It was getting worse. The room was going round now. Everything was spinning. What was happening? I don’t feel well. I wish my mum would stop pulling that comb through my hair, she’s hurting me. I feel funny. What are they doing now? They’re singing. Why are they singing? Why are my mum and my Auntie Doreen singing?
‘We’ll meet again, don’t know whe-ere, don’t know whe-en …’
‘We’ll meet again, don’t know whe-ere, don’t know whe-en …’
Their voices seem miles away.
‘But I kno-oo we’ll meet agai-in …’
‘But I kno-oo we’ll meet agai-in …’
I’m fainting – that’s what it is. I’m fainting. Now I know what it feels like. When Keith Hopwood had fainted in the playground I’d asked him what it had felt like and he’d said he couldn’t remember much except that everything had been going round and round and everybody’s voices seemed to be a long way away. That’s what’s happening to me. Mum! Auntie Doreen! I can see them and they’re going round and round. I’m fainting! I can hear them, they’re singing and they’re miles away. I’m fainting!
‘Some sunny …’
‘Some sunny …’
I was lying on the sofa and and my mum was dabbing my face with a damp tea towel, muttering to herself.
‘Come on, Doreen, where’ve you got to? Hurry up, hurry up.’
My hair was still wet with the nit lotion but she’d stopped combing it, thank goodness.
‘What happened? What’s going on?’
‘You passed out, love, you scared the life out of me. Your Auntie Doreen’s gone to fetch Dr Jowett.’
The one good thing about fainting is that everybody makes a fuss of you. After Keith had passed out the caretaker had carried him to the staffroom and while they’d waited for the doctor Mrs Jolliffe had given him a cup of sweet tea and some chocolate digestives. With me it was a mug of Ovaltine and a Blue Riband on the sofa while we waited for Dr Jowett.
‘Have you any more Blue Ribands, Mum?’
‘I haven’t, love. And I won’t be getting any more till I get my new ration book.’
Why does all the good stuff have to be on rationing? I bet nit shampoo and nit lotion’s not on rationing.
‘Will I be going to school tomorrer?’
That’d be great if I could get off school, worth fainting for. Double maths on a Friday, I hate maths. And scripture with Reverend Dutton. Borin’.
‘Let’s wait and see what Dr Jowett says.’
And Latin with Bleasdale. Then we have English with Melrose. Worst day of the week, Friday. English with Melrose! Oh no! I haven’t done his homework! I was going to do it after ITMA, wasn’t I?
‘I don’t think I should, Mum. I might faint again. You never know.’
‘We’ll leave it to Dr Jowett, eh?’
‘Breathe in. Out. In again.’
It wasn’t Dr Jowett; it was a lady doctor who was standing in for him cos he was at a conference or something. I’d heard my Auntie Doreen tell me mum after she’d gone to get something from her car.
‘Out. In. Cough.’
I breathed out and I breathed in and I coughed like she told me. The thing she was using to listen to my chest was freezing cold and it made me laugh.
‘It’s a relief to see him smiling, doctor. He looked as white as a sheet twenty minutes ago.’
The lady doctor wrote something on a brown card.
‘Can I stay off school tomorrer?’
She carried on writing.
‘I don’t see why—’
Oh great. No maths, no Latin, no scripture, no Melrose …
‘—you shouldn’t go.’
What? No, no. ‘I don’t see why not.’ That’s what I thought you were going to say. That’s what you’re supposed to say.
‘But I haven’t done my English homework cos of all this.’
‘I’ll give your mother a note to give to your teacher.’
She smiled at me and gave me a friendly pat on my head. My hair was still sticky.
‘I’ve got nits.’
My mum gave me one of her looks.
‘Outbreak at school, doctor. You know what it’s like.’
‘Of course.’
‘Maybe that’s what made him faint. It’s strong stuff, that lotion.’
She shone a light in my eyes.
‘Unlikely.’
