Child from Home

by John Wright

  The stables housed Charlie, their loveable little black pony; Daisy, their roan horse, and her foal. They called the partition between their stalls the skelbeast, and the cow byre was known as the shippon – terms that lingered from a bygone age. They also kept a few clucking and scratching hens and reared a couple of pigs that were killed at Christmas to supply the family with sufficient ham and bacon for the year to come. Oil lamps were used to light the place and the small-paned windows were criss-crossed with sticky blast-tape like the railway cottages.

  Levisham village was one and a half miles away up the steep gravelled lane, which – during high summer when the stones were dry and sunlit – became a dazzling white ribbon. The village could be reached by a shorter but steeper route as a rutted, earthen footpath led off the lane just above Grove House, passing behind the range of stone outbuildings that housed the electric generator and stored coal, garden tools and suchlike. It continued eastward before swinging left to climb steeply through mixed woodland and hazel shrubs. It emerged into open fields halfway up the hillside and led steeply up to a barn. It then passed a wooden bench, erected to celebrate the Coronation of King George VI three years earlier. From here there was an excellent view of Newtondale, the railway line running through it and Newton village perched on the opposite hilltop. The path continued before emerging on a lane that led to Levisham Chapel-of-Ease. The ‘squire’ of the manor was a Mr Baldwin, the co-founder of the Paton and Baldwin wool manufacturing and knitting pattern empire, a firm that was a household name at that time. He had lived in Levisham Hall with his family for the last sixteen years.

  The Hall was actually little more than a large, three-storey cottage with a castellated stone porch and double bay windows. It was full of quaint nooks and tiny rooms and its commanding position gave it fine views of the Lockton valley and the countryside to the south. Around the turn of the century, the wife of the future Lord Baden-Powell had hired the Hall for an extended holiday with her young family while her husband Robert, a cavalry officer, was fighting in the Boer War. He, of course, became famed for his founding of the Boy Scout movement in 1908 and the Girl Guides two years later.

  On those glorious summer mornings the golden light of the sun, as it rose over the high ridge to the east, lit up the dark fringe of trees on the opposite hillside turning them a bright green. The dawn of a new day was the signal for choirs of birds to break into gloriously cascading waves of song. While the big house was still immersed in half-light and sombre shadows, we were roused, washed and dressed. The strengthening power of the ascending sun slowly burnt off the dew on the meadow and her rays dissipated the mists from the valley, as we sat down to breakfast. This usually consisted of thick, steaming porridge, made with Scott’s Porridge Oats, that had a dollop of jam or treacle on it. We then filled up on thickly buttered toast and marmalade. Every morning, after breakfast, Kitty sat the younger children on a row of little ceramic chamber potties that we called pos (pronounced pose) or jerries. They sat outside on the verandah if the weather was dry and warm, but if it was cold or wet they would be brought inside until they had done their ‘duty’, leaving the windows and doors open because of the smell. We older children were able to go to the toilet by ourselves. The large dormitory had a polished wooden floor and an elegant tiled fireplace and it was in here that most of the younger children slept.

  The older ones, including myself, were allowed to stay up a little later than the rest as we slept in the play room. At midday we had a hot savoury meal with plenty of potatoes and vegetables depending on the season of the year, as there were no freezers to keep food fresh in those days. A sweet of sago, tapioca (that we called frogspawn), rice pudding, jam roly-poly or plum duff followed. After our meal we were laid in our little beds with the window shutters closed and this was our regular nap of an hour or so to allow our food to digest. In the half-light the ugly leonine faces above the windows frightened me and I hid my head under the bedclothes. If we were naughty and refused to lie down, or if Eric and I disturbed the other children by talking, we were made to stand in the corner with our faces to the wall. We were often told off but were never smacked. After our nap we would sometimes be taken for a walk along the path that started not far from the kitchen door.

