Wartime on Coronation Street

by Maggie Sullivan

  ‘Which one of you is Vera Sharples?’ she asked.

  ‘I am.’ Vera put her hand up. Lily and Jenny also identified themselves and Mrs Sykes put a tick by their names when she found them on one of her sheets of paper.

  ‘Then we are all present and correct,’ she said, in clipped tones with a satisfied smile. Vera thought she sounded like she might be reading the BBC news on the wireless. ‘Your bags are in the hall,’ Mrs Sykes went on. ‘You may take them upstairs and unpack. Your dormitory is up the stairs and first door on the right off the landing. Lights out will be in half an hour so I’ll bid you goodnight.’

  Vera stared at her, thinking she might as well have been speaking a foreign language for all she understood what the woman had said, then she followed Lily without a word.

  The dormitory, as Mrs Sykes had called it, turned out to be a large room with two sets of beds, that were layered in pairs, one on top of the other, each of them so narrow there looked to be barely room to turn over. Vera, used to sharing a large double bed with her mother, looked at them in horror, wondering how she would ever be able to sleep. Someone was already sitting on one of the bottom bunks while the remaining beds were unoccupied.

  ‘Whichever one of you is called Vera is in the bunk above me,’ the girl called out.

  ‘That’s me,’ Vera said, not sure whether she should put her hand up.

  ‘Then here, catch! You’ll be needing this, no doubt,’ the girl on the lower bunk said and she threw a small but solid looking pillow in Vera’s direction. Vera’s hands were still holding her bags and she watched with dismay as the cushion landed with a thump on the stone tiled floor when she failed to catch it. It felt leaden when she bent to pick it up.

  ‘Ta,’ she said, ‘I’m sure I will, but how do I …?’ She looked around until her eyes lighted on the stepladder that was hanging over the side of the upper cot. ‘Oh!’ she said, but no one was taking any notice. Lily and Jenny were eyeing the other beds and the ladder attached to the upper bunk there with equal apprehension.

  ‘I’m Margaret Wiley,’ the girl from the lower bunk said, in the kind of clipped tones that made Vera want to stand to attention and salute. ‘What’s your name?’

  Vera looked at her. ‘Vera Sharples,’ she responded automatically.

  ‘OK, Vera,’ Margaret said, ‘I’ve left you the bottom shelf in that cupboard if you want to unpack your things. That’s all we get, half a cupboard each.’

  ‘A-and what about the lav?’ Vera ventured to ask. ‘Where’s that? I haven’t seen one yet.’

  Margaret suddenly giggled. ‘Next door,’ she said and she jerked her thumb in the general direction. ‘Turn right out the door.’

  ‘And the bathroom?’

  ‘You’ll be lucky!’ Margaret raised her eyebrows.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Vera was puzzled.

  ‘You don’t honestly expect there to be a bath, do you?’ Margaret sneered.

  ‘Well, no.’ Vera had taken it for granted there would at least be a tin bath and didn’t know what to say. ‘I hadn’t really thought …’ She felt foolish for asking. ‘Where is it that we can wash?’

  ‘Same place,’ Margaret said. ‘Next door,’ but she gave no further explanation.

  Vera heard Jenny apologize to Lily that she seemed to have been assigned the bottom bunk and she watched as Lily boldly climbed up the ladders to check out her bed and Margaret introduced herself to Jenny.

  ‘Margaret, that’s nice, then I shall call you Megs,’ Jenny said in what Vera now realized was quite a broad cockney accent.

  Margaret snapped back immediately, ‘No, you certainly will not. My name is Margaret like the young Princess, only without the Rose, and I will answer to no other name than that. Although you may call me Wiley if you prefer.’

  Vera didn’t want to look at Margaret, she sounded so indignant, so she climbed up to her bed and was trying to straighten out the blanket when the room was suddenly plunged into darkness.

  ‘Damn and blast it!’ Jenny’s cockney-sounding voice piped up and Vera had to stifle a giggle. ‘When the old biddy said lights out she really meant it, didn’t she? Anyone got a candle?’

