Daughters of Cornwall

by Fern Britton

  I joined the ATS. I was just eighteen.

  I was ready to leave home but not to leave Mum. She was outwardly very supportive but I knew she did not want me to go.

  David was growing up and his interests outside home were pulling his attention. Mainly the engines of the fishing boats and a fascination for anything that needed grease.

  Grandfather was now bedridden and a tremendous burden on Mum. Not that she ever said so. She always had a cigarette dangling from her lipsticked mouth and some silly story to make us laugh.

  But when I left for my basic training she behaved as if I was just popping into Truro for the day.

  ‘Bye darling.’ She kissed me. ‘See you soon. I shan’t wait to wave you off. Grandfather will be wanting his lunch.’ She left me, on the harbour with my kitbag and a gang of other new recruits, with a brief wave. I climbed onto the coach and watched her walk away, expecting her to turn and wave again, but she didn’t.

  My fellow raw recruits on the coach were a good bunch. Most of us knew each other by sight and one or two I had been at school with. The chatter and laughter started the moment we turned up the hill and out of Trevay. The driver was an older man with a bald head and wispy ginger strands combed from ear to ear.

  ‘How long before we get to Salisbury?’ a girl called Shirley shouted to him. ‘Only I might need to powder my nose soon.’

  ‘It’s a good six hours,’ the man grumbled. ‘Should have gone when you could.’

  ‘I did,’ she laughed, ‘but I’m only small. Me mum’s tea runs through me quick.’

  He scowled at her then turned his attention back to the road.

  ‘What’s your name, Mr Driver?’ Shirley tried again. ‘My name’s Shirley.’

  ‘I’m Mr Thomas to you,’ he said without looking at her.

  ‘Oh, that’s nice. I knew a Mr Thomas once. Perhaps you know him?’ Shirley asked politely.

  ‘Mebbe. What’s his first name?’

  ‘John. Mr John Thomas.’ Shirley shrieked with laughter and so did the girls around her. I had to ask someone what the joke was, and when she told me I found it shocking but very funny.

  As the journey went on and the daylight started to fade, so the conversation became quieter. I must have nodded off at some point because Betty, sitting next to me, woke me. ‘Look. Stonehenge!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s a bit dark to see but look, there, can you see the shadows in the moonlight?’

  That was my first glimpse of the stones but not my last. Salisbury Plain was to become very familiar to me.

  We arrived, at a very late hour, at our camp, stiff and hungry and needing the lavatory. A male officer greeted us with little warmth and gave us directions to our Nissen hut and instructions to freshen up. The entire camp was in blackout and it took a little while to adjust our eyesight to find the neat paths leading to our accommodation: a large shed. Thirty beds were set in two lines with a coke stove at the far end. I picked a bed halfway down on the right-hand side, near enough to get some heat from the stove but far enough to allow the girls who might really feel the cold to have the benefit.

  Shirley was at the far end of the hut, looking for the bathroom. ‘Where’s the lavvy? I’m not joking. I shall wet my drawers in a minute.’

  The officer had followed us and pointed back the way we came.

  ‘The ablutions are twenty yards out to the right, Miss …?’ I saw the sarcasm in his eye.

  Shirley went towards him, holding out her hand, ‘I’m Shirley. Pleased to meet you. What’s your name?’

  He bared his teeth. ‘I am Company Sergeant Major Stewart,’ he barked. ‘And I am your worst nightmare. From now on you will address me as Company Sergeant Major, or sir. Do you understand?’

  All of us stood a little straighter.

  ‘Yes, sir, Company Major Sergeant, sir,’ Shirley said.

  CSM Stewart quelled the giggles in the room with one, long, death stare. ‘Dinner is waiting for you all in the cook house. I suggest you get some food inside you and get some beauty sleep. I shall be waking you up at 5.00 a.m. You are in the Army now. You have forty-five minutes before lights out.’

  The wash house was a bleak and basic hut with a row of basins down the middle and WC cubicles and showers arranged around the outer walls. Once we’d done what we needed, we found our way to the cook house, where the cook had ready cottage pie and apple crumble. CSM Stewart stood surveying us from a corner, which dampened any chat we might have had about him or the food.

