6
Leadburn. Northumberland. March 1943
Frieda
Frieda Sternberg stood behind the counter in the village post office. She had replaced Aunty Doris, the postmistress, who was upstairs doing the mail for the Home Comforts Fund. The fund, organised by Leadburn villagers, was set up to send a few essentials and goodies to the men and women serving away from home. Items such as knitted socks, gloves, cigarettes, chocolate and writing paper were packed and sent through the Special Services Mail.
Aunty Doris had volunteered after she’d attended a Comforts Fund meeting in the village hall. Returning home, Frieda’s aunt had declared, ‘What was I thinking of? Volunteering to take on another responsibility when I’ve plenty to do here.’ She let out a harassed sigh. ‘But I suppose, everyone’s got to do that extra bit these days.’
Frieda, nearly fifteen, still attended the village school even though the official leaving age was a year younger. The reason was that when she had been evacuated to England, despite having studied English at school in Germany, Frieda still struggled to understand sometimes, especially the local accent. The headmistress of the school thought it best if Frieda stayed down a year until she’d mastered the English language.
Frieda couldn’t wait for the day she finished at the school and she skived off as often as she could. The school turned a blind eye because it was only a few weeks until the Easter break when Frieda would leave for good.
‘Have you any idea where you’d like to work?’ Aunty Doris had enquired that morning over breakfast. ‘There’s a part-time job as a waitress up for grabs at the village store teashop. Mrs Curtis says it’s yours if you want it.’
Frieda, chewing on a mouthful of bread and jam, considered Aunty Doris. Slim, with short, blonde hair, she had a forthright outlook on the world.
Frieda vehemently shook her head.
‘Why ever not?’ Aunty Doris had asked, bemused.
When Frieda hadn’t answered, Aunty Doris, with a worried little frown, didn’t press the matter but did what she always did in such a case as this. She went over and gave Frieda a hug. ‘You will tell me, won’t you, if there’s something bothering you?’ Physical affection didn’t come easily to her but where Frieda was concerned, she bent the rules. For, after four years of living together, a bond had grown between them.
Frieda nodded.
She often wondered if Aunty Doris suspected the torment she’d experienced at school but Frieda doubted it. She was good at keeping secrets. The truth of the matter was the girls who bullied her all through school frequented the village teashop. She couldn’t tell that to Aunty Doris because Frieda felt ashamed; the bullying must have something to do with her inadequacies.
Now, Aunty Doris called down the stairs to Frieda. ‘Are you managing all right? Don’t forget to holler if you need any help.’
‘I’m fine. Hardly anyone has been in this morning.’
‘I thought I hadn’t heard the bell. I’m making your favourite pea soup for dinner.’ Aunty Doris giggled.
The soup, made from dried peas, was Frieda’s least favourite meal. Though, in these times of war, when food was scarce, she shouldn’t grumble. Frieda was forever in her aunt’s debt. For that was how Frieda considered her after all these years – as a real aunt. Not only had she provided a home for Frieda but she’d taught her how to understand English.
The day Frieda had arrived in England was forever etched in her mind. She’d stood on the quayside, chaotic with crowds of weary children. Knowing no one, Frieda experienced a horrible panicky feeling. She thought her racing heart might stop and she might die. The shock of leaving Mama behind and seeing her brother jump the ship had traumatised Frieda and the equilibrium she’d once known could never fully be regained.
Once in England, some of the children were told they had sponsors and were to travel by train to London. Frieda and the others who had no foster families waiting were taken to a place called Harwich, and then to a nearby holding camp by the sea. Here she stayed until arrangements were made for her to be fostered. The weather was perishingly cold, she remembered, and snow was on the ground, but the main hall where she ate her meals and where a German teacher taught lessons, did have heating. Frieda, understanding the distress of the little ones who, like her, were parted from their mothers, comforted them by reading stories from books written in her own language.
There was entertainment at the camp, board games and the occasional trip to the pictures, but, reserved and rather shy, Frieda hadn’t mingled with the others. Though she couldn’t deny the English were most friendly. With smiles of welcome, they treated her to chocolate, lemonade and occasionally sweeties.
