Her Father's Daughter

by Beezy Marsh

  Annie stood at the gates of Acton Works with her handbag on her arm and her heart in her mouth as she watched a steady stream of women walking in and out, nattering to each other as they went.

  She didn’t dare turn up at C.A.V., the factory where Harry worked, because word would get around to him straight away. At least this way, she stood a chance of signing up for a war job and then it would be too late for him to do anything about it.

  As she made her way up to the entrance, a fella on a bicycle wobbled past and gave her a low wolf whistle. She buttoned her coat and strengthened her resolve. Another bloke in a pair of overalls, carrying a ladder, stopped and asked her if she needed to find the way to the canteen.

  ‘No,’ she said politely, ‘I’m here to see the manager. I want to volunteer.’

  ‘Righto,’ he said, gesturing through a set of double doors.

  It was a vast space, stretching as far as the eye could see. There were railway carriages being built down at one end and the noise of machines on the shop floor was a bit overwhelming. Women clad in the same dungarees that Elsie wore were working away on the heavy machinery, turning lathes, finishing off complicated bits of metalwork.

  Annie found her way to the manager’s office in the corner, taking in the nameplate on the door – Mr D. Pritchard – and tapped lightly.

  A grey-haired gentleman with eyebrows like two black caterpillars looked up at her as she entered. He had a kind of warmth to his face and he broke into a smile. ‘Well, what can we do for you today?’

  Annie cleared her throat because for some reason there appeared to be a frog sitting in it at that very moment. ‘I’ve come to volunteer for some war work. I’ve got experience of working as a machine hand, but that was down at C.A.V. a while back, with the diesel engines. People say I have got a good eye for detail. I can sew as well, if you need some help with upholstery in the carriages you’re making.’ She knew she was gabbling but she couldn’t help herself. Her nerves had got the better of her.

  ‘Well, that all sounds wonderful! I’m sure we can make good use of you,’ he said.

  He sucked in a breath and sat back in his chair for a moment, flashing her a perfect set of white teeth. Annie couldn’t help thinking he was a bit like one of those ventriloquist’s dummies she’d seen down at the varieties at the Chiswick Empire. There was something relentlessly cheery about him, although that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, with all the doom and gloom of the war.

  He extended a hand to her. ‘I’m Mr Pritchard, but you can call me Dennis. And you are?’

  ‘Annie,’ she said. ‘I should tell you, I can only really do three shifts a week at the moment because I have little ones at home, but my mum will be minding them for me.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘You can see how you get on. What about your husband; away with the forces, is he?’

  ‘No,’ said Annie. ‘He’s working down at C.A.V. and does nights with the ARP too.’

  He flicked some imaginary dust from his trouser leg before glancing up at her. ‘And does he mind that you’re coming out to work?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Annie said, clasping her handbag a little more tightly. ‘He feels it’s my patriotic duty.’

  ‘Does he? Good fella. Well, you can start on Monday morning then.’

  ‘You’ve gone and done what?’

  Harry’s eyes were molten with anger.

  ‘Harry, please, keep your voice down. You’ll wake the children and the neighbours will hear us rowing. You know I don’t like a fuss.’

  ‘Well, you should have thought twice before going to volunteer like that! Who’s going to be running the house and looking after the bairns?’

  ‘I will, and Mum will help me with the children,’ said Annie, smoothing her hands down over her apron. She rarely argued with Harry and his words cut her like a knife, but she had signed up for war work now and there was no going back, they both knew that. ‘It’s only three shifts a week but it will bring more money in and at least I can hold my head up and say I’m doing my bit. Plenty of women are helping. Even Vera is in the ARP.’

  ‘Well, not for much longer the way things are looking,’ said Harry matter-of-factly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Annie.

  Harry sighed and ran his hands through his hair. ‘There’s a lot of talk about food going missing from the canteen and people think Vera’s behind it.’

  Annie swallowed hard. She remembered what Bessie had told her about Vera hanging around with Herbie, the local spiv. She couldn’t help but wonder if it had been more than gossip, after all.

