Nella Last in the 1950s Page 23
We sat a while in the car till he had stopped his nervous trembling. I asked, ‘Like to go home and relax, love, or do you feel like going on the Coast Road in this blessed sunshine?’ He decided we would go. The glittering sunshine was deceptive. The sands froze as the water left them, and the thousands of birds, sensing this, paddled and fluttered in the shallow edge, seizing cockles or small sea creatures. Morecambe is the only place I know where hordes of rooks and crows compete with plovers and every kind of sea bird, though, each kind of bird keeping to their kind, from the air they must look like big rugs and carpets in their close masses. My tired mind wondered how many uncounted generations of them had stood in the same spot.
Tuesday, 29 January. All was snow-covered and where people had cleared sidewalks and pavements were sheet ice, as it thawed and then froze in the night. I was doing my hair and looking out of the window on to the snowing street when a baker’s van lurched † to a standstill over the frozen ruts and drifts. The roundsman† alighted and wiped the back of his hand across his nose, slapped his arms round his body in the cabby’s way of bringing back circulation, breathed heavily into his cupped hands, fumbled with a gate latch, gave it a violent wrench and push with his hands, took hold of a knocker and knocked, and then walked back to the van, opened the door, stacked three loaves on his coat sleeve and clutched some rolls in one hand and what looked like shortbread in the other, and walked back to deliver them to the waiting woman. I felt my stomach turn over. I’ve often noticed assistants coughing and sneezing into handkerchiefs, put them back into their pockets and reach for cakes, and felt that what I couldn’t bake I’d do without. I was once told in Canteen I had a ‘neurosis’ – he was a smarty college conchie and he was referring to my firm refusal to let the boys on ‘lamp’ or heavy oil fatigue take sandwiches or cake into their filthy hands. We wrapped a wee piece of paper on one side to hold them by. This morning I really felt sick, yet realised there were much more unhygienic tricks we never saw …
Mrs Higham picked Mrs Howson and I up, to go to the Civil Defence meeting … Today we were shown the use of food containers and the layout of a field kitchen. Somehow those two huge double skinned, cork insulated carriers – the square one, with three flat-lidded containers, each to hold enough to feed 26 people with solid food like porridge, mashed vegetable or pudding, and the big one, rather like those for ice cream – brought home to ‘simple’ minded housewives the utter senseless futility of ‘having to be prepared’ and stockpiling generally [in case of war]. We seemed to see the tens of thousands of such carriers at a time when essentials were going to be cut and goods get more scarce and dear. Civil Defence classes do depress me. I think it’s that fact that makes women hang back from attending, but someone will have to do it. Mrs Higham said as we were coming home, ‘Penny for them, Lasty’, and I said, ‘Just a formless montage, impossible to describe – fears, broken hopes, a tired body and mind and somehow a faith and courage that does burn low’. She nodded and as I got out she said, ‘Worry won’t help us, ducks. If the worst ever happens, we will be the lucky ones again. Remember those of us who worked busily the last time and had a purpose in life that did bring us peace of mind enough to carry on.’ I thought with a sadness, ‘Yes, but my lad had a strong young body then, not a damaged one and as I often think a little “kink” in his mental make-up, and my husband had strength and health that didn’t weaken with every passing week.’
He had a good fire and had been reading, and it wasn’t 4 o’clock, so he hadn’t been alone long. I wrote Cliff’s letter, sitting up to the fire to get warm, and made tea early. There was cress and cheese, bread and butter and jam, cake and shortbread biscuits, and not a bad wireless programme. I’ve often been amazed at the number of TV sets bought. Mrs Higham said the other day, ‘We must be freaks. No one believes me when I say I haven’t the faintest longing for one.’
Friday, 1 February. Mrs Howson came in before I’d cleared the tea.cleared the tea away. My goodness, she was in a paddy†. There’s been a lot of talk of much higher fees for evening and afternoon classes. They have always kept the same quite ridiculous figure of pre-war in spite of rising cost – 5s for two winter classes, and 4s 6d for two summer ones. The new fees were posted on the board in the hall last night – £1 for one winter class a week, 15s for one summer one, or £1 10s 0d if the whole year is paid for in advance. I pointed out that they must have been almost charity for some time; that the lucky few who almost fought their way in queues at the beginning of each session were heavily subsidised by people who couldn’t go or were not interested; and as for country dancing, I thought if people were interested enough to go, they should be interested enough to pay the salary of a teacher. She ‘hopes no one goes, and that all interest in hard or soft furnishing dies’. She was cross!
