Dolly's War (15 page)

My father, horrified on discovering the true identity of the ‘delicious' tea, screamed out, ‘Strike me bloody hooray!', grabbed his cap and tore off at full speed to the chemist, deciding that rhubarb pills, nature's cure of his earlier days, would save him from fatal poisoning. On arriving home he swallowed more than double the dose and Mother said in an indignant and injured tone, ‘I don't know why you are making all this fuss, Walter, my lavatory-pan is clean.' The next day our tea-taster was quite poorly. Naturally he blamed the ‘tea-water' and not the rhubarb pills.

One of my temporary jobs after my marriage, had been working for Sun Maid Raisins and there I met a charming man, Walter, who lived nearby at Stratford so that it was not surprising that I should bump into him one day. He was then working with a friend who had acquired a wholesale fish merchants in Billingsgate and as they were busy and required a secretary he introduced me to his friend, the owner. Mr Mitchell, Walter's friend, was also a charming man and I worked there happily for some time. Fearing that caring for Susan might be too much for my parents, although they had never said so, I found a nursery school for her at Stratford. After a few days my father insisted that Susan was unhappy at this school and when I discovered my parents walked to the school every afternoon and always saw Susan alone in the little playground, sitting in a corner sucking her thumb, I gave in and let them take care of her. Certainly the three of them seemed always very happy at this arrangement. Whenever possible my employer let me have some fish, even if only enough for Susan, so that my working at Billingsgate helped us with the difficult task of making our rations last.

Fortunately Susan always had her pint of milk daily for she was under five years of age. It was really a question of eking the rations out. Mother had never shopped here and there but always at the same grocers and butchers etc. so sometimes this helped when there was offal about. Father planted potatoes etc. in the back garden and somehow we managed for I was able to queue up for things off the ration and in short supply because I knew Susan was well looked after at home with my parents. My father grew spinach, which seemed everlasting, and although I hated it I swallowed it with chips when we had a little fat to spare for frying. Of course four people could manage better on four ration-books than one person could with one ration-book.

I queued up nearly the whole of one day at the Town Hall when parcels were sent from America for old-age pensioners. An excited Mother looked at the presentation bag I brought home, 1½lb. of cooking fat – and it was rancid! I suppose it had been so long in coming. I think we still used it for chips!

*

I must have been the only female at Billingsgate, I feel, for I was the centre of attraction every morning on arrival. I had to ascend a wrought-iron spiral staircase to the office above the market and I found this difficult to negotiate respectably. Skirts were a bit shorter then, a sort of war-time economy, although by today's standards they were a modest calf-length being just below the knee. I had to hold my bag and also hold my skirt down while climbing these giddy-making stairs which had patterned holes in them. My ascent was always a focal-point for male concentration each morning.

On my first morning there a porter asked me if I would like ‘elevenses', and I accepted eagerly his offer of tea and a slice of bread and dripping. He arrived back from the cafe and placed on my desk, well it wasn't even a mug, it was a white china pail, full to the brim with strong, very strong, red tea. Round the edge of the ‘cup' was a ring of fingerprints, bloody and scaly. The two slices of bread and dripping were each the thickness of a third of a loaf and these were wrapped in newspaper bearing the same fish scales and red smears. I seem to remember the whole ‘meal' cost only 3d. But, of course, this rich repast was not for me and ever after I made the office elevenses myself.

I should have realised that to make plans, even in one's mind, was stupid during war-time, and the raids got so terrible that Mother began to worry for Susan's safety and she prevailed on me to take Susan down into Suffolk with Marjorie and Richard until the intensity of the bombing lessened. I would have liked my parents to have left Forest Gate also, but my father was a front-line soldier, he loved his home, the danger, to him, was less painful than having to live in someone else's house, even though that someone else was a daughter.

I was deeply shocked at Marjorie's appearance. She had changed from a bright, attractive, healthy-looking girl into a thin, worried, delicate-looking woman. Living in the peace and plenty of the countryside I expected to see her blooming. Of course I hadn't realised that because she was only receiving a small army allowance she had been forced to find a job. Her allotment had been increased to about 27s. when her baby had been born and the doctor advised her to apply for extra as she couldn't work with a baby to care for. An old chap had arrived to enquire into her circumstances, rather an aggressive type Marjorie felt, and because she had no debts or hire purchase payments she was granted an extra 2s. per week! This hurt her pride and she returned it to the authorities and obtained a job in the local bakehouse. The hot bakehouse and heavy equipment soon took the bloom from her cheeks and she lost an enormous amount of weight.

