Domestic Soldiers (31 page)

With news of both Hitler’s and Mussolini’s demise, word came through that German forces in Italy had finally surrendered. By 4 May, German troops in northwest Europe had also given up the fight. All that was left was a formal surrender from German Supreme Command.

As the war in Europe rapidly drew to a close, wintry cold descended from north to south, and snow blanketed Britain. Rutherford complained that she had had enough of the cold, and Tanner’s garden had a ‘hang dog look’. In Newcastle, Irene Grant struggled with the anaemic coal supply to battle the ‘freezingly cold’ conditions in the north. Word was that next year, there would be less coal. ‘We
cannot
do with less,’ she protested. Taking occasional breaks from mending ‘fairly hopeless dress and pyjamas’, Helen Mitchell watched the snow fall outside and thought, ‘How futile everything seems all over the world, despite how thankful one is to be able to sleep in peace.’

In the early days of May, everyone anxiously awaited news of the formal end of hostilities in Europe. Soldiers in the canteen in Barrow could not be dragged away from the wireless, for fear, Nella reported, that they might ‘miss something’. Nella worked her way around the canteen as it buzzed with excitement, joking with the ‘boys’ and searching through the stocks to conjure up hot, satisfying meals. Other women at the canteen insisted the soldiers would be fine with cheese sandwiches, but Nella would have none of it. With Nella in charge, the grateful soldiers ate heartily: chips, carrots and casserole steak with gravy, topped off with pancakes, jam sauce and tea. ‘Any minute now’, was the consensus in the canteen as news from the wireless and papers was enthusiastically dissected.

Though the soldiers’ revelry was infectious, and here and there gay red, white and blue dotted the streets in anticipation of VE (Victory in Europe) Day, there was a curious flatness to the wait. The end was too drawn out – ‘normalcy’ had slowly crept in, starting with the end of blackout restrictions months before. ‘There would be no spectacular change to sweep things away on VE day,’ no ‘master-switch’ turning on all the lights across Europe once again, Nella lamented. It was like watching a long drawn-out play where the actors left the stage one by one until someone slowly turned up the house lights and announced that the play was over, leaving the audience bemused and ‘uncertain of the next move’, until they too slowly dispersed.

Everyone waited on edge for the official declaration of VE holidays. Rumour buzzed and speculation raged as to when Churchill would declare the end and open victory festivities. Natalie Tanner’s postman was sure that VE Day would be declared on 5 May. Tanner made sure to get in enough groceries before the celebrations – and the expected queues – developed. Aside from the potential crowds and queuing, Tanner was put out by the inconvenience of the wait. The ‘whole affair has been badly managed’, she declared. Hugh had appointments with clients that hung in the balance until VE was declared and she would have to plan to avoid the crowds of children who all had tickets to the cinema for VE Day. The government should simply set a date so that people could plan accordingly, Natalie argued.

On 6 May, Irene Grant wrote simply, ‘War end watching hourly – When???’ Helen Mitchell went into London to run errands on 7 May, in ‘great state of fear that V Day would break’. ‘Damn V Day,’ she hissed.

While nerves were stretched and the holidays hung in the balance, Edie Rutherford and her friends had much cause to celebrate. Henry, the young RAF pilot whose wife Edie had comforted in 1943 when he had gone missing and was thought dead in a raid over Berlin, had safely returned home. He had baled out at 5,000 feet and was seriously wounded when he landed in a tree. For three days, he had stumbled through the French countryside, dazed and weakened from his injuries, until an old French couple finally took him in. The wife wanted to take him to the Resistance, but the husband was disgusted when the pilot could offer him no more than the £25 he had on him for his release. Henry was then dumped into a cart, wheeled to the nearest village and handed to the German authorities. As Russians closed in on Henry’s prisoner-of-war camp, he and his fellow prisoners were forced to march 500 miles to the west in freezing conditions with little more than a loaf of bread for every four prisoners. In April, Henry’s camp was finally liberated by American troops pushing eastwards.

