Home Front Girls

by Rosie Goodwin

  Dotty blinked, convinced that she must be hearing things. ‘B-but I would look at you,’ she stammered. ‘I have feelings for you too. That’s why I’ve been holding you at arm’s length, because I didn’t ever think that you could care for someone as plain as me.’

  ‘You plain?’ he said incredulously, lifting her chin. ‘But Dotty, you’re one of the most beautiful girls I have ever met – both inside and out, may I add.’

  Since hearing the news about her long-lost mother, Dotty had been in a dark place, almost as if she was still buried in the cellar, but now suddenly there was light again and something in her heart stirred as Robert gently kissed her on the lips. And when he finally broke away, she smiled at him tremulously through her tears. Perhaps there was still something worth living for, after all.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  On 16 November 1940, the people of Coventry’s spirits were lifted when King George VI visited the city to view for himself the devastation caused by the Blitz. He walked through the ruined city centre and there were those that said they saw tears in his eyes when confronted with the ruins of the once magnificent St Michael’s Cathedral.

  Along the way he stopped and spoke to many townspeople, offering his condolences and heartfelt sympathy, and by the time his visit was over, they were ready to stand and fight for what they believed in once more.

  During the raid, over 4,330 homes had been destroyed and 554 men, women and children had been killed. Some of them were still missing, trapped beneath the piles of rubble, but now troops were drafted in by the hundreds to dig for their remains whilst the Royal Engineers worked to restore electricity, gas and water supplies.

  Meanwhile, labourers worked day and night to dig graves for the victims, and on Wednesday 20 November, the first mass burial took place in the London Road Cemetery. Normally a quiet place of curving paths and graceful trees, on this day more than 1,000 mourners attended the service, which was conducted by Dr Mervyn Haigh, the Bishop of Coventry.

  Dotty, Robert, Annabelle, Miranda and Lucy were amongst the mourners, as Robert had not been able to find an undertaker with time to do a single burial. Miss Timms would be laid to rest with the other victims of the 14 November Blitz in a plain oak coffin with nothing to distinguish it from the next apart from a small label with her name written on it. They found themselves standing at the side of two deep trenches into which the coffins were lowered side by side and stacked three high, and Dotty felt as if her heart was breaking. As the trenches were slowly filled, the top coffins were then covered in Union Jack flags and people openly wept at such a senseless loss of life. But life had to go on for those left behind, who were determined that they would not be defeated.

  Once the service was over, Dotty, Annabelle, Miranda and Robert returned home, while Lucy went off for a job interview at a munitions factory. As she had pointed out, she couldn’t afford to stay at home – and who knew how long it would be before Owen Owen was rebuilt, if it ever was? Each of the three girls knew that they would miss working together, although their friendship was forged now and they vowed never to lose touch.

  Back at Primrose Lodge, Miranda offered everyone a sherry. They were all still a bit numb after the funeral, and she hoped that the sherry would revive them. She raised her own glass. ‘To Miss Timms – Dotty’s mother,’ she said, and the other three echoed the toast.

  As she put her sherry glass down, Dotty’s eyes strayed to the letter lying on the table in front of her. Shortly after her own mother’s death – Dotty’s grandmother – Miss Timms had left the name of her solicitor with Dotty, asking her to contact them should anything ever happen to her. Dotty had complied with her wishes, calling in at their offices the day before, where she had been handed this sealed letter addressed to her. Deciding that there was only one way to find out what was in it, she asked Robert to open it for her as it was too difficult to manage by herself with only one good arm.

  He took a sheet of paper from the envelope and handed it to her, and as her eyes scanned the contents, she went even paler than before. ‘My God,’ she muttered. ‘Miss Timms has left her house and the sum of ten thousand pounds to me!’

  ‘Don’t you mean half a house?’ Annabelle quipped, and Miranda glared at her.

  ‘And why shouldn’t she?’ she said quickly. ‘You were her daughter, after all, and when this is all over you will be able to have the house restored. It’s wonderful news, Dotty. You’re a wealthy young woman now and you won’t need to work if you don’t want to.’