So, for once, Dolly rose to the occasion and in this emergency took charge. Marjorie gave up her job and I became the man of the house. I painted and decorated the country cottage, stained the floors, and made the place look all chintzy, and even with my cooking Marjorie gradually began to be her old self again. I knew she felt better the day she ticked me off for using the cabbage saucepan for potatoes. To me saucepans were saucepans, indeed how could I tell the difference, they looked exactly alike. I never separated my own saucepans for different cookings, but to Marjorie, ever fussy, this was a culinary crime.

I became the inventor of new dishes although in my case necessity was the mother of invention. We had run out of ration-book rations one day. Marjorie and the children would be coming home for the evening meal, literally starving for the weather was crisp and cold, just the sort of day to give one an appetite. I was at my wits' end when one of Chas's old uncles called with the present of a large marrow. Now I detested marrow, but during a war sometimes detested commodities become life-savers. I peeled and de-gutted the marrow and stuffed it with everything I could find, grated cheese rinds, carrots, onions, parsnips, swede, all minced up and mixed with some ‘gravy' I discovered at the bottom of a cup of dripping. I tied it up like a ‘cock-a-trice' and roasted it with potatoes and cauliflower. It was voted the best meal in years, so I knew the family must have been very hungry.

We took the children skating on the pond in a real snowy country scene just like a postcard, except that bruises are not shown in those idyllic scenes, nor red noses, nor children crying with frozen fingers. We went nutting, blackberrying, picnicking, and once, when Chas was on leave, gleaning. He had enjoyed this so much as a small boy in Suffolk that he took a dim view of our complaints of stubble-torn legs. But it was impossible to shut out the war for ever and my return to the ‘front line' came in the shape of a communication from the Bank Manager. It was my first bank account and although I had written cheques for my needs, I never dreamt I was living a Micawber-type life. The letter pronounced that I was £84 ‘in the red', and an early settlement would be appreciated. ‘I'm £84 in the red,' I announced to Marjorie, feeling in need of another's sympathy and advice. ‘Oh, Dee,' said Marjorie. ‘Is that good?'

There was nothing for it but to go back to work. The only employment locally appeared to be the bakehouse or a clothing factory which was some miles away, and always hopeless with my needle and terrified at the thought of a sewing-machine, I decided to return to Forest Gate and Billingsgate. After all, from my safe vantage-point in the country I felt I could face a few bombs, my memory of the damage caused by these fiendish contraptions had become somewhat blurred. Susan and I were happy to be home again with my parents and life resumed much as it was before.

Until the day I took a telephone-call from Chas, now in the wilds of Scotland. He had an unexpected thirty-six hours' leave, and could get home for one night. I was excited about this unexpected treat but a little worried that the result might be an addition to our family. It definitely was not the right time for such indulgences and I knew Chas, miles from any chemists, would be unprepared. I decided I must be the girl guide. There was no one I could ask about this matter, certainly not my parents, they had never made such criminal purchases. Then I remembered passing, in Ilford High Road, a private clinic which supplied such necessities. I remembered, too, that there were, blessed salvation, two entrances, ‘Ladies' and ‘Gentlemen'. On arriving in Ilford I walked up and down the road for a long time, not only plucking up courage to enter, but also making sure that I would meet none of my old insurance-agent friends, for what would they have thought? Mine was definitely not a usual feminine errand. At last I entered the ‘Ladies' door of this luxurious-looking clinic, expecting to be met by a female nurse, or even lady doctor.