  ‘Why would we happen to have a candle? Do you think we live in the dark ages or something?’ Margaret said, her clipped tones already easy to recognize.

  ‘Because we might as well be plunged into sudden darkness like this at any time,’ Jenny retorted, ‘or maybe that doesn’t happen in whatever high-and-mighty part of the country you come from.’

  Vera felt too afraid to move in case she fell off the bed until suddenly there was a tiny pinpoint of light flashing from the other top bunk.

  ‘I forgot, I’ve got a torch,’ Lily said, ‘but I don’t know how long it’ll last if they turn out the lights so early every night.’

  ‘Ouch!’ A sudden cry went up. ‘Can you shine it in this direction?’ It was Jenny again, but this time she sounded to be in pain. ‘I’ve just stubbed my bloody toe on the ladder. How are we supposed to find our way around this place if they won’t let us have any light?’

  ‘I give up,’ Lily said. ‘I’m about ready for bed anyway and as I’m already up here I reckon I may as well stay put and call it a night.’ She yawned. ‘I’m tired enough to sleep all night and all day after all that travelling. How about you, Vera, are you all right?’ she called.

  ‘Yes, thanks, I’m fine,’ Vera responded, hoping her voice wouldn’t betray how scared she really felt. She was already lying flat in her cot, not daring to move for fear of dropping over the side. She desperately wanted to go to the lav but couldn’t risk trying to find it in the dark. She felt tears of frustration and weariness trickle down her face as she lay as still as she could. But all she could think about was, ‘What have I done?’ It was as though the enormity of her actions was striking her for the first time. She was such a long way from home. If she could have hopped on a train and gone home now she would. Inside she was crying, even calling for her mother, though she knew she couldn’t voice any of those words out loud.

  ‘It’ll be all right in the morning when we can see things again.’ Jenny’s hearty voice sounded surprisingly bright in the dark, but Vera didn’t bother to reply. Then she heard Lily say, ‘I think I’m going to get up early and explore. Things always look better in the morning. You can come with me, Vera, if you like. Goodnight, everyone, I look forward to getting to meet you all properly in the morning.’

  There were a few grunting noises in response but then the room fell silent almost immediately until Vera plucked up the courage to shout back, ‘Goodnight!’ into the darkness. She had said her prayers silently and now she closed her eyes though she doubted she would ever be able to fall asleep.

  The next thing she knew a high-pitched alarm bell was piercing through the house. Every item of free-standing furniture, including the bunks, seemed to be vibrating noisily on the linoleum and all the girls shot out of bed and made for the door.

  ‘Where’s the shelter? They forgot to tell us where the shelter is!’ Jenny cried in a panic-stricken voice.

  ‘Never mind that, we must get out straight away so follow me.’ It was Margaret’s coldly authoritative tones and with a commanding gesture, as if she was wielding a sabre in battle, she led the way out of the door. She was closely followed by Lily who was surprised to see groups of girls emerging from several of the other first-floor doors. There were more people in the house than she’d realized. The blackout curtains were still closed tight and the lights were on all over the house, even if they were only dim. She was met by Mrs Sykes coming up the stairs.

  ‘Girls, girls,’ she said in a calming voice. ‘There’s no need for panic. It’s not an air-raid alarm. It’s the morning alarm call for waking everybody up.’

  ‘Why? What time is it?’ Lily asked. ‘We’ve only just gone to bed.’

  ‘It’s four thirty in the morning,’ Mrs Sykes said with a smug sort of smile. The girls all blinked in astonishment. ‘Whenever we have a new i
ntake of girls we always like to give them the opportunity to get up a little earlier than usual on their first morning. They’re not used to our countryside ways, but the animals don’t know that. They still expect to be watered and fed at their usual time.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘It’ll help you all to adjust to your new routines to have an early start. It also will give you time to have a proper breakfast. Set you up properly for the day.’

  Vera had landed heavily on her ankle when she had jumped down from the second rung of the ladder and she hobbled painfully out to join the others on the already crowded landing. She yawned and rubbed her eyes against the light, thankful that the dreadful noise of the bell had stopped.

  ‘In case you were wondering, we will be having an air-raid drill later,’ Mrs Sykes announced. ‘To show you where the shelters are and all that.’

