on arrival when eventually they emerged from their rooms, and then ask, ‘What have you been up to?’ They would tell her when they expected to return and what mornings they were at lectures. Several times they told her, ‘It’s smashing the way you do our beds,’ which was hospital style, which she learned to do when she joined the TA at the age of fifteen.
In her second week some other students left their sitting room in a mess, with dirty glasses and empty bottles everywhere. Joyce banged her way around the room, making enough noise to bring them out of their bedrooms. Clearly angry, she asked them in a very cold voice to, ‘Clear up your empties when you’re done, please.’ After that, whenever anyone on her staircase had any kind of evening do which resulted in glasses and plates left in the sitting room, the students would be up as she arrived, apologizing and saying, ‘We’ve left a mess you know, so sorry . . .’ Joyce didn’t mind as much then, because at least they’d noticed that she was a person like them, and she encouraged conversations with as many of the students as possible. If one of them let Joyce know they had to be at an early lecture and their breakfast plates were left unwashed, she didn’t mind doing it for them. It wasn’t part of her official duties, but she’d do it for any who were decent to her.
In fact, the students spoke to her far more than any of the other bedders. From the beginning Joyce took her tea breaks apart from the others, and when she’d got to know them well enough, she’d have her breaks in the Twins’ gyp room. The other bedders would gather in the kitchens of the halls for their break to smoke, gossip and – she was convinced – make up stories about her and her Terrible Twins. She didn’t care, they were all old women who should know better, just like so many of the old women that her mother knew, like the old bag who’d accused Joyce of seeing a black American airman. They were jealous of her, Joyce thought, envious of her youth at least, if not her looks and popularity with most of her students – who she called ‘my boys’, just like Maud did.
Some of the students were less than polite to her at first, though, and a couple seemed shocked that she was so young and tried to order her around as if (she assumed) they thought she was their maid. When one posh boy asked her to fetch some cigarettes for him, she tartly told him, ‘What did your last servant die of? I’m not here to do your fetching and carrying. Either get them yourself or find a servant who will.’ She left his room unfinished and walked out. He complained to Mrs Atkins, but was told in no uncertain terms that he was in the wrong, not Joyce.
Things didn’t improve much with that student over the coming weeks, and Joyce was often confronted by his still being in bed when she arrived, refusing to get up. He never seemed to wash himself, judging by how he smelled to Joyce, and he left his dirty crockery
all over the place. After three weeks she threatened to not do his room at all. When that had no effect, she didn’t clean for him. Unfortunately for her, Mrs Atkins chose that exact day to visit the student and she blew up at Joyce because she hadn’t done her job.
Once Joyce had explained to her that every time she went in he was either lying in bed or in his pyjamas, that he didn’t clean the bathroom and always left his dirty things all over the sitting and gyp room, plus he never cleaned the oven, the housekeeper calmed down. She returned to the student’s room, gave him a rollicking and told him if he didn’t keep his room tidier that he would have to leave college and get rooms outside. Then she went back to Joyce and told her not to do his room for a week.
A week later Mrs Atkins returned to the student’s room and found a complete mess. He did not return to the college rooms the following term.
Joyce and her Terrible Twins became more friendly as the term progressed, and soon they were playing pranks on her. Oscar had an interest in magic, and liked to do conjuring and card tricks. He had inherited some props from an uncle who’d been a member of the Magic Circle, among them a glass and bottle that both looked as if they contained liquid, but didn’t.
The first time that Joyce found the glass in his bed, hidden under the blankets, she almost screamed as it tumbled from between the sheets and looked as if it was spilling onto the floor. A couple of days later she was surprised by a bottle of gin (she thought), rolling from between the sheets and yet not pouring anything out of its unstopped top. Both times Oscar and Terrence were waiting in the living room to hear the sound of her surprise – at which they rushed into the room full of mock concern.
Joyce couldn’t help laughing as she told her mum about the joke, at which Celia looked surprised. ‘What!?’ she asked, her face full of concern. ‘Ain’t these two proper toffs? They don’t sound stuck-up like the others. They sound more like one of the boys round here.’
‘No Mum,’ Joyce informed her, ‘They don’t talk la-di-da, I think they’re from a grammar school. But they’re nothing like the boys round here.’
The Twins were rugby players, good enough to play for their college, if not the university. Joyce had no interest in the game and had never as much as seen a match, which she told them one day when they were comparing bruised arms after a particularly hard session the day before. Astounded, Terrence insisted that she had to come to their next game, to be played that Saturday at the university ground on Grange Road. Joyce went, but had to leave at half-time because she simply couldn’t watch her boys getting tackled, barged and grappled with by their opponents. She wasn’t the only female at the game, but she was definitely the only woman there under thirty who was not romantically involved with any of the players.
She didn’t ever dream about going out with either of the Twins or any other student on a date, and none ever asked her. Joyce took at least three of her weekly tea breaks alone, which was how she liked it. She was never lonely and simply wanted her quiet time. She wanted only to get on with her work when at the college.
During her third term as a bedder, some of the other, older bedders had come to realize that Joyce wasn’t stuck-up, ill-mannered or think she was ‘better’ than them because she didn’t go down to join them for tea. A couple began to visit her during their tea break and sit with her, sometimes talking, but just as often not saying anything, but enjoying a companionable quiet.
One of the older bedders, Brenda, enjoyed telling Joyce about her students and they shared a common attitude towards them of curious interest. Brenda, like Joyce, would wait for students to talk to them rather than make any approach and, again like Joyce, had become friendly with the occupants of the rooms that she did for, most of whom were post-graduate students and younger fellows.
