Some Sunny Day

by Madge Lambert

  ‘Oh, love. I don’t honestly know,’ she replied. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see.’ She sighed deeply before turning back to peeling the potatoes, and Madge could see the concern etched on her face.

  By the following morning rumours about what the Germans were and weren’t going to do were rife throughout Dover. Just a few days later, the authorities began letting families know that instructions would soon be issued for the mandatory evacuation of school-age children from the area, probably to Wales. Raids by German bombers were expected sooner rather than later.

  In fact, just two months before the outbreak of hostilities with Germany, the Civil Defence Service had issued a leaflet, ‘Evacuation – Why and How’, that explained the steps that would be taken in the event of war. Because Doris was thirteen and Doreen was eight and Dover was such an important port, making it a prime target for German bombers, Lily accepted the inevitability of another family upheaval. However, after losing her husband Charles, Lily certainly wasn’t going to let the authorities take her precious daughters away. As the early months of the war got underway, Wales and the West Country were being named as safe havens, but Lily had already decided on another venue for when the time came. She waited until Doris and Doreen had gone to bed one night and talked the situation over at length with Madge.

  ‘I think we should go to High Wycombe,’ she told her eldest daughter. Madge knew that was where her mum had grown up. ‘It was a safe place during the Great War and that’s where I would like to take your sisters when the evacuation orders come through,’ she said. ‘And I would very much like you to come with us.’

  The discussion went on long into the night because Madge, after completing the course at the commercial college, had just recently started a job with excellent prospects at Wiggins Teape, the paper manufacturers. John Husk, a friend of her father, had contacts at the company and had been very helpful in pointing her in the right direction. Of more importance was Madge’s ability to take shorthand at 180 words a minute and she was already a valued member of the company.

  ‘This job has real prospects, Mum,’ Madge sighed. ‘The truth is, I really want to stay in Dover and see if I can make a success of it. I’ll miss you all but I don’t want to be a financial burden on you any longer,’ she added. ‘It’s about time I made my own way.’

  Mum reluctantly agreed to let Madge remain on condition that she lived with Beatrice and Mark Spice, her aunt and uncle. As a midwife, Mrs Spice was well known in Dover and always got a cheery wave from the many young mothers she had cared for.

  Auntie Bea was a veritable font of local knowledge and told Lily that she had heard that plans were in place to flatten every single building on Dover’s waterfront so the army would have a direct line of fire if the invasion fleet of German Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz’s Kriegsmarine ever hove into view. That was the final straw for Mum. She took Doris and Doreen soon after to live in her brother William’s house at 97 Dashwood Avenue in High Wycombe.

  Lily’s decision to take her youngest daughters away from danger proved to be a wise move. Within months the vibrant south coast port became the target of Luftwaffe bombing raids and soon become known as ‘Hellfire Corner’. When the night raids happened and the sirens howled, Madge often found herself wishing she had followed her family to High Wycombe. She would run to the air-raid shelter, looking up but unable to see the bombers in the pitch-black sky, and huddle up to her aunt and uncle who, like her, flinched every time they heard an explosion. As well as bringing life into the world as a midwife, Aunt Bea also became the neighbourhood ‘layer out’ of the bodies of people killed in the bombing and shelling.

  Wailing sirens and strictly enforced blackouts became the norm and so intense were the bombing raids that there were spells of a fortnight or more before Madge finally got a night in her own bed instead of the Anderson air-raid shelter at the bottom of Auntie Bea’s garden. It wasn’t very comfortable but Madge soon found herself accepting it as part and parcel of everyday life. It almost became an adventure after a while!

  During the day she was so busy with work and helping Auntie Bea around the house that she barely had time to miss her family. But after so many months apart, every time she thought of Mum, Doris and Doreen there was a tug at her heart strings. Auntie Bea was an expert at sensing even the slightest of emotional changes and over dinner on one of the few nights they weren’t in the air-raid shelter she very gently and diplomatically mentioned that she had been thinking of Lily and the girls and wondered how they had settled in.

