Child of the Mersey

by Annie Groves

  Rita looked up to the brightening sky. It was no good; she could hold the tears back no longer. She prayed as she had never prayed before. Dear Lord, don’t let anything bad happen to my babies. Don’t let them suffer.

  A foghorn sounded on the river as the early morning miasma dulled the calls of men who had been unloading the ships through the night so they could quickly turn round and cross the Atlantic to bring back supplies to replenish England’s pantry. When the bombers came the larders would be worst hit, and a hungry country would quickly lose the will to fight.

  Listening to the soothing clip-clopping hoofs on cobbled setts as the shire horses paraded the dock road pulling heavy loads, Rita knew her children would be well out of it. The docklands would most certainly be one of Hitler’s main targets.

  The evidence was all around them. Bootle Corporation had piled sandbags around the walls of the Town Hall on the other side of Millers Bridge. The community air raid shelters had brick walls and thick concrete roofs to withstand the bombs, and had been great places for kids to play when war was just a rumour. Now they stood empty, waiting, while the mothers of those children broke their hearts.

  Evacuation was a precaution, the teachers had said. The children would be home by Christmas. However, Rita was not so sure. They’d said everyone would be home by Christmas in 1914. She knew it must be serious to put the kids through this, disrupting schools and communities. Mothers weren’t stupid. The war was coming here for sure.

  ‘I can’t wait to see where we’re goin’, Mam,’ Megan said brightly through the small window of the charabanc. She was standing on the seat and Rita worried her daughter would be scolded by one of the teachers. Well, not while I’m standing here, Rita thought determinedly. Just let them try!

  ‘Do you think we’ll be near the shore, Mam? Do I look all right? Do I really need me big coat, even though it’s so warm?’

  ‘It won’t be warm for much longer,’ Rita said without thinking. When the reality of her situation dawned on Megan, her eyes grew wide with unshed tears and her chin trembled. She held her lips together in an effort to stop them turning downwards. Rita could see she was doing her best not to cry and watched little Megan take deep breaths to stem the tears that threatened to fall as her little hands gripped the metal frame of the narrow window.

  Be brave, little one … Someone else must dry your tears now.

  ‘You’ll be home in no time, love.’ Rita gave Megan her widest smile while inside she felt her heart was breaking into a thousand shattered little pieces. Then, in a moment of blind inspiration, she said, ‘You look like Shirley Temple with your hair in ringlets.’

  ‘Do I, Mam?’ Megan smiled through her tears. ‘Do I really?’

  ‘We’ll soon be off, children. Wave goodbye to your mothers.’

  As she blew a kiss to her beloved children, the engine of the bus started up, and Rita manoeuvred herself to the front of the tearful throng of mothers.

  She saw Michael was laughing – actually laughing – at something someone had said. Rita breathed a sigh of relief. She had been so worried he would try to get off the bus. When he turned and caught sight of her, he waved frantically, his face wreathed in smiles.

  He is only going on a school outing. Rita forced herself to think nice thoughts so she could wave the children off without crying. Then she saw Michael nudge Megan, who had elbowed her way to the window again. Rita’s heart slumped when she saw the tears flowing down her little girl’s cheeks, her chin wobbling desperately and her bottom lip curled.

  Megan had been so stoically brave until the last possible minute for Michael’s sake. It was obviously too much for her to bear now, though. Rita tried to make a smiling face for her daughter’s sake, but her heart was not in it. Her own eyes now brimming with scalding tears, Rita waved as if her life depended upon it.

  ‘… I have to tell you now … this country is at war with Germany.’

  Kitty, Rita, Mrs Kennedy and a few other neighbours without the wireless had gathered around the Bakelite radio in Mrs Kennedy’s back room. On 1 September, Germany had invaded Poland. The country awaited anxiously for what would happen next and now here they were two days later. It was the news that everyone had expected but that no one had wanted to hear. Most disturbing was Mr Chamberlain’s warning that the country should expect air raids at once.

  ‘Jesus wept!’ Rita said to Kitty. ‘We got the kids away just in time!’

