Child from Home (29 page)

Soon afterwards the Princess Royal toured the area, and four days later 3,000 people packed York Minster for a service of commemoration. In a broadcast by Lord Haw-Haw just after the air raid he claimed that the Minster had been left deliberately untouched as Hitler wanted to save it for the day when he would enter York in triumph after the invasion that was soon to come. It took many months to get back to normal and at least one of the deep bomb craters was not filled in until 1945.

Sunday was still looked on as a day of rest and was known as ‘The Lord's Day'. Early every Sunday morning it was one of my jobs to walk down to Torville's shop. It was lovely to see the masses of purple aubretia hanging over the garden walls but some of the early daffodils were becoming wrinkled and brown. It felt strange to ‘hear' the utter silence as I passed the empty school playground. On Saturdays the Home Guard unit used it for rifle drill. Once at the newsagents I got the
Sunday Express
newspaper for Mr Harris and cigarettes for his wife, as nobody bothered about selling cigarettes to kids in those days. Unfortunately for her, her favourite brand, Craven ‘A', had become unobtainable by this time and she would have to make do with Player's Weights or full-strength Capstan's. She could not abide the Turkish cigarettes that were now on sale in the shops. I quite enjoyed this job, as Mr Harris often slipped me a penny that I spent in Bryant's shop where the sweets were scooped up from a square jar and poured into a paper bag. The quiet calm that lay over the slumbering village suited my mood. With very few people about and no noise or hurry I had time to think and I enjoyed what Wordsworth called ‘the bliss of solitude'. I could reflect on my confused feelings and the sense of unease and deep disquiet that I felt.

Gran came to see Harry, Jimmy and me that afternoon and I thought she looked unusually pale, old and drawn. Trying to maintain a semblance of normality, she said, ‘My word! How you have grown since I saw you last.' Standing Jimmy and then me against her, she measured our height against the buttons on her coat. This became a ritual that was repeated every time she visited and to this day I remember those large, round buttons that were domed and covered in leather.

She then explained why Hilda could not come to see Jimmy. ‘Your Mam has joined the ATS and has been posted away.' She went on to say, ‘A couple of weeks back we had a really bad air raid and the house was badly damaged along with a lot more round our way. We didn't have time to get to the shelters before a lone aircraft dropped its bombs. There was a roar and a whoosh and we heard a sound like hailstones as rubble and debris landed on the roof. Archie was slightly concussed and cut on the chest by flying glass, but don't worry, he's okay! He had just gone to bed when the window was blown in by the blast and Renee ran upstairs just in time to stop him from stepping out of the big hole where the window had been thinking it was the doorway. The air was full of dust particles and soot and there was blood on the jacket of his pyjamas where the flying glass had cut his chest. The skylight window – which I'd painted black because of the blackout – crashed in on the stairs right in front of me and there was wood and broken glass everywhere and Archie cut his foot on a jagged piece. He has been off work for a few days and has not been able to go to his Air Training Corps sessions, which he loves.

‘Next door was badly damaged an' all,' she added, ‘and because their front door wouldn't open, Mrs Irvine passed her little girl Shirley out to us through the shattered front window. She is only four and she was really good and never cried at all, but mebbe that was because she was in shock. Renee, who is now working shifts as a trainee overhead crane driver at the Cargo Fleet steelworks, was having her supper after working a two till ten shift when the raid started and they were late sounding the siren. We've had to move into rented accommodation while the house is being repaired and our curtains, carpets, bedding and clothes will have to be replaced as they are impregnated with glass. We're now living in rooms in a big Victorian house on Linthorpe Road next to our family doctor. We've got the downstairs rooms, and Granny Knights and your Great Aunt Maud and her three kids have the upstairs rooms – they were bombed out like us. We share the kitchen and we have electricity now but I don't trust that new fangled stuff. There's even an inside toilet and a bathroom, and we're not used to such luxuries. Our houses are all boarded up now and quite a few of the houses on Laws Street were completely wrecked.' I thought to myself, ‘I'm glad Mam's at Grove House with our George.'