  ‘I bet your mum is missing you,’ she said. ‘Do you think it might be time for a little visit to High Wycombe?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Madge, the thought bringing a big smile to her face. ‘I’d love to see them all again and have a bit of fun with my sisters.’ She sighed and the smile faded. ‘But getting there will be the problem. You never really know when the trains are going to be running these days.’

  As luck would have it, a neighbour, John Husk, son of John Husk Senior, heard that Madge was planning a visit and kindly offered to give her a lift up to Buckinghamshire where his wife and children were also sheltering from the bombs of Dover. Madge was given time off from Wiggins Teape and after just a few days’ anxious wait, she set off with Mr Husk in his car.

  ‘It’s really good of you to give me a lift,’ said Madge. ‘Your father did me a favour over the job at Wiggins Teape and now you’re being so kind as well. I’m incredibly grateful.’

  ‘Well, we were all very fond of your dad,’ said John, as he looked at his watch and apologised for the length of time the journey was taking. ‘I had no idea it would be this slow.’

  Road closures, checkpoints and air-raid warnings meant he had been driving for more than six hours.

  ‘I wonder when they will put the road signs back up,’ said Madge as they came to a T-junction with no signs showing.

  It was almost seven hours by the time she was dropped off in High Wycombe.

  ‘You’re here!’ Doris and Doreen yelled in delight as Madge walked through the door, and they ran to hug her.

  ‘Hey, my turn!’ Mum laughed as she stepped up to embrace her daughter in a tight hug. ‘It’s so wonderful to see you, love. It feels like forever since we were last all together. And John,’ she said, ‘you must stay for a quick cuppa as a thanks for being so kind.’

  The few days back as a family passed all too quickly and Doris and Doreen quizzed Madge relentlessly about the German bombers, and anything else they could think of.

  ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ asked Doris, who was told by a laughing Madge that it was none of her business.

  She played endless games of Snap with the girls and they even got Mum to have a go with a skipping rope in the back garden. It was almost like those happy days when Dad was still alive. Almost, but not quite.

  Once the girls had gone to bed on Madge’s last night with the family, Mum grilled her on just how bad the damage was in Dover.

  ‘Come on, love, tell me truthfully. I’ve heard some terrible things are going on down there. And it nearly broke my heart hearing about all those hundreds of kiddies being evacuated to Wales and taken away from their parents. Auntie Bea said that the mothers were weeping even more than the kids. I’m so glad I brought Doris and Doreen up here when I did,’ she added.

  ‘Oh, it’s really not that terrible,’ Madge said, trying to stay as cheerful as possible before changing the subject, not wishing to worry Lily. ‘I’ve had such a lovely time seeing you all but I suppose I’d better pack for the journey back tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Madge,’ Mum replied, fixing her gaze on Madge’s shocked face. ‘Everyone down the greengrocer’s was just saying that the Germans are going to land up on the south coast and there’s no way in hell you’ll be there on your own when the Nazis arrive.’

  ‘Mum, come on, they’re just rumours, and in any case, I’ve got Uncle Mark and Auntie Bea!’

  But Lily had put her foot down and no amou
nt of pleading from her eldest daughter would change her mind. There was simply no way that Madge was going to be allowed to return to Dover and that was that!

  Because the port of Dover had been designated as a ‘Restricted Zone’ it was many weeks before Madge was granted official permission to make the journey back to pick up her clothes. By the time she eventually got there, the population of the town had halved as worries over a German invasion increased, causing people to pack onto trains carrying more than 800 people at a time away from the coast. Dover Priory station was eerily quiet and the journey had taken almost twice as long as normal.

  Madge was shocked to see that many of the shops on her way back to the family house were boarded up, if not blasted to bits. She looked around in horror and clutched her suitcase with white knuckles as she came to the streets on which she’d grown up. In a nearby road there was a space where Mrs Hanley’s house should have been.