  Moments later the most awful banshee wail started up and the two women headed to the front of the shop where they looked out of the window to see people scurrying up and down the little street. Mrs Kennedy came hurrying from the back room, her usually immaculately coiffured hair wrapped in steel curlers.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she cried, running pointlessly around the shop. ‘We’re all going to die!’

  Not long after, the all clear sounded and the air raid warning was obviously a false alarm, much to the relief of the women of Empire Street who had been preparing the veg or putting the joint in the oven for Sunday dinner. For weeks now there had been drills, but the awful reality that an air raid could be imminent was a shock.

  Pop, in the sitting room at number three, lowered his head and experienced that stomach-churning fear he had felt the day he had lost his eye at Jutland during the Great War.

  Dolly’s face had turned a sickly white at the news that the first British ship had been attacked only hours into the war. SS Athenia was not even a fighting ship; she was a passenger liner, and she had been torpedoed and sunk 250 miles off the north-west coast of Ireland by a German U-boat. Pop knew exactly what this meant. There was no turning back now.

  ‘It looks like Germany’s up to its old tricks again, Doll,’ Pop said, gripping his wife’s hand. During the Great War, submarines had nearly strangled the shipping lanes of Great Britain. ‘It looks like we’re in for more of the same from them U-boats.’

  ‘Oh, Pop!’ Dolly exclaimed, shock etched across her stricken face. ‘What about my boys?’

  ‘They won’t be boys after this, Doll.’ Pop looked grave. ‘You take my word for it.’

  ‘It’s like the January sales in here today,’ Gloria said when she and Nancy took their break.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry I only took a week off after the wedding. Sid said I should have taken two.’

  ‘It was a great do though, Nance,’ Gloria laughed. ‘I got chatted up by one of those Canadian marines; he gave me his address and everything.’ Her eyes sparkled as she spoke.

  ‘I thought Giles would be there,’ Nancy said mischievously, knowing her best friend liked nothing better than having a boyfriend spare in case her current relationship didn’t work out. They both laughed as they headed for their favourite table in the staff dining room.

  ‘I was surprised to see you back,’ Gloria said, evading the insinuation. ‘I thought Sid would stop you working after you were married.’

  ‘We’re saving for a house.’ Nancy’s eyes wandered to the morning newspaper left by one of the boiler-suited workmen applying strips of sticky tape to the windows. A short while later a waitress brought two cups of tea and some toast.

  ‘It says here, people left their holiday guesthouses in droves,’ Nancy read from the Daily Mirror, ‘all eager to get back home in case anything happens.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s tantamount to hysterics.’ Gloria buttered a piece of toast and then applied a liberal spread of lime marmalade before breaking the toast in half and then half again.

  ‘That reminds me, I’ve got to pick up some more blackout material for Sid’s mam.’ Nancy rolled her eyes, obviously not pleased about the prospect.

  ‘I’ve got segs on my eyes, measuring and cutting all that black material,’ Gloria said, ‘and I’m sure it will all be for nothing.’

  ‘Are you?’ Nancy looked doubtful now. ‘Our Rita’s kids were evacuated the other day.’

  ‘I saw long lines of kids going into Lime Street Station early this morning. They looked ever so little …’ Glo
ria gently blew a stream of air onto her hot tea, wondering if her hips could risk another round of toast. ‘They were really well-behaved, though, all carrying their little suitcases and pillowslips.’ Gloria eyed the second round of toast and reckoned she would risk it.

  Nancy nodded and her curled fringe bounced on her forehead. ‘I didn’t think it would get to this stage!’

  ‘You were too engrossed in your wedding day to notice anything, Nancy. War preparations completely passed you by.’

  Nancy giggled. ‘I don’t want another war, Glor,’ she said in a low faraway voice, her hand resting protectively on her stomach. ‘My Sid’s a member of the Territorials and I am expecting, you know.’

  Gloria rolled her eyes and sighed, aware of the low hubbub of chatter in the staff dining room. ‘Of course I know you’re pregnant.’ Nancy had talked about nothing else since she got married. ‘I’ll drop the Germans a line if you like, Nance; they’ll take it into consideration when they start bombing, I’m sure.’