Hoping to be free of chores on the big day, Alice Bridges spent the morning of 7 May cleaning her house in anticipation of the announcement. Edie Rutherford spent that day at work ‘bewitched, buggered, and bewildered’, waiting for word to come of VE Day. That night, she switched on the wireless for the 9 o’clock news and learned that the next two days were holidays. Nella Last felt let down by the announcement. A friend who was visiting simply said, ‘What a FLOP,’ over and over when he heard the news. Indeed, Nella thought the officials were holding back, not wishing people to get overexcited and forget that this was only one half of the war finished; Japan had not surrendered, there was
more war to come. Excited by the news, Alice and her husband fashioned a flagpole and, after hours of rigging and admist a flurry of cursing, eventually managed to raise a large Union Jack to celebrate the occasion. When she went to bed that night, ‘a most marvellous bonfire against a dark sky’ glowed on the horizon, ‘looking lovely and heralding tomorrow’s peace’.

In Kent, VE Day dawned with ‘flashes and uproar’. Helen Mitchell awoke with a start, thinking the noise was an air raid. Instead, it was a nasty thunderstorm passing overhead. After her husband woke up and left to check on the factory that morning, she tossed and turned, suffering from a ‘foul headache’ – the consequence of the night ‘raid’. When she finally gathered the strength to drag herself out of bed, the gardener appeared and told her he was taking a holiday. When Cripps, her servant, showed up later, Helen offered her a holiday, but she turned it down and ‘muscled in on the laundry’, there being ‘nothing amusing to do’.

With Cripps around, Helen braved a walk into the village. There was a ‘rash of flags’ about, one so large it nearly knocked her down when it fluttered in her face as she walked into a shop. When she came home, Cripps had finished all the housework and Helen went into the garden to collect spinach. She sat in the garden resting for some time, until the ‘sultry enervating’ weather drove her indoors. Later in the afternoon, her husband turned on the wireless to listen to Churchill’s victory speech. Helen couldn’t be bothered, ‘as war is over and I don’t want to hear any bilge and burp about it, nor false promises’, and wrote up her diary entry instead.

Edie Rutherford went into town that morning to help a friend who was moving house. All along the bus
route, people queued in the rain for fish and bread. She was home in time to hear Churchill’s address at 3 p.m. Edie was proud of Churchill, his speech reminding her of the ‘great gratitude’ she felt ‘for being born British’. At 5 p.m., she and Sid walked around town and saw thousands gathering around City Hall for a victory service. Many others simply wandered about, looking at decorations, which Edie thought so poorly done they were not worth mentioning. ‘All the little mean streets had their decorations just as for Coronation and Jubilee,’ she reported, ‘I find them pathetic, tho’ courageous.’

They returned home in the evening and walked around her shopping district for a time. A radio shop had fashioned large speakers outdoors, blaring festive music as people, many ‘worse for drink’, wandered about, ‘looking sorry for themselves or just merry’. Outside her flats, a neon ‘V’ had been erected and people merrily danced to music emanating from a flat on a lower floor. Edie didn’t dance, but she refused to grudge others their fun. By 2 a.m., however, others weren’t so magnanimous: someone on a higher floor poured water on the revellers from above, at which the merrymakers soon melted away.

In Barrow, Nella Last met with throngs of schoolchildren milling about, harried housewives carrying heavy baskets and holding the tiny hands of their toddlers as they pointed out the festive decorations around town, and queues of women anxiously awaiting the arrival of the advertised ‘fish later’. Feeling unsettled all morning, her ‘wretched tummy … felt as if I’d swallowed butterflies’, she went home and rested. Reciting comforting thoughts to settle her stomach, she decided it was VE Day and would not let it ruin the day. The
family then hopped in the car and drove down to Lake Coniston. The trip tamed her uneasy stomach and eased her mind. ‘Odd shafts of sunlight made long spans of sparkling silver on the rippled water, the scent of … damp earth’, she wrote, ‘lay over all like a blessing.’ When they returned, they switched on the wireless to hear the King’s speech, and ‘drank a toast in beer and cider’. Despite the VE celebrations, Nella confided that she still felt a ‘curious “flat” feeling’. By 10.30 p.m., she was in bed. Faint ‘snatches of songs’ wafted in through the open window. ‘I’ve heard more “merriment” by a straggling crowd of soldiers as they went back to camp on a Saturday night,’ Nella reported ruefully.