  ‘Air-raid drill?’ Vera said to no one in particular. ‘I thought we’d come to the country to get away from all them bombs.’ She sounded puzzled.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Jenny agreed.

  ‘Don’t be so naive, whoever told you that?’ Margaret Wiley said with some contempt. ‘Most planes have to fly over Kent first, after they’ve crossed the Channel, before they fly anywhere else and don’t forget we are pretty close to the Chatham dockyards. And even if they don’t drop their bombs on this part of the country on their way in, they will most certainly drop any leftovers on the way back.’

  ‘And in between they head for one of the big cities to drop the bulk of their cargo?’ Jenny queried.

  ‘Exactly,’ Margaret said. ‘I doubt there’s anywhere down south, or in the whole country you can call safe right now.’

  Mrs Sykes held her hands up for silence. ‘Now that you know what the morning reveille alarm sounds like, why don’t you take advantage of the extra hour that gives you this morning and get yourselves washed and dressed in time for an early breakfast? There’s plenty of water in the ewers and in July you don’t have to worry about the water being frozen.’ She smiled as if she had said something funny. ‘And of course, there is the loo outside for those willing to brave the mud – we have had rather a lot of unseasonal cold and rainy weather, recently.’

  The groups gradually dispersed with disgruntled murmurings of, ‘Four o’clock in the morning? I’ve never been up this early in my life!’ ‘No, but I’ve sometimes been going to bed at this hour,’ someone said and everyone laughed. ‘Is this what we’ve got to look forward to?’ ‘How come nobody warned us?’ others were saying as they wandered back to their own rooms, debating whether they dared to go back to bed.

  Now that she had been awakened, Vera realized just how desperately she needed to go to the bathroom and she hurried to the room next door that Margaret had previously pointed out. She opened the door and was shocked to find a row of chamber pots tucked neatly under a low-hanging shelf. On another shelf halfway up the wall was a line of large china bowls, each containing a large matching china jug, that had been filled with brackish-looking water. There were no sinks, no means of heating any water, no flushing toilets and certainly no baths, even tin ones. She wondered what this ‘loo’ thing was that Mrs Sykes said was outside in the garden. Did she mean the midden? Maybe she’d go exploring with Lily later, but first things first. Even though they disgusted her, she had to make use of the facilities.

  In the dining room, breakfast was laid out on small trays like the night before and consisted of more bread, some of which was rather staler than it had been the previous night but it was still covered with lashings of what Margaret pronounced to be ‘definitely real butter’. There was more milk and more cheese, which neither Vera nor Lily were used to eating at that hour of the morning, and some weak-looking liquid in a glass that the servers referred to as tea. This time all four of the girls from the dormitory were guided by Mrs Sykes to sit together on the same table, and she indicated that from now on these were to be the group’s set places at mealtimes. Lily gathered her tray, added a glass of cold water and came to sit next to Vera.

  ‘Eat up,’ Lily whispered. ‘I bet we won’t get anything else until dinnertime.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Vera whispered back. ‘But I can’t eat any more. I’m not that hungry and I certainly can’t eat any cheese right now.’

  ‘No, I know what you mean, ‘Lily said, ‘I feel a bit that way myself, but I bet we’ll be glad of it come dinnertime.’

  ‘I tell you what,’ Vera said, ‘why don’t I put it in my pocket for later?’

  Chapter 14

  As soon as breakfast was over Mrs Sykes announced that all the newcomers were to make their way to the meeting room and the sleepy-eyed girls, still yawning and stretching, shuffled across the hall to the large room she had indicated. There, she promised, the arrangements for the four weeks they were to spend at the centre would be explained.

  Mrs Sykes with her now-familiar bulldog clipboard climbed the steps to the raised dais at one end of the room and stood ready to address the group like a headmistress at a school assembly.

  Jenny was standing between Lily and Vera. ‘Gosh,’ she said, ‘I’d no idea there were so many of us last night. They must have all gone to bed by the time we arrived.’

  ‘How many do you think are here now, then?’ Lily said, trying to gauge numbers as she looked around the room.