  However, even though the air raid sirens had gone off every night since war was declared last Sunday, there had been no sign of any attacks. Still, nobody was taking any chances and the air raid shelters were usually filled with people.

  Gloria’s mother loved it because it gave her a chance to put her feet up and have a good old natter to her neighbours for a couple of hours until the all clear went, but Dad wasn’t so pleased if the all clear didn’t go until after ten o’clock of an evening, by which time it was too late for ‘last orders’. Gloria knew he had started locking the doors and continuing serving if there was a good crowd of foreign sailors in. Nancy’s new husband was a regular when he was supposed to be doing nights on the docks but Gloria decided to keep it under her hat. She wasn’t one for causing trouble.

  Nancy was still reading the paper and Gloria was twisting her slim wrist this way and that, watching the light glance off the marcasite bracelet Giles had given her. It was a thank you for the pleasure she gave him, he had said. Gloria felt a little soiled by his gratitude. After all, they weren’t diamonds, were they?

  ‘Are you going anywhere tonight, Glor?’ Nancy asked, folding the paper, which contained only depressing stories about Hitler and his henchmen anyway.

  ‘It depends how busy the pub is.’ She gave her parents a hand behind the bar if it was busy. Nevertheless, Gloria was restless. The hoped-for regular spot at the Adelphi had come to nothing since war was declared because all forms of live entertainment had stopped for the time being. Even the theatres had closed.

  However, her belting renditions of popular songs could still be heard in her father’s pub at the end of Empire Street on a Friday evening, and kept the regulars as well as the visiting foreign sailors suitably distracted. Happy customers drink more, her dear old dad was wont to say. He also said she could have a room full of corpses on their feet, clapping along in no time.

  ‘Is that a new bracelet?’ Nancy asked covetously, wishing she got presents like Gloria did. She was sure she would appreciate them much more than her best friend did.

  ‘It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Nancy scoffed. ‘I only wore it because Giles said he was popping into the store this morning and as usual he let me down.’ Why do men think they can keep hold of you with very small tokens of their appreciation? Gloria wondered, eyeing the bracelet with a sweep of disgust through her false eyelashes.

  She did not need gifts. Her parents had given her gifts all her life; it was their way of compensating her for neglecting her. She never looked neglected. In fact, she had everything a girl could want and more – but the one thing she valued and longed for above all else was their time. A few short moments of their attention would have Gloria walking on air all day. She wanted to be loved for herself. For those so-short moments when she let her men friends have their way, she knew she had their full attention, and it was knowing she was the only one they cared about in that moment that she really liked.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Nancy said admiringly. ‘It’s a lovely bracelet. It would go nicely with my pale blue twinset.’

  Smiling, Gloria immediately unhooked the clasp, took the bracelet off, and gave it to her friend across the table. ‘Here, take it. You will be doing me a favour.’

  ‘You can’t give your present away!’ Nancy protested, knowing she would be thrilled if Sid ever gave her something so lovely. However, Gloria was not listening.

  ‘Enjoy it,’ Gloria said, wrinkling her small tilted nose.

  ‘You don’t know when you are well off, Glor, that’s your trouble,’ Nancy told her friend as she fastened the bracelet on her wrist. Then, offering it to the overhead electric light, twisting it so she could enjoy its lustre more clearly, she added, ‘Men love you so much …’

  ‘Want to get me into bed, you mean,’ Gloria said, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow before draining the last of her tea.

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t be the first,’ Nancy laughed. Gloria was so sophisticated.

  ‘And he won’t be the last either,’ Gloria agreed, ‘but he won’t be the one.’

  ‘You sound so sure,’ Nancy said.

  ‘The man I give my life to will buy me diamonds,’ Gloria laughed, grabbing her crocodile skin handbag. ‘Marcasite doesn’t do it for me.’ They both rose from the table and, catching up her handbag, Nancy quickly followed her friend back to the mayhem that was Haberdashery.

  The new consignment of blackout material had arrived earlier and someone had leaked the information. Nancy was halfway down the marble stairs when she stopped, her hand on the shiny wooden balustrade, to see frantic housewives elbowing each other out of the way to get at it.

  ‘You’re lucky to be so beautiful you can choose,’ she said almost to herself.