Joyce learned from Brenda that every new academic year, which began in October, the names of new students and occupants of each room would be posted on the board at the front of the halls at least a week before they were due to arrive. Brenda liked seeing the names and guessing at what kind of man they’d be. Last year, she told Joyce one break time, ‘I saw a Mr Thomas on the board, and I thought, he must be Welsh I should think, you know,’ she laughed. ‘But when I went in the room he was a coloured man. He was a post-grad I presume, ’cos he must have been in his thirties. He was from Sierra Leone, he said, and he was ever so nice and ever so friendly. He said, “Have a cup of tea,” so we did.’
‘Did he talk English alright then?’ Joyce asked.
‘Oh yes,’ Brenda replied emphatically. ‘He spoke lovely, and we became quite friendly. One day near the end of term I told him, “I don’t know if I’ll be in tomorrow,” I said, “’cos I’m going to have my teeth out,” and he said, “I do wish I could bear the pain for you.” I thought, Yes, so do I.’
‘That’s nice of him though, Brenda.’
‘It was. I was gonna have my teeth out ’cos I’d already lost the top set and I thought I might as well have the bottom lot out.’
Brenda paused, and Joyce asked her, ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, I just thought that they wanted coming out. My sister said they made my breath smell. The thing was, though, the dentist told me not to ’cos they were all alright!’
Joyce laughed and told her, ‘Good thing an’ all, I reckon. What did the man from Sierra Leone say?’
‘He was happy for me, he said. And do you know, when he left he said he had some saucepans, one or two odd things and his gown with an overcoat that he didn’t want back in Sierra Leone ’cos it’s hot there. He said he could leave it to his friends but then he said, “You have it.” The overcoat did fit my hubby, so we had it cleaned and he kept it.’
‘What about the other stuff?’
‘Well, I didn’t know what to do with his gown,’ Brenda said, lowering her voice to a near-whisper. ‘There’s a fella that comes in to polish the floors, have you seen him? He’s not here very often, he’s a sort of cleaner. Anyway I told him about this gown, and he said, “I’ll get rid of it for you and we’ll go halves.” So he took it and we went halves – but I couldn’t tell you how much he got for it!’
Joyce learned before the end of her first year as a bedder how generous her Twins could be when they bought her a box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers for her birthday (they’d asked the housekeeper when it was, apparently). At Christmas she’d received gifts of chocolates and pairs of stockings. At the end of the year, as students left the college having finished their studies they asked Joyce if she wanted any of their kitchen stuff, or glassware because they were leaving it behind. Joyce was surprised at how sad she felt at saying goodbye to the Twins, both of whom asked for her address so that they could ‘stay in touch’, and each gave her envelopes with £25 inside, which was more than a month’s wages for Joyce. She gave them her details thinking she’d never hear from them again, and was surprised on receiving letters a few days after the end of term from both sets of the Twins’ parents. The letters were written by their mothers, both thanking Joyce for ‘looking after’ their son. Both boys, wrote their mothers, were always talking about ‘our bedder’. Reading the letter made Joyce feel sad, and at the same time glad because she was appreciated by the mothers. For the next few years the Twins stayed in touch by letter. Terrence became a surgeon and moved to Australia, where he married and had a baby. Oscar visited Joyce in Cambridge three years after graduating, informing her that he had become a GP in Buckinghamshire. They lost touch after a while, but Joyce always remembered them fondly.
Joyce worked as a bedder for two years, during which time she spent most of her weekends on manoeuvres with the territorial army, having been encouraged to join up by her dad. Not only did the TA teach her how to drive, they taught her in five- and ten-tonne trucks. She also got to go to Scotland for the first time ever for a weekend of marching and war games. Her social life revolved as much around shining hobnailed boots as it did applying lipstick in the toilets at the Embassy. Her old school friends Janet, V
icky and Rita were in the same TA regiment, and they bunked together when away on operations, teamed together when doing medic or driving exercises and were as close as any four young women could be. They all had boyfriends – all of them also in the TA – and went out dancing or to the cinema as couples. Celia was almost as happy that Joyce was involved with the military as her dad was.
At the end of her second year as a bedder, Joyce decided that she would leave along with the students in June, simply because she wanted to earn more money. So she applied to a language school for work as a kitchen hand and got it. That job lasted a few hot, hand-scouring, back-breaking months, before Joyce took the opportunity of making more money on the production line at Pye’s electronics factory.
The work at Pye’s was well paid, but dull and repetitive. There was a certain camaraderie among the women who worked the line, and there was a lot of joking and flirting with the male foremen and drivers, which entertained Joyce, so she settled there for a couple of years. But nobody seemed to last much longer than that at the factory, and she left in order to take a job around the corner, at Chesterton Hospital. She was employed as a cleaner but also worked as a general assistant, aiding nurses and doctors where needed, and walking the tea and sweet trollies through the wards. The job allowed Joyce to talk with patients as well as staff, and she soon developed a friendship with many of them.
One of the more severely injured male patients in the hospital couldn’t speak nor move, but Joyce made contact with him. The nurses, and particularly the matron of the ward in which the patient lay, hadn’t managed to make any sustained, useful or comprehensible communication with him. Unlike the majority of the patients in the long-term, disabled ward who were elderly, this man wasn’t; he was probably in his early thirties, Joyce thought, and suffered his injuries in the war. Whenever she was cleaning his ward or taking the trollies through, Joyce would talk to him as if he was just like anyone else, and after a few weeks she realized that he was winking at her, from which she deduced that the man was capable of communicating using eye contact. She told him to blink three times for yes, twice for no, and move his head sideways when he wanted her to go away.
The Staircase Girls Page 22