Children in Her Shadow (4 page)

With the meeting finished and a start date agreed for two weeks hence the group left Mrs Nash and returned to the window seat in the corridor where arrangements were made for Ruth to be met at the bus station in Cardiff on the Sunday afternoon of the twenty second before she would start her new job on the Monday twenty third of September nineteen forty.

Their journey back to Senghenydd was an emotional rollercoaster ride with the conversation lurching from excitement about Ruth’s new job and its longer term prospects to the inevitable confrontation that lay ahead in bringing the news to her father.

As they drew into Senghenydd, Ruth’s mother turned in her seat to face her daughter and with the warmth and love that can only be shared by a mother with her daughter she said, “This is the right thing for you and so you must leave speaking to your father to me.” As they left the bus Ruth was told to go straight home whilst her mother turned in the direction from where her husband would be coming home where she would wait and try to neutralise his anticipated fiery response.

Ruth walked slowly back to her home buoyed by the feelings that like her two older brothers John and Michael who were now serving with the army, she too was going to be doing her bit for the war effort. She gave little thought to the prospect of her father’s displeasure knowing that she was now set on a course that was irreversible.

Eventually, her father and mother arrived home and Ruth braced herself for her father’s cynicism, anger and objections which to her surprise were limited to indignation at not being told earlier about the job and that Ruth or her mother had failed to ask exactly how much the “digs’ were going to cost.

Ruth knew the basis of the latter complaint. In all the time that she had been working she would come home on a Friday evening and give her unopened wage packet to her father who would give her five shillings back as pocket money and he would keep the rest as ‘board and lodging’.

Although this was not discussed that night, it was acknowledged that Ruth would have to pay Mary’s mother for her accommodation and food, take some money for bus fares and other personal needs and therefore her father would be given the rest. Nonetheless, he was still likely to be better off under the new arrangement, something that had probably not escaped his notice. None of this concerned Ruth whose thoughts were of her new life to be spent mainly in Cardiff with weekends at home.

The two weeks passed quickly for Ruth who diligently worked out her notice at the Senghenydd post office during the day and with her mother she spent the evenings sewing. Ruth was given two smart black skirts by a neighbour that with a little taking-in fitted her well and if anything accentuated her youthful slim figure. Her mother gave her three new white blouses she had bought in the local shop, a pair of her own black shoes and a pair of thirty denier stockings that she had purchased long before the war and new underwear was given to her by Auntie Lottie.

A small brown suit case was found in the attic and her mother’s coat and scarf were given on loan until Ruth was in a position to replace them with second hand ones purchased at Cardiff market. Two single sheets, a blanket and a pillow slip were also put to one side for Ruth with the plan being that she should bring the linen home on a Saturday afternoon to be exchanged for clean ones for the following week.

Ruth’s excitement about leaving the village was tinged with increasing sadness. Senghenydd had been her home a place where she was known to every man, woman and child and a place where her memories, good and bad could be seen as a reflection in the faces of everyone. Senghenydd was safe, isolated from a real world out there that was consumed by war and the prospect of entering that world was both frightening and exciting.

Ruth spent many teary days saying goodbye to her friends recognising that it would only be goodbye for the week days but she and her friends knew that this was really goodbye. They knew that Ruth was to become one of the fortunate ones, someone who was leaving and this could only lead to the inevitable conclusion for her friends that Ruth would use this move to move on further.

Sunday came and it was time for Ruth to embark on her new adventure. Her small suitcase, a possession that would remain with her for the rest of her life was packed and a separate parcel containing her bedding and her shoes lay neatly wrapped in brown paper, tied with string in the hallway.

At two o’clock Ruth said her goodbyes and with a confident step she set off alone to the bus stop without a backward glance. She relished the independence of her endeavour but she also drew an inner comfort from the knowledge that her mother and her home would only be a few miles away.

