Octavia's War

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘It’s where they fit artificial limbs, Ma,’ Edith said. ‘One of the girls had a brother there. He swore by it. Do you want the sprouts doing?’

  Emmeline looked at the clock. ‘They said they’d be ten minutes,’ she said, ‘and they’ve been half an hour already. Yes, you’d better do them. They should have finished by the time we’re ready, but if they haven’t, they’ll have to take a break and get on with it afterwards. Although why they should be making all this to-do about choosing a wedding day I can’t imagine. They’ve had long enough to think about it, in all conscience, and they’ve got enough days to choose from.’

  But as Tommy and Octavia were discovering, the number of days that were actually available to them was strictly limited and choosing a date for their wedding, followed by the ten days that Tommy said was the very minimum they needed for a honeymoon, was proving irritatingly difficult. At that moment, they were sitting on either side of the fire in the dining room, scowling at one another.

  Tommy had started the discussion by suggesting the Christmas holiday, and had been told at once that that was out of the question.

  ‘Much too soon,’ Octavia said firmly. ‘Anyway, Maggie Henry’s going to have a holiday with her cousin. Long overdue I might say. She hasn’t taken a break since the war began.’

  ‘Will that matter?’

  ‘Well, of course it will. We always share the care of our Downview girls over the holidays and one of us has got to be there. So that’s out. Sorry.’

  ‘Can’t some of the other teachers do it?’

  ‘No they can’t. And I’m not going to ask them. Anyway, what about Lizzie?’

  ‘What about Lizzie?’

  ‘Won’t she be home for Christmas?’

  ‘Apparently not,’ he said. ‘She’s going back to that farm with her friend Poppy, so she says. So we don’t have to worry about her.’

  His casual manner annoyed her. She thought of Lizzie waiting and worrying about Ben and felt cross on her behalf. ‘You might at least have given her a thought.’

  ‘Well, we’ve given her a thought and she won’t be there. If we want to marry at Christmas, it’s fine by me.’

  ‘You’re not listening to me, Tommy,’ she said, trying to be patient and not making a very good job of it. ‘Haven’t I just told you it’s out of the question?’

  He held up his hands to placate her. ‘All right. All right. Have it your own way. Easter then. That should give us plenty of time.’

  But, as he found out when he consulted his own diary, Easter was ruined by a conference he had to attend. ‘God damn it all. Will you look at that.’

  ‘Fifteen all,’ Octavia said, trying not to sound too smug and failing at that too. ‘So that brings us to the summer half term. What about that?’

  ‘You only get a week though, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ she admitted. ‘But do we really need ten days for our honeymoon? I mean, we could compromise, couldn’t we?’

  Apparently not. ‘Out of the question,’ he said. ‘If we can’t have a decent honeymoon what’s the point of getting married?’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ she said. The euphoria that had carried her along when he first suggested choosing a date was being pecked away by all these ridiculous difficulties. It should have been so easy, and yet here they were on the verge of a row and they hadn’t got anywhere.

  ‘I’m beginning to think your heart’s not in it,’ he complained and his face was dark. ‘I mean, God damn it, Tavy. There are three hundred and sixty five days in a year. Don’t tell me we can’t find one.’

  ‘It’s not my heart,’ she told him. ‘It’s my diary. Come on Tommy, be fair. I did warn you it would be tricky. We’ve got busy lives.’

  ‘I’m dishing up,’ Emmeline said from the doorway. ‘How are you getting on?’

  Tommy recovered himself and grimaced. ‘We’ve gone through five or six years when nothing can be done,’ he said, ‘but apart from that…’

  Emmeline laughed at him. ‘Oh well then,’ she said, ‘you won’t mind putting it aside and having your dinner.’

  In the end, when the meal had fed them back to good humour, and he’d spent the rest of the evening talking about Johnnie and Mark and Matthew, and when he and Octavia were satisfied and companionable in bed together, he decided the best thing they could do was to pencil in the first two weeks of the summer holiday and think about it again at the end of the summer term.

