Nella Last in the 1950s Page 4

  Friday, 3 February. We settled by the fire. I read all and any bits to interest my husband, both in the papers and a Woman’s Weekly Mrs Howson left, and then at 7 o’clock I so gladly turned on to Wilfred Pickles [on Have a Go, broadcast live from London Zoo] – that man often feels a personal friend lately. I felt so very strung up, so little would have shattered the calmness on which my husband’s very well being depends nowadays. I felt as if nothing could have cheered me, my husband looked so despondent and down. Then the elephant keeper ‘had a go’, and in a perfectly serious voice, answering Wilfred’s ‘Why do elephants marching along a street hold on to each other’s tails?’ said, ‘It keeps them decent’! not pausing to realise he meant decent in the Northern Irish idiom meaning ‘tidy’. We laughed and laughed. And the poor woman’s account of the abscess on her tail end, and her evacuation from a hospital in the blitz in a blanket, with a ‘gas mask and some papers’, struck us as funnier than the most comic things we had heard for a long, long time. As I picked up my sewing and feeling as if I’d had a big glass of champagne or something, I thought ‘Black bitter luck follow anyone who ever alters Have a Go in the very least detail. It’s got something to last as long as the BBC does.’ Wilfred Pickles has a ‘spark’ of something. Tommy Handley had it, and amongst the very few who have it are Gladys Young, Freddie Grisewood – yes, and Stewart Macpherson. In such widely different personalities, I wonder if it’s some very personal streak of their very own they give into the microphone. A few others have it in different, sometimes fleeting, degrees. It’s a great asset.

  Saturday, 4 February. The birds have got their mating notes very early. We used to say when I was a child, they began courting on the 14th of February. I didn’t feel well. My wretched bones nearly got the mastery of me. I felt a bit better after breakfast, and decided to clean the insides of the windows. The clear sunshine made them look cloudy with smoke and steam from cooking. I was in the lounge and my eyes fell on a little carved coconut wood elephant. I felt chuckles begin in my throat and a vision of five or six elephants swinging down the Strand, with their ponderous yet ‘mincing’ tread, so smug and confident in their ‘decent’ appearance as trunks gripped tails! My husband put his head round the door and said, ‘What are you laughing about?’ and I said, ‘Decent elephants’ and he laughed too.

  Sunday, 5 February. A wild night, with the ‘hoo hoooo’ note of snow in the wind. I was relieved to find a bright morning when I rose. I expected to see snow. I had a rest but got up before 11 o’clock. My husband was wandering round in a real black mood. I read him bits out of the Sunday Express.* He reminded me of years gone by when the boys were busy with Meccano, or Arthur with his everlasting model stage making and Cliff modelling, and I read aloud. I can recall some of the books – most of Dickens, Vanity Fair, most of John Buchan’s and earlier still Gene Stratton Porter’s books as well as some of Kipling’s I thought suitable. My husband listened and spoke today as if I’d grown too lazy to read books now to him. As I pointed out, he grew more difficult – few of the above books but had some ‘violence’, deaths, separation or a bit of a ‘thrill’. If I read them to him nowadays he would complain of their upsetting him and making him have nightmares! There was good mutton soup – the meat ate nicely – and we had bread and butter and mint jelly to it, and I made a steamed egg custard to stewed apples.

  I felt in that edgy way as if a skin had been peeled off me, and so very glad we could go out. We went round Grange, and over Cartmel Fell, and could see the Yorkshire hills as well as all Lakeland ones, white with snow. There must have been a heavy fall in the night for there was not even a sprinkle of snow on the hills yesterday. I felt cold. Not even my fur coat and rug – and my little Shan We curled on my lap – could make me feel warm, and we were both glad of the thermos flask of tea I’d taken. The sun shone, and there were more people out walking than I’ve seen this winter. It was a good day for quick walking, but those who loitered looked blue with cold.