As Ruth settled into her bus journey apprehension replaced confidence and as though the child in the woman had taken over her senses she saw danger where once she saw adventure. With barely five miles behind her, Ruth felt the gulf of separation as though it were a hundred miles. First one tear then another filled her eyes and she felt herself lose what little self confidence and composure she once had as the tears poured down her cheeks. She tasted the almost comforting saltiness of her tears as they slipped down her cheek, over her lips and fell into her lap. In her own private sadness she sobbed for the rest of her journey to Cardiff.

On arrival in Cardiff, Ruth saw Mary running towards the bus and she clumsily tried to conceal the evidence of her crying by running her sleeve over her face. This was something she was unable to hide from the observant Mrs Morgan whose gentle hand on the shoulder and quiet words of welcome temporarily consoled Ruth’s jumble of emotions.

Mrs Morgan was an extremely young looking blonde thirty six year old. She was impeccably dressed wearing red high heel shoes very fine stockings with perfectly straight seams and she topped that off with a very revealing floral summer dress that turned many heads as they walked from the bus station across Cardiff and on to the nearby suburb of Splott.

But for all her airs and graces, Mrs Morgan’s broad accent firmly placed her as a daughter of Cardiff a place with somewhat less sophistication than the head turning Mrs Morgan was attempting to distance herself from.

As they strolled, Ruth and Mary chatted without pause for breath discovering as they did that Mary was twenty, an only child and that she had worked for Mrs Nash at the post office for two years.

Mary was a strikingly pretty girl with long blond hair and the most beautiful pale blue eyes. She showed none of the flamboyance of her mother though she was clearly an open person, as indeed was her vivacious mother. Mary was also someone who seemed to be at ease discussing any topic….including boys and dating and all in front of her mother, something Ruth would never do.

Mary’s personality seemed at odds with the demure butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth individual that Ruth had met only two weeks earlier in the central post office. This made her wonder about what work would be like at the post office if it changed people that much and perhaps more importantly, what life would be like in Mary’s house with such an extravert character as Mrs Morgan and the split personality of Mary!

They reached Mrs Morgan’s house in no time. It was situated at the end of a terrace of similar properties each with a small walled front garden and wooden gate that meant the houses stood slightly back from the road. Ruth noticed that on the gable end of the house was a very large billboard advertising Horlicks and she smiled as Mary looked up too and simultaneously they giggled and said “yuk.” The area in which the house was located seemed pleasant to Ruth, more open than she was used to in Senghenydd and busier.

Inside, the house was large with a neat and well furnished front room which Mrs Morgan pointedly called her “loynge” attempting to lose her broad Cardiff accent to effect that of a refined lady. There was a room to the rear which they called the snug which was also tidy and well furnished and to the rear of that was a kitchen. A door from the kitchen led to the small yard area and garden, an outside toilet, a washing shed and an air raid shelter hugged the rear wall.

Upstairs brought its surprises too, there were two large bedrooms and a single room that was used by the post office mail supervisor someone called Edna Gray. It seemed that Edna worked permanent nights and when she was not on shift she went back to the valley village of Ystrad Mynach and stayed there with her elderly mother.

The room Ruth was to share with Mary was a nice size with two single beds against the walls and two wardrobes that were placed in such a way that they caused there to be some semblance of privacy between the two beds. In the corner of the room was a wash basin, a luxury that Ruth had never seen before and the wooden floor was covered by a series of small expensive looking oriental rugs. The window overlooked the main street and it was possible to see in the distance the cranes of Cardiff docks. Mary explained that the pub on the far corner, of the road, The Stevedores Arms was popular with the dock workers as it was the first of many on their walk back to the city and to their homes.

