Henrietta's War Read online

  Henrietta’s War

  News from the Home Front

  1939 – 1942

  Joyce Dennys

  Contents

  Author’s Introduction

  Footnote

  A Note on the Author

  TO PIPPA

  Author’s Introduction

  Inever do Spring Cleaning. I know I should and every year am filled with a longing to do better and rush round the house emptying drawers and shelves on to the floor and unearthing many treasures such as my dark glasses (mourned as lost) and endless snapshots. After enjoying several holidays in retrospect I somehow lose heart and bundle everything back again.

  But this year I was rewarded for my good intentions by discovering a bundle of pieces I had written during the War for the Sketch magazine. The cuttings were anything but tidy, the margins thick with arrows, stars and balloons. But they were still readable and it was enthralling to be reminded of the privations and discomforts suffered by those living in what Authority was pleased to call a Safe Area. It made fascinating reading.

  ‘Did we really do those peculiar things?’ I said to my friend Caroline who had dropped in and was reading over my shoulder.

  ‘We certainly did,’ she said.

  ‘Did we really parade the streets at night wearing tin hats?’

  ‘Of course we did,’ said Caroline. ‘Look here, Joyce, I’ve got a daughter who is in publishing. Why don’t you send these things to her – she won’t mind the balloons.’

  And that’s exactly what I did.

  Devon, 1985

  October 18, 1939

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  It was good to get your letter and hear that you are in a ‘perfectly safe place’, though I wonder how much of that is true and how much intended to allay the alarms of your Childhood’s Friend. And why, when I and everybody else know that you are in France, must I address my letters to Berkshire? Well, well, I suppose They Know Best, and Ours Not to Reason Why, but I seem to remember that when I wrote to you in the last war I used to put ‘B.E.F.,1 France’, quite boldly on the envelope, thereby no doubt endangering the safety of the British Empire.

  I think there is a tendency in our generation to adopt a superior, know-all attitude towards this war just because we happen to have been through the last one, which the young must find maddening. Charles and I fight against it, not always successfully, I’m afraid. Lady B was here yesterday. Her view of the ‘Ah, my dears, this is all very different from the last Dear Old War’ brigade is bracing, to say the least. I saw Bill and Linnet exchange a satisfied look as she leaned further and further forward in her excitement. Bill is waiting for a commission, and Linnet is going into hospital as a probationer. I won’t write any more about them now or this letter will fail as a message of cheer for a middle-aged colonel on the Western Front. Next week I shall be able to write about them more calmly. One gets used to anything in time.

  Leaned further and further forward

  Here we go on much as usual and one feels faintly ashamed of being in such a safe area. Charles says, ‘How do you know it is a safe area?’ and, of course, we don’t. We don’t know much about anything yet. But in the meantime we have been told it is a safe area, and one is thankful not to have to start being frightened before one need. Freddie writes that in London everybody’s ears are growing straight out of the sides of their heads with listening.

  I feel this letter will not be complete without a word about our refugees. The day they were due to arrive, Charles and I had to go to a funeral at the other end of the county, which, incidentally, did nothing to raise our drooping spirits, but we left the Linnet in charge, with instructions that when the little fellow arrived she was to examine his head (Charles’s suggestion this, doctors are inclined to look on the sordid side of life, aren’t they?), give him a nice hot bath, an egg for his supper, tuck him up in bed, and write a heartening letter to his mother. The Linnet, who has not been head girl at school for nothing, took these duties seriously, even going so far as to lay a bar of chocolate on the lonely pillow and fish her old teddy-bear out of a box in the attic. At half-past five a youth of sixteen, just under six feet tall, was deposited on our doorstep. Linnet said she just managed to get the teddy-bear out in time. He ate the chocolate. His name is Bertram, and we have the whole Technical School billeted in the village. All such nice boys, but you can’t feed them on ten shillings a week – at least, I suppose you could, but it wouldn’t be quite kind. How eminently sensible is Mrs Whinebite, who has taken in all her rich relations as Peeing G’s – thus, in the words of J. M. Barrie, ‘turning her necessity to glorious gain’.

  My dear Robert, I have a great urge to knit something for you! I suppose you are overrun, or, rather over-wrapped with scarves. Do you remember the scarf I knitted you in the last war?

  Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,

  HENRIETTA

  November 1, 1939

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  It is really very nice to get letters from you saying you are well, comfortable, safe, and having French lessons from a beautiful countess, though it sounds rather too much like the lull before the storm.

  French lessons from a beautiful countess

  Charles says you are having a good war, and would you like to change places with him? Poor Charles! He does hate the idea of being stuck down here for the duration, saying ‘There! There!’ to old ladies, and still lives in hopes of being called up. Colonel Simpkins said to him yesterday, ‘What? You here still? I thought you got a D.S.O. in the last war?’ Charles blinked at him through his spectacles and said gently, ‘Ah! But, you see, I’m too frightened to go to this one,’ so we are expecting a shower of white feathers by every post.