One day, she was given a postcard by one of the teachers from the camp who had escorted the children to England and spoke the language. The kindly lady spoke to her in German. ‘You must write to your parents and tell them you have arrived safely. Then they will not worry.’
But when it came to writing, Frieda sat thinking for a long while. What could she say? She was homesick and worried about Papa? Had Kurt found his way back home? No. She would send the kind of postcard Mama would be happy to receive.
Dear Mama,
I am so happy here in England. Everyone is kind and I am given hot food, chocolate and cake. Hopefully, Papa is back with you and Grandma and you are making arrangements to come to Britain. I am looking forward to meeting the people I will be staying with in England. Please don’t worry about me. Hundreds of kisses.
Love from your Frieda
She never got a reply. The next day, accompanied by the same German teacher, Frieda and six other refugees made a long two-train journey up north, arriving in a pretty place called Hexham. The journey didn’t end there. Twilight falling, the children were herded onto a bus that rumbled along twisty roads. Frieda, who couldn’t see out of the window because of the darkness, hurt her neck when she nodded off, her head jerking up and down.
At her journey’s end, Frieda alighted and was ushered into a low-roofed, large echoey hall where lots of people were waiting. Exhausted from the journey, she couldn’t stop the tears welling. In a strange place, foreigners milling around, she didn’t know what was expected and wanted the reassurance of Mama.
A lady came towards her with an understanding little smile on her milk-coloured face. She said something that Frieda didn’t understand. She then stretched out an arm and handed Frieda a book. On closer inspection the gift was a dictionary.
Frieda had returned a shy smile. The lady, taking her by the hand, took Frieda to her new home. The lady, Frieda found out much later when she had a grasp of the English language, was called Mrs Leadbeater.
‘But you can call me Aunty Doris, if you like.’ Her face lit up in a grin. ‘I’ve never been an aunty before.’ Then she sobered and added, ‘I know your parents are kosher. But Frieda, I’ve read up on the subject and you don’t need to worry. I’ll abide by your wishes.’
‘Abide?’
‘Roughly means I’ll do as you wish.’
But the first time Aunty fried bacon, savouring the smell, Frieda couldn’t resist. She felt bad about eating the delicious food later – but Mama wasn’t there to be disappointed.
Gradually, she began to live the British way but somewhere in her being she’d always belong to the old ways. She pined for home and sometimes at night Mama and Papa stole unbidden into her dreams while she slept.
Frieda came out of her trancelike reverie as the post office bell tinkled. Mrs Nichol from the nearby farm entered.
‘Your aunt not in?’ she asked in that breathless way of hers.
Mrs Nichol wasn’t a storybook farmer’s wife – robust and jovial with a heart of gold – she was wiry and pale-faced with lines etching her face and an abrupt manner. But Frieda always found Mrs Nichol fair-minded and at least she never referred to her as ‘that German girl’.
‘Aunty Doris is upstairs sorting the Comfort Fund mail.’
Mrs Nichol’s face softened in a rare smile. ‘My
son said in his letter that he’d received a parcel from home. He swapped the cigarettes for chocolate.’
The villagers knew Mr and Mrs Nichol’s son was away in the army serving his country. But then, everyone in the village always knew everyone else’s business.
‘Tell your aunt she’s doing a grand job.’
Frieda was taken aback at this warm request.
Mrs Nichol brought out her purse. ‘Two tuppence halfpenny stamps, please.’
Frieda passed the stamps over the counter. Mrs Nichol, rifling in her purse, handed her the pennies, which Frieda rang up in the till.
Mrs Nichol studied the stamps before putting them in the wallet of her purse. ‘If they print them with any less ink the king’s head won’t show at all. Never mind, His Majesty would be the first to condone such saving in an effort for the war.’
Frieda was surprised at Mrs Nichol’s comment; usually she was a woman who kept to herself.
‘Why are you not at school?’
Freda felt accused. Embarrassed to say her age, she improvised by saying, ‘I’m leaving in two weeks and