  ‘Has anyone got any evidence?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Harry. ‘But if they do, she’ll be out on her ear and if she’s profiting from it by selling things on, that could be very serious indeed.’

  ‘But she’s a good worker, isn’t she?’ said Annie, desperate to stick up for her friend.

  ‘Fearless,’ said Harry, standing up and pulling on the black woollen jacket of his air-raid warden uniform. ‘There’ll be incendiary bombs raining down on us and Vera won’t shirk from her duties. I’ve seen her stick two fingers up to the sky as they’re coming down. She’s cut from a different cloth, that girl.’

  Annie smiled to herself. ‘That sounds like Vera, all right. Do you want me to try to have a word?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ said Harry. He pulled her to him. ‘Look, Annie, I didn’t mean to lose my temper, but I just wish you’d discussed getting a job with me first, that’s all. I wouldn’t have stood in your way, you know.’

  She gazed up at him as his eyes searched her face.

  ‘Are you happy, Annie?’

  ‘I don’t think any of us are happy at the moment, with the war and everything,’ said Annie, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I feel happier knowing I can do my bit, but you and the children are my priority, you mustn’t doubt that.’

  He leaned forward and kissed her, their first proper kiss in what seemed like forever. She buttoned up his jacket for him and he put his tin hat on his head, ready to go out for the night watch. He did look handsome.

  ‘I know I’m not always easy to live with, Annie, but I do love you and the bairns, don’t ever forget that,’ he said.

  He smiled at her and gave a little wave, just as he always did when he was going out with the ARP, and as she watched his back departing, Annie realized that she was crying.

  A hush fell over the Acton Works canteen as the BBC announcer’s voice carried over the airwaves: ‘This is Godfrey Talbot reporting in the desert. It’s been a cold night, a night when a man takes every opportunity to lie as snug as he can in his foxhole in the sand.

  ‘I watched as hundreds of guns opened up, launching thousands of shells, a demon racket, which shook the ground. All the sky was alive with flashes and with that and the moon, there wasn’t much darkness.

  ‘Infantry and sappers were at work, fighting bravely; they are engaging now, we await more news . . .’

  Knives and forks clattered onto plates and spam fritters were left untouched as everyone crowded around the wireless.

  ‘The tanks are moving now and each tank as it goes past churns up a great cloud of dust and sand . . .’

  ‘My brother’s over there,’ whispered Annie to Mavis, who worked shifts on the lathe with her. Acton was so far from El Alamein, but she wanted to reach through the wireless and dig through the sand with her bare hands until she could touch George, just to know that he was safe.

  She felt someone touch her lightly on her shoulder and spun around to find herself gazing up at Dennis, the foreman.

  When he smiled, it was as if he was spreading happiness as wide as the grin on his face. Everyone liked him. It wasn’t just that he was a fair boss, he was a decent bloke with it and his door was always open to anyone who needed to chat.

  Annie loved being there, the whole camaraderie of the shop floor, listening to Music While You Work and singing along to her favourites, ‘The Lambeth Walk’ and ‘We’ll Meet Again’ an
d ‘Run Rabbit Run’. When they were all pulling together, it made her feel invincible. Every shell case that was turned, every rivet that was hammered in, everything helped to fight the Nazis and she was part of it.

  ‘Now, now, don’t get worried. I read the paper this morning and they were saying that Monty’s got Rommel on the run! His tanks are shot to pieces. It’s the best news we’ve had in ages,’ said Dennis.

  The assembled crowd gave a little cheer at that.

  ‘So, let’s eat up and get back to it, shall we?’

  He gave Annie a wink and it seemed in that moment that the war would go their way and a light in her world shone a little brighter.

  13

  Annie

  Acton, May 1943

  ‘Well, she ain’t welcome in the air-raid shelter no more, I’ll tell you that for nothing!’

  Bessie sat like a mother hen at her kitchen table, with little Anita at her feet on the bare floorboards, babbling away to herself, and baby John snoozing in her arms, as she shared the news of Vera’s disgrace. Anita picked up a big brass button from the box Bessie had given her to play with and held it between her chubby little fingers. ‘Button!’