  This is a belligerent community to make up for the extreme peacefulness of our surroundings, I suppose. Yesterday was a lovely sunny afternoon, and I took Perry for a walk up the cliff path. Young Widdecombe was painting his fishing boat, and there were old ladies on seats, and a great many gloriously healthy, tough-looking babies in prams. (All the babies nowadays give you the impression that for tuppence they’d biff you one on the nose. Is this the result of Truby King methods or have they always been like this?) At the top of the cliff I had a long, earnest, nose-to-nose conversation with Mrs Savernack about the Women’s Institute Choir, and on the links there was a man having a lesson from the pro to cure a nasty slice in his drive. The sea was very quiet and still, just whispering on the pebbles, and as I walked home the evening lights on the water to the west were pearly, so that I had to keep turning round to look at them. I began to wonder whether I might not be suffering from some horrid hallucination, until I saw our gas-masks on the hall table.

  But in the matter of trousers, dear Robert, the war has hit us hard. Nobody can live in a seaside town without becoming more or less slack-minded. Our female visitors every summer adopt such a nautical air one expects them to break into sea-shanties any minute. But now, such is Hitler’s power, this evil influence has begun to affect even the residents, and it keeps breaking out in the most unlikely quarters. Miss Piper, the girl in the greengrocer’s, has gone into jodhpurs; Faith, our friend, looks quite superb in a pair of pin-striped flannels; Mrs Savernack, though I can hardly expect you to believe this, saw fit to appear last week in a pair of khaki shorts (we all consider her excuse that she is digging her way to victory a poor one); and I tell you frankly, Robert, only my love for Charles has kept me out of a pair of green corduroy dungarees.

  The Linnet who looks handsome in her nurse’s uniform has gone to her hospital. She writes cheerfully and says she is enjoying it so far, but oh, her poor feet!

  Bill assures us that he will shortly be a real soldier.

  I heard from Betsy last week. Her world has come tumb
ling about her ears if anybody’s has, but she writes with her usual spirit to say that she is now living in the depths of the country, listening to her arteries hardening. She says she wears brogues and talks with a burr, and sometimes she wears burrs and talks with a brogue, just to make a change.

  Dear Robert, our thoughts are often with you, and if I write of everyday things, it is only because I know that they are what you would rather hear about.

  Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,

  HENRIETTA

  November 15, 1939

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  Our lovely sunny autumn days have gone, and now we have cold rain and a tearing, roaring wind. Well, let’s face it: winter is in front of us now and it will be as cold and wet, dark and cheerless as it always has been.

  But this winter we country people will have to try not to grumble about the weather as much as we usually do, if only for the sakes of what the papers call the Town-dwellers in our Midst. They, poor dears, are not used to turning a corner and being blown flat on to their faces by a S. W. gale, or running round with towels to mop up the rain and they are going to take it hard. I am sure they will need all the sympathy and encouragement we Yokels can give them.

  Already it is quite pathetic to witness their dismay at the prospect of a long winter spent in Darkest Devon. ‘What do you do in a place like this?’ they wail, as they struggle back in their neat court shoes to the small furnished houses (every mod con) which they have rented for the duration of the war.

  And this is where we bite back the stinging reply that there is a good lending library in the middle of the street and an equally good wool shop next door, and say tenderly that we have a Bridge Club as well as a Badminton Club, that the Dramatic Society and the Women’s Institute Choir would both welcome them if they were interested in that sort of thing, and that the cinema is now open every day, instead of only three times a week, and would they care to drop in on Sunday morning after church for some sherry and meet some people?

  They generally sample most of the entertainments we offer them, and I am sure they get a lot of fun out of them. You can almost see them at the choir practices composing funny letters to their husbands about the quaint lives we lead down here. But I am told that after an afternoon among our Tigers at the Bridge Club they grope their way home with dazed expressions on their faces.

  Some of them fling themselves into the life of the place in the most astonishing manner. At the end of a fortnight they know more of what is going on than Charles and I do, and one or two of them have told us some really remarkable things about the lives of our fishermen. Charles says he is afraid the fishermen aren’t always absolutely truthful.

  Among our Tigers

  We have had great A.R.P.2 activity in this part of the world lately. Of course it rained but in spite of that a good time was had by all, especially the fire-engine. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the ‘casualties’, who lay about in the gutters uncomplainingly until they were picked up. Charles, returning late in the evening, nearly ran over a figure lying at the side of the road.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ And a cheerful voice replied out of the darkness, ‘I’ve got all my bones broken.’

  Muriel is now a captain in the A.T.S.3 I do envy her. There’s not much glamour on the home home-front. Ours not the saucy peaked cap of our untrammelled sisters. Ours rather to see that the curtains are properly drawn, and do our little bit of digging in the garden. Ours to brave the Sewing Party and painstakingly make a many-tailed bandage, and ours to fetch the groceries home in a big basket. Soon we shall have the big thrill of ration cards to add to these other excitements. And all in a Reception Area, too!

  Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,

  HENRIETTA

  November 29, 1939

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  Last week I took my courage in both hands and went to the Sister Susie Sewing Bee. I have been meaning to go for a long time, but have never been able to summon the courage.

