Dear Mr Bigelow

by Frances Woodsford

  Now if I write any more, the letter will be too heavy for its single stamp, so I won't burden you further until next Saturday.

  Very sincerely,

  Frances W.

  PS Indeed, Sir, and what do you mean – 'Don't miss a mail!' I would have you know, Sir, that I have a secret store of letters in case I fall down and break both arms and can't write for a couple of Saturdays. Fie on you for your lack of faith Mr B.

  PPS Was it not fortunate that the dog had many years and no teeth!!

  BOURNEMOUTH

  November 14th 1953

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  What I want to know is, who decided I was to be the Belle of the Ball? Not by public acclaim, I am sure; nor was it by private demand that I was awarded the role. No. I am beginning to believe I Have Enemies At Work. And when you have read to the end of this sad story, I think you will agree with me; and, perhaps, you may be able to put your finger on the culprit.

  The Ball was officially known as 'Exercise Flash', and was a thing got up by the local Civil Defence crowd in order to make use of a Mobile Column of air-raid defence workers. This Mobile Column is the Home Office's favourite baby at present, and wanders around the countryside demonstrating how efficiently air-raid casualties and troubles can be coped with. The idea is that a certain town (Bournemouth, this week) has been badly bombed and the existing Civil Defence groups in that town cannot adequately cope, so they call on the nearest Mobile Column for help. So everybody works in with everybody else; police, fire-brigade, medical people, air-raid wardens, and the folk who look after what are technically known as 'Enquiring Public' and who feed the homeless and so on. Helped by the Column.

  Of course, to make the thing realistic they use smoke bombs and thunderflashes and Very lights and so on. And, to add the final touch, they have 'casualties' for everybody to practise on. I was asked to be a casualty.

  That last, simple little sentence, innocuous if ever there was one, was the cause of all the trouble. True, when the person on the telephone asked me he did remark – sort of as an aside, or afterthought – that everybody taking part was insured. That should have told me. That should have stopped me. And if that didn't do as it should, then I should have stopped, backed out, and retired to my safe little home when he added, 'Wear your oldest clothes, tie your head in a bag, and come pre-pared to be dropped.'

  Dropped? When that sank in my little mind I decided, optimistically, that it meant I might be dropped by some ham-fisted Home Guard who was holding one handle of the stretcher. Was I worried? No. Well, not much, anyway.

  My first appointment was in the Make-Up Room. Here we were togged out in large navy blue dungarees – mine went over a pair of slacks, and a jacket which I was wearing over a warm woollen jumper. You see, I expected to be told to go and lie in a corner out of doors, and it is November and cold and damp, so I had prepared accordingly. Not, it turned out, accurately. We were identified, and given labels to tie on ourselves. I was representing Miss Ponsonby, Matron in charge of the Madeira Road Nursing Home (the police station represented the Nursing Home, and a more depressing and unhygienic nursing home I have never seen) and was said, on the card, to be 21. I have a feeling that the Unknown Enemy put that down as a sop, to soothe me when I Discovered All. The doctor in the First Aid Post, reading my label, remarked that I was very young to be a Matron, but of course he was not to know how brilliantly clever I am.

  Anyway, I was Miss Ponsonby and I was suffering from a right arm having been blown off at the elbow, and deep shock.

  I was given a small – too small – tweed jacket to put on top of my over-alls and jacket and jumper. The right arm of this jacket had been torn off halfway and was stuffed, with a bit of white and some red sticking out at the end. When, wearing this, I went to the Make-up Table, the officer in charge there seized my false arm and just literally poured something out of a bottle all over it. I dripped 'blood' for nearly half an hour, and can only hope it didn't stain anybody's good clothes. My face was creamed powdered white, and large black rings were put around my eyes (shades of Joan Crawford!) and black was smeared on the lobes of my ears, and replaced my cheerful red lipstick. This was a shock, and a sight of myself in a mirror practically made the make-up unnecessary. The 'best' casualty was a woman who, apart from 'badly gashed forehead, bruised and cut face' was said to have a compound fracture of the arm. To get this, a piece of bone was stuck onto her skin with invisible tape . . . When she came over to the little huddle of 'casualties' who had been made up there were, I must confess, many shudders. Somebody asking what the bone was made of, I carelessly said, 'Oh, I expect it's a bit left over from the last war,' and we nearly had a couple of real casualties on the spot.