  ‘B-but I do want to,’ Dotty answered in a daze. It was all just too much to take in.

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Robert butted in, ‘because there’s an idea I’ve been meaning to put to you, but I didn’t like to broach it until the funeral was over.’

  When Dotty looked at him quizzically he went on, ‘Well, the thing is, Laura was saying that we could do with a new typist in the office and she also said that if you didn’t mind moving to London, you could stay with her and her family for the time being. That would still give you time to write too. You could stay with me, but we wouldn’t want to set tongues wagging, would we? What do you think?’ He really wanted to tell her that he would be only too happy to support her but was afraid of rushing things, and possibly offending her.

  ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ Dotty murmured, her mind in a spin. Everything was happening so fast, but then what was there to keep her here now, apart from her friends, and they would always stay in touch. If she did go to London she would be close to Robert and the thought was tempting, to say the least.

  ‘Well, I can’t do much typing like this,’ she pointed out, tapping her plaster cast, and Robert chuckled.

  ‘There’s no one cracking a whip. Of course you’d need time to recuperate. In fact, you could take as long as you want. You’re hardly desperate for the money now, are you?’ he teased.

  ‘I suppose not.’ She read the letter again just to make sure that she’d understood it correctly, but the facts were still there in black and white.

  It was Miranda who joined in the conversation then when she told Dotty, ‘For what it’s worth I think it’s an excellent idea, although we’ll miss you, of course. But you must think of yourself, Dotty, and at least I wouldn’t worry, knowing that Robert was there to take care of you.’

  ‘Oh, I’d do that all right,’ he promised.

  ‘Can I just have a little time to think about it?’ Dotty asked, feeling as if she was on a roller coaster.

  ‘You can have all the time in the world,’ he told her with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Just so long as you say yes at the end of it because I’m not going anywhere without you.’

  Miranda felt a lump rise in her throat as she saw the look that passed between the two young people. At last they were making some sort of progress. It sounded as if Lucy was going to be all right too. Now she just had to get her own daughter back on track.

  The next three weeks passed in a blur as the people of Coventry tried to restore some sort of normality to their city. But three young women were still coming to terms with the secrets from their past that had changed all their lives forever.

  ‘So ’ow did yer get on then, luvvie?’ Mrs P asked when Lucy returned from her job interview at what had formerly been known as Morris Engines in Coundon.

  ‘I got the job,’ Lucy informed her, ‘and I start next Monday morning. The only disadvantage to it is I’ll be working shifts. One week I’ll work ten p.m. till six a.m. and the next week I’ll work seven thirty a.m. till five thirty p.m. That means that Harry will be alone all night every other week, unless you wouldn’t mind having him round here?’

  ‘’Course he can come round here, bless his ’eart,’ Mrs P assured her. ‘Poor little bugger’ud be scared stiff if he were on his own an’ them bloody sirens went off. No, don’t you fret, he’ll be safe as houses round here or in the shelter wi’ me an’ Fred. But what are the wages like?’

  ‘I’ll get two pounds and four shillings a week, so I
should be able to manage.’

  Lucy sank wearily into the fireside chair, squinting in the gloom. The windows were still covered in any old pieces of wood that Mr P had been able to get his hands on, and it looked like they might have to stay that way for some time to come. Glass wasn’t easy to get hold of, but then it seemed nothing was any more, and people were beginning to get used to having to manage on rations. Mrs P had now unpicked nearly every woolly she could find and then used the wool to knit balaclavas and socks for the troops. It made her feel that she was doing her bit for the war effort. ‘We all have to make do and mend’ was her motto and now whenever she said it, Lucy and Mr P would wink at each other.

  Now Mrs P put the kettle on and carefully measured two teaspoons of tea leaves into the warmed teapot. She’d found that if she used a little less tea but left it to mash for just a while longer, the weekly ration lasted just a bit better.

  ‘An’ how is young Dotty doin’ now?’ she asked a few minutes later as she carried the teapot to the table.

