The Blitz (9 page)

 

 

It was just Dad and me this morning. He'd been tidying up the garden and I caught him when he was putting his tools away in the garden shed. I asked him what was wrong.

“It was awful, love,” he answered in a low voice. “I've seen some things, but this was like nothing else. . .” And his voice trailed off into nothing. I could see he was close to tears. He pulled himself together, and this time when he spoke it was with anger, even hatred.

“They hit a school where there were kids having a party,” he said eventually. “There were maybe 40 inside. We got there too late. It was just one great wall of flame. Choking fumes and smoke everywhere. We tried our best to get in, time after time, but it was no good. Do you know what they say it was, Edie? An oil bomb! I ask you, what kind of perverted minds drop bombs that spray burning oil on five-year-old kids? And I couldn't do a damn thing to help.” He was openly crying now with the memory of the horrors he'd seen. I went and put my arms round him, but there was nothing I could do. There were terrifying pictures in his mind and nothing I said would ever wipe them out.

 

 

With winter coming on, everyone's talking about getting ill. What's worrying is all those folk crowded together in the big public shelters. The bombs may have stopped for a bit, but everyone's sure Hitler'll come back to London one day soon, and most people don't want to take a chance. It's cold and dirty in the tube stations. People even go down to the caves in Chislehurst every night, because they think they'll be safe. But what if there's an epidemic of flu? Apparently, in 1918, it killed tens of thousands of people just after the Great War, and maybe the same thing will happen again this time. Except it might be diphtheria, or the plague. It just doesn't bear thinking about. With all those people coughing over each other, any illness could spread like wildfire.

I've started cycling over to help out at a Red Cross centre for bombed-out people in Deptford, and that's opened my eyes I can tell you!

At night there's only buckets for toilets, and not even enough of those. I won't go into it too closely, but sometimes in the morning there's stuff leaking all over the floor. The smell's unbelievable. And people are sleeping and eating in there. So now you see what I mean!

 

 

Yesterday evening Shirl told me that one day, when we were in Wales, the Germans dropped a delayed-action bomb down towards Catford. They cordoned off the area, but before the Bomb Disposal team could arrive, it exploded and demolished a row of terraced houses. (No one hurt, luckily.) Back in Lewisham half an hour later, it was raining feathers in the town centre. The rumour started to go round that a chicken factory had caught it, but really it was only bedding from the terrace up in Catford! Any excuse to laugh, these days!

 

 

Mum tipped me the wink that Dad's boss wants to put him in for a commendation after what happened in Birmingham. It sounds like Dad was a bit of a hero on the quiet. It's just typical that to have heard him you'd have thought he did nothing at all.

Frank's written to say that he won't be able to get leave at Christmas, but he can spend the weekend after next with us. Hooray! So we'll just have to celebrate Christmas
twice
, won't we?

 

 

I went window shopping at Chiesman's yesterday. I haven't a clue what to buy anyone for Christmas, mostly because I haven't the money to buy anything nice.

And the way it is in England right now, you feel bad about spending anything on frivolous things anyway. There's posters everywhere telling you about the “Squander Bug”, making you feel guilty if you're not giving your money to help buy another new bomber, or putting it in the bank so the government can use it.

I saw a brilliant green bus conductor's set in the toy department. Two years ago, Tom would have loved it, but he's grown up too fast. Anyway, five shillings and eleven pence is too much for me. Even a new football's three and six, and I can't afford that.

If Shirl can get me the wool, I've still got the time to knit Mum something warm, and I'll work on old Lineham to see if I can wangle some of Dad's favourite pipe tobacco out of him. Mum's given me the OK to make a collage of family photos for Frank. I'll mount them and overlay them so he'll have something he can put beside his bed to remember us by.

 

 

Mr Lineham's a funny old stick. I asked him about the tobacco for Dad's Christmas box yesterday and he tapped his nose and said, “No problems, young Edie. We'll see Mr Benson all right for Christmas, you and me. Man like Mr Benson deserves a little respect and recognition.” Then he turned and asked, as if it was an afterthought, “What are you giving young Thomas?”

I shrugged, and said honestly that I didn't know if I could afford much. Then blow me if he didn't fetch a few soldiers from the back of the shop, similar to the ones Tom had nicked, wrap them in tissue paper, put them carefully in an old shoebox, and give it to me.

I didn't know what to say, and stuttered an inadequate thank you.

“Don't mention it,” he said. “You're a bright girl, and a good worker. It's just a little something to show my appreciation.”

Well I never!

 

 

Frank's home! And he looks so well. I'd swear he looks tanned even though it's December and near freezing. All that fresh air must be doing him good. Over tea he announced that he's going to apply to train as a pilot, and I saw Mum's face fall. Dad asked calmly if he thought he stood much chance, and Frank said what with all the pilot losses there'd been during the Battle of Britain, he thought there was
every
chance. He says he's been thinking about flying every day for the past eighteen months – eating, drinking and sleeping it. It's just that he hasn't actually been
doing
any.

I don't know what to think. On the one hand I can see the glamour of it all. There's this idea that it's very dashing to be a pilot, and all the girls will think you're wonderful. On the other hand, Frank's nice and safe if he stays as ground crew. I read somewhere that once you're trained as a fighter pilot, your life expectancy's three weeks. I just hope and pray Frank's either very sensible or very lucky.

He brought me a very beautiful, very grown-up blue and green silk scarf. It's daft really, because I haven't got anything to wear it with. He just looked at me and smiled and said, “It's your colours. You'll find something.” Then he gave me a big hug. I think he was really touched with my collage of photographs, and I know he meant it when he said he thought of us every day.

