Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys

by Mary Gibson

  After a moment’s silence, broken only by the crackling hiss of his breathing, he said,‘What you talking about? You don’t need to work! I’m making money hand over fist since the war.’

  She had expected opposition. ‘But I feel guilty, you know, doing nothing. Even May’s talking about joining up. They need women doing war work.’

  It was a long shot, appealing to George’s patriotism, which seemed to begin and end with his family.

  ‘My wife’s not working in no bloody factory,’ George said, ignoring the obvious fact that she’d been working at Atkinson’s when he’d met her, and the only reason she’d left was because the firm wouldn’t allow a married woman to carry on working there. Peggy pushed on.

  ‘But it’s not really proper factory work. Atkinson’s are asking for experienced women to go back, and I wouldn’t be packing face powder. I’d be making plane parts for the war effort! Besides, it’s driving me crazy here, George, I’ve got sod all to do all day!’

  Peggy could hear her own voice rising. She hated confrontation, which she knew was the cause of half her problems. It seemed strange that a woman too meek to stand up to her own husband should feel so drawn to making weapons. But the truth was, she wanted to feel useful, more than ever since Jack’s death.

  ‘Sorry I’ve made it so easy for you,’ George’s voice was heavy with sarcasm, ‘what with the vacuum and the gas cooker! You’re an ungrateful cow – you’ve got everything. I make sure of that and you’re never satisfied.’ George didn’t have the breath to shout, but his hoarse whisper cut through her and it was about now that she normally would have caved in.

  ‘What about voluntary work, surely that’s not beneath your wife. There’s aristocracy helping out in the WVS canteens these days; even the royal family are volunteering.’

  ‘Leave it, Peg, I’m not having you spend your days sorting through smelly piles of second-hand clothes. Anyway, you’d soon get fed up of that lark.’

  Peggy had played her best hand, the royal connection. She’d felt sure that appealing to George’s sense that she was somehow a queen amongst women might have clinched it.

  ‘That’s not all they do. I saw an advert in the paper asking for volunteers to look after kids while their mums are doing war work. I think I’d be good at that, George.’

  He had no answer. It had touched too closely upon the one thing that George, it seemed, could not provide.

  *

  On Boxing Day, the family came to Peggy’s. May arrived early to help her prepare the dinner.

  ‘Is everything all right, Peg?’ May asked. ‘With you and George, I mean?’

  Peggy looked up sharply and put down the potato she was peeling ‘Is it that obvious? I asked George if I could do war work, but he won’t have it.’

  ‘Why not? You’ve got plenty of time on your hands.’

  ‘Yeah, too much. But you know what he’s like, wants to keep me wrapped up in cotton wool.’ Peggy gave an involuntary shudder, as though trying to shrug off the cocoon of George’s affection.

  ‘I know what it’s like, not being able to do anything.’ May lowered her voice. ‘I’m going to have a tussle of my own soon enough.’

  ‘Who with?’ Peggy matched her whisper.

  ‘Mum and Dad.’

  5

  Predicting the Future

  January–February 1941

  ‘Do you know why they call ’em the scrubbers?’ Her normally placid father was pulling at his collar. ‘Well, it ain’t cos they spend all their time scrubbing floors! You’re not going in the ATS and that’s that.’

  ‘But, Dad, soon they’ll be calling up single women. I’ve got to do something!’

  ‘What’s wrong with Atkinson’s, or Peek’s, making plane parts? You always said you didn’t want to leave us!’

  She couldn’t bear her father’s hurt expression. He sat beside the fireplace, smoking his pipe, fiddling with the matches that were always balanced on one arm of his chair, as was his habit when agitated. Draping her arm round his rigid shoulders, she kissed his cheek.

  ‘Oh, Dad, of course I don’t want to leave you, but even if I sign up for war work, don’t mean I won’t be posted away. Anyway, I’ve changed my mind since… well now, I want to do more.’

  ‘Is it because of our Jack?’ Her father looked up quickly. He was sharp, where May was concerned. She could hide from others, but not her father. He was the person who had most noticed her as she flitted through her childhood, like a grey bird, in the shadows of her siblings.