  Jenny shrugged. ‘About forty, I reckon,’ she said, but Mrs Sykes had raised her hands once more to order silence.

  ‘This talk is essentially for the newcomers,’ she began. ‘The rest of you please check the cork board for your new assignments for the week and then you may leave, though quietly please.’ She paused while more than half of the girls clustered round a bulletin board at the back of the room and then filed out, chatting noisily.

  ‘The rosters will be pinned up on that noticeboard each morning.’ Mrs Sykes raised her voice to block out the chatter, though not entirely successfully. ‘Please make sure you all read it in good time to get to wherever it is that you are working that day as this will keep changing.’

  The newcomers turned as she pointed to the board. ‘You will all be expected to cover a range of different tasks during the month you spend with us doing your training and we will do our best to make sure you each get an opportunity to take a turn at most things. That way you will be equipped to carry out any task that might be assigned to you when you move up to the big house.’

  She paused for a moment to glance at her notes and there was much muttering among the girls. She cleared her throat and began again.

  ‘The big house, for those of you who don’t know, is called Holden Manor, and it is half a mile up the road. It’s where Lady Edgefield of “a hundred different species of dahlias” fame lives and you will be billeted there when you leave here. She will be in charge of you once you make the move.’

  ‘Fancy that! We’ll be living in a stately home,’ Lily whispered to Vera. ‘I’m dying to see it.’ She chuckled. ‘I can’t wait to write home and tell Mam and Dad about that.’

  ‘But for now,’ Mrs Sykes said, ‘you’ll be living here and all you need to know is what tasks you will be undertaking each day and where you need to go. At the end of the day supper will be served in the dining room as it was last night. Please check to see if you are on one of the cleaning-up rosters. If you have any queries you may leave a note for me at the reception desk, and any emergencies should be reported at the desk immediately.’

  For some reason Lily giggled and poked her elbow into Vera’s ribs, but Mrs Sykes didn’t seem to notice. ‘There is a bellpull by the side of the desk,’ she said. ‘Please ring it once – but only once, in emergency – and someone will attend to you instantly.’ She paused. ‘And I do mean emergencies only.’ Finally, Mrs Sykes put down her clipboard. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘unless there are any burning questions, I will leave you to find out the nature of your first tasks of the week and all those who have been assigned to the dairy should be ready to follow me in five minutes precisely.’ She hesitated as a hand sho
t up. ‘Unless there are any burning questions.’ She reclipped her loose papers onto the board as Margaret stood up.

  ‘We all thought this morning’s alarm call was because of an air raid,’ she said without a trace of nervousness, ‘and none of us seemed to know what to do. You mentioned earlier that there would be an air raid drill later but in the meantime, please can you direct us to the nearest shelters where we would be expected to go should there be an actual air raid?’

  ‘Ah, yes, I was coming to that.’ Mrs Sykes’ face coloured slightly. ‘And as I said before, there will be a full drill later because unfortunately, as you know, we are not air-raid free here in Kent. I’m afraid we’re too close to the Chatham docks for comfort sometimes. So we have to be constantly on the alert and should the air-raid siren sound you must run for the nearest shelter. The main ones are shown on the map on the pinboard.’ She pointed once more to the board at the back of the room. ‘Please study the map carefully and make sure you familiarize yourselves with their locations. Memorize them. And you will be shown those that are closest to your place of work whenever you start a new job. As a general guideline there are some Morrison shelters in some of the outbuildings such as the dairy and the cowsheds, and there are several underground Anderson shelters dotted about in the more open areas of the grounds. If, for any reason, you are caught while in the house here, then make your way calmly but quickly down to the basement using the cellar stairs. They’re the stone steps that lead off from the hallway. You can’t miss them. But a word of warning; it is very dark down there, so make sure you pick up one of the torches that are kept permanently on the table by the entrance to the basement. And don’t forget to replace them once the all-clear has sounded.’ She didn’t actually say, ‘dismiss!’ but Vera felt as if she was on one of the parade grounds she had seen in films and she almost wanted to salute. Instead, she made her way to the bulletin board as they’d been instructed.