  I made up a good fire, and before tea pressed the top panel and flounce of my crazy patchwork, ready to put together with a piping. I made some cheese and tomato sandwiches and got out the Xmas cake, wishing I could cheer my husband. Now the first idea of giving up work is fading. He only sees difficulties ahead in every direction. I can see I’ll have a trying time till all is settled. I read out of a magazine thinking to interest him, and he fell asleep, so I picked up my sewing. Just before 8 o’clock there was a ring and it was Alan Boyd, come to say goodbye. He has got a ship and sails for either Australia or New Zealand on Thursday. He leaves Barrow for London on Tuesday morning. He sat and talked a while – he is a nice fellow. It was so kind of him to come and say goodbye, and he hopes to see Cliff if he touches Australia. I had that sad ‘always goodbye’ feeling as we wished him all the luck in the world. Such a pity he isn’t married. He would have made the silly girl who wouldn’t wait for him very happy. I was thankful when bedtime came. It’s so very unfortunate my husband’s glasses had to be changed just now. It’s one thing after another against him.

  Monday, 6 February. On our way to Spark Bridge we called to see my butcher’s baby, a dear little seven weeks old girl with lovely blue grey eyes, and such tiny hands and feet. She is so good except for waking and demanding to feed in the middle of the night. Her mother said, ‘I’ve tried to make her do without it as they recommended in the Home, but it’s no use’. I said, ‘Common sense and understanding raised babies before Clinics. I think there’s a tendency to regiment babies a bit too much. Rules were made for babies, not babies for rules.’ We talked about whether babies should be nursed and sung to. I said ‘Yes – it gave them a feeling of security to know loving arms’. I can tell her husband’s mother believes in being stern.

  Aunt Sarah looked so pinched and cold. She and I were the odd ones out in a hardy ‘stir-about-and-you-won’t-feel-cold’ family. Snowdrops were out in her little garden, and a wee posy ring of them were on the table. Her tiny figure was swathed with a woollen coatee over her dress, and then a Shetland shawl. I thought she must have been outdoors, but she said, ‘No fire, clothes or hot drinks keep out this bitter cold, do they?’ Poor old pet – I understand to a degree! Sheep in the fields sheltered on the leeward side of hedges, their wool washed by rain, flowing in a cream nimbus, making their black faces look odd. What hens did walk had ruffled feathers and were only searching and picking food before nightfall. In the distance all the hills gleamed white.

  I got nice fillets of plaice for tea, my husband’s favourite fish, and tea was soon ready. He looked a little brighter, but when I suggested taking my raffle tickets in to Mrs Atkinson’s to sell a few, he said, ‘I’ll buy two and you can see her tomorrow surely’. In his poor sick mind I often wonder what I stand for exactly – some kind of anchorage and security? In his wildest most terrifying dreams, he says, ‘And then I heard your voice’ or ‘You reached down and caught hold of me with your firm warm hand’ or even ‘You smiled at the great big man and he put the huge sword back in its sheath with a loud rattle and we just walked away’. Once he made me laugh loudly and long as he told a long rigmarole of a fearsome beast with, presumably, more than its share of heads and legs. He said, ‘You were so cross. You said, “The devil toast you. Why cannot you drink a saucer of milk when there’s nothing else? Poor old Murphy likes milk.”’ And he went on, ‘You patted the beast as if it was Shan We, and it followed you round a corner of the road’.

  I got out my crazy patchwork. I thought it had been my own idea to stitch and stitch, after blending colours that in themselves were a pleasure. Tonight I felt the idea had been put into my mind as a little indirect answer to my ever repeated plea for ‘All Lovely Things’, as my Gran called patience and kindness, pity, courage, etc. Now as my mind clearly tells a little rosary, I find my prayer short and ever shorter – kindness and courage so much more important than anything else – and health of mind and body to keep on. I looked at the brightly burning fire and my little cats. I’d quarrel with anyo
ne who said cats don’t think. Mine do much more. They see into my sad and often so lonely mind and show they understand. Old Murphy will rear his big kind head out of the tight ball he has made of himself and with a queer highly pitched purr that is almost a word come to lie on my foot. My Shan We is my shadow, leaving the warmth of the fire any time to seek me if I go upstairs, his anxious face pressed against the window frame if I’m sweeping outside.