  ‘Well, the bruises and the cuts are healing nicely, but she’ll have to have her arm in plaster for at least another three weeks, and of course she’s still very upset about Miss Timms.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ Mrs P said as she stirred the tea before carefully straining it into the two mugs. Unknown to Lucy and Fred she would save the tea leaves to reuse for herself whilst she was alone, to ensure that she always had a decent cuppa for them. But then she’d never been fond of strong tea, so she didn’t really see it as a sacrifice. ‘Who would ever have thought her mam were there right under her nose all that time, eh? An’ then fer the poor girl to go and lose her like that. Still, on a brighter note it seems as if her an’ Robert may make a go of it now, so happen she’ll pick up eventually.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Lucy answered sadly.

  ‘Off out again are you, darling?’ Miranda asked as Annabelle picked up her coat and headed for the door. Along with Robert and Dotty, they had been having breakfast together.

  Annabelle merely nodded.

  ‘Then wrap up warmly,’ her mother advised. ‘It’s so cold. I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t have some snow before too long.’ She would have liked to ask Annabelle where she was going but didn’t fancy having her head snapped off. The girl was unbelievably touchy at present, but then Miranda blamed herself for that. Perhaps her mother had been right all along and she should have told Annabelle about her true parentage a long time ago. But she had only been trying to protect her, and right from the first time she had held her, Miranda had never thought of the girl as anything other than her own.

  ‘I wonder where she’s off to?’ she said as the door closed behind her daughter with a sharp click. ‘She’s been going out at the crack of dawn every day for ages and not coming back till late afternoon. Has she told you where she’s going, Dotty?’

  ‘No, she hasn’t.’ Dotty dabbed at her lips as she placed her toast down on her plate. She had never realised how difficult it must be for people like Robert who only had one good arm, and couldn’t wait to have her plaster cast off now. ‘Perhaps she’s job hunting?’ she suggested.

  ‘Hmm, you could be right but if that’s the case, why is she making such a big secret of it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dotty admitted. Then, glancing at Robert, she gathered her courage and said to Miranda, ‘Actually, we were thinking of leaving for London at the end of the week, if that’s all right with you? Will you and Annabelle be all right on your own?’ She was more than grateful that Robert had chosen to stay with her but knew that he was keen to return to London now.

  ‘Of course we will, but are you sure you’re up to the journey? And what about your plaster?’ Miranda asked.

  ‘Oh, I’ll be fine,’ Dotty said. ‘And Robert will take me to a hospital in London to have the cast off when it’s time. We just feel we’ve imposed on you enough now, and once I’ve seen Miss T— Mother’s solicitors again tomorrow to make sure that everything’s in order, we can get out from under your feet.’

  ‘You haven’t been under my feet,’ Miranda told her, and she meant it. ‘I just wish you could have stayed again under happier circumstances.’ Dotty had been very brave since the day of the funeral, helped by Robert’s presence, but Miranda sometimes glimpsed the grief and regret in the girl’s eyes when she thought that no one was looking.

  ‘Well, I appreciate what you’ve done, but it’s time to get on with the rest of my life now,’ Dotty said softly and Robert smiled at her. They had been back to the cemetery the day before, where yet another mass burial had taken place, and Dotty had laid flowers, although she had no idea at all where in the grave her mother might be. She just hoped that she was in a better place and at peace now, but she felt aggrieved that they had never had time to spend together as mother and daughter. Her mother had given her own life to save hers, and Dotty would never forget it.

  When Annabelle came home late that afternoon she sat down at the table, folded her hands in her lap and told her mother calmly, ‘I’ve joined up to be a VAD.’

  ‘What?’ Miranda almost dropped the saucepan of potatoes she was straining into the sink.

  ‘It’s the Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment—’

  ‘I know what it is,’ Miranda snapped. ‘But what do you mean, you’ve joined?’

  ‘Exactly what I said.’ Annabelle stared coolly back at her. ‘That’s where I’ve been going – to do the training – and now that’s done and out of the way, I filled all the forms in today. I’m going to be mobile as well but I don’t know where I’ll be posted as yet.’