  When I got to the door panic seized me, and I nearly fled, but then I remembered all that you Brave Boys are doing at the Front, and I took a big breath and turned the handle.

  Who are these like nuns appearing? About fifty beautiful women, all in snowy white, are seated at three long tables, all, as they say, plying their needles. Can that be my old friend Faith, needle poised in air and a demure expression on her face? Surely, surely the Madonna at the sewing-machine cannot possibly be Mrs Savernack, the Terror of the Bridge Club? What is there about a white veil tied neatly round the head that can effect this transformation? Should women conceal their hair? Is it a Betrayal rather than a Crowning Glory?

  These thoughts surge madly through my head as I stand at the door with my mouth open. The nuns look up and then bend to their work again. I am a novice, and must be made to feel it.

  Meekly I approach the High Table, murmuring, ‘I’ve come to sew, and I’ve brought my own thimble and cotton.’ I hope that this miracle of forethought will commend me to authority, but the Mother Superior is unmoved.

  ‘Have you brought your white coat and veil?’ she says.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t.’

  ‘You’ll have to go out and buy them,’ she says kindly. ‘You can get some quite inexpensively at Dobson’s.’

  Ears red with shame, I creep out and buy a white coat and veil inexpensively at Dobson’s. Then there is the horror of getting in all over again, but this time I pause to put on my armour. The looking-glass in the Ladies’ Cloaks is small and spotty, but even so I can see that I am the only woman in the world who is not improved by a white veil tied round the head, and it is with almost as much trepidation as before that I make my second entrance.

  But this time all is changed. I have taken my vows, and the nuns smile a welcome. Several wave, and one kisses her hand.

  Greatly encouraged, I approach the High Table once more, and am given a piece of flannel to make into a hot-water-bottle cover. Now nobody enjoys a bit of herring-boning more than I, and the flannel is of a heavenly blue, so I am quite delighted with my task. But why the veil? Why the white coat? Am I dirtier than the feet of the B.E.F.?

  ‘Fancy you being able to sew!’ says one of the nuns, making room for me beside her at the table.

  ‘Yes, and I can read and write as well,’ I say. This is the sort of joke that Charles says he wishes I wouldn’t make.

  My neighbour is engaged upon a complicated piece of work, and is executing it with proficiency. ‘What are you making?’ I ask with respect, deeply conscious of my novice’s task.

  Sheep and Goats

  ‘A helpless-case night-shirt,’ she says briskly.

  I look round. The nuns are bending over their work, and the low buzz of demure chatter fills the room. Helpless-case night-shirts, swabs, and many-tailed bandages. Young bodies maimed and broken, and dark hours of pain and despair watching for morning to lighten the windows . . . It doesn’t do to think too much these days, even at a Bee.

  But agonizing doesn’t sew a seam, and salt tears on hospital supplies would be far from aseptic. I look at the wise and busy nuns and thread my needle. This simple action is watched intently by my neighbours.

  I know several things about Sewing Bees now, Robert, which I never knew before, and one is that all sewers are divided into Sheep and Goats. The Goats are the ones whose thread comes off pink at the tip when licked!

  Always your affectionate Childhood’s Friend,

  HENRIETTA

  December 6, 1939

  MY DEAR ROBERT

  The Authorities are getting very dashing. Can I really put B.E.F. on your letters now? It all seems very reckless and risky and I only hope the Censor is not Losing Grip.

  You say I never mention my children these days. Well, there’s a reason for that. Nobody in the world enjoys talking about her children more than I do. I have hardly been able to listen to stories about Julia not having enough blankets in her billet, so anxiou
s have I been to tell about the Linnet’s alarm clock going off at 5.30 every morning.

  And then about a fortnight ago, like a blinding light the thought came to me that if we didn’t take care, this Mother-talk would soon become one of the major horrors of the home home-front and worse than the Black-out Blues.

  It was after seeing two of our neighbours both reading letters from their sons aloud to each other at the same time in the middle of the High Street that I got my change of heart. Mr Perry’s lead became inextricably mixed with their dogs’, and while I was disentangling them I couldn’t help hearing most of the letters, which were all about the heavy rain in France and would their mothers please not knit them anything at present.

  Both reading letters from their sons

  It would be different if we could all produce thrillers like Muriel, whose son had to empty himself (I think that is the right expression) out of his aeroplane and came down in a parachute on to some telegraph wires, where he remained hanging for half an hour, while the villagers passed him up mugs of beer on a stick.

  As told by Faith, it was an extremely good story, though I missed my bus staying to listen to it. But you can’t very well dash away with your friend’s son in mid-air, can you? But since then I have heard it five times; once from the hero’s father, a second time from Muriel herself, twice from a grandmother (whom I was able to correct over the number of beers provided by the kindly villagers), and once from our gardener, whose sister ‘obliges’ Faith for two hours every morning.

  So when you actually ask for news of my children I feel rather like a lioness who has been fed on scrambled eggs for a month and is then suddenly presented with a carcase. But it is with my newly-acquired restraint, dear Robert, that I tell you that Bill is still afraid the war will be over before he can get to it, and the Linnet comes home every Saturday and sleeps the clock round . . .