By late spring most of the trees had put forth fresh green foliage, but the ash buds were still clenched black and tight. Vigorous green shoots of young wheat had sprung up to hide the brown ridges and Mr Harris's boss had said to him, ‘I must have the barley sown and the swedes and mangolds drilled by early May.' The clover and hayseed had been broadcast soon after the harrowing was done and it gave them a feeling of satisfaction to accomplish these annual tasks. Scents of wild flowers and fruit blossom assailed their nostrils and Mr Harris was glad to be working long hours, as the destructive bickering with his wife was getting him down. The incessant nagging had done its damage; unhappiness and frustration had gradually taken root and had grown between them like some malignant flower. He always experienced a deep feeling of contentment when with his fellow farmhands. He found their slow, deep-toned and broad-vowelled banter comforting as they worked in the fields talking happily of simple things like pigmeal, mash rollers and fertiliser. The unhurried farming year had scarcely altered over the years but things were starting to change more rapidly now. Nearby Italian prisoners jabbered away in their excitable fashion while an armed soldier stood guard, and there were increasing numbers of Land Army girls in khaki jodhpurs.

It felt good to be out in the warm, fresh air away from the constrained atmosphere of home. Mrs Harris seemed to be permanently bad-tempered these days and he suspected that she was taking it out on us kids when he wasn't there. She certainly took it out on the locals, playing hell with the nurse, the policeman, the postman and anyone else that crossed her path. Most people tried to keep out of her way. ‘The war affects different people in different ways,' he thought, ‘and me and 'er seem ter 'ave little in common these days.' He comforted himself with the thought of how relaxing it would be to plod on with the tilling and planting and he found that grinding up the mangolds for the steers helped him to unwind. He tried to put his wife, and the bloody war that seemed to be dragging on forever, out of his mind. At the end of each day he knew that pleasant feeling that often follows a spell of hard physical labour, but she always spoiled it for him when he got home.

Harry only had a few more weeks at school before he left for good. Recently he had started a Saturday morning job at the butcher's shop on Front Street delivering the orders on a sit-up-and-beg bike that had a large wicker basket on the front. In between the deliveries he gave the neat and dapper Mr Atkinson a hand in the shop.

On reflection, the evacuation scheme seems to have been a rather hit-and-miss affair dependent on luck or the lack of it. George and I had been lucky at first, but that luck seemed to have run out since coming here. I was frightened by Mrs Harris's loud voice and intimidating manner as she seemed to have a stone where her heart should have been. Her eyes were cold and she knew how to hurt us. Public Information Leaflet number three proved to be far from correct in our case as it stated that, ‘… clearly the children will be much happier away from the big cities where the danger will be greatest … They will be well looked after.' It was only Jimmy's friendship and caring presence, along with Mr Harris's kindly nature, that had made being here just about tolerable. He was an undemonstrative and exceptionally nice man, but he worked long hours and was not always there to mediate on our behalf. When he was at home he bore the brunt of her anger but he tried his best to protect us from her increasingly angry and volatile behaviour.

Wartime anxieties and separations changed everybody to some degree and emotions tended to be heightened and intensified with nerves often stretched to breaking point. We found out the hard way that the choleric Mrs Harris had a cruel and nasty streak. We were now being punished more and more severely for minor misdemeanours or infringements of
her
rules. For example, I had recently been larruped with the belt for tearing my trousers on some barbed wire with the L-shaped tear being a sure give-away. On another occasion I was clouted round the ear for smirking and looking away while being told off. It was all down to nervousness and fear when she shouted straight into my face. ‘I will not have it. Do you hear?' (Silence.) ‘I said do you hear?' she screamed. ‘Yes, Mrs Harris,' I whimpered in reply. I hated it when she exploded into action and grabbed hold of me. It was so humiliating to be held by the shoulders and shaken like a rag doll in front of the others and I often felt that my head would fall off.