  May sat on a stool at her father’s feet, resting against his legs.

  ‘It’s true. What happened to Jack, it did bring it home, Dad. I don’t want to lose the rest of my family like that, not without a fight. I’m terrified of going away. You know me, the old homing pigeon.’ She looked up to see him smiling at the remembrance of his pet name for her as a child. When her busy mother would sit her on the doorstep and say, ‘Don’t move!’, May could always be relied upon to stay put all day. While the other Lloyd children might wander off into the streets, May never strayed. Even now, as a young woman, she would walk in at the end of her day at the factory, demanding as she opened the front door: ‘What sort of bird am I?’ And her father would reply, ‘The sort that always comes home!’

  ‘Just wait a bit, love. Your mum needs you now more than ever. She can barely get herself out the bed of a morning. Gawd knows what she’d do if you weren’t here. And besides, you’re too young to leave home yet.’

  But at nineteen, they both knew that the government disagreed. His work-toughened hand reached for hers; in his strong grip was all the powerful attraction of home, familiarity, safety. And he was right about her mother needing May more than ever. Perhaps it would be enough just to make planes or bombs; perhaps someone like herself was better suited to the shadows of war. But suddenly, like a call to arms, the howl of the siren burst into their domestic haven, tearing like a hungry wolf through their home.

  ‘Shelter!’ ordered her dad, but she was already running for the back door, snatching up the box of policies in one hand and the hot-water bottles in the other.

  Her mother had gathered up coats and blankets, and was already flying to the Anderson shelter. As her father banged its door shut behind them, they heard the sinister plaint of the bombers. A sustained hum, reverberating ever louder, till the vibrations seemed to set her teeth buzzing. The first whizz and thunderous crash made them jump up from the bunks as one, but there was nowhere else to run to. This little tin hut was their only protection, and after a while they settled into an uneasy stillness. Eventually, her father trimmed the lamp and took up where he’d left off.

  ‘If you think this is loud, wait till you get near one of them ack-ack guns – then you’ll know all about noise!’

  On cue, the deep boom of their own guns in Southwark Park started up, ear-splitting, bone-rattling, insistent. May could only imagine what they would sound like when you were standing next to them.

  Then her mother weighed in.

  ‘They’ll eat you alive, them ATS girls. They’re the sort that know their way around, pubs and fellers – you’re not like that, May. They’ll eat you alive…’

  May groaned and pulled the blanket round her shoulders against the freezing cold. It was going to be a long night.

  *

  But the arguments went on through the bitter winter weeks, and though there was a part of her that still desperately wanted to be talked out of it, May stuck to her guns. Those December days spent touring hospitals and morgues, searching for Jack, had lit a slow fuse in May, and now her courage lay like an unexploded bomb, dormant, cordoned off, as her parents tried desperately to disable it.

  There came a day in February which made her even more determined to do something other than trim scraps of leather for soldier’s gloves and airmen’s flying jackets. She, Emmy and Dolly were back at Garner’s, now partially reopened since the worst of the bomb damage had been shored up. As she neared the factory she spo
tted Emmy, but immediately she knew something was wrong. Her friend’s natural cheerfulness had never once failed her in all the months of bombing, but today her eyes were dark-ringed and red-lidded, her face sombre.

  ‘Em, did you get hit?’

  Emmy lived in Dix’s Place, near the leather factory. It had only narrowly escaped when Garner’s was bombed, but it was a fact that certain areas seemed to be targeted over and over, usually factories doing war work, or buildings near railway lines and the docks.

  Emmy shook her head. ‘Not us…’ The girl’s face crumpled.

  ‘Oh, Em, what’s happened?’

  Emmy shook her head, choking back tears. ‘No, I’m all right, love. It’s just I’ve heard a terrible thing this morning. Stainer Street Arch… it’s been hit. Some of me mum’s family was sheltering there.’

  ‘Oh, Em, no!’ May felt a creeping cold. She shivered, as in a second, she was transported back to the horror of the John Bull Arch bombing.