  We ate up and cleared the tables before thanking the cook, saying goodnight to the CSM and heading for our thin beds.

  We got through six weeks of intensive training, all at the double. We were assessed for fitness, hearing, eyesight and nerves. If we were to be gunners on the anti-aircraft heavy ack-ack guns, we had to prove we had nerves of steel.

  Health-wise, we were well looked after. I didn’t like the inoculation jabs that we seemed to get every few weeks, or indeed the FFI every Friday. It stood for Free From Infection. We had to present ourselves to a female nurse, naked, for a full and intimate examination. I found it very embarrassing and couldn’t think why it was deemed necessary, until one of the girls, who had been enjoying the company of a soldier in the Tank Regiment, was treated for pubic crabs.

  Once the shock of that was over, we all wondered how the hell she had time to get pubic crabs, given that every waking hour was spent marching, doing PT, cleaning our hut, polishing our shoes, church parades, manning fire equipment during raids, and then more marching for good measure. It was utterly exhausting and I loved it.

  Mum couldn’t come up to watch me pass out, but Edward got leave to see his little sister become a gunner in the British Army.

  Once the parade was over we fell out and went to find our friends and family.

  ‘Did I look OK?’ I asked him. ‘Were we marching in time?’

  ‘You looked very smart and the marching was pretty good. Better than mine was at this stage.’

  ‘Really? Oh, thank you. And thank you for coming in uniform. I have been dying to show you off.’

  ‘Come on, Toots.’ He took my arm. ‘I’m hungry. Take me to the nearest pub and I’ll treat you to lunch.’

  Shirley caught up with us looking ravishing in her uniform. ‘Hello. You must be Hannah’s brother? Edward? I’m Shirley. I have heard so much about you.’ She took his other arm and walked with us. ‘You’re flying Lancasters, I hear.’

  I could tell from the way Edward had turned all his interest towards Shirley that we were not going to have our lunch alone.

  I had a week’s leave to go home and breathe the fresh sea air of Trevay. I had not had much time to miss it all but, as the coach lumbered down the hill and pulled up on the harbour, I drank in every feature of the town. St Peter’s spire, the flock of seagulls arguing on the harbour wall and the rich smell of tar and diesel.

  I jumped down the coach steps and said goodbye to the girls as we all hitched up our kitbags and walked proudly towards our homes in our uniforms.

  ‘Hi Mum. I’m home!’ I called as I opened the back door.

  ‘Hannah!’ David ran from the back room and almost knocked me over with a strong hug that left me breathless.

  ‘Mind my jacket,’ I laughed as I pushed him off. ‘You’ve grown a helluva lot.’

  ‘Of course I have. It’s what happens.’ He ducked as I tried to swipe him, then shouted, ‘Mum. Hannah’s home and she’s hitting me already.’

  I saw the curtain between our back room and the shop swing back and Mum stood there grinning at me. ‘Welcome home, darling.’

  ‘Oh Mum.’ Tears started filling my eyes. ‘I have missed you.’

  I took Grandfather’s lunch up to him. ‘He doesn’t eat much,’ Mum explained, handing me a tray with a saucer of the tiniest amount of fish, potato and peas on it. ‘He’ll be so pleased to see you in uniform. Here, take this spoon. You’ll have to feed him. Just very small amounts. He doesn’t swallow as well a
s he did. He likes a little drop of water too.’ Mum put everything that Grandfather and I might need on a tray. ‘He might not remember you at first, but that doesn’t matter; he will just be so pleased to see you.’

  I went up the stairs and into his room. He was lying in bed awkwardly, slipping down on the pillows.

  ‘Hello, Grandfather,’ I said, putting the tray down. ‘Shall I make you more comfortable?’

  His faded eyes turned to look at me, his voice creaky from lack of use and with a bubble of phlegm. ‘Hello Louisa. Where have you been?’

  I smiled down at him and said brightly, ‘It’s me. Hannah.’

  ‘Hannah? Who is Hannah?’

  ‘I am your granddaughter.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes. Shall I help you sit up a bit?’ He was almost weightless as I pulled him up straighter and re-plumped his pillows.