  Pretending to be soldiers or airmen, we chattered and babbled on. Aeroplanes were all the rage at that time and we zoomed about with our arms outspread dodging round the adults. We no doubt drove them mad making aeroplane noises as we bombed and killed hundreds of nasty Jerries in our imagination. My three-year-old brother George was quite content watching a snail pushing out one feeler at a time as it emerged from its shell, or in pushing the large, fluffy white toy Scottie dog along. With its short fur and stubby upright tail, it was mounted on a steel framework that had four rubber-tyred tin wheels. It had a tubular steel handle with which to trundle it along and our George really loved it. Eric preferred to pedal around on the flat-seated tricycle that had replaced the one wrecked at Sutherland Lodge.

  In the evenings, tired out and grimy but well fed, we were put in the magnificent antique bath that had bright, shiny copper taps and beautiful polished mahogany side panels. It could comfortably accommodate three adults within its massive tub, but the staff had to go sparingly on the amount of water they used, otherwise we might have drowned in it. At home the anodised tub had been placed in front of the kitchen fire and it took several pans and kettles of boiling water to fill it. Here we had scalding hot water at just the turn of a tap and it was still a great novelty to us; we had never seen such luxury, even at Sutherland Lodge! Amid great clouds of steam four or five of us would splash about in it and, with our little naked bodies glowing pink and warm, Kitty would dry us. I was kept snug and warm wrapped in a fluffy white towel and she gave me lots of hugs and I loved her very much. We would have done anything for her. She was pure of heart and would never dream of hurting anybody’s feelings; in fact, there was not a hint of deceit in her make-up.

  We knelt by our beds every night to say the prayers that Kitty had taught us, such as, ‘As I lay me down to sleep, I ask thee Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I ask thee Lord my soul to take! Amen’ and ‘Gentle Jesus meek and mild, Look upon a little child, Pity my complicity, Come to me when I die. Amen.’ After that we were tucked into our beds, scarcely aware that there was a war on outside our cosy, sheltered world. At times, as I lay tucked up in bed, I could hear the three harsh screaming barks of a dog fox and the quietness was sometimes rudely shattered by the painful death cries of some small animal in the woods. When woken by the wind as it rattled the wooden shutters during heavy rainstorms, I would lay in the darkened room listening to the sounds of the rushing water in the flooded beck. In dry weather water just trickled down the runnel beside the lane that led up to Levisham village, but at times like this, it became a gushing torrent. Gusts of wind would buffet the sturdy old house as they howled round it like the spirits in hell. As the thunder rumbled and growled and the lightning flashed I would hide under the bed covers frightened but enthralled by the awesome power of nature. Kitty got us to count the seconds between the flash and the thunder when we were unable to sleep and this helped to take our minds off it for a while. She said, ‘You can tell by the time between them whether it is moving away or not.’

  We would get quite excited when we were told that ‘the parents are coming out to visit the bairns’. We would sit and wait expectantly in the roofed shelter or on the seat of the bench on the station platform, and listen eagerly for the first faint train whistle to come from the quiet remoteness of the Newtondale Gorge. In the goods yard there was a big warehouse where coal for the trains was stored, but ours was delivered in a lorry that came from Pickering. Nearby was a small wooden hut, with a stovepipe chimney sticking up from its sloping roof in which paraffin and oil were stored for use in the lamps on the platform, in the station house and in the booking office.

  We chatted and fidgeted as we impatiently waited. It was so still and qu
iet that we could hear the Artley’s sheep as they ripped up and chomped on the tussocks of grass. Behind us the hundreds of colourful roses – that grew in profusion by the diagonally sloping slats of the fence – scented the air. The flowerbeds were edged with white-painted stones and the hanging baskets and tubs on the platforms were well tended and bright. In recent years, Mr Artley had won first prize in the annual Best Kept Railway competition on a number of occasions. We became excited on hearing a faraway whistle and feeling a slight vibration under our feet. Puffing sounds grew louder and the shiny-black steam train appeared round the bend in clouds of black smoke and hissing white steam.

  Our tremulous excitement increased as the great engine rumbled to a halt. The heavy doors slammed back and the parents and relatives stepped down onto the platform. Mam was there with Dad in his civvy clothes, which meant that he had a week’s leave. I raced towards them to be scooped up into Mam’s loving arms and she hugged me ever so tight and smothered me in loving kisses. George was still in the garden with Kitty, as he was too young to be wandering about on the platform. I did not understood why there were tears running down Mam’s cheeks when we were so happy.