  ‘We could go on for ever, driving ourselves crazy and being disappointed,’ he said. ‘It’ll sort itself out.’

  She was half asleep but stirred herself to answer him. ‘Very sensible,’ she said. ‘You never know what’s going to turn up.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ he said.

  What turned up on the 1st of December was revolutionary and encouraging. It was a report written by a man called Sir William Beveridge, who was the chairman of a committee set up to consider ‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’ and it could have been written specially to please Octavia, for it contained most of the ideas she and her father and the Fabians had been discussing and refining before the war. What Sir William was aiming at was ‘a system to abolish want’. He proposed that everybody would be entitled to free medical and hospital treatment so that nobody would have to forego the treatment they needed because they couldn’t afford it; that there would be retirement pensions for everybody and family allowances of eight shillings a week for every child after the first one. To pay for it all there would be a single weekly contribution – a sort of national insurance – of four shillings and threepence from every worker and two and sixpence from their employers. The much hated dole would be abolished. All working people and their families would be cared for ‘from the cradle to the grave’.

  When she’d read it, Octavia sat at the kitchen table and cheered. It was so exactly what was needed, so well thought out, so British, so timely. And she wasn’t the only one who was approving. All through the day the BBC broadcast bulletins to the people in Nazi-occupied Europe to tell them what was being planned. ‘In the midst of war,’ they said, ‘Britain is grappling with her social problems and finding peaceful and positive answers to them.’ The implication was obvious. There is no need to conquer other nations and kill their people and exploit them to solve your social problems. You simply have to devise a fair system and finance it properly.

  Emmeline had reservations about it. ‘Do you think they’ll do it?’ she said when she’d read the newspaper.

  ‘That will depend on what sort of government is elected when the war is over,’ Octavia told her. ‘We must work to see that we get the right one. I will write to Mr Dimond.’

  Emmeline made a face. ‘Haven’t you got enough to do?’

  ‘This is important,’ Octavia said, stubbing out her cigarette.

  ‘Well, I hope Tommy agrees with you, that’s all. You’d better not let it get in the way of that wedding of yours or he’ll have something to say.’

  ‘There’s the post,’ Octavia said, glad of an excuse to change the subject, and she went to get it.

  It was quite a bundle. A short letter from Tommy to say he’d booked seats for a show on Saturday; a long one from Lizzie to say how much she was enjoying life at St Hilda’s and to report that she was going to spend Christmas with Poppy and her family. She said she’d had three more letters from Ben and that he was impressed with the new Churchill tank and was keeping out of harm’s way, and that she herself was well, although anxious, as you can imagine; a letter from Janet to say that the baby was coming along lovely and was quite recovered from the mumps, dear little man; and to her surprise and delight, a short friendly note from Mr Dimond, pat on cue.

  He said he was wondering whether she would be agreeable to addressing a parliamentary committee on the future of education. The Beveridge Report is turning our thoughts towards the peace, he wrote, but there are other major issues besides health and social security which also have to be considered, althou
gh of course those two are of prime importance. I think you might be interested to know that Parliament is in the process of setting up a working party to consider the sort of direction school education should take once this war is over. I feel that your contribution to the debate would be invaluable and hope I can persuade you to give evidence.

  ‘Read that,’ she said to Emmeline holding the letter out to her, ‘and tell me you don’t think it’s funny. He must have been reading my mind.’

  But Emmeline was concentrating on her own mail. ‘He’s going to that other damned hospital tomorrow to be fitted with his new leg,’ she said, not looking up from the page.

  ‘Good,’ Octavia said. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘It’s not all that good,’ Emmeline complained. ‘If they don’t allow visitors and if he’s going tomorrow, I’ve only got today to see him. I wish they’d given us more notice. It’s going to be a dreadful rush to get there.’