  ‘What’s it like in France?’ he asked, fixing me with his gaze. ‘Have you seen Bertie?’

  I hesitated before answering, thinking of what might be the right thing to say.

  ‘France is in a bit of a mess actually.’ I picked up the saucer of his supper and sat by his bed. ‘You have something to eat and then I will tell you all the news.’

  He took a tiny amount and took his time chewing and swallowing. ‘Water.’ He reached out his arm, the skin dry and the veins blue through it. I held the glass to his lips and helped him take a couple of sips.

  ‘How is Bertie?’ he asked.

  ‘Last I heard he was fine.’ I smiled to keep up the pretence. My uncle Bertie had been dead for twenty years but to Grandfather he was clearly very much alive. I fed him a piece of fish. He swallowed and asked for water again.

  ‘I feel so sorry for Clara, you see.’ He put his cool hand on my arm. ‘He loves her so much. When do you think he’ll come home?’

  Poor Grandfather. It was awful to see him so muddled. One son killed in the Great War, the other thousands of miles away in brutal captivity. There was no point in upsetting him with the truth. I remembered how kind and strong he was for Edward and me when we first arrived in England. Now I must be kind and strong for him. I smiled. ‘She married your son Ernest.’

  He frowned and his jaw began to work from side to side, trying to express something he couldn’t remember.

  ‘Ernest? No no. It was Bertie who married Clara and then Ernest went to Penang.’

  ‘That’s right, Ernest went to Penang,’ I said truthfully. ‘With Clara. Uncle Bertie, he,’ I thought for a moment, ‘he’s in France. But I was born in Penang with my brothers Edward and David.’

  ‘Were you, by Jove? Did you meet my boys?’

  ‘Only Ernest. He is my father.’

  ‘What is your name then?’

  ‘Hannah. Hannah Bolitho. The same name as you.’

  ‘Good God.’ He tapped the side of his head with his crooked fingers. ‘Who are you married to?’

  ‘No one, yet. I am your granddaughter.’

  ‘Really? But you’re in the Army? I like your uniform.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Very smart. My boys, Bertie and Ernest, are in the Army.’ He looked at my uniform again. ‘Are you in the Army too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good girl.’ He patted my hand again. ‘Good girl. Ask Louisa to come to bed now.’

  ‘How about one more spoon?’ I concentrated on getting one pea and a little corner of potato on the edge of the spoon, but by the time I had it balanced he was asleep.

  As my week’s leave went on, I could see how much Mum was enduring. Running the shop, caring for Grandfather and dealing with the adolescent David couldn’t be easy. I took over Grandfather duties and made sure Mum got her feet up when the shop was closed for lunch, but it wasn’t a solution.

  ‘Mum, maybe you could get some help in the shop? Or maybe a daily woman to help with Grandfather and the house?’

  ‘And how do you think I can afford that?’

  ‘Edward and I can send you money.’

  ‘I can look after myself. It’s very kind of you Hannah, darling, but we will be just fine. David’s getting better around the house. He wants to go to university when the war is over, to do his blessed engineering, and if the war isn’t over he wants to join the Navy.’

  ‘To be an engineer?’

  ‘What else?’ She lit a cigarette and coughed.

  ‘Mum, Grandfather was talking about Daddy’s brother again this morning.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Mum turned her eyes to the window and our next-door neighbour, who was hanging laundry on a thin line draped from one drainpipe to another. ‘Silly woman, that one. It’s going to rain this afternoon.’

  ‘How well did you know Bertie, Mum?’

  She flicked her ash into the small pot she kept for the purpose. ‘Oh darling, it’s all so long ago.’ She sighed. ‘He was a very nice person. I wouldn’t have met your father if it hadn’t been for Bertie.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘In those days people bumped into each other all over the place.’ She checked her small wristwatch. ‘Right, I had better get the shop open for the afternoon. I’ll have a cup of tea if you’re making one.’

  Before I had to return to Salisbury, I helped Mum with all the time-consuming jobs she couldn’t do with the shop and Grandfather to look after. I did some spring cleaning and cleared out cupboards that hadn’t seen the light of day since the war started. The linen cupboard at the top of the stairs gave up its treasures unwillingly, but I found enough good white linen sheets and fine lace tablecloths (all from the vicarage in Trevay) for Mum to make several wedding dresses for her customers. She was so pleased.