  It was a warm sunny day at the beginning of June and we played football with Dad in the field. When he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves we were reminded of his army service as a young man. His strong, muscular, sunburnt arms, with their haze of fine fair hairs, were covered in colourful red, black and blue tattoos. On one arm there was a tattoo of his army badge, on the other there was a naked woman with a snake wrapped around her that extended from the back of his hand to his elbow, and when he clenched and unclenched his fist it looked as though she was dancing. After working up a good sweat he took his shirt off, unveiling the great spread eagle tattooed across his chest. It looked as though it was flying when he tensed and relaxed his pectoral muscles.

  He told us fascinating stories about his sea voyages to foreign lands where he had seen dolphins and flying fish, and he talked of his army service in China, Egypt and India, saying, ‘In India we had servants and lived like gentlemen. The charwallahs made and served us tea and punkahwallahs cooled us with fans made from palm fronds. The atmosphere was very dry and hot. Darzis made us new clothes and dhobiwallahs did our laundry, washing our clothes in the river in which huge venomous snakes could be seen swimming.’ He told us that ‘there were numerous beggars in dhotis [loincloths] and the sacred cows wandered about the streets wearing garlands of flowers round their necks’. He showed us pictures of some of the animals he had seen, such as elephants, Bengal tigers, monkeys, peacocks and hyenas. ‘July was the rainy season,’ he continued. ‘It was heaviest in the evenings when it really lashed down and it went on for weeks – often with spectacular displays of lightning. At other times the blazing sun bleached our hair and our uniforms as the bullock cart drivers took us past banana plantations and beneath coconut palms and we paid them in rupees and annas.’ He told us about the Red Fort in Delhi and the Black Hole of Calcutta; he had seen so many wonderful exotic things that we could only dream about.

  After a while we grew tired of sitting and were eager to run about again, and Dad told us how the Indians had played them at football in their bare feet on rough sand and gravel pitches. He dribbled a rubber ball around us pretending to be the new blonde-haired Middlesbrough football sensation, Wilf Mannion, and I was supposed to be George Hardwick, the brilliant left full back with the film star good looks reminiscent of Clark Gable. A local lad, just like Mannion, he was to captain the England team after the war. Before the war, Dad had been among the cheering crowd at Ayresome Park football ground when twenty-year-old Mannion had scored four goals for the ‘Boro’ in a dazzling exhibition of his footballing skills. The Boro were in the top division of the Football League and on a bright sunny day two weeks before the Christmas of 1938, Dad had seen them thrash the tangerine-shirted Blackpool team 9-2. He had been there when they had recently beaten Portsmouth 8–2 when Mannion had scored a brilliant hat trick. He was Dad’s hero.

  Soon afterwards, the mayblossom faded and fell and the elders produced their pinky-white curds. Blatant, blood-red blotches of wild poppy splashed the lush greenery of the roadside verges, contrasting sharply with the pallid umbels of the hedge parsley. The air on that sultry afternoon became oppressive as dark, cumulus clouds massed and heaved up behind the western hillside. The light faded and ragged rain clouds raced overhead as the wind rose. As the storm increased in fury, the wind shrieked and howled like a multitude of lost souls, and the tops of the trees thrashed about wildly as the rain clattered down in stair rods onto the portico roof. The beck that was normally just a trickle became a deep raging torrent and rainwater dripped incessantly from the eaves until, suddenly, the violence of the summer storm abated as quickly as it had arisen.

  On that unusually dull and chilly summer day Mam came to visit us again, but Dad was not with her as all leave had been cancelled. She was wearing her dark-blue, narrow brimmed hat, her favourite light blue, white-spotted frock and her navy-blue coat, but I sensed a deep sadness and sorrow in her, and a whole range of emotions seemed to flit across her honest open face. The smile that usually lit it up was missing this time and she looked as pale and melancholy as the clouded, battleship-grey sky. In the dim half-light of the hallway I could see that she was close to tears, which made me feel sad in return. We were not to know that she had just learned that her younger brother, Private John Bradford, was in the retreat to the French coast. His battalion was fighting a rearguard action with their backs to the sea as thousands of French, British and Allied troops were surrounded by the Germans and trapped on the beaches near Dunkirk. Some sought refuge in the high, bone-coloured sand dunes that rimmed the beaches in which even marram grass struggled to survive.