  ‘You’re too insecure, Nance,’ Gloria said matter-of-factly. ‘You have no faith in your feminine allure and were daft enough to get yourself caught, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t sugar-coat it, will you, Glor?’ Nancy huffed. If she had to live with Sid’s mother, Gloria would be insecure too. Lack of faith in her feminine allure was the least of her worries.

  Pop put his arms around his wife when he told her that the ARP had been mobilised. He wanted to comfort her should she dissolve into tears at the news.

  ‘I’d be most surprised if you hadn’t joined, Bert.’ Dolly usually only called him Bert when he was in hot water. Kissing her forehead, he let her go, safe in the knowledge she had accepted the news that Britain was at war with Germany even if she didn’t like it one bit.

  ‘But what if it all comes to nothing? Hmm, tell me that!’ Dolly nodded.

  Pop sighed and finished fixing up a pelmet to accommodate her newly made blackout curtains before putting his hammer back in his toolbox. ‘Well, that will be a good thing, Doll,’ he said with little hope in his heart as, at 7.47 p.m., blackout regulations came into force. He peered out of the parlour window. The street looked eerily strange with no children playing outside. He saw Cyril had blacked out the lights of the pub. The Sailor’s Rest blacked out – what was the world coming to?

  Rita almost fell on the postman as she saw his figure pass the front parlour window and dashed to open the door. He was just about to put a couple of letters through the letterbox.

  ‘Is there one for me there, Bob?’

  ‘Eh, Rita, keep your ’air on!’

  Bob the postman passed Rita two letters. One looked like a bill for Mrs Kennedy but the other one was the one that she had been holding out for desperately. It was addressed to Mr and Mrs C. Kennedy and the postmark was from Lancashire. She could barely get inside the door quickly enough and her eager fingers tore the envelope.

  Breathlessly she opened the letter. Inside was an official one which read:

  Dear Mr and Mrs Kennedy

  We are pleased to inform you that your children have been found a suitable place in a village called Freshfield with a suitable family who run a farm in the area …

  Rita read on eagerly. The letter was from the
children’s teacher and told them that they were welcome to visit the children once they had settled in, that regular visits were permitted and there was an address provided so that they could write and make arrangements with the family that were looking after the children. Rita breathed a sigh of relief. She had heard of Freshfield. It wasn’t too far away and she felt sure that there was a train that went straight there from Liverpool. Thank heavens they were close by. They could easily have ended up anywhere in the country.

  There was also another letter in the envelope. Tears welled up in Rita’s eyes as she recognised the childish scrawl of her son, Michael. It read:

  Dear mummy and daddy. We are very safe here. There are sheeps and pigs and cows and a goat that eats everything. Megan likes the little chicks and we help the farmer to feed the animals. We miss you very much.

  Love from Michael and Megan xxxxx

  Tears streamed freely down her face. She was counting the days until she saw them.

  ‘Tommy! What do you think you’re playing at?’ Kitty stormed down the narrow lobby towards the front door to see a small group of women gathered outside her parlour window. Poking her turbaned head outside, Kitty was amazed to see the glass covered in sticky tape. Not, however, the nice neat regular criss-cross pattern favoured by her neighbours and every other respectable resident in the area.

  Instead, Tommy had chosen to cover their windows with haphazard squares, and triangles that resembled Christmas trees, even though it was only October. A huge W covered one window while another one had an M – anything, it seemed, that had caught his fevered imagination filled the bay windows.

  Kitty had known Tommy would be better off tucked away in the countryside when the local bobby had brought him home for trying to deflate a barrage balloon over Gladstone Dock with a stone from his catapult.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Kitty asked. As usual Tommy looked like a bag of rags with his grey knee-length socks concertinaed around his ankles, and his mop of dark brown hair falling into his eyes as he jumped out of the home-made trolley cart. He’d made it with four pram wheels of differing sizes, the big ones at the back and the smaller ones at the front. The seat was an orange box, and the whole thing was held together with two planks of wood and its axles. The steering device was a long length of string to pull the front wheels, and was useful when Tommy went to collect the chippy orders for the foreign sailors off the ships.