  Eventually there was a loud 'bang' as somebody let off a thunder-flash, and that was the signal to get us in our positions. I was taken into the police station and into a warren of passages. We twice came up against a barred corridor and felt almost felonious. Eventually we reached a staircase, and went up and up and along and up again and into a large room containing about thirty chairs, some small tables, a piano (flat) and a desk on a dais under the police badge. My guide left me here with instructions to wait until I heard something happening, when I was to switch off the light, barricade the door, and put myself in a suitable position for somebody who had had her arm blown off.

  When he had gone, I went around and looked about me, and found that the door was labelled 'blocked by debris, not to be used', and nearly all the windows were marked 'stuck fast by blast, not available'. One window, slightly open, looked onto a small well; and another window, also open, looked out onto the drill-yard where there was a small grandstand for onlookers, reporters, visiting bigwigs and so on. This, I decided glumly, must be the only possible means of exit.

  So I chose a spot on the floor which might be less hard than the rest – but wasn't – and I flung myself gently down. After half an hour or eternity, I couldn't tell you which, my left hip went to sleep in great agony. So I got up and prowled about and put my head out of the window to see what was happening. Now Mr Bigelow, a joke's a joke, but what sort of sense of humour can a person have who, immediately on seeing my poor forlorn head, lets off a thunderflash and smoke bomb immediately underneath?

  I went back in with such a jerk I nearly gave myself concussion on the window frame. Back, then, to the floor. My third arm – well, half-arm – kept getting in the way, as the jacket was so small the blown-off stump was somewhere near my right back shoulder blade. From time to time the roof of the room was illuminated by blood-red flares, and in their light I could see the smoke curling in and around. Besides, I could smell it; taste it; practically spit it out, it was so thick.

  After about an hour and a half, the sound of motorcycles heralded the arrival of the Mobile Column, and the top of a ladder started appearing at different windows and then going away again. People started calling for 'Jock'. Where Jock was I have no idea, but he did eventually appear in my open window and flash a torch on my unconscious body. Rescue! At last – just as the last drop of my blood was about to seep out of my stump. He came over, followed by other smoky figures, and read my label. This was convenient, I must say; and it was so dark I'm sure he couldn't see my beautiful shock make-up. In a moment of lucidity in my state of unconsciousness I murmured 'Tell me, are you an amateur or professional?' and a broad Scots accent said, 'Dinna you worry, lassie, you'll be alright – we've been doing this since January the first.' I allowed myself to sink back into unconsciousness, only coming round to murmur to the doctor who came in, 'Apart from my arm I feel fine, thank you' in the Brave Tradition of the Blitz.

  To the accompaniment of grunts and complaints, 'You are a weight, Miss,' I was moved onto a stretcher and wrapped in blankets. By this time, in spite of all my swaddling clothes, I was shivering with cold (and fright) and my teeth were chattering so hard I had trouble keeping my mouth shut to keep in the noise, so the blankets were more than welcome. Jock then strapped me to the stretcher with
ropes – quite loose, they are – and finished up tying the ends of the ropes around and around my feet and looping them over hooks at the side of the stretcher. This, I gathered, was to stop me sliding out of the ropes and off the end of the stretcher. At last I was ready, and the stretcher was lifted up and moved across to the window and balanced on my rear end, on the sill. The Sergeant or whoever it was in charge of the rescue party then wandered around in the smoke, and came back carrying a triangular bandage. 'What's that for?' I asked. 'Oh, a bandage to put over your eyes,' he said. I assume that sometimes they get trouble with nervous females who squeal as they see what is being done with their helpless bodies. 'Oh, don't bother – I'll die brave,' I said, with bravado and hardly a tremor. So off I went, with a shove, into space.