  But she rushed notwithstanding and came home to report that he was in good spirits and looked better than she’d seen him in weeks. ‘That nice nurse was there,’ she said. ‘She’s such a nice girl. She can cheer him up in seconds. I watched her do it. I wish she could go with him to this new place.’

  Johnnie was saying exactly the same thing at that very moment, only in rather different words and half-joking. ‘I shan’t half miss you, Gwyneth. I wish I could stow you away in my pocket and take you with me.’

  She looked at his pockets. ‘Be a bit of a squeeze,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think someone would notice?’

  ‘I could say you were my iron rations.’

  ‘Do I look like iron rations?’

  He was suddenly and breathlessly serious. ‘You look like the nicest girl I’ve ever met in my life,’ he said. ‘If it wasn’t for the fact that I shall be some rotten old peg-leg I’d…’ Then he was afraid that he’d gone too far and stopped.

  She prompted him. ‘You’d what?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s silly really. You’d laugh.’

  ‘Try me,’ she said.

  Oh God! Could he? She was looking at him so steadfastly with those lovely brown eyes it was making his heart jump about. ‘The thing is, I mean, well the thing is, I suppose I’m…’

  ‘Go on, Flight Lieutenant,’ she said, ‘spit it out.’

  ‘What it is,’ he said, ‘is…well, if you want to know, I’m asking you to marry me. I know I’m no catch and if I’m speaking out of turn, I’ll shut up.’

  She leant forward, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him full on the mouth.

  ‘Is that yes?’

  ‘Soppy happorth,’ she said. ‘What do you think it is?’

  He put out his hand and stroked her cheek, very gently because his skin was still rough with scars and he didn’t want to scratch her face. ‘I love you so much,’ he said.

  That night, while he was lying wakeful in his narrow bed, too excited and too apprehensive to sleep, and Emmeline was sitting by the window in her bedroom, looking out at the cold garden and worrying about him, Octavia was answering her letters and gathering information to send to Mr Dimond.

  His letter had come at a most opportune moment. Ever since she’d read the Beveridge Report she’d been thinking about other changes that ought to be brought in. The present education system was wasting far too many intelligent children. David’s rejection and Dora’s bitter reaction to it had shown her that, if nothing else, and when she began to gather her ideas she realised that there were other flaws in the system and that she’d been blindly accepting them for far too long. She’d always known that far more boys than girls were offered grammar school places in London, not because they were cleverer than the girls but because there were more grammar school places available for them. It had been an irritation but not one she’d felt moved to do anything about. She knew, too, that the pass rate for the scholarship examination varied from county to county. I must find out exactly how wide the variation is, she thought, and then I’ll see if Mr Chivers can get hold of the LCC education figures for me. The thought of being part of a campaign was wonderfully uplifting. Now, she thought, as she took up her pen, what else?

  Tommy was disgruntled. He sat at his capacious desk in the Foreign Office scowling and drumming his fingers with annoyance. He and Tubby had just been told they were to organise yet another conference for their globe-trotting Prime Minister, this time at Casablanca in Morocco.

  ‘We’ve only just got back from the last one,’ he complained.

  ‘Join the Foreign Office and see the world,’ Tubby joked. ‘We might see Humphrey Bogart there. Or Ingrid Bergman even. Now that would be something.’

  Tommy wasn’t in the mood for jokes. ‘I tell you Tubby,’ he said, ‘this war is getting in the way of my private life.’

  ‘Private life, old boy?’ Tubby scoffed. ‘Since when have we had a private life? Chance would be a fine thing.’

  Wouldn’t it just, Tommy thought. Tavy’s right. We’re too busy for our own good.

  But despite his gloom, the fourth January of the war began with good news. While Churchill and Roosevelt were putting the finishing touches to their plans for the invasion of Italy and the next stage of the war, Monty’s army was entering Tripoli and in Russia the German army was finally surrendering to the Russians at Stalingrad.

