‘Only!’ cried Avril. ‘Where am I going to put fifteen children, Caro? I know the vicarage is big, but it’s not that big!’
‘I didn’t mean just you,’ Caroline said with a shaky laugh. ‘I hoped you’d be able to spread them round the village.’
‘I can try, I suppose,’ said Avril. ‘We had some evacuees when war broke out, but almost all of them went back home before the first Christmas. Not sure how happy people here will be to have another lot descend on them.’
‘Would they be happier if fifteen kids were obliterated by high-explosive bombs, or incinerated by incendiaries?’
‘Don’t, Caro,’ cried Avril. ‘Of course not, but I’ll have to talk to David before I give you an answer. I’ll try to ring you back later.’
Caroline Morrison sighed. Her three minutes were almost up. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘but don’t leave it too late, Av, or I shall be in the shelter with fifteen children, in the middle of an air raid.’
As she put down the receiver, Miss Morrison began to plan for the evacuation. She was sure Avril and her husband, David, would find places for her charges, but it might take time and after last night’s raid, she wasn’t sure how much time they’d got.
In Somerset, Avril Swanson put the phone down. She stared out of the kitchen window at the garden beyond. Gone were the lawn and herbaceous borders that had been her delight when they’d first come to the parish. Now there were neat rows of winter vegetables, beyond which was the hen house and its wire-fenced run. The vicarage was digging for victory and keeping chickens.
I should go out and feed them, she thought, we’re certainly going to need more eggs. The thought made her laugh out loud. If there was to be an influx of fifteen London children, they were going to need a darn sight more than extra eggs!
Wynsdown was a small village crouched on the Mendip Hills. Its cottages and one or two larger houses radiated out from a small village green. This was definitely the centre of village life. The church and vicarage stood on one side with the tiny church hall close by; the pub, the Magpie, faced them from across the green and on a third side were the low stone buildings of the village school. The post office and general store, standing either side of the Magpie, completed the hub. The bus to Cheddar came through, morning and evening, to take people to work, but most of the families in Wynsdown were employed on the land. Children from outlying farms came to the village school, sometimes hitching a lift on a tractor, but more often walking the two or three miles from home and back again in the afternoon.
Avril loved it here. She had thought she’d feel cut off when they first moved, it was so far and so different from the sort of town where, until now, she’d spent her life, but it wasn’t long before she knew that this was where she felt at home. She loved the feeling of community and of being an integral part of it. David, as the vicar, soon got to know most of his parishioners and had been tentatively welcomed as a younger replacement for the retiring vicar, Gerald Parker. He had been careful to institute any changes slowly, gradually bringing in new ideas, but without antagonising the inhabitants who had lived there all their lives and regarded anything ‘new-fangled’ with suspicion. The Swansons had been here for four years now and were accepted by most as part of the village. When the previous batch of evacuees had descended on Wynsdown, they had found homes for all the children, though many had now returned to the cities when the expected bombing didn’t materialise.
Can we do it again? Avril wondered as she went out into the garden, basking in the pale winter sunshine, to feed her hens. It all looked so peaceful; no sign of the destruction being faced elsewhere. Could they go through all the upheaval again? She gave a sigh and, as she’d promised Caro, went in search of her husband to discuss the idea with him.
She found him in the church talking to Marjorie Bellinger, the squire’s wife. The squire, Major Peter Bellinger, had served in Flanders in the Great War and, anxious to do something positive for the war effort, was working hard to ensure that every inch of his land was productive. Marjorie was a stalwart of the church, organising the flower rota, church cleaning and parish magazine deliveries. She was a tall woman in her late fifties, with permed grey hair and serious grey eyes. Conscious of her position in the village as wife of the squire, with its attendant responsibilities, she was always ready to step forward to take a lead in village affairs. Their son, Felix, was a pilot in the RAF, flying with Fighter Command. They, more than anyone in Wynsdown, knew the horrors of the Blitz, fearing for their son each and every night. She was cleaning the brass now, rubbing energetically at the memorial tablet for those from the village who had given their lives in the last war, as she discussed the idea of a Christmas Bazaar with David.
‘If we give people enough warning, vicar...’ she was saying, but broke off when Avril came running into the church.
They both looked up in surprise and David said, ‘My dear, you look flustered. Something happened?’
‘Just had Caro on the phone from London.’
‘That’s nice,’ said David, ‘is she coming to see us?’
‘She wants to send fifteen children from St Michael’s down here, to us!’
‘Fifteen!’ exclaimed Marjorie.
‘That’s what I said,’ replied Avril, ‘but she says there was a dreadful air raid last night and they were lucky not to be bombed out. She says the children have to be moved.’
‘Where does she think we’re going to put them?’ wondered the squire’s wife.
‘Let’s go back to the vicarage for a cup of tea,’ suggested the vicar, ‘and work it out.’
They walked out into the winter sunshine and across the churchyard to the vicarage gate. It was hard to imagine the Blitz bursting upon them every night for weeks as it had in London. They had heard the occasional plane fly over, but usually too high for them to identify, and so far their nights had remained undisturbed.