Ruth quickly unpacked and settled herself down on the bed as she listened intently to Mary outlining the strict rules that governed staff who worked in the general post office. Ruth was comfortable with the need for smartness and the need for hierarchical respect and saw sense in the rules about checking and double checking the identities of people who were from outside the Cardiff area who used the post office, these were post office rules and Ruth was both acquainted with them and a stickler for their enforcement

It surprised Ruth that this person who oozed deference in the office as though it was natural to her upbringing was so dismissive of it outside the office. Indeed, Ruth pondered that for all the fact that she was a valley girl she believed she had far more complementary standards to those expected by her new employer than did Mary. Mary then moved to explain the strict rules that governed life at home.

Ruth was not prepared for what Mary was to explain and the fact that it was couched in such a matter of fact way. Mary started by saying, “My Dad left my Mam about ten years ago and if he ever shows his cheating face around here again, neither of us would welcome him back.” She went on to say that her mother worked as a weighbridge clerk in the docks from eight o’clock to five o’clock Monday to Friday a job she had done for more than ten years. Then came the bombshell, “My Mam likes to entertain her men friends some nights so we have to be in our room by ten o’clock, especially on Friday” she said. Now Ruth might be from the valleys, and she might be seen to be unsophisticated and unworldly but it took her no time whatsoever to put two and two together and end up with rather more questions than answers.

Ruth quickly settled into the routine of work and far from finding the post office rules overbearing she embraced them. The routine and the rules complemented the sets of values she had grown up with and she found that she was soon identified as a model worker. Ruth revelled in the increasing responsibility she was given over time and yet she never invited any attention and nor was she regarded as in any way being pushy.

The routine at her new home in Splott was rather less predictable. But, over time Ruth built a deep friendship with Mary who was increasingly like a big sister to her, though their age difference was hardly noticeable. It was also the case that despite Mrs Morgan’s, or perhaps because of Mrs Morgan’s eccentricity and open, transparent attitude to life and relationships, Ruth enjoyed her company too and her thoroughly outrageous lifestyle.

Ruth also settled into the routine of travelling home early on Saturday afternoon and returning to Cardiff on the last bus from Senghenydd on a Sunday afternoon
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She had also befriended the children who lived next door to her in Splott where she would spend many happy hours.

These children, Megan a beautiful and bright nine year old and Reece an equally beautiful but impish six year old enjoyed Ruth’s company and would look forward to evenings when she would stay with them whilst their mother was working. Ruth would read to the children but what they enjoyed the most were her own stories. These were sometimes of her own creation but many were about the characters and the comings and goings in the village of Senghenydd, many learnt at the knee of Auntie Lott or Uncle Arthur. Ruth’s ease with children was often spoken about and she would blush when mothers remarked that one day she would make a wonderful mother herself.

Despite her responsible job in Cardiff and her continued contribution to the family income Ruth remained a child in the eyes of her father whose strict Victorian rules and attitudes saw him interrogate Ruth each weekend about what she was doing outside work and who she was seeing in Cardiff. If only he knew the liberating and exciting world she occupied from Monday to Saturday he would surely bring it to a halt.

As the Christmas of nineteen forty fast approached, the post office did what it could to bring the festive season into the otherwise austere world of Cardiff more than a year into an increasingly bloody war both on the battle fields of Europe and in the major cities of the United Kingdom. Even Cardiff had experienced bombing but not nearly on the scale of places like London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Swansea.

There was little appetite for Christmas festivity amongst staff and customers who daily would bring stories into the post office of family members or loved ones dying in far off lands or in the blitz that was wreaking havoc and death here at home. Nonetheless, the staff decided to bring some joy to the banking hall and over the two weeks leading up to Christmas they made daisy chain decorations and with little more than a few sheets of crepe paper, Ruth and her work colleagues managed to festoon their counters with festive trimmings.

A Christmas tree was placed in the entrance hall and staff managed to dress it with what few baubles and tinsel could be found. The place looked bright and cheery for customers many of whom hurriedly sought to beat the British Forces deadline date for parcels to be sent to family members on the front line overseas. As Christmas week approached staff exchanged small Christmas gifts and managers took the extra time to personally thank staff for their dedication and commitment over the year.