Dodging the raindrops, Hugh Tanner drove his wife and mother-in-law into Leeds for lunch, where they had champagne to celebrate the end of European hostilities. They stayed long enough to hear Churchill’s speech, then drove back home to take care of gardening. Natalie ‘decided that VE was just like any other wet Sunday. Everything’, she sighed, ‘seems flat and stale.’

With the direct threat to Britain finally over for certain, Edie Rutherford, so buffeted by the vicissitudes of British weather, was happy to note that weather forecasts were once again being reported. Feeling a little playful, she asked M-O, ‘Anyone want two tin hats and two gas masks?’

CONCLUSION

WHO'D A THOUGHT IT?

Jimmy held out his hand to Alice. Taking hold, he gently lifted her into his delivery van and saw that she was settled in before he started the ignition and drove out of town. He had waited for her outside the Odeon theatre for their usual Tuesday date, but it was such a ‘marvellous' June day that the two decided to skip the film and instead enjoy a jaunt into the countryside. Alice had spent the better part of the morning primping for the afternoon tryst. She put on a stunning green-and-brown silk dress she had made days before, a belt to match and lovely new suede shoes. It took her two hours to spiff up an old handbag, polishing it until it shone like new, and lovingly mending an old pair of gloves as she had failed to find new ones in the shops. Jimmy confessed he'd never seen her ‘looking so nice'.

The two drove south out of Birmingham, passing sun-soaked verdant fields on their way to Sutton. Lounging along the reeded banks of Aqualate Mere, Alice thankfully breathed in the fresh air and enjoyed the warm sun as it played upon her face. While they relaxed, Jimmy and Alice reminisced about the past ten months they'd spent together. As she cast her mind
to the past, Alice was slightly shocked to realize that, apart from her usual chats with men in the casino, she had been exclusively devoted to Jimmy.

Her husband, Les, still refused to take Alice out on the town and seemed relieved that Alice was perfectly happy going out on her own. He had no idea that she was seeing only one man and falling for him with each passing day.

She was forty-two and he was twenty-five. He was tall and thin, quiet and insecure. Unlike the other men she'd met in town, Jimmy was a perfect gentleman. It was rare and refreshing, she told M-O, to find a man who respected her wishes for platonic friendship and didn't press her for anything sexual. Her typical dates, on the other hand, showered her with ‘friendship and adoration … till they find out it's a waste of time', and then bolted. That day at Aqualate Mere, Jimmy told her, ‘He loves me more than ever,' but she didn't stone-wall him as she did the others, who often professed love in hopes of a more physical relationship. Instead, she knew he truly meant it and was quietly pleased to hear the words.

He was handsome when he smiled, which, in the beginning of their relationship, was very rare. When she met him, Jimmy was overwhelmed by his job, and his home life was a mess. His mother drank both her wages and his, leaving him with ‘no clothes, no shoes and no one to care for him'. In August 1944, Alice stepped in as the maternal figure he had never known. They met in town that August and instantly made a connection. For hours they sat in a churchyard, he talking about his problems, she listening intently. As they parted that day, he asked her earnestly for her friendship and she gladly assented. Though she was
sceptical about a lasting friendship because of their age difference, she soon found age was easily overcome.

In the beginning, the age gap was bridged by Alice rationalizing that her role in the relationship was purely maternal. He worked part-time, and therefore, had his mornings free. They met at least once a week in the morning for a movie and lunch or for an exhilarating drive through the country. Slowly, Alice built up his confidence and became the bright spot in his week. She cleaned him up, gave him advice on his job and helped him with his mother. When they marked their first anniversary together, she noted proudly that he had gained weight, had more self-assurance and that his home life was on the mend. Alice told M-O that her mission was to help Jimmy find a young girl whom he could marry. But, on the night of their first anniversary, Jimmy confessed that he'd fallen hopelessly in love with her and no other woman could ever match her ‘perfection'. ‘Good gosh', she wrote with a rare tinge of humility, ‘perfection?'