She looked down my throat and in my ears. After that she put a strap round my arm and pumped on this rubber thing. It didn’t hurt, just felt a bit funny. She wrote on the brown card again.
‘He’s small for his age.’
‘Always has been, doctor.’
‘But he’s particularly small. And he’s anaemic. I’d say he’s undernourished.’
I didn’t know what she was talking about but my mum didn’t like it. She sat up straight and folded her arms and the red blotch started coming up on her neck. She always gets it when she’s upset.
‘There’s only so many coupons in a ration book, doctor. I do my best. It’s weeks since this house has seen fresh fruit and vegetables. He gets his cod liver oil and his orange juice and his Virol. I do what I can. That nit stuff cost one and nine. It’s not easy on your own, you know.’
The doctor wrote on the brown card again.
‘Excuse me, I’m just going to get something from the car.’
My mum watched her go. The blotch on her neck was getting redder.
‘Who’s she? Where’s Dr Jowett?’
‘She’s standing in for him while he’s at a conference. She’s very nice. Came straight away.’
‘Very nice? I don’t think it’s very nice to be told I’m neglecting my own son. I’ll give her undernourished!’
‘Give over, Freda, she said nothing of the sort. Don’t be so bloody soft, we’ve just had a war. We’re all under-nourished with this bloody rationing!’
I don’t know who was more shocked, me or my mum. You never hear my Auntie Doreen swear. You’d have thought it was my fault the way my mum turned on me.
‘And why did you have to tell her you’ve got nits? Showing me up like that.’
My Auntie Doreen was just about to have another go when we heard the lady doctor coming back.
‘I was going to write a prescription for a course of iron tablets but I remembered I’d got some in the car.’
She gave my mum a brown bottle.
‘I don’t mind paying, doctor.’
The doctor didn’t say anything, just smiled.
‘Now, I’ll tell you what he really needs – a couple of weeks by the sea.’
My mum looked at her, then burst out laughing.
‘A couple of weeks by the sea! Yes, that’s what we all need, eh, Doreen?’
The lady doctor put everything back in her black bag. ‘It can be arranged. And it won’t cost a penny. I’ll talk to Dr Jowett.’
I looked at my mum and my Auntie Doreen.
‘He’ll probably have to have to take time off school, but it would do him the world of good.’
A couple of weeks by the sea! Free! Time off school! Sounded good to me.
Yeah, it sounded good cos I thought she’d meant all of us. Me, my mum and my Auntie Doreen. Nobody’d said I’d be going on my own. I wouldn’t have gone, would I? My mum never told me. Dr Jowett never told me. He was in the kitchen talking to her when I got home from school on the Friday.
‘Talk of the devil, here he is. Do you want to tell him the good news, Dr Jowett?’
He had a big smile on his face when he told me. I couldn’t believe it. It turned out that because I’m small for me age and all that other stuff the lady doctor had talked to my mum about, we got to go to Morecambe for free. The council paid.
‘And my mum doesn’t have to pay anything?’
Dr Jowett pulled my bottom lids down and looked in my eyes, like the lady doctor did the night before.
‘Not a penny. It’s a special scheme paid for by the council to give young folk like yourself a bit of sea a
ir. Build you up. You’ll come back six inches taller. Now, do you want to go for two weeks or one?’
Why would I want to go for one week when we could go for two? I looked at my mum.
‘It’s up to you, love …’
If she’d have said, ‘It’s up to you, love, cos you’re the one going not me, I’m not comin’, neither’s your Auntie Doreen, it’s just you on your own,’ I’d never have said it.
‘It’s up to you, love – do you want to go for two weeks?’
It’d be stupid not to go for two weeks when it’s free. So I said it. Just like the man on the wireless.
‘I don’t mind if I do!’
We all laughed.
After Dr Jowett had gone we sat at the kitchen table and looked at the leaflet he’d left for us. It looked lovely. I listened while my mum read it out.