  Madge stumbled on rubble as she walked towards her childhood home and, finally, stood in shock. The brick walls were still standing, albeit almost completely blackened, but the front door was open and some windows had been blown in. Madge felt a lump in her throat as she thought of all the happy times they’d had there as a family, before Dad had died. She peered into where the window had been and there, on the dust-coated piano, were her mother’s brown leather gloves, a treasured gift from husband Charles.

  Madge stood outside the blast-damaged house as she remembered how Dad told the sisters that he had bought a special present for Mum’s birthday. After being sworn to secrecy the girls were allowed to see the gift that turned out to be the gloves, which he had bought at a shop near Dover Priory station.

  ‘Your Mum has lovely soft hands,’ he told the girls, ‘and these gloves will keep them warm in the winter.’

  One by one the girls had been allowed to try on the gloves and they’d all laughed when Doreen’s tiny hands and wrists completely disappeared from view when Dad helped her to put them on.

  ‘They are so soft and smell really nice,’ Doris had said in awe.

  Mum will be absolutely delighted when I hand these over to her in High Wycombe, Madge said to herself. Especially as they were the last gift from Dad before he died. She tiptoed gingerly through the wreckage, picked up the gloves and took one last look around the home that would never be quite the same again.

  4

  Becoming a Nurse

  The first thing Madge did once her move to High Wycombe became permanent was to start looking for a job. In truth, her real ambition was still to become a hairdresser, but she knew there was no way to find the money for the apprenticeship. Instead, with the help of an impressive reference from Wiggins Teape, she quickly landed a job in the secretarial department with Ernest Turner, an electrics company.

  There was an active social side to her job and Madge soon became friends with Stella Peaty, who was a few years older and spoke keenly of how wonderful it would be to help the brave, injured soldiers by becoming a nurse. Stella’s passion made Madge wonder whether she might also be able to do her bit once she turned eighteen, so the pair started attending Red Cross meetings at Naphill, the headquarters of Bomber Command, where they went on a series of first aid courses and learned how to deal with medical emergencies.

  They were encouraged to volunteer as nurses, but the plans were hit by a strange twist of events. During the weeks it took for the volunteer paperwork to be completed, Stella fell in love with and married Eric Moorby, an RAF officer. Just days after the marriage ceremony Stella told Madge, very calmly, that she would no longer be going to the meetings for she wouldn’t be volunteering now that she was married. Madge was disappointed to be embarking on her adventure alone but she enrolled anyway and within days she received instructions to report to Stoke Mandeville Hospital to begin training as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse.

  ‘Good on you, my girl,’ said her mum. ‘Although I’ll be incredibly sad to see you moving away to live in the nurses’ home but you won’t be far.’ Lily looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I’ll tell you what, I was never too keen on that Stella. I think you’ll make some much nicer friends at Stoke Mandeville. And by the way, there’s something I want to say.’

  ‘You’ve worried me a bit now,’ said Madge. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Only that your dad would have been ever so proud of the way you’re doing your bit for the country,’ replied a beaming Lily before giving her a hug.

  On the morning Madge first reported for training at Stoke Mandeville towards the end of 1941, she woke with a sense of nervous excitement. She couldn’t wait to get started but she also seemed unable to control the feeling of butterflies in her stomach. She managed to eat only half a slice of toast, before slipping on her coat and shoes and making her way to her new job.

  The hospital was divided into two sections. One was for civilian patients from Middlesex Hospital in London and the other was for the ‘Services’ and was staffed in the main by Emergency Medical Service nurses, a unit set up at the outbreak of war in preparation for the anticipated mass casualties.

  When Madge arrived at the hospital reception, a kind-looking lady with glasses and a beaming smile greeted her warmly.