Alice was never abashed to tell M-O how ravishing she looked on her outings and rarely missed an opportunity to recount any man's compliment on her beauty. Indeed, when Jimmy dropped her off in town after the ride out to Aqualate Mere, she reported that a ‘Yank' smiled and eyed her hopefully. Americans rarely took notice of her, Alice wrote, because she was never ‘blatant enough'. That day, however, was different. ‘In the sun my satin dress just hit the eye, so the Yanks were naturally attracted,' she smugly observed. A few days later, she told M-O she'd met an interesting man in the casino who asked to see her again. She set up a time to meet in a week, but sincerely hoped he wouldn't show – Alice didn't want to break his heart.
‘The only trouble', she confessed, ‘is if a friendship happens, he'll fall for me in a big way.' Her exploits and admirers certainly boosted her self-confidence, and Alice enjoyed telling M-O how fetching she was, both physically and intellectually (as she often told them, the men enjoyed her conversation as well as her looks). But Jimmy's compliments were deeper, more meaningful – professions that made her heart leap and her stomach plummet, professions that struck her as so sincere that she couldn't help but be modest.

Still, Alice protested strictly virtuous behaviour with Jimmy. Though she told M-O that there would never have been a relationship had Les kept up his marital end of the bargain, she always maintained her first love for her husband. ‘Les was to fault', she wrote in her diary after seeing Jimmy, ‘for never energizing himself to take me out. He is lucky to be able to neglect me and yet keep my love.' Despite all that, she was clearly smitten with Jimmy. When he told her he had finally landed full-time work after a year of seeing each other, she mourned the loss of their regular outings. ‘I really felt like weeping, I have got so used to him and his fidelity and thoughtfulness that for a time I shall feel lost,' she confessed.

That summer, as the war in the Pacific raged on and Alice grew closer to Jimmy, the nation went to the polls. Two weeks after VE Day, party politics once again became a reality after five years of coalition under Churchill's command. Although the leader of the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, wanted to maintain the coalition government until the war with Japan was completed, Labour's National Executive Committee resoundingly rejected an offer made by Churchill to
wait out the war. Labour formally left the coalition; the first general election in ten years was now scheduled for 5 July.

Incensed at Labour's defection, Churchill's opening salvo in the campaign was an ill-conceived mud-slinging and fear-mongering speech delivered on 4 June. Designed to strike fear into the nation of the dangers if Labour came to power, it instead smacked of a petulant politician playing politics as usual. Assuming the very word ‘socialism' to be a dreadful bogey to the British people, the Prime Minister spiced his speech liberally with the term, very rarely referring explicitly to the Labour Party. ‘I must tell you', Churchill schooled his audience, ‘that a Socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom.' Indeed, he continued with an ominous tone, ‘There can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with Totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State.' Furthermore, Churchill argued, a socialist government aimed at directing every aspect of society and industry could not suffer public discontent with its policies, and therefore, ‘They would have to fall back on some form of
Gestapo
.' And if the spectre of a Nazi-like political police wasn't enough to warn the people off a disastrous vote for Labour, Churchill further warned the people that property and ‘nest-egg[s], however small' were in dire jeopardy of ‘shrivel[ling] before their eyes'.
1

Most were shocked by Churchill's so-called ‘Gestapo speech'. The revered and respected war horse had opted to appeal not to a higher sense of Britishness and optimism, but rather to continue the fear and uncertainty of wartime; it was as if he had forgotten (or, indeed, had never learned) all that the people had fought for in the People's War. Churchill and the Conservatives, dubbed the ‘National Party' during this speech, seemed
to have little agenda beyond rolling things back to the 1930s and running on the strength of the great man's popularity. Even those who held an ‘admiration [for Churchill] … amounting to idolatry', as Vita Sackville-West confessed, were shaken by his speech.
2
Nella Last, who similarly harboured an unwavering love for Churchill, was also ‘disappointed' with the speech. ‘I felt it lacked dignity – was a bit too “puckish” for the time or place,' she wrote to M-O. ‘It will', Nella was convinced, ‘start a bit of mud slinging and ear slapping.' Those who were Labour supporters, like Edie Rutherford, listened with disgust. ‘Same old thing, and he'll get in and all his pale,' she spitted, ‘because most folk are still dead in ignorance in this country.'