  Bessie always made such a fuss of the kids when Annie brought them round to Soapsud Island for a visit.

  ‘Ooh, that’s a lovely one, chicken, yes!’ said Bessie, taking the button from her. ‘Can you find me another?’ She lowered her voice and turned to Annie. ‘I told you that Vera had been on the rob and it was going to catch up with her. Well, now it has. That good-for-nothing Herbie’s due up in front of the beak and she’s lucky she’s not going with him.

  ‘And she got chucked out of her rooms in Stirling Road an’ all. Lady downstairs said there were so many men in uniform going up and down the staircase it was like an escalator at Piccadilly Circus. And some of them were Americans too!’ Vera had got herself rooms near her mother’s so that she could have some space but still be on hand to help and now even that had gone terribly wrong. Annie’s heart sank.

  American soldiers had been causing quite a stir around town and a whole bunch of them were stationed up the road at Park Royal. Elsie had been out dancing with a few at the Hammersmith Palais on Saturday afternoons and had come back with some fancy new dance steps and a pair of nylons. Mum seemed pleased because it meant Elsie would stop pinching her gravy browning, which she’d been slapping on her legs because she’d run out of clothing coupons for new stockings.

  The Yanks were always flush with luxuries and very generous too, so it was no surprise that Vera had been entertaining half the US army, but it didn’t seem fair to judge her too harshly because of it. The filching of food from the ARP canteen was another matter, of course. That was unforgivable when so many people were struggling to get by on rations.

  Annie had tried to warn Vera that the ARP supervisors were watching her and told her that if she was stealing anything, she should stop, but Vera had just shrugged her shoulders, taken a drag of her ciggie and said, ‘Don’t know what you are talking about there, Annie.’

  The final straw came last week, when three tins of corned beef had gone missing the night she was washing up in the canteen and although she swore blind that she’d had nothing to do with it, the chief warden had given Vera her marching orders.

  A few days later, Herbie had an unscheduled visit from the boys in blue, who had uncovered his stash of black-market goods, including his petrol tank hidden behind the garden wall. He was due up in court for profiteering. There was no proof that Vera had been involved but that didn’t matter to Bessie or any of the Soapsud Island women. She’d been seen often enough in his company for people to talk.

  Now it seemed the world was out to get Vera and all the hatred and suspicion people had been harbouring for the last few years came pouring out. Her landlady didn’t want to be tarred with the same brush, so she’d taken it as an excuse to get shot of her.

  ‘So, where is she going to live?’ said Annie.

  ‘Can’t say I care two figs to be honest,’ said Bessie sniffily. ‘But I heard she’s got herself a job behind the bar in The Gladstone. That’s her natural habitat if you ask me. She’ll find it makes her line of work a bit easier, I dare say.’

  Annie knew that what Bessie was saying was true, but it didn’t make hearing her friend being talked about in that way any more palatable and Annie certainly wasn’t going to join in.

  ‘Well, I’d better be getting back,’ said Annie, giving her a tight little smile.

  ‘Do you have to go so soon?’ said Bessie, her face falling. ‘It’s just, you know I love seeing the little ones.’ She gave John a hug.

  Bessie didn’t have any other family, so Annie relented and stayed a while longer. As she sipped her scalding hot tea, she had the germ of an idea to bring Vera and Bessie closer together again, to heal the rift. ‘I’m thinking of going up to the open-air concert at Springfield Park tomorrow. Why don’t you come with us?’ Music in the park was just one way the council tried to keep people’s spirits up.

  Bessie beamed at her. ‘I’d love to. It’ll do me good to get out and about.’ She put her hand inside the pocket of her apron. ‘I almost forgot, you’d better take these.’ She pulled out a pair of knitted bootees in blue wool. ‘I made them for the baby.’

  ‘They’re beautiful, Bessie,’ said Annie. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

  ‘I unpicked one of my old shawls. I don’t have much need for it, so thought it would be more use for the baby than me.’

  That was the Bessie who Annie knew and loved, the woman who would give the clothes off her own back to help, not the bitter gossip who seemed to love spreading the dirt about Vera, who she’d once counted as a friend.