We talked of Sheila Diss. Her baby will be born at the beginning of July, and her general health has been so low the Hospital authorities are relaxing the rule of ‘no child visitors under 12’ and little Michael is to be taken to see his mother. He will stay for a fortnight with his other grandparents and visit every day. Mrs Diss is very down. They cannot get the muscles going in her legs, which have shrunk to sticks like President Roosevelt’s. No massage, exercise or electric treatment does any good. Mrs Howson said, ‘It’s really a pity she didn’t die, like Mr Last’s cousin’s boy, Whinray, the accountant’. I said, ‘Her task isn’t finished. We may see a little of the Pattern – unborn child may carry the Torch, and Sheila herself rise above things and find happiness where none is apparent now.’ She never struck me as a shallow person, in spite of her gaiety and love of good times.
Saturday, 9 February. After a quick tidy round and dust, we went down town, taking Jessie and little Kath to hear the Proclamation [of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II] from the steps of the Town Hall. It’s years since I’ve seen such a crowd in Barrow. The wide road before the Town Hall and the square were packed solid, and fanned out each side, where little could be seen. Most people seemed to have children and were anxious they should see if they themselves couldn’t, and everywhere quite big children as well as small ones were hoisted onto shoulders. Kath has one of those vivid intense faces. Her small mouth was pressed tightly, her brows knit in concentration and her hands were clasped together as she perched on Cliff’s shoulders and got a really good view. As she slid down afterwards she said, ‘I’ll ‘member it all to tell my Daddy when he comes home’.*
Monday, 11 February. A sadness beyond description hung over me, not lightened when my poor man said wistfully, ‘I’ll not see Cliff again’.** I could only say ‘We’re all in God’s Pocket, and we must let Cliff go off cheerfully – we went our way, remember’, but realised he had never done so, for he never slept away from home till he was 18 and went on a holiday with his father, and then never again till we went on our honeymoon at 21 and 23. He worked in the business at the back of the house, only getting very small pocket money till he was 21 – money for clothes and board at home were given to his mother. On reflection, I can well understand what a disrupting element I must have been in the family! …
I picked up the Express. The sight of poor old Queen Mary’s ravaged grief-stricken face made me feel how little, after all, were my worries and grief. She has had sorrow and loss all her life from girlhood, when the man she loved died and the then Duke of York succeeded and made her his Queen, and to lose two loved sons by death – and one in what to a proud woman would be worse than death, as he laid aside all duty, not, as I often suspect, at the bidding of an over-ambitious woman, but because he felt himself unable to go on – and to live on herself. ‘We go when our task is ended’, no sooner, no later.
I made good vegetable soup from the stock of the one-pot meal, fried up sliced cold potatoes with tomatoes and made custard. There was enough cold meat. I felt I couldn’t drive myself further and sat down after washing up. I’d letters to write and hopefully did my football pool. For four weeks I took advice from the sports forecast in the Daily an
d Sunday Express – and didn’t have one draw in my two columns. Last week I went back to guessing and had four in one column, three in the other – looks as if it’s a real gamble.
Saturday, 16 February. Mrs Atkinson called in, really I could see out of curiosity. [Redecorating was under way at 9 Ilkley Road.] She sat and talked, and I said, ‘While we have used the front room for meals, I’ve been surprised to see several obvious boarders coming in for lunch’. Our little estate of three short roads and two crescents have never had boarders in the nearly 16 years we have lived here, except relatives, or in one case a widow ‘took someone for company’ when she found she couldn’t live alone. Mrs Atkinson said, ‘Mrs Stewart across the road has got two in who share a room. She told me they paid a lot for the house. The two girls at the Grammar School cost more and more for clothes etc. and prices rise and rise for food, and her husband’s salary doesn’t, so she just had to do something.’ I often wish my husband would let me have a boarder, from a nearby, very highly priced place. Men who come to work for a while in the Yard often seek more reasonable and homely accommodation. He gets so wild at the thought of anyone [boarding] and points out that even Cliff coming in when he had ‘got nicely settled off’ spoiled his night’s rest, but on the other hand I do feel strongly the ‘interest’ would counterbalance that.