  ‘The bomb’s gone straight through the railway line, into the shelter. Mum’s in such a state.’

  May wrapped her arms round her friend, as her whole body shook with suppressed sobs, for it had become an unwritten code that grief must somehow be quiet, when there was so much of it around. May knew from bitter experience that she could offer no words to comfort Emmy. Appealing to hope seemed pointless, for no one could promise that tomorrow would be any better.

  There was a sombre air hanging over the leather factory that day, as Emmy was not the only one to have lost family in the bombed arch. It emerged that the five-ton steel doors at either end of the arch had been blasted inwards, crushing those they were meant to protect. The water main had burst, drowning those who hadn’t already been crushed. There were always people who seemed to delight in describing details of the daily horrors and, by the end of the day, May felt sick with the visions of what had happened in the arch. As she walked home that evening, she stopped to gaze at the ack-ack guns, positioned on the large oval playing field in Southwark Park. Once filled with the sounds of laughing children, playing impromptu games of British Bulldog and cricket, it now echoed to the thundering of big guns, and the metallic rain of shrapnel. May often liked to take a detour through the park on her way home. After a day enduring the stink of the tannery, the smell of grass and trees was a holiday for her senses. Though winter had frozen all the growing things, and much of the park was now given over to allotments, she still enjoyed the space and fresh air. It was a solace she needed today more than ever. She turned in through the gates, walking slowly towards the gun emplacements. The area around them was cordoned off, but as she skirted the field, she found herself overtaken by an ATS girl, hurrying along the path. She was dressed in a heavy khaki overcoat, and had her soft peaked cap pulled down to keep out the chill.

  ‘All right for some, ambling along!’ the young woman said with a grin.

  ‘Sorry!’ May stood aside, blushing, feeling instantly guilty at her civilian status, though the girl had only been joking. May quickened her pace, falling in beside her.

  ‘Heavy night last night,’ the girl said.

  ‘Worse than most,’ May said, thinking of Emmy’s family.

  ‘We’re doing our best!’ the ATS girl said.

  ‘I know, we can hear them!’ May smiled. ‘What’s it like on the guns?’

  The girl looked puzzled. ‘Oh no, us girls aren’t allowed near the guns! I’m a clerk in the stores. I’m just delivering stuff to the command post.’

  ‘Oh,’ May said, feeling vaguely disappointed.

  ‘Why? Are you thinking of joining up?’

  May hesitated, feeling that somehow to voice her intention would make the reality inevitable. She nodded. ‘I could do munitions or plane parts... factory work’s what I’ve always done. It’s just, something happened… that’s made me want to do more.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I was a teacher, reserved occupation. When my school went to the country I could’ve gone, but I wanted to be as near the front line as I could get.’ There was a pause. ‘My fiancé’s posted abroad, you see, and it feels like I’m helping him.’

  They had reached the gun placement, fenced off and surrounded by walls of sandbags. ‘Turns out they needed clerks and secretaries, but if you’re anything like me, you’d rather be behind one of those.’

  May looked at the long, dull barrels, silent now, but poised to burst into life.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m brave enough… but I think I would too,’ May said, surprising herself.

  The girl leaned in confidentially. ‘I daresay I shouldn’t be telling you this, careless talk and all that, but there’s a rumour going round that they’re going to need us women on the guns before too long. With so many men overseas, the batteries are undermanned.’ She paused, putting a hand on May’s arm. ‘Listen, I’ve got to dash, or I’ll be on a charge. If you’re not sure about it, my advice is to talk to someone who knows you better than you know yourself. Sometimes we just don’t know what we’re capable of.’ The young woman squeezed her arm. ‘None of us are brave… but we’re all a lot tougher than we think we are!’ She trotted off. May watched as the ATS girl paused to look up at the guns, then suddenly turned back to May, mimed a shooting action and winked.

  May waved and walked away. As the evening light turned red-gold through the old horse-chestnut trees surrounding the playing field, she decided it was time to visit Granny Byron.