  As Annie pushed the pram up Acton Lane, with John tucked up inside and Anita sitting on the front with her legs dangling between the handles, she could only wonder about how much this war had changed their community and whether things could ever be the same again.

  The days when it wasn’t respectable for a woman to go into a public house on her own had passed since the war began. Some of the older folk might raise an eyebrow, but pubs were doing a roaring trade, with single girls nipping in after their factory shifts. More people than ever took solace in a drink and the inevitable knees-up that the end of the night would bring, and many drinkers even ignored the air-raid sirens and stayed put. Most would move away from the windows because of the risk of flying glass from a bomb blast but they showed determination to enjoy their free time and many saw it as a way of sticking two fingers up to Hitler.

  Annie dropped the children round to her mum’s and headed back down Acton Lane towards The Gladstone pub on Park Road. It had a bit of a reputation as a rough place, a real spit-and-sawdust establishment, but Annie had grown up round these parts so that didn’t put her off.

  A couple of old geezers glanced up as she pushed open the door and walked in. The air was redolent with the stench of stale tobacco and the floorboards nearest to the bar were sticky from pints of beer being sloshed about. Vera was hard at work, her dirty blonde curls shaking as she polished glasses with a tea towel that had seen better days.

  Annie stepped over a little heap of sawdust full of cigarette ends and waved at Vera, who greeted her, dead-eyed. ‘Hello, Annie, come to gloat?’

  ‘That’s no way to treat a friend,’ Annie chided. ‘I’ve come to see how you are getting on.’

  Vera shrugged her shoulders. ‘I didn’t mean to be off-hand, it’s just I don’t have many people who want to pass the time of day with me any more.’

  ‘Well, I was wondering if you might like to come to the concert tomorrow up at Springfield Park, with me and the kids?’

  ‘Sounds nice,’ said Vera. ‘Fancy a drink?’

  Annie didn’t have time to respond because Vera was already pouring a couple of large sherries.

  ‘Won’t the landlord mind?’

  ‘Nah, he’s permanently pickled and, in any case, he knows I’m a good worker, so I’m allowed to have
a few bevvies on the house,’ she said, giving Annie a little wink.

  Annie took the glass and had a teeny sip, out of politeness more than anything else.

  Vera leaned forward and smiled, flashing her yellowing teeth. ‘I know you tried to warn me to watch my back at the ARP, but I swear I never nicked anything that night. Don’t matter now in any case. They’ll have to manage without me, won’t they?’

  ‘Well, it’s their loss,’ said Annie. ‘Harry says you were good at your job. Where are you staying these days?’

  ‘Have you been listening to gossip about me, Annie?’ said Vera, her eyes narrowing to slits.

  ‘No, I just heard you weren’t round at Stirling Road when I went looking for you,’ Annie lied.

  Vera paused for a moment and took a large slug of her drink before wiping her mouth on her blouse sleeve and continuing: ‘Got a room up the road from an old couple. They don’t seem to mind me ’cos I’m helping with the rent so that’s all they care about.’ She itched a row of bites up her arm as she spoke. ‘Bed bugs are troubling me something rotten, though. I expect the fresh air tomorrow’ll do me good.’

  As Annie was leaving Vera shouted out across the bar, ‘And I bet there’ll be some handsome GIs there too, won’t there?’

  She was the same old Vera all right.

  Hundreds of people flocked to Springfield Park for the concert on a bright and sunny early summer’s afternoon when the blossom was still on the trees. If it hadn’t been for the absence of so many of the menfolk between the ages of eighteen and forty, it would have been like any other show before the war.

  Dozens of little heads were bobbing about in front of the Punch and Judy show, which was festooned with Union Jack bunting. Mum and Ivy sat with the children, who were mesmerized by it all. They’d been promised a magician and a clown later on too, which was a real treat.

  Esther had organized some stalls to raise more money for the war effort and people were chucking balls at tin cans which had been painted to look like Hitler, for a penny a shot. Three in a row got you a ha’penny back. Her boy Leonard and some of his friends had glued a few cans to the posts, of course, but nobody minded really. It was all a bit of fun.