  We will now draw a veil over the few succeeding moments, as my point of view was such that I can't tell you how they got me down. All I know is that there were four ropes, attached one to each handle of the stretcher, and the motion was gradual. When the voices from the ground came up and passed me, I knew I had arrived, but I wasn't prepared for the feeling as somebody said 'put her right down on the ground' and my head came down and down and down and my feet went up and up and up. So it felt, in reaching the horizontal; so I can only guess that I actually came down from that window more or less feet first, even though it did feel as though I was travelling on an even keel.

  Once down, and the ropes taken off, I was whisked off to the First Aid Post, and whilst I can (faintly) recommend coming out of third-storey windows on a stretcher as a reasonably comfortable way of getting down, I cannot recommend a stretcher as a means of loco-motion. If ever anybody puts you on one, Mr Bigelow, see to it that you are given seasick pills first.

  In the First Aid Post they gave very bad shock treatment indeed. I was lying there looking at the tin roofing, when suddenly this apparition came into view:

  Somebody to whom I telephoned last week said, 'Did you see the uplift Nurse?' See her? I was right in the shadow! Never have I seen such a sight, and I should recommend to the Powers in Charge that if ever we do get a real need, she be kept well out of sight. Otherwise, there will be self-inflicted casualties to deal with as well as the ordinary ones.

  Anyway, this apparition leaned over and, putting her arms around herself – which was the only way she could reach, she scribbled M (for Morphia) and T (for Tourniquet) on my already smeared forehead, called loudly for an ambulance, priority, and I was whisked swiftly into it. A St John's Ambulance girl crawled in with me and sat down. She told me she was there 'to cheer you up'. We shot out of the police station yard, turned left, left, and left again and stopped, with a screech, in the Law Courts parking yard. At least ten yards, as one could walk, from the First Air Post we had just left. Here the St J.A. girl said, 'This is where it gets silly – you have to walk now.'

  And walk I did, back to the make-up room, where everybody admired the manner in which Jock had bandaged my stump, and where most of my shock make-up was removed and I was told 'Oh, you can go home now.' Nobody told me I should have gone to the mobile kitchen canteen, where hot soup was being ladled out to everybody concerned and faces were being scanned to see if they looked any better cleaned up. So I came home, and it wasn't until then I discovered my ear lobes were still black, and so was one eye. Daresay the bus conductor thought I'd been fighting again.

  Next time, I am firmly resolved on playing a more active role, so that somebody else can shoot out of third-storey windows for a change. I discovered later that my friend Dorothy Smith, who is chief administration officer to the Mayor, was 'Miss D. Ponsonby' a member of the Enquiring Public, and she spent the evening looking for her sister, the matron of the bombed nursing home. This made me more certain than ever that my role was a deliberately cooked-up bit of business, done by somebody who knew that I am matron of the Baths in real life, that Dorothy Smith is an old friend of mine, and that I have no head for heights.

  What's your guess, Mr B?

  And that's all for now, from your rescued, and shaken correspondent,

  Frances Woodsford

  BOURNEMOUTH

  November 21st 1953

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  . . . Last Saturday afternoon I was to have 'Hesperus' and my brother said, 'Shall I get the car out for you?' and, slightly overwhelmed, I said, 'Yes, please.' When he had gone, I turned to Mother and asked if she'd like a lift to the library, and M. dashed off to get ready. Ten minutes later we emerged on the pavement – no car. We thought Hesperus was playing us up again, and wouldn't go through the garage door, so Mother and I walked across to the garage. No car there, either. We stood like lemons on the pavement for nearly half an hour, and as no sign of a car or Mac had appeared by then, we got on a passing bus. Mother very worried, because Mac doesn't usually bother to take a door key with him (somebody is usually at home to let him in, so he doesn't worry). I was delighted, hoping he would come home and not be able to get in . . . . . . I was so cross. I was even more cross when I discovered it was the very afternoon 'Father Christmas' arrives in the town, and that it took the bus over an hour to do a journey which normally takes 20 minutes, and which can be done in seven in a car. When I was flouncing out of a shop in Westbourne, who should appear but Mac, rather shame-faced! He'd only used the car to go and see somebody, and never thought (in a most hurt tone of voice) we'd go rushing off in a huff like that, just because we 'had to wait a few moments'. He then had the absolute nerve to borrow his bus fare home from me. Why brothers are allowed on earth I have yet to discover . . .