  Will they let you come home now? Lizzie wrote hopefully to Ben.

  No chance, he wrote back. Monty’s got other plans. Watch the newspapers.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Parliamentary Committee on the Future of Compulsory State Education was set up at the end of March that year and Miss Octavia Smith, headmistress of Roehampton Secondary School, was the third person called upon to give evidence. She was pleased to be consulted so early in the proceedings because it showed they were going to take her seriously and, naturally, she came well prepared.

  ‘I have some statistics here that might interest the committee,’ she said, when the introductory formalities were over. ‘They concern the variation in the provision of grammar school education throughout the country.’

  The chairman looked at the folder she was carrying and noted how thick it was. ‘Could you perhaps summarise your findings for us?’ he asked.

  She could and did. ‘Perhaps the first thing I should tell you is that there is a very wide variation from county to county,’ she said. ‘South Wales is the top of the list. They are very well provided with grammar schools, as you will see. Consequently 25 per cent of all eleven-years-olds in South Wales can expect to be offered a place at one. In London, under the LCC it is 21 per cent, although I should point out that there are more places for boys in London than there are for girls so the figure is the average for both sexes, considerably more for boys and considerably less for girls. In the shires, where grammar schools are in short supply, the figure is around 11 per cent. The variation is wide. I will leave the figures with you so that you can consider them at your leisure.’

  ‘That would be helpful,’ the chairman said. ‘Of course your statistics do beg one or two questions.’

  She nodded to show that she would be prepared to answer them if she could. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is it possible perhaps that children in South Wales and London are of a – shall we say – higher intellectual calibre than children in the more rural parts of the country?’

  ‘They might lag behind by one or two percentage pints,’ Octavia said. ‘That’s possible. But certainly not by fourteen. In any case a child’s intelligence is not static. It will grow and develop as the child develops. It is affected by a great many factors.’

  ‘You could perhaps give us an example of some of them.’

  Indeed she could. ‘The quality of the teaching it receives for one,’ she said. ‘A skilled teacher who knows how to spark off a child’s interest will lead her pupils into all sorts of directions and all sorts of extremely intellectual pursuits. Some of the things our pupils study would surprise you. And all of their own accord,
of course.’

  One of the committee members who introduced herself as Kathy Ellis asked the next question. ‘I’m intrigued to hear you say that your pupils study “of their own accord”,’ she said. ‘That’s not at all how I remember my school days. Could you tell us a little more about how they go about it? Presumably they all follow the same syllabus.’

  ‘Yes,’ Octavia said, ‘but they have a choice about how far their studies will take them. They are all given two suggestions for each piece of work they have to undertake, a minimum task, which everybody has to tackle, and maximum tasks, which they can follow as far as they wish. We set no restrictions. That is up to each individual girl.’

  ‘It must take a lot of preparation, on the part of the teachers, I mean,’ Miss Ellis observed.

  ‘Yes,’ Octavia said, ‘it does. But we consider it well worthwhile.’

  ‘And in your opinion would such a system work for every eleven-year-old?’

  Octavia gave her an honest answer. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t. There are some children who are so backward in their development, either physically or mentally or emotionally, that being asked to be responsible for their own studies would be more than they could manage. But the majority would rise to the challenge.’

  ‘You will correct me if I am wrong,’ Miss Ellis said, ‘but you sound as if you would like to offer a grammar school education to the majority.’

  Octavia was into her stride. ‘I see no reason why the majority shouldn’t benefit from it,’ she said. ‘At the moment we are wasting the talents of most of our children. I think that’s a most unsatisfactory state of affairs and I would certainly like to put an end to it. I don’t think we can afford to waste our children. We need their talents and we shall need them more than ever when the war is over.’

  ‘So, Miss Smith,’ the chairman said, ‘I take it you would be in favour of raising the school leaving age to sixteen for all pupils in the state system.’