Where does punishment end and abuse begin? Children should be trained not beaten. We had been separated from our loved ones at an early age and that was traumatic enough. We were old enough to know it was wrong to be naughty or to tell lies; especially to adults. But did we deserve this verbal and physical maltreatment just for being mischievous? We reasoned that she was an adult, therefore she must know best, as we had been taught to respect our ‘elders and betters'. We were no angels but we were being whacked on the legs or rapped on the head for what seemed trivial offences. Our shortcomings were many, it seems. She was losing her temper and resorting to violence more and more often. When she took down one of the belts hanging on the kitchen cabinet, I would flinch in anticipation of the first blow. As we shielded our heads with our arms, or hid under the coats hanging on the kitchen door, she lashed at the bare part of our legs below our baggy short trousers and showed no mercy. We were often left with red, stinging, raised weals.

It took a long time to shake off the image of her red, rage-distorted, moon-like face, and I shut my eyes as the belt whipped down on me over and over again. I can still picture her wobbling jowls and the gingery hairs that grew out of her flared nostrils as she lashed at me. Tight-lipped and scowling, she seemed to enjoy watching us cringe and whimper as we slunk away like puppies with our tails between our legs. It was not the bruises but the wounds inside that would take the longest to heal. She had created a deep dread and uncertainty in us. I vowed that one day I would write it all down, but for the time being I had to put up with it – but I would never forget. To make matters worse, the obsequious ‘Ducky' Barrett, who was an out-and-out creep, hardly ever got hit.

Poor Dot, who was as thin as a rake, was cruelly punished for the slightest transgression. She was clipped round the ear or caned on the palms of her hands causing them to become red, puffed up and sore. I still remember the whooshing sound of the thin cane as it sliced through the air. When she had stopped crying she sat there in shocked silence, keeping her eyes averted so as not to anger Mrs Harris again. Maybe it was because she was not ‘the full shilling' – as they said – that she was picked on the most. When this happened, Jimmy and I looked at each other with our teeth and our fists clenched. We felt bad and tears came to our eyes, as her hurting hurt us. We felt guilty at saying nothing but at the same time we were glad that it was not our turn to get it. Mrs Harris could wield sarcasm with deadly effect and she constantly told Dot that she needed her head looking at but, in my eyes, by trying to degrade her she only degraded herself.

We were told that we were stupid, worthless and useless so often that we came to believe that it must be true and started to display symptoms of insecurity. The repeated beatings and the constant telling off lowered our self-esteem and we withdrew into ourselves more and more. It reduced our trust and faith in the adults around us and we felt that we had nobody to turn to for help and support. Even though school afforded some respite, we were too intimidated to confide in the teachers. Our reserves of resilience were almost used up and we instinctively said and did nothing in order to cope. We longed to be reassured but didn't know how to tell them what was happening as we thought they would think we were making it all up. When Gran visited again we tried to tell her but Mrs Harris was always there. She was all smiles, hugging us and putting on a big act of kindness.

The more we were punished the more we came to expect it. We started to believe that we must be bad children and deserved everything we got. It is a strange quirk of human nature to feel guilt on being badly treated. Jimmy and I became introverted and withdrawn and began to lose hope, and I longed for Mam to hug and cuddle me and soothe my fears, but she hadn't been to see me for some time. It seems that I subconsciously started to employ basic survival mechanisms. I learned to ‘switch off' my mind and pretend that I wasn't there when Mrs Harris beat me. I believe that the psychologist's term for such a reaction is
disassociation.

School provided a structure to our day and Jimmy and I felt safe among the crowds of children. For a time, Miss Francis, with her striking blue eyes and gentle, smiling presence, shamed me into making an effort. There was something about her that made you want to please her; an implicit trust that led to a certain restraint. After a lesson with her I felt better able to cope; she was like a second mother to me and her influence was more potent and lasting than if she had been a strict disciplinarian. Shouting and threatening are barren means of instruction. She taught me to read for pleasure, which enabled me to escape into another world, and was sympathetic when I desperately needed some kindness and understanding. The formerly mind-numbing class routine became a sanctuary in which I didn't have to expend too much time thinking. I put up a defensive screen, joking and clowning to mask the emotional hurt that was holding me back. I became like the vulnerable, soft-bodied caddis fly larva in the pond; a little creature that protects itself inside an armoured covering composed of bits of hard stone that it glues together. I hid inside my own mind and learned to build barriers so that no one would hurt me again.