When Clement Attlee took the microphone the next night, his voice calm and reassuring, he stressed that Churchill had made a gaffe, for the Prime Minister ‘wanted the electors to understand how great the difference between Winston Churchill the great leader in war of a united nation, and Mr. Churchill the party leader of the Conservatives'.
3
Indeed, Attlee struck a deep chord here, for many – as noted by M-O – felt Churchill to be a great war leader, but as Irene Grant had stressed often in her correspondence with M-O, ‘not for the people'. In fact, after Churchill's speech, Irene noted it was a ‘grand marvellous Tory speech. . . we who wondered had he a
li
ttle
leftish feeling, now know he's pure Tory with not a thought for the people.'

From the beginning, when J.B. Priestley had gone on air in 1940 to push for a better future through the People's War, Churchill had always been reluctant to entertain such utopian sentiments. In 1942–3, as people excitedly discussed Beveridge's template for a new world order, he was obstinate. Churchill's Gestapo
speech was not only in bad taste for connecting Labour with Nazism, but it also reminded the people that he refused to look to the future – a
better
future. Attlee's speech certainly threw a bit of mud, for instance, when he said, ‘when [Churchill] talks of the danger of Labour mismanaging finance', he had conveniently forgotten ‘his own disastrous record at the Exchequer' in the 1920s; but Attlee's speech was much more hopeful and focused on the future. ‘The men and women of this country who have endured great hardships in the war are asking what kind of life awaits them in the peace,' he asserted. ‘They seek the opportunity of leading reasonably secure and happy lives, and they deserve to have it.'
4
Attlee talked about the questions that mattered as Britain looked to the future.

The prime election issue, as Britons envisioned the future, was housing. Gallup polls in June found that 40 per cent of people considered housing to be the most important issue, far beyond even the next highest-rated, social security (14 per cent), and a majority polled believed Labour was the best party to handle it. The problem was massive: over three million properties, most of which were private dwellings, had been decimated in the Blitz. One answer to the problem was prefabricated houses. In Sheffield and its suburbs, new prefabs were erected and on view to the public in July. Edie Rutherford reported that the boxy non-descript houses looked ‘awful' on the outside, but were ‘well fitted up on the inside'. The cost was astonishing, she reported: £900, ‘which seems terrible when one thinks of what one could get for that sum prewar'. Still, ‘Anything is better than mother-in-law.' As one woman reported after visiting a post-war housing exhibition in London, ‘I'm so
desperate for a house I'd like anything. Four walls and a roof are the height of my ambition.'
5

The extent to which the housing shortage was a major grievance that summer was illustrated in the actions taken by ex-servicemen in Brighton. Coming home from war and finding little or inadequate housing for their families, groups of ex-servicemen, dubbed ‘vigilantes' by the press, began taking over empty houses. Many were frustrated at the bureaucracy involved in officially requisitioning unoccupied private property (some of which had stood empty for the entire war) during such a housing dearth and finally took the law into their hands.
6
Several times during July Edie cheered for the vigilantes. ‘Hurrah for the Vigilantes. Maybe they are wrong, but why can't authority do what they are doing? Until it does, I hope vigilantism spreads,' she told M-O. Eventually, convinced by the movement, the Ministry of Health gave power to local authorities to speed up the process. Edie marked the news with a resounding, ‘Hurrah!', happy to see ‘democracy in action. Who says it doesn't pay to kick up a fuss agen all the laws?'

By the time the Ministry of Health acted in July, the election had taken place, and on 26 July the results of the 5 July election were finally trumpeted on the BBC. Although a great deal of cynicism and some apathy shot through the campaign, voter turnout was an impressive 73 per cent, helped, in part by the beautiful summer weather the nation enjoyed on election day. Edie Rutherford and her husband cast their votes for Labour, as did Alice Bridges, Irene Grant and Natalie Tanner. Tanner had spent most of June and early July stumping for the party, helping out with administrative matters and attending party meetings.