  Monday, 13 February. Ulverston always seems as familiar as Barrow, which was really my home town. I’d gladly go and live in Greenodd or Davy Bridge, about three miles away, if we could find a cottage – it would have to be for sale. We were coming home and my husband said, ‘You’re miles away again. What are you thinking?’ I said, ‘The bungalow of Lakeland stone, with the room in the roof, the long living room with wide windows each end, central heating, the walls and paths of well laid stone, and so on and so on, that I’d plan and have built if I won the Irish Sweep.’ He said, ‘What about your plan for Australia – going there?’ I fell into another train of thought. I’ve always such an aversion to meddle with the boys, or make them feel I would cling, or interfere, perhaps because I’ve always had someone wanting to change me, from the days I realised my dark brown hair and eyes and excessive vitality when small were contrasted always with the child of mother’s first marriage – to my total disadvantage. She had been blue-eyed and lily fair, quiet and gentle always. I always felt too as I grew older I shared the place with my father in mother’s mind and heart – somehow we were interlopers. Her life really ended before the honeymoon days were over, before she realised they would end. In the 10½ years since Cliff left home, he has grown and developed. I’ve grown so much older and so desperately tired. He, I know, pictures me as I used to be – ready for anything, grave or gay. I’d be a great disappointment to him now. I don’t feel there would be a place in his gay vivid life for anyone who felt so depleted of all vitality. I shrugged off my thoughts impatiently. They impinged on the new philosophy in which I rigidly schooled myself – to take every day as it comes, and when things do get on top of me, count my many blessings again and again, like a rosary.

  Thursday, 16 February. My husband was in a queer mood. He said, ‘When you ever had your fortune told, did anyone tell you I’d have to retire early?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t think so’. He said, ‘Well, try and think. You have such a marvellous memory for conversations that took place years ago.’ I said, ‘Well, I cannot recall anything remotely like “retirement”.’ I added, ‘Remember I was told I’d not end my days in the home I’d just moved into?’ – looks as if that country cottage about which we talk may be a fact! He went on, ‘As soon as the weather is better we will go to Morecambe – you must go and have your hand read’. I shook my head firmly as I said, ‘NO. I put away all and any little “gift” of my own for fortune telling when it began to worry and upset me, and as for having my hand read, I say what I said last summer – “I don’t want to look ahead – much better to take each day and each problem as it comes”.’ Then he wanted my ‘honest opinion’ of his health, his prospects of recovery, etc., as if I was a doctor and a specialist. I told him he was absurd if he thought I knew more than Dr Miller. Poor dear, he looked so sadly at me as he said, ‘But you do. If I’d listened to half your advice and what I called “nagging”, I’d never have gone on and on till I collapsed. I’d never have grown in on myself as I have done.’ There seemed so little to say. I felt so limp and tired myself. I could only say quietly, ‘We will feel brighter when the spring comes. I wish often we could pack up and go to Australia and end our days in sunshine.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

  February–April 1950

  Saturday, 18 February. It was sunny. We went out in the car, first to contact the secretary of the master builder who is going to try to get Gilbert, the apprentice, somewhere to finish off his apprenticeship. Then we got as far as Bowness, for we had set off early. The election apathy seems general. I thought of pre-war years as we went past little villages and groups of cottages and saw little or no signs of posters – except biggest ones on hoardings or walls, with notices of meetings in school rooms or village halls. I smiled to recall the real feuds elections used to cause, when every window showed a rosette of Party colours on the curtains, if not a photo of the favoured candidate, when Liberal yellow and Conservative blue ribbons were worn by every woman and small ribbon rosettes were flaunted on every coat lapel by the men. I fell into a long train of thought, a montage of Boer War cum elections cum First [World] War recollections. I thought wryly, ‘We all seem to have just so much vitality and enthusiasm. Once it’s spent it’s gone.’ But I realised I spoke for only my own generation. It didn’t explain the apathy of youth. We all march to the sound of different drummers and music alters from one generation to another, even heard on the wireless. Twenty years ago I knew a thinking old man who bemoaned, ‘We are evoluting too fast and “soon ripen, soon rot” you know’. I wondered what he would have thought of the ever increasing tempo of life and discovery today.