  Wiping her hands down the front of her apron, Miranda sank heavily onto the nearest chair as she tried to take in what Annabelle was telling her.

  ‘But why?’ she asked numbly. ‘And why couldn’t you have stayed around here? Do you know how hard VADs have to work? You’ll be doing all the menial jobs like emptying bedpans and doing bed-baths. It’s nothing at all like being a qualified nurse.’

  ‘I’m quite aware of that,’ Annabelle responded, her voice curt. ‘But I have enjoyed helping the WVS out and this is like the next step. All the hospitals are crammed with wounded and they’re crying out for help. I thought you’d be proud of me.’

  ‘I am proud of you, darling,’ Miranda insisted. ‘But I ask again – why do you have to go away?’

  ‘Because I think a little time apart will do us good,’ Annabelle answered. ‘I need an opportunity to try and come to terms with things.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Miranda looked so bereft that Annabelle felt a twinge of guilt, but it was too late to do anything about it now. Everything was signed and sealed and she had been informed that she would be notified of where she was to be posted within the next few days. Miranda would just have to get used to the idea.

  ‘So don’t you have any inkling where you might be going?’ What if Annabelle was sent to France? Miranda was only too aware that a lot of VADs were being posted abroad.

  ‘Not for definite, but they did say there was a good chance I would be sent to Haslar.’

  Miranda was only slightly mollified. ‘But that’s at Gosport on the coast.’ Visions of the beach covered in barbed wire in case of an invasion by sea flashed in front of her eyes and she felt weak. If the invasion came, Annabelle would be first in the line of fire. But then one look at the determined glint in her daughter’s eye made her realise that nothing she could say or do would make her change her mind now. Annabelle was twenty-one years old and no longer needed parental consent to do anything.

  ‘In that case we must start to get together the things you might need,’ she said, forcing a brave smile.

  ‘We’re to be issued with uniforms so there won’t be much I need to take,’ Annabelle answered. Just then the front door opened and seconds later Robert and Dotty came into the kitchen, their cheeks glowing from the cold outside.

  Looking from one to the other of them, Dotty wondered if they had had a row. There was obviously something amiss i
f Miranda’s white face and glistening eyes were anything to go by. She turned to leave the room, not wishing to intrude, but Miranda stopped her when she said, ‘Annabelle has just informed me that she’s going to be a VAD.’

  Dotty’s reaction was much as hers had been. Her mouth gaped as she blinked before saying, ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know why everyone is making such a big thing of it,’ Annabelle growled. ‘I’m not completely useless, you know?’

  ‘I never thought that you were useless,’ Dotty objected. ‘And I think it’s a wonderful thing to do. But I believe it’s very hard work.’ Somehow she couldn’t picture Annabelle doing some of the menial jobs she had heard VADs did.

  ‘Hard work never hurt anybody,’ Annabelle retaliated. ‘And we should all be doing our bit, or so Churchill keeps on telling us. In fact, when the war is over I might go on and do the training to become a proper State Registered Nurse.’

  Robert and Dotty exchanged a glance then offered their congratulations. Dotty was actually quite impressed with her friend, even though she found it hard to imagine her in such an unglamorous job. Her mind was already whirling after the appointment with Miss Timms’s solicitor. Mr Jenkins had been so lovely that he had brought tears to her eyes as he offered her his condolences, and he hadn’t been able to do enough for her.

  ‘I spoke to Miss . . . your mother shortly after her own mother’s death,’ he had told her. ‘Mrs Timms had left everything to her and she in turn wanted to ensure that should anything happen to her, it would all then come to you. She was adamant on that point, and now that I am in possession of a copy of her death certificate I can release some funds to tide you over until all the legalities are completed.’ He had then told her sadly, ‘Your mother was a remarkable woman. I’ve known her for many years and she was truly selfless. She was very like her father in nature. He was a lovely man too, whereas your grandmother was . . . dare I say, slightly formidable? But should you need anything, anything at all, please don’t hesitate to contact me. It has been a real pleasure to meet you.’