‘I suppose we’d better reconvene the evacuation committee,’ Avril said as they sat round the large scrubbed table in the vicarage kitchen.
Since the outbreak of war this room had become the heart of the house. A large kitchen with a scullery on the side, it looked out over the vicarage garden. The old, solid-fuel range provided an oasis of warmth in the otherwise unheated, sprawling vicarage. David had brought two armchairs in from the chilly drawing room and it had become the place where they ate their meals, sat in the evening listening to the wireless, discussed the worries of the parish and talked through the events of each day. David had his study for seeing parishioners and dealing with parish matters, but very often he brought those, too, into the warm kitchen. It was to the kitchen that they naturally repaired when there were problems to be solved.
‘I suppose we’d better,’ agreed David. ‘We need everyone on board for this.’
‘So we’re going to say we’ll have them?’ asked Avril.
David treated her to his gentle smile. ‘Of course we are. You ring Caroline back and tell her to sort out her end.’ He turned to Marjorie. ‘Have you the list of those who offered homes last time?’
‘I’m sure I have somewhere, but I think you’re right, we need to reinstate the committee, so that everyone feels involved. Finding places for fifteen extra children shouldn’t be beyond us, but it’ll need careful handling.’
‘I’ll call a meeting for this evening,’ Avril said. ‘I’ll contact everyone and ask them to come here and we can make proper plans.’
Good as her word, within the hour Avril had rung those committee members who were on the phone and had bicycled to visit those who were not.
‘Fifteen! That’s a lot,’ said Nancy Bright, the postmistress. Nancy was the fount of all village news and Avril had gone to her first, knowing there was no quicker way of disseminating the information than by telling her.
‘We’re having a meeting of the committee this evening, so if you could come over to the vicarage at seven...’
Andrew Fox, who ran the village general store, said at once he could
be there. ‘Not surprised your sister wants those kiddies out of London,’ he said.
She caught Michael Hampton, the headmaster of the village school, in the lunch hour. ‘What you’re telling me is that I’ve got to find space for another fifteen children in the school,’ he sighed. But she could see the light of zeal in his eyes and knew he would rise to the challenge and achieve it somehow.
‘Maybe not all of them,’ she pointed out. ‘Some of them will surely be old enough to go down to Cheddar Secondary.’
That evening they all met at the vicarage. Once again they sat round the kitchen table and Marjorie Bellinger produced the list of families who had offered foster care to the first batch of evacuees.
‘Of course, some of those children are still here,’ she said. ‘The Tates still have the Morgan twins, Daphne Cooper is still with Mrs Harper and of course there are the Cleggs.’
There was a groan round the table as they all contemplated the Clegg family. They had arrived soon after war was declared, an expectant mother, Sheila, and four children under eight. They had been housed in a farm cottage belonging to the Bellingers on the manor estate. Having come from Manchester, they were unused to country life and never stopped complaining to the Bellingers about what they considered the shortcomings of the cottage. There were three bedrooms and a kitchen. The privy was in the garden and baths had to be taken in front of the fire. Marjorie doubted if it had been any different where they had come from, but Mrs Clegg assured her that she wasn’t used to such primitive conditions. The new baby had arrived, a boy named Eustace, delivered by Dr Masters, and all six still continued to live in the cottage. Mr Clegg had turned up for a weekend several months ago to admire his new son, and Mrs Clegg was now expecting again.
‘Let’s hope there aren’t any more like them,’ said Nancy Bright in heart-felt tones.
‘Not the children’s fault,’ Michael Hampton pointed out gently. ‘Difficult start in life with a feckless mother and an absent father. The children are not at all bad, all things considered. Young Edwin’s quite bright, if you’ll pardon the pun, Nancy,’ he added with a sideways glance at her.
‘I’ve spoken to my sister again,’ Avril told them, bringing them back to the matter in hand. ‘She’s given me a list of names, so we know who to expect. There are seven boys and eight girls. There are two sets of siblings. One family called Dawson, Paul aged eleven and his two sisters, Frances who’s eight and Valerie who’s five. I thought we might have them here with us. We’ve got the room and it means we can keep them together.’
‘That sounds fine,’ said Marjorie. ‘Everyone agreed with that?’ She made a note of the names and where they were going on her pad. ‘Who are the other family?’
‘Jack and Diane Payne. Jack is ten and Diane eight.’
‘We could have them,’ offered Rose Merton. She and her sister lived together in a small house on the village green. Their father had been the village doctor until he had died ten years earlier and they had stayed on in the village where they had lived most of their lives. ‘Violet and I have room for two.’
‘All the rest are individuals, but of course if some families are willing to have two that would be a great help.’
‘When do they get here?’ asked Rose.
‘Not sure yet,’ replied Avril, ‘but I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I do.’
By the end of the meeting they had made a list of possible foster homes and tried to match them up with the children on Avril’s list. Michael Hampton had the names and ages of the children so that he could decide how he was going to accommodate them at the school.
‘I haven’t mentioned any of this to Martha Mason yet,’ he said. ‘I’ll discuss it with her at school tomorrow, now that I know exactly who’s coming.’
‘There is one last thing,’ Avril said. ‘I should mention Charlotte Smith, she’s about fourteen. At least, Charlotte Smith is the name she goes by...’