I was rehearsing the words with which I would enquire, casually, for my purchase, when I realised that the counter stretched the whole width of the ‘clinic' (in reality, a ‘shop'). The ‘clinic' was divided from the ‘Ladies' and ‘Gentlemen's' entrance door by a wooden partition which was only my height from the floor, so that inside the clinic there was no real segregation of the sexes. Not that I was worried a male customer would leap this partition, but I felt it unfair and cheating because from the road outside a lady would have every right to assume that her delicate, or indelicate, mission would be confidential. Had there been a male customer present I would have fled for ever, but I was alone in the clinic and prepared to meet my lady assistant. An inner door opened and a white overalled
MAN
! approached me. To his ‘Yerss, Moddom?' I stammered out the word ‘Sheath', assuming he'd pass me a little paper packet so I could rush away for ever. But he said, ‘What quality, madam?' I couldn't answer and he said gently, ‘Perhaps you'd like silk finish, madam, I'll show you some samples,' and he turned round to the walls which I now observed were lined with dark blue drawers bearing little gold handles. It was just like Oxenham's the draper's shop of my childhood. He placed on the counter four of these enormous drawers, all filled to capacity with hundreds and hundreds of ‘you know what'. Just as I was about to say, ‘I'll take one of those' a male customer appeared on the other side of the half-barrier. He was a florid-looking man wearing a bowler-hat at a rakish angle, and sporting gold teeth, waxed moustache, spotted handkerchief in pocket, walking stick with a gold knob, and a look of ‘come hither, darling, I see you've got the goods!'

I turned my back to this Romeo and decided to say quickly and professionally to the white-coated man, ‘I'll take a quarter of a dozen of these.' I proffered some silver, but my release did not come. To my utter horror and humiliation and great joy from the gold-knobbed man, the assistant approached a little gold tap on the wall. On this he fixed one of my purchases and suddenly it became an enormous balloon. I felt I should faint whilst waiting for the bang – three bangs! As the third deflation took place I assumed my release was at hand, but still worse was to come. The assistant approached me with what appeared in my demented state to be a brass carrot, and powdering the deflations he fitted them on to the carrot, one by one, and for three tormented years, it seemed years to me, he worked this carrot backwards and forwards, all the while chatting to the waiting male and me. I must have looked apoplectic for he said, ‘Warm weather for this time of the year, don't you think, Modom?' I staggered from the ‘clinic' and hurried to the bus stop. On the way I noticed a queue outside a tobacconists. They had cigarettes! I had given up smoking as a war-time measure but I took my turn on the queue and hurried to a little side street where I inhaled, with great relief, a De Reszke Minor. I was met by a sad mother when I got home. Chas's leave had been cancelled! Suddenly I hated all men.

Chas and I had been unable to ‘talk things over' before he left for warmer climes for his departure to the front had been an unexpected nightmarish shock in the middle of the night. He was stationed in Scotland with men of a similar low medical category. Rumour had it, very strong rumour, that they were to be trained for taking charge of Southern Eastern Command when we invaded France. Naturally, being a man conscious of ‘careless talk costs lives', he had not cheered me up by telling me of this near-certainty rumour. True they had ‘dummy-runs' at dawn and pre-dawn, and indeed at any time of the day or night. They were issued with tropical kit, ‘eskimo' kit, received all known inoculations, but, although, naturally, inoculations cannot be withdrawn, the various types of kit were withdrawn, so that the men sure of their place on British soil for the duration, assumed that these ‘manoeuvres' were to fox any fifth columnists who might be lurking in Scotland.

One morning they were awoken in the dark at 3 o'clock. ‘Another bloody pantomime,' said one chap. Off they went on another routine march, again they piled into a train on the small Scottish station. Off they went to sleep. Suddenly, Freddie, one of their number, yelled out, ‘Christ, look at this bloody great ship.' The others didn't open their eyes, he was the practical joker. ‘Shut up, you silly great sod,' said his best chum kindly. ‘Let's get a bit of shut-eye.' But Freddie was too excited now. ‘Look, Ron,' he yelled. ‘There's a load of American G.I.s waving to me.' The carriage, now awake, felt their hearts beating. There was a great ship, there were thousands of men, American and British soldiers, going up the gang-plank, in and out of sheds, and in a cold, wet, Scottish dawn they tumbled out of the train to commence their first ‘sea cruise'. It was afternoon before they finally got on to the boat. (It was the Durban Castle and I was ‘told' years later that it carried 6000 men on that voyage!)