  I was to learn later that the German army had smashed its way through neutral Holland and Belgium in just four days, and in the near rout towns and villages had become flaming ruins. Major General Erwin Rommel, in command of the 7th Panzer Division, had broken through the last of the French defences and turned back an Anglo-French counter-attack at Arras in which Uncle John had been involved. Rommel’s thrust to the Somme had divided the BEF from the French forces to the south. The Wehrmacht had swept across northern France driving the BEF before them, before thrusting north towards the coast. Britain’s ‘invincible army’ was in full flight, caught in a pincer movement. The whole front crumbled, and the Belgian government capitulated.

  As the Germans advanced in persistent drizzle towards the flat and marshy coastal plains, Uncle John was among the troops vainly struggling against overwhelming odds to hold the defensive perimeter line on the canal that ran from Burgues, through Furnes to the Nieuport area to the east of Dunkirk. The name must have reminded him of the Newport area of Middlesbrough where he had grown up and he must have wished that he was back there.

  Later he told Gran of the long queues of soldiers, wearing greatcoats or dripping groundsheets, on the crowded beaches as the rain was driven on by a cold northerly wind. Shivering with cold and fear they waited patiently for their turn to be taken off. The canals and roads were choked with wrecked lorries and the fields flooded as Luftwaffe bombs breached the dykes. Abandoned harrows, rakes and spades spoke of a more peaceful time.

  Winston Churchill then gave the go-ahead for a massive rescue bid. More than 100,000 soldiers were quickly taken onto ships at Dunkirk harbour and, providentially for a time, they were hidden under a dense bank of fog. The men waded shoulder deep into the sea to meet the flotilla of small boats that had made the parlous Channel crossing to bring men directly home, or to ferry them to the waiting ships. Screaming, crank-winged Junkers 87s, known as Stukas, swept down like dark, howling birds of prey to strafe and bomb the waiting ships, the small boats and the long orderly zigzag lines of soldiers. Dazed and wounded men sat or lay on the open beach crying out for water or medical attention. It was pure mayhem. The RAF was conspicuous by its absence having lost half of its obsole
te aircraft within the first forty-eight hours. It was a sad tale of heroic failure. Broken bodies littered the beaches like squashed fruit and the sweet, cloying, gut-wrenching stench of putrefaction was everywhere. The tides ran red and black with blood and oil as hundreds of khaki-clad bodies floated face down in the filthy water.

  Gran and her daughters, who had seen the bloodstained stretchers on the cinema newsreels, were relieved to learn that John was safe. He had been among the last to get away. Totally worn out he had curled up on the deck of the ship under his greatcoat, collapsing into a sleep of utter exhaustion for the whole trip. He was in a sorry state and the passage home became just a hazy memory. On arrival back in Britain he was hungry and unshaven and sported a week’s growth of stubble. Just twenty-one years old, he was unspeakably weary with eyes that were red-rimmed and bloodshot. When he disembarked under the grey barrage balloons at Dover he was half-starved, with his sodden uniform ripped and filthy. They were beaten but unconquered in spirit as they waited to be sent home on much-needed leave.

  All told, nearly 350,000 British, French, Belgian and Polish troops were brought out and the Daily Mirror banner headlines called the whole evacuation ‘Bloody Marvellous’. By some miracle, most of the army had been saved to fight another day.

  Many scheduled trains were cancelled in order to get the men away from the coast and Uncle John was given a blank postcard on which to write his Christian name, home address and ‘Am safe’. On receiving it Gran was over the moon. John was sent to a rest camp for a couple of days to be re-equipped and to recuperate a little before being given a seventy-two-hour leave pass. Once home his mother and three sisters greeted him with tears of joy and relief. He slept long and late and soon made up for his recent lack of food. People bought him beer in the local pub and the returning heroes were allowed into dances and cinemas without paying. On visiting Archie, Gran said, ‘I was so worried when John was sent abroad but he has experienced the utter madness of war at first hand.’