‘What do you mean “the name she goes by”?’ asked Nancy.
‘The unfortunate child was picked up unconscious in the street after an air raid. She was with another casualty, a man named Peter Smith, from Harrogate. He was dead, but they rushed the girl to hospital and she survived. However, she has amnesia. She has no recollection of the raid and no memory of her life before it. They think the man may have been her father, but they don’t really know. She’s been given the name Charlotte because, well, she needed a name. My sister, Caroline, just wanted to warn us that this loss of memory is an added problem the poor girl has to contend with. Most of the time she seems to be coping all right, but she does have the occasional panic attack, so we must be prepared for that.’
Caroline had also told Avril that Charlotte was almost certainly half German.
‘She speaks English pretty well, Av, but lapses into German when she’s under any pressure. We think maybe her mother’s German and she’s been brought up bilingual. The other possibility is that she’s a refugee, but until we know her real name it’s virtually impossible to trace her family.’
‘Poor child,’ Avril said. ‘How desperately sad. Let’s hope when she’s away from all the bombing, her memory’ll come back.’
‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ Caroline said, ‘but I just thought I’d warn you.’
Avril had decided not to share this second piece of information with the committee yet. It wasn’t definite that Charlotte was German and it wouldn’t be fair to the child if it turned out not to be true and the whole village supposed she was. She knew that if it were mentioned now, it would, without doubt, be round the village first thing in the morning. Nancy, with the best will in the world, couldn’t keep a secret. A secret to Nancy was something you told only one person at a time and then, of course, in complete confidence.
They all got up to leave in a bustle of finding coats and torches to light their way home. Outside, the darkness was complete, the blackout as strictly enforced here as in the towns. David switched off the lights, opened the front door and with a continued mutter of conversation, the evacuation committee disappeared into the night.
When they’d all gone Avril and David flopped down in their chairs in the warmth of the kitchen.
‘Well, that didn’t go too badly,’ Avril said with a sigh of relief. ‘Now all we have to do is approach those families and see if they’ll take in the evacuees.’
‘I’m sure you and Marjorie between you will be able to persuade them,’ David said. ‘But shouldn’t we be having that child, Charlotte, here with us?’
‘I would have liked to, but I think we have to take the Dawson children ourselves. It’s so important that families stay together and nowhere else has room for all three.’
‘You’re probably right,’ David agreed. ‘Come on, old thing,’ he said affectionately, pulling her to her feet. ‘Bed. You look completely bushed.’
Avril followed him up the stairs, saying as she did so, ‘I know Caro’s right. We need to get those children out of London.’
‘And we will,’ David said. ‘Now stop worrying. It’ll all be fine.’
16
In London Caroline was doing her best to cut through any red tape which might prevent the speedy evacuation of her children. She went to the local authority who had legal responsibility for St Michael’s and spoke to a rather unhelpful woman named, according to the sign on her desk, Miss Ruth Miles.
‘I’m not sure we can simply allow you to remove these children to the country,’ she said. ‘There’s the question of permission from their families.’
‘I’m afraid several of the children concerned have no family,’ Caroline pointed out. ‘Three of them are orphans, another has no knowledge of her family, and several have been bombed out already which is why they’re with us in the first place.’ She fixed Miss Miles with a resolute stare. ‘I can see no possible reason why they should not be moved to a safer environment. Or would you prefer to leave them where they are and risk their lives for even longer during this bloody awful Blitz?’<
br />
‘There’s no need for language like that, Miss Morrison,’ scowled Miss Miles.
Caroline tried to rein in her temper. It would be hopeless if she lost Miss Miles’s goodwill. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but as you can imagine I’m under quite a strain keeping these children safe and it’s beginning to tell.’ She forced herself to smile. ‘What I’m trying to explain, Miss Miles, is that St Michael’s is very close to Croydon airport. We seem to be on the direct flight path for the German bombers targeting the airport. All round us last night houses were demolished, burned out or at least rendered uninhabitable. It is a miracle to me that so far our building has remained undamaged, but seriously, I don’t think it will be long before St Michael’s is destroyed as well. So, you can see why I need to get these children moved.’
‘I’ll have to speak to Mr Carver,’ Miss Miles said. Though unwilling to admit it, she was probably not senior enough to make such a decision herself. ‘Please wait here.’
Caroline Morrison waited... and waited, and was just about to go through the door Miss Miles had used when she returned, followed by a middle-aged man she introduced as ‘Mr Carver, who deals with children’s homes’.
‘Now, Miss Morrison,’ he said, ‘what is it you want to do?’
So Caroline drew a deep breath and went through the whole thing again.
‘I see,’ Mr Carver said slowly when she’d finished. ‘And you say you have somewhere definite to send these children?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ she replied, feeling that perhaps now they were actually getting somewhere. ‘An offer of foster homes for fifteen children at Wynsdown in Somerset.’
‘And what do you know of these places?’ he enquired.
‘My brother-in-law is the vicar of Wynsdown, David Swanson. It is he and his evacuation committee who have found homes for the children.’
The Girl With No Name Page 18