  And so, the following Saturday afternoon after work, May walked with Emmy Harris back to Dix’s Place. Her grandmother lived there, in the same block as Emmy. The three-storey buildings, facing each other across the courtyard, had seen better days. Each soot-blackened block contained flats, with a shared staircase and toilet on the landings. The courtyard below was packed with children. Two girls were turning a long skipping rope, which stretched from one block to the other. An excited group waited eagerly to leap the rope, skipping to an old chant that May remembered from her own childhood. When they reached the Harris’s flat on the ground floor, they found Emmy’s mother on hands and knees, ferociously scrubbing the front step, as if she could scour away her troubles with those chapped, raw hands.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Harris, how are you?’ May asked. Looking up, the woman dropped the scrubbing brush into the tin bucket, sitting back on her haunches. May could tell that she’d been crying.

  ‘Not too bad, love. We’ve got the funeral next week – did Em tell you?’

  May nodded. ‘Mum’s offered to help with the wake. She’s saving our sugar and butter rations to make fairy cakes.’

  ‘Thank her for me, love. People have been so kind.’ Emmy’s mother wiped wet hands on her apron.

  ‘Your nan’s lent us the money for the funeral, you know.’

  May didn’t know how her grandmother had become the local moneylender, but as bank accounts were a rarity for the residents of Dix’s Place, anyone in need of a loan for a wedding or funeral, new furniture or a new suit would go to ‘Granny Byron’s’ for help. Everyone called her Granny Byron, not just May.

  ‘I’m on me way to see her now.’

  Emmy added, ‘She’s getting her fortune told. Wants to know if she should join the ATS.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that for nothink – neither of you are old enough. You’ve had no experience of life!’

  May looked at Emmy, who raised her eyes. ‘We’re not kids, Mum!’

  ‘Well, it’s not safe. They can send you overseas, you know, and I don’t want to lose any more of me family.’

  May knew that Emmy was involved in a similar struggle to her own, and she seemed to be having just as little success.

  May left them still arguing on the doorstep, and walked to her grandmother’s ground-floor flat at the end of the block. It had never been her favourite place. Usually she had to pick her way round a line of women sitting on chairs in the passage, waiting to have their fortunes told. Granny Byron was of Romany descent, and as well as being the local moneylender, she would make an extr
a few bob telling people’s fortunes, reading their palms or the tea leaves. May had always hated running the gauntlet of these strangers whenever she visited her grandmother, and found herself hoping she’d find her alone today. Granny Byron answered her knock with a look of surprise.

  ‘May! I wasn’t expecting you! Thought you was a customer. Come in, darlin’.’

  Her grandmother was a striking woman. May wasn’t sure of her age, but she always seemed ancient, a relic from the previous century. Her grey-flecked, raven hair was pulled back into a tight bun, with old-fashioned ringlets at the temples, and from her ears dangled golden-hooped earrings. May had heard she was a handsome woman when young, but now her leathery face had been tanned by years of standing out in all weathers at her stall in the Old Clo’ market. The tanning effect had been augmented by her constant use of tobacco and snuff, so that now her cheeks creased like a walnut whenever she smiled. But her eyes, her most striking feature, black as deep pools, seemed to see everything. The story was that she’d been born in a horse-drawn caravan. Sometimes May wondered how they could be of the same blood. May was as fair as her grandmother was dark, and whereas May was firmly attached to her home – with her roots deep as the trees that lined Bermondsey’s streets – Granny Byron had moved house countless times, seemingly unable to settle. May’s mother was of the opinion that May must surely take after her father’s side of the family, generations of whom had lived in the same riverside area of Bermondsey.

  ‘Are you expecting someone, Nan?’ May asked, kissing her grandmother and bending down to pet her grandmother’s little dog, Troubles, who stood on two legs until May took his paws.

  ‘Hello, Troubles! And what kind have you been in lately?’ she asked, as the little dog yapped a strong denial.

  She followed her grandmother into the small kitchen, dominated by a gleaming black-leaded range.

  ‘I was expecting Mrs Green, from over the way, wants to know if her Tom’s all right – she ain’t heard nothing in months. But I’ve always got time for you, love. Cup o’ rosie?’