 

 

For a few days now Tom and I have been out collecting. There's a party for the homeless kids in the Red Cross Centre out at Deptford tonight, and we've been after toys that we could wrap up to make some sort of Christmas presents for them. We've not done too badly, and Dad's knocked up some trucks and boats out of the spare wood he keeps in the shed. They look all right once they're painted up.

Mum was home this afternoon, and she and I made a huge cracker from paper Shirl conned out of the management up at Chiesman's. It's about four foot long, and we've put lots of the smaller toys inside. The Red Cross van's coming round to collect the cracker and us in a few minutes!

I know they've decorated the hall so that it looks quite festive, even if it still smells a bit “off''. We'll have some singing and dancing, and I think they've got a Charlie Chaplin film and some cartoons to keep the kids amused. The Christmas tea might not be all that wonderful, but I think they've managed a cake of sorts. When those kids get hold of it, and there are about 40 of them, you can bet it won't last long! Happy Christmas, Deptford!

 

 

Last night we went to the midnight service at St Matthew's. As we walked down to the church the air was crisp and cold, and the sky was clear and starry. There was a bomber's moon, but everything was quiet. Even Germans celebrate Christmas! When the bells rang out, and the vicar was talking about “Peace on earth, goodwill to all men”, it was very odd to think of people in Germany doing exactly the same thing.

If they say they're Christians like us, how come they've been bombing us to pieces these last few months? I thought of everything we've been through, and I said thank you to whoever it is up there that we're still in number 47, and not homeless like those kids out in Deptford. And I made a big wish that Hitler would get the message and be happy with what he's got and leave us alone.

Before we sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, the vicar made a point of saying it was a German tune, and that we had to pray there could be peace with justice soon. As I looked around the church it was obvious not everyone was singing. Mum and I weren't the only ones with tears in our eyes.

 

 

Uncle Bob keeps the Lord Wellington pub in Webber Street near London Bridge. He's Dad's older brother and we don't see him very often. He joined the Auxiliary Fire Service early in the war. Dad says Bob saw which way the wind was blowing and thought that if he was called up Auntie Doris would never be able to run the pub on her own. This way Uncle Bob can keep an eye on things. Dad and Bob get on well, but generally there's a funny relationship between regular firemen and auxiliaries, like the regulars think the auxiliaries aren't proper somehow.

Anyway, yesterday Dad piled us on to the bus to spend the day with them. There haven't been any air raids in a while, and we took our night things and toothbrushes thinking we'd stay over.

They're both big, jolly people. Uncle Bob always wears a bow tie, quite often a spotted one, and just to look at her, you'd
know
Auntie Doris worked behind a bar, all bosom and behind. Uncle Bob is the
only
person I know who calls my dad “Albert”.

We'd had a lovely day in their living room, high above the chatter of the bars, talking and playing board games (mostly Tom and me) but then the siren caught us unawares when it went off half an hour or so after blackout. Dad and Bob looked at each other, put down their glasses of Guinness, and resignedly went off to do their duty.

Bob and Doris have done the cellar up quite nicely, and I shouldn't think there are many places safer in the whole of London, but we were down there hours and hours and bored silly by the time the all-clear went. We heard, or rather felt, the occasional dull explosion, but nothing to indicate what had really been going on outside. The walls of the Lord Wellington must be very thick.

When we went upstairs about midnight, Doris went to the window and cried out softly, “Oh my Gawd!”

From the big picture-windows of their lounge, you can see across the railway and the River Thames to the City of London. St Paul's sits in the middle, surrounded by all the great buildings belonging to the newspapers and the banks. It's a wonderful view, so good you feel you should be paying to look at it.

But now the light thrown back from the fires raging across the beautiful city was as strong as the electric light in Bob and Doris's lounge could have been. The shells of at least two of Sir Christopher Wren's churches stood out clearly against the black sky, lit from inside like torches as the flames burnt away 300 years of history. Even at that distance you could see sparks shooting into the air, so powerful was the force of the blaze. The whole panorama was silhouetted in red, like a mad sunset. It made you understand the terror Dad and Bob must face every time they go out to work. The city was being destroyed before our eyes, a second Great Fire of London.

This afternoon, before we left for home and Bob had dragged himself back to the Lord Wellington (blackened and bruised after a twelve-hour shift), the fires were still burning. And you can be sure the bombers will come back for the kill tonight.

 

 

I don't know quite know how to write my diary today. I'm so full up I could burst. Words won't do any more. I thought I could get rid of my fear and unhappiness by putting it on paper. Now I know that, when it comes down to it, there are some things you can never tell.

Frank's dead. We had a letter this morning saying so. It must have been the same raids we'd seen from Uncle Bob and Aunt Doris's flat.

I suppose the Germans were softening up the RAF stations to keep our fighters out of the air. Then they'd have had a free run at the city. As if it matters. Everyone knows our boys are no good after dark anyway. They just can't see the bombers well enough, despite the searchlights.

Anyway, according to Frank's commanding officer, some German planes got through to Biggin Hill and strafed the runways. Frank and two other men were out there, desperately trying to get some Hurricanes ready to fly. A petrol tank went up. And that was it.

I thought he'd be safe if he stayed on the ground. I thought death was something that happened to other families. I thought this year would be better than last. God, I don't believe in you, not if you take away the life of someone like Frank who never did anybody any harm. It's not fair. It's so awful, sometimes I catch myself thinking it hasn't really happened at all. How on earth will we ever recover?