‘“Craig House – a home from home. Overlooking Morecambe Bay, Craig House gives poor children the opportunity to get away from the grime of the city to the fresh air of the seaside …” Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah. What does that bit mean?’
‘What bit?’
‘That bit about poor children. Do you have to be poor to go there?’
She looked at me.
‘Well, it is for people what can’t afford it, like us. That’s why we’re getting it for free.’
‘Oh …’
We both looked at the leaflet again.
‘There’s nothing wrong with it, love. It’s our right. Dr Jowett says. I mean, it’d be daft to give free holidays to them that can pay for it.’
Yeah, that was true.
‘I suppose so.’
It just never crossed my mind that I was going on my own. I had no idea. It wasn’t till the Sunday night, when my mum was packing my suitcase, that I found out.
‘Now, I’ve put you two swimming costumes in so when one’s wet you can wear the other, and you’ve plenty of underpants and vests …’
Even then it didn’t dawn on me. I’d felt good having my own suitcase, grown up. When we’d gone to Bridlington she packed all our things together but we’d only gone for two days. This time we were going for two weeks. I thought that’s why she was giving me my own suitcase.
‘… and I’m putting in a few sweets for you, some Nuttall’s Mintoes, some fruit pastilles and a bar of chocolate. You can thank your Auntie Doreen for them, she saved up her coupons.’
I still didn’t realize.
‘Well, we can share them, can’t we?’
‘No, these are all for you.’
I thought she was just being nice, getting in the holiday mood.
‘Now, this is important. I’m giving you these to take –’ she held up some envelopes – ‘they’re all stamped and addressed so you can write to me every day if you like …’
You what? What are you talking about? What is she talking about?
‘You don’t have to write every day, I’m only joking, but I would like to get the occasional letter. They’re here, under your pants.’
What was she talking about? When it all came out that I’d thought they were coming with me, she’d looked at me like I’d gone off my head.
‘But why? What on earth made you think me and your Auntie Doreen were coming?’
‘Cos you said.’
‘I never. I never said we were all going.’
She was lying. She did.
‘You did. When the lady doctor said I needed a holiday, you told her that’s what we all needed, a couple of weeks by the sea. You ask Auntie Doreen.’
I’d cried and told her that I wasn’t going to go and she said I had to, it’d all been arranged, I’d show her up in front of Dr Jowett if I didn’t go. And it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t go, it would be a wasted space that some other child could have used.
‘It’s not fair on me, cos if I’d known I wouldn’t have said I’d go for two weeks. I wouldn’t have gone for one week. I’m not goin’, I don’t want to go. Please don’t make me go …’
I cried, I begged, I shut myself in my bedroom. I wasn’t going to go, I wasn’t.
‘I’m not goin’. You can’t force me.’
She couldn’t force me.
‘Listen, love, if you don’t like it, if you’re really unhappy, I’ll get straight on the train and bring you home.’
‘Promise?’
‘It’s less than two hours away.’
‘Promise?’
‘Course.’
‘Promise!’
‘I promise.’
My mum let me sleep in her bed that night cos I couldn’t stop crying.
‘Come on, love, go to sleep, we’ve got to be at Great Albert Street at eight o’clock for your coach.’
‘You promise to fetch me if I don’t like it?’
‘But you will like it and it’ll do you good.’
‘You promise, don’t you?’
‘As soon as I get your letter.’
And I fell asleep.
Craig House holiday home
far far away,
Where us poor children go
for a holiday.
Oh, how we run like hell
when we hear the dinner bell,
far far away.
That was the first letter.
That was the second letter.
Why hadn’t she come for me? She’d promised …
We’d been told we had to be outside the medical clinic in Great Albert Street at eight o’clock for the coach. We were going to be weighed before we went and they’d weigh us when we got back to see how much we’d put on. My Auntie Doreen came with us, and even on the bus to town I made them both promise again. We turned into Great Albert Street at five to and I could see lots of kids waiting on the pavement with their mums and dads and grandmas and grandads. There was no coach. Good, maybe it had broken down and I wouldn’t have to go. My mum carried my suitcase and we walked up the road towards them. A big cheer went up as the coach came round the corner at the top end of the street.