Saturday, 23 February. It was a lovely February day [en route to Spark Bridge]. I always think if you look round you notice as much beauty in the country as any muralist. The tracery of bare twigs and branches seems to take on a waiting look, like a happy woman who knows she is going to have a baby, although there’s no sign to other eyes. Wheeling gulls hovering or swooping on straight swathes of newly ploughed earth; beauty and purpose in the chugging turtle-like tractor; the cut-back hedges and piles of useless trimmings whose smoke, like that of the swale fires on hill sides and fells, today went up slowly in a spiral, into the blue and white of a spring-like sky; snow on all the hills, and snow of drifts and tussocks of age-old snowdrop patches, left to grow and ‘make’ unmolested in orchards and grassy verges in old gardens. I thought of the wee handfuls picked – 6d and 8d in florists’ shops – as I kept seeing them in increasing patches as we got away from the sea.
Aunt Sarah looked like a bundle of old-fashioned clothes. She † had been for wood to the hut and began to peel off an ulster coat † of unknown vintage, a woolly wrap, and a weird balaclava helmet which left her fluffy grey hair in a bush round her little withered face with its snapping sparkling dark eyes. She welcomed us with a flow of local gossip, all she had read about the King’s death and funeral, world affairs, rising prices, etc. My husband said enviously, ‘I wish I had a fraction of her memory and interest in things’.
Tuesday, 11 March. The bridge had been up for half an hour while ships, delayed through the fog, came in on the rising tide. Hordes of nervy women, too laden with heavy shopping bags and baskets to walk home, queued at every bus stop. My husband had cleaned the back windows when I returned. I felt so glad, more for the fact he had made the effort even than the clean windows. My face and ear had ached badly in the night, and I’d had very little sleep. After our lunch of soup, cold meat and watercress, bread and butter, cake and a cup of tea, my husband went to rest and I relaxed on the settee for nearly an hour. Mrs Howson came across to tell me we have got a new WVS organiser, a comparative newcomer to Barrow who spent most of the war in Newcastle and did WVS work, driving mostly. She has a big house in lovely gardens. Mrs Howson and I couldn’t help wishing she would do as Mrs Diss always did and let us have a garden party every summer, not only to be a grand meeting place for every branch of WVS and to interest new members, but it’s our only source of income for charitable subscriptions and little expenses generally.
I made a cup of tea and we sat talking till it was time for her to make her sister’s tea. Someone told her she had put on weight the three weeks she had been away and she had been horrified to find when she was weighed she had – near 4 lbs. Her father was a fat stockily built man, though her mother is only slender and it’s the fear of both Mrs Howson and her sister they will put on weight. My husband pottered in the garden and Shan We frisked busily around. I had the feeling of thankfulness that soon the garden will be ‘compelling’ and need odds and ends of digging, etc. I did cheese on toast for tea, and there was shortbread and chocolate cripsies.
We listened to the Budget with rather a sinking feeling. While family allowances and OAP should be raised, we felt it was people like ourselves who would feel the rising prices most. We really cannot afford to run the car now, but I’m always very firm – we will do as long as my husband can drive. I’d never hoard anything we have, feeling with simple care and our OAP we could manage as long as we live. I pooh-poohed all his little nervous ‘wonders’ away, saying, ‘We will keep the car. Rising cost of living, petrol, etc. won’t make us pinch. I’ll economise and make do. We have plenty of clothes, bedding, linen, etc., and I’ll manage.’ But I felt slight dismay. It’s not just food, it’s coal, soon electricity too, and every tiny item that seems dearer. [Consumers were to be squeezed in order to finance Britain’s rearmament programme.] No wonder people go in for pools. I’m staggered, literally speaking, as the most unlikely people seem to go in more and more. My modest 1 shilling is one of the only interests I seem to have, causing endless trains of thought, of what ‘I would do’, but under the interest there’s the growing hope too, not to win a huge sum like, say, £75,000 but, say, £10,000, which split into four would be useful rather than damaging, giving Arthur and Cliff that little extra, and making our lives ‘roses all the way’ with our simple tastes.