  ‘Hello, dear. We’re so pleased to have you. You young ladies are doing wonders for this country. I only wish there were more of you!’ She grinned at Madge, who felt a surge of pride rising in her chest. ‘Follow me, dear. You’ll be working with civilians to begin with, and Rose will show you the ropes. She’s been a nurse for donkey’s years so there’s nothing she can’t teach you and she’ll be pleased to have you. She has two daughters right around your age.’

  Madge quickly settled in, but after following Rose around like a little duckling for a couple of days, her first unsupervised job was to clean the mouth of an old lady, teeth and all.

  For Madge, this turned out to be her worst nightmare! The task made her feel so sick she instantly retched into a strategically placed bucket and had to be very careful not to let the old lady’s dentures disappear into the bucket as well when she cleaned everything up. Madge was surprised how quickly she got over that little hurdle and realised with a rush of relief that she could do the job after all.

  Not all aspects of life at the hospital went as smoothly as the work, though. Her very first shift just happened to fall on the day after the weekly issue of hospital rations. Nurses were given a little string bag which contained portions of sugar, jam, margarine and bread to be eaten as snacks. But when Madge went to collect her allocation there was only dry bread left, and no sugar, which was important to her!

  Feeling somewhat dumbfounded, and incredibly hungry, she asked the storekeeper, ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could have a little pot of jam as an advance on next week’s rations, could I?’

  ‘Sorry, miss, there’s nothing I can do because rules is rules,’ he said with a pompous sniff, and proceeded to dunk a biscuit in the cup of tea he was slurping behind the counter.

  Madge was far too shy to ask other nurses if she could borrow some jam and margarine, so she ended up eating dry bread until the following week’s rations were handed out. At least I know the system now, she thought. I won’t let that happen again!

  After just a few weeks treating civilians, Madge was secretly relieved when the head nurse took her aside and said she would be transferred to the services section of the hospital. It was really just a hop across the corridor so Madge didn’t think it could be that different and was surprised when she realised that the EMS nurses, which made up the majority, were mostly much older than her. She was in the middle of her first rounds when a tall, broad sister with a heavily starched white cap pulled well down over her forehead and rosy-red cheeks marched into the ward like a ship in full sail. Madge stopped still with her mouth open.

  ‘Right then, you must be Graves,’ the sister said with an Irish accent. ‘I see you’ve got yourself stuck in already so you’ll do fine here, eh? You can call me Sister Crowley.’

 
Madge soon noticed that she was not the only one in awe of Sister Crowley’s presence. Whenever she walked into a room not only the nurses but also the patients, whether soldiers, sailors or airmen, would fall quiet.

  Sister Crowley’s height and demeanour might have been intimidating but she had a twinkle in her eye and Madge learned that as long as you did what was asked, Sister Crowley wouldn’t give you any grief. Her ward had to be the best in the hospital, in the country even, and that meant the nurses had a lot to live up to. Sister Crowley made endless, exhaustive checks on the ward inventory and if so much as a flannel was missing a major inquiry would begin and every nurse would be quizzed until the item was accounted for.

  She was a stickler for process and insisted that all patients should be tightly tucked in. The open ends of pillowcases had to be pointing away from the ward door and if the sheets’ hospital-style corners weren’t absolutely perfect, the beds had to be made again. Everything had to be spick and span for Matron’s round. Or else!

  Madge smiled when Victoria, another trainee, told her that there was no Christmas Day respite for nurses on Sister Crowley’s ward. Instead they were instructed to make sure it was ‘the best decorated and happiest in the whole hospital’. Not even the young doctors dared to argue with her once they had been told it was their turn to carve the turkey. She made it clear to everyone that the patients came first under all circumstances.

  The demands of ‘HMS Crowley’, as the girls nicknamed her, were the furthest thing from Madge’s mind some weeks later as dawn began to rise after an exhausting night on the men’s surgical ward, one of ten wards in the services section of the hospital. It was one of her favourites because even though many of the soldiers were recovering from serious injuries they were endlessly cheerful.