  Sunday, 19 February. If I had been in reach of Cliff today, I’d have raised blisters on him with my tongue. What a day I’ve had. Yesterday some papers came, including an Australian Digest. In it was quite a good interview but it was very journalese. Cliff had warned us about the ‘smoky Lancashire town’ mentioned as the place where he was brought up. I felt annoyed myself at the way Cliff was referred to as having ‘hard-working parents’ who presumably had no patience with Cliff wanting to be a sculptor, and when it referred to my husband as a ‘working man’, with neither mentions he had been in the Navy in the First World War – and that was why we happened to be in the New Forest near Southampton – or the fact he was a businessman doing his own works and that Cliff had gone into it against every scrap of advice. I felt thoroughly annoyed with the slipshod, quite inaccurate write-up – whereby my father had been a wood carver on sailing ships! I thought of the quiet shy uncle, my accountant father’s brother, whose murals and panels had decorated ships of the Aquitania’s age! My husband had evidently worked up a real upset to his nerves when he had gone to bed, and had one of his bad turns in the night and was shaky and ill till noon, and nothing I could say in excuse or explanation of ‘anything to fill up’ would calm him. He was quite bitter towards Cliff and his ‘lies’, as if Cliff would have been so misleading, and as I was daft and rash enough to say ‘unless he has been a bit tight’. Then the band did play. I’d not felt too good myself when I rose, and his mood so upset me I was really ill, which pulled him together as nothing else would have done, when I felt faint and had to lie down, after having brandy. I pulled myself together and began to make lunch, knowing that however he felt my husband could eat, and needed, a good meal …

  Little remarks [later that day] showed how hurt and resentful he still felt. I said, ‘You are taking it too seriously. Cliff was careless and the journalist wanted to make it a poor-English-boy-with-no-chance-at-home doing so remarkably well in Australia.’ I thought of the discords there had been between him and Cliff, the years their opposite warring natures had nearly killed me, as I was first torn one way, then the other. I’ll see before any newsprint from Australia is read aloud. I felt very little would have made me cry till I just couldn’t cry. Little worries piled up like a snowball and bowled me over. Not even the real anger and annoyance I felt for Cliff’s silly heedless way, and not seeing an interviewer had sensible facts on which to build, could spur me out of my weepy fit, by Gad, though if I could have had that lad alone for ten minutes I’d have felt better. It was one of the times that called for a top note, and I’d have flayed him with my tongue. My husband kept bursting out into remarks that showed how bitter he felt. He said after staring in the fire, ‘Put the idea out of your head I’d ever go to Australia, even for a holiday. I’ve no notion to appear as “hard-working and non-understanding of a lad who wanted to be an artist”, out of an industrial Lancashire town “where black smoke hid the blue
skies” anyway. Where is such a town? Remember when Arthur was at Wigan and we used to go and see him. Remember the nice shops and the Standish Park.’ Then there was a pause, and Palm Court music filled the room – the aerial has been partly repaired and reception’s good at the moment.

  Then another outburst. ‘When I think of the way Cliff overruled and fought you when you were so ill after your last operation, when the doctors stressed you had to have no worry and your heart was so bad, and how he insisted on leaving the Grammar School and coming into my business. When I think of how quickly he saw his mistake and was so wildly discontented, when I think of how patient you always were – “no encouragement from the working man, his father, who had no patience with boyish efforts to carve and model”’, and so on and so on, till I began to dread he would have another bad attack of nerves. He said, ‘The trouble with you is that you always gave way to people, always tried to see their point of view. You should have taken a stick to that lad more.’ As I pointed out, any slappings and correcting always did come from me. A very little more and I felt I’d be telling him of all his omissions as a father, as the boys grew up.

  I shook with nerves, and butterflies fluttered so busily in my tummy I began to feel deathly sick, and I went upstairs to undress, thinking I’d get washed and come down in my dressing gown to make supper. Instead I was so sick I had to crawl into bed. I slept for nearly an hour and was wakened by my husband with a beaker of milk food, and he said, ‘I’ve fed the cats and laid the breakfast table and there’s nothing for you to go downstairs for again’. He looked so scared as he sat on the side of the bed, and he didn’t say any more about that darned interview of Cliff’s. Earlier in the day I’d written a 6d airmail, read it and tore it up. Then I wrote another, rather coldly mentioning that ‘No doubt your Digest article makes good reading – and publicity – for Australia, but people in Barrow reading it, knowing our families so well, would no doubt wonder if all the article was a distortion, and your efforts and success doubted. I prefer something a little less journalese that I can proudly show round, and I understand Daddy’s feeling of resentment at being described as a “Lancashire working man”.’ And I finished my letter in my usual gossipy way, with none of the sharpness of the first letter, but knowing Cliff, I know he would read between the lines!