We listened to the Tommy Handley Story. I felt myself transported back to a queer jumbled life when sirens, happy companionship, grim ‘keeping on’, feeling in some way I helped my Cliff when I tried to help other lads, and through all the worry and tiredness beyond relief at times ran a thread of purest gold, difficult to put into words, a mixture of courage and faith in tomorrow as much as the determination ‘to be a soldier as long as my dear lad is’. Of all the great ones of the war, I felt our loved King, Tommy Handley and Winston Churchill would be the very spirit of those times. Only Churchill could be described as gifted or clever, and even in him it was the ‘Saw his duty as a dead sure thing – and did it, then and there’ that made him great to ordinary people like myself.
Tommy Handley’s death in January 1949 had caused almost universal shock and outpourings of appreciation, not least from Nella. She likened him to ‘an old puckish friend who you knew would poke fun at little everyday things. Somehow he always seemed like one of my own saucy little boys. Yet how good had God been to our Tommy, who never saw people tire of him, never grew bitter and disillusioned – he was no “laugh clown laugh”.* He loved life and laughter and his sense of fun bubbled out of him’ (9 January 1949). On New Year’s Day 1951 Nella recalled ITMA (It’s That Man Again), in which Handley starred, very fondly. ‘I listened to Memories of ITMA as I would have done to one of Churchill’s broadcasts – the two are entwined in my memory somehow. The laughter had such a hearty “gusty” sound – a joyous sound. There will never be another to take his place. He was like home-baked bread – his humour was never cruel, dirty or suggestive, often verging on age-old slapstick, often subtle and witty, and no artist ever had grander support. My mind was a montage of Canteen, boys who put ITMA catch-phrases into the language for all time – boys who went gaily off, never to return, with some bit of ITMA nonsense. I hope Tommy has met them now.’ She was full of praise for ‘the value of his nonsense – those silly bits of nonsense that were woven into life and living in the dark days of war, when laughter ranked so high as a “pick-up”’ (10 March 1953).
Wednesday, 12 March. It’s been a real bright March day. Mrs Salisbury came and we worked busily. I’ve two ends of Army blanket folded in a clothes basket for the cats’ bed. They need a windy day today to dry thoroughly. I decided to wash them today. I heard Mrs Salisbury laughing, and talking to
Shan We. She came in and said, ‘He is sitting on top of the coal box, watching his blanket flap in the wind and “fretting away to himself”, and sure enough, when I went out, he lifted a puzzled face as if to ask what his blanket was doing up the line. Mrs Salisbury – a very keen Labour woman – was so elated at the Budget. She will get the extra child allowance for two of her children and ‘Overtime will be worth working now and the Yard is going to be very busy soon, and everyone will have a lot of overtime’.
Saturday, 22 March. I could have nearly finished my coat but felt too restless. I said, ‘As you are going to be in bed all afternoon, I think I’ll go down town and get a buckle for Peter and might decide to go and see Streetcar Named Desire.* His face was a study but I didn’t say anything else. I had to pay 1s 3d for a buckle with a prong – I’d have been surprised to pay more than 6d before the war. Sewing at home comes dear nowadays. I saw a nice donkey brown coat, about the shade of the one I’m making, but the price,£12 5s 0d, made me glad my own had turned out well.
By cutting out another film and only showing a news film, the cinema got in another show. I went in at 3.30, just as the newsreel started, and was surprised to find the place more than half full, when my eyes got accustomed to the dark. I’d only seen Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, a picture I’ve often longed to see again. Through it I sat enthralled, swept into another epoch, as if I’d stepped into a story book. I sat fascinated by this one – horribly so. Marlon Brando’s acting of brutishness matched the soul and spirit degradation of Vivien Leigh. Every character, however small, was polished perfection. Yet with a sadness I thought how unnecessary the picture was, giving nothing, no memory to treasure, not the tiniest candle flame of hope, help or guidance, no lovely line to recall and remember, nothing but a feeling of pity for the lot of the sub-humans that helped make up the crowd, and a vague feeling that was a feeling of indecency at seeing a woman’s mind, mixed with regret so much talent had been so misspent. I saw several women leaving, murmurs of ‘I don’t know why I wanted – or you wanted – to come’. As I walked to the bus with my mixed feelings I puzzled as often – with so much that is lovely and gracious from which to choose, films and books did so little to help people. No use saying people like horror, false values, decadence. It’s an exploded fallacy that pigs prefer dirt when anyone who has lived on a farm knows they are a clean nice animal with more intelligence than cows or sheep, and if given clean surroundings and let alone in fields, chose hedges and grassy dells. They wallowed in dirt and filth if they didn’t have any other alternative.