  ‘Darling. I had forgotten all about these. These are Granny Louisa’s. She made the lace, you know. She had very nimble fingers. She tried to teach me during my first Christmas with her but I was useless. You have the blood of some very fine women in your fingers, you know.’

  David would have helped me to sweep the cellar if it hadn’t been for his great fear of spiders, but he made up for it by handing over the toys he had grown out of long ago which the Women’s Voluntary Services were most grateful to receive.

  I tried to air Grandfather’s room, but he didn’t like the window being open or the noise of me brushing the carpet so in the end I gave up and sat and read to him as he dozed. He seemed to enjoy crime fiction and in particular the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers, though I am not sure how well he followed the plots. I could see he was getting weaker and his chest wasn’t good. The last two or three nights I was still at home, his coughing kept Mum and me awake, but she refused to let me go to him. ‘I know how he likes things. I shall go.’

  On my last morning I called the family doctor to him.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Dr Cunningham.’

  ‘You look well, Hannah.’ He wiped his feet carefully on the back doormat. ‘Army life suits you.’

  I led him up the stairs and he strode into Grandfather’s bedroom, leaving me to hang back at the door.

  ‘Good morning, Reverend Bolitho. I hear you have a bit of a cough. That must be tiring. Let me have a look at you.’

  I watched as he opened his doctor’s bag and took out his stethoscope and thermometer.

  ‘Right. Let’s pop this under your tongue while I take a listen to your lungs.’

  Grandfather was looking very pale and did as he was asked. ‘How old is he now, Hannah?’

  ‘Nearly eighty-five.’

  ‘He’s done very well.’ He wrapped his stethoscope up and put it back in his bag, then removed the thermometer and examined it. ‘He’s running a temperature.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him? How can we help him?’ I asked anxiously. ‘Is it serious? Only my leave ends today and I have to go back to Salisbury tonight. If needed, I could try and get some compassionate leave.’

  I looked at Grandfather, so vulnerable and lost-looking.

  Dr Cunningham knew what I was thinking. ‘He is eighty-four and
we can expect things to start to wear out. However, his heart is strong so I think he’s going to be all right for a while yet. He has a chest infection and we don’t want that turning to pneumonia, so I shall prescribe medication. He’s to take it three times a day. It should perk him up and I shall come again tomorrow to check on him.’ He closed his bag and added, ‘Fresh air is best. Open his window and make sure he has plenty of liquids.’

  Grandfather stirred and lifted his delicate eyelids. ‘Don’t let her open the window.’

  The time came for me to leave. ‘The coach will be waiting on the harbour, Mum.’

  ‘Would you mind if I didn’t walk down with you, only I worry about Hugh on his own.’

  ‘You didn’t wave me off the first time.’

  She put her hands on the tops of my arms. ‘Because I couldn’t bear to see you go. Because I worry about you, and Edward, all the time. Because I love you and I miss you. That’s why.’ She lifted one hand to brush a tear from my cheek. ‘That’s why.’

  I hugged her, crying onto her shoulder. ‘I love you so much, Mum. I will be all right. And so will Edward. But I do worry about you. And when this war is over, Edward and I will come back and look after you. I promise.’

  Caroline, Truro

  Present day

  I decided to drive to Trevay today. The diary in the trunk had been filling my mind with old memories of our home and the shop. It was a short drive from my home in Callyzion and the weather looked promising. I needed to find Granny Clara’s grave. I had some things I needed to say to her.

  The graveyard in Trevay was much less municipal than the one where Mum lay, close to my home. Instead of the beautiful, almost mathematical rows of headstones and footpaths at Mum’s, St Peter’s churchyard in Trevay was more natural. Ancient, mossy stones leant at alarming angles, the script on the stone weathered to nothing. A few war graves, all the same, spotlessly clean with roses planted at their feet, stood as upright as the soldiers who lay beneath them once had, and the churchyard was not so big that I needed a map to find Granny Clara’s grave. I spent a pleasant quarter of an hour looking for her and reading the inscriptions of others, letting them know I was there and thinking of them.