When we got closer I saw that some of the kids looked funny. One lad had no hair, another was bandy. There was a girl with these iron things on her legs. My mum gave me a sharp tap cos I was staring at the bald lad.
‘What’s wrong with him, Mum?’
‘Alopecia, most likely.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s when your hair drops out. Poor lad.’
‘Do you get it from nits?’
‘Don’t be daft.’
My Auntie Doreen told me it can be caused by stress or shock.
‘Do you remember that teacher we had at primary, Freda, Mrs Theobold? She lost all her hair when her husband got knocked down by a tram.’
My mum shook her head.
‘Oh, you do. She had to wear a wig.’
‘I don’t.’
We stood outside the medical clinic next to a woman with a ginger-headed lad. His face looked ever so sore, all flaky and red. My mum gave me another sharp tap. The woman got a packet of Woodbines out of her handbag.
‘Oh, don’t worry, missus, he’s used to young ’uns staring, aren’t you, Eric?’
Eric nodded while she lit a cigarette.
‘Eczema. Not infectious, love. Had it all his life, haven’t you, Eric?’
He nodded again. My Auntie Doreen smiled at him.
‘Two weeks in Morecambe’ll be just what he needs, eh?’
The woman coughed as she blew the smoke out.
‘Don’t know about him but it’ll do me a power of good. I need a break, I can tell you.’
Just then a man came out of the clinic and shouted that we all had to go inside to be weighed.
‘Parents, foster parents and guardians – wait out here while the luggage is put on the charabanc. The children will return as soon as they’ve been weighed and measured.’
Eric’s mum took another puff on her cigarette.
‘I don’t know why they bother. Last year he came back weighing less than when he
went, didn’t you, Eric?’ Eric nodded again. ‘And I swear he was half an inch shorter. Off you go then.’
I followed him into the clinic, where the man was telling everybody to go up the main stairs and turn left.
‘Have you been before then, to Craig House?’
He’d been for the last two years.
‘What’s it like?’
‘S’all right. Better than being at home.’
At the top of the stairs we followed the ones in front into a big room where we were told to take our clothes off. We had to strip down to our vests and pants and sit on a stool until we heard our name called out. There were four weighing scales, with a number above each one. I sat next to Eric. He didn’t have a vest on and his pants had holes in them and whatever his mum had said he had, he had it all over, he looked horrible. I couldn’t help staring. He didn’t seem bothered, though. He just sat there, scratching, staring at the floor.
‘Eric Braithwaite, weighing scale three! Eric Braithwaite, weighing scale three!’
He didn’t say anything, just wandered off to be weighed and measured. I sat waiting for my name to be called out. The girl with iron things on her legs was on the other side of the room. Her mum and dad had been allowed to come in and were taking the iron things off and helping her get undressed.
‘Margaret Donoghue, weighing scale one! Margaret Donoghue, weighing scale one!’
That was her. Her dad had to carry her, she couldn’t walk without her iron things. Eric came back, put his clothes back on and wandered off. He didn’t speak, didn’t say a word. They were going in alphabetical order so I had to wait quite a long time before I heard my name. When I did I had to go to weighing scale number four. A lady in a white coat told me to get on.
‘There’s nothing of you, is there? A couple of weeks at Craig House’ll do you no harm.’
She wrote my weight down in a book.
‘Now, let’s see how small you are.’
Couple of weeks? I wasn’t going to be there a couple of weeks. Not if I didn’t like it. And I wasn’t going to like it, I knew that much.
‘Right, get dressed and go back to your mum and dad.’
‘I haven’t got a dad.’
‘Ellis Roper! Weighing scale number four! Ellis Roper, weighing scale number four! You what, dear?’
War Stories Page 13