  See you Saturday next.

  Very sincerely,

  Frances Woodsford

  PS Where would we be without each other to write to! Don't stop.

  BOURNEMOUTH

  December 26th 1953

  Dear Mr Bigelow,

  If I cheat a little, and start this letter on Wednesday, I'm sure you won't mind, so long as you get one by the usual mailing . . .

  We are all set for the holiday, except Mother, who has chosen this, of all times, to have sciatica. She was so hot and bothered with it on Monday I sent her to bed and did all the evening work myself and so missed first-aid lecture. On Tuesday she was worse than ever, so I packed her off again and missed pottery. This time, after washing the dishes and getting the cat's supper and Mother's ditto and filling the hot-water bottles and turning down the beds, and so on, I asked Mother if she'd like me to ice the Christmas cake. Mother made a bit of a fuss, but eventually said yes it would be a help. So, leaving her to go back to sleep, I set to work.

  First of all, the icing sugar was damp and in concrete-like lumps. I ironed these out with every implement to hand. This took the best part of an hour. Next I mixed in the beaten-up egg whites, and beat the whole mixture until both arms were cramped. A final dash – mind, now, only a drop – of colouring matter, and the icing was ready to put on the cake. But where was the cake?

  It wasn't in the cake tins; it wasn't in the cupboard. It wasn't in the cupboard under the sink, nor in the oven. It wasn't in a tin under the table, nor on the table. I moved next door. It wasn't under the sideboard, in the sideboard, or on top of the sideboard. Nor under the writing desk, the bookcases, or the radio cabinet. It wasn't even in the airing cup-board, because I looked there, too. Not in Mac's room, nor in mine. I opened Mother's door and crept in on hands and knees, and although I can tell you, Mr Bigelow, exactly what Mother keeps under and on the various pieces of furniture in her bedroom – and tell you all by touch, too – the cake wasn't there.

  In the end, desperate for a cake in the rapidly stiffening of my beautiful icing, I iced this week's ordinary, humdrum cake, cleared up the mess, and retired to bed.

  Next morning Mother said, 'You didn't make enough icing for that cake, dear.' I replied, 'Don't worry – I'll ice the cake tonight.' Mother looked puzzled – what a silly remark to make when I had obviously iced the cake the day before. 'But please, will you first of all tell me WHERE IS THE CAKE?' It was in the meat safe. You've
heard of my mother before, haven't you Mr Bigelow? But she never palls and never varies in her variety, does she?

  On Christmas Day Mac is going to a football match in the morning, so I will run him over to the ground in the car, pick up our guest for the day and take her for a little ride in the New Forest to collect (no, wrong this time!) the Yule Log, returning in time to collect Mac and get us all home for Christmas Dinner. Mother always prefers to be left severely alone while she prepares a meal, so she gets the dinner and I clear it away and get tea for anybody still sufficiently unstuffed to partake of that meal. This usually means that I miss hearing the Christmas Broadcast, as I loathe and detest leaving dirty dishes around the room while I listen to the radio or do anything at all. Conscience does not give me peace until I have cleaned up. Such a prickly conscience. There is a newly dedicated church quite close to us, built only this year, and I would like very much to attend a service some time over Christmas there. Our real parish church is some distance, and we loathe the vicar and detest his sort of sermon, so we have been very, very poor parishioners. In any case, our church attendances are erratic and liberal . . . Aren't you shocked? . . .

  I leave you with the wish that your New Year will be a very, particularly, happy one for you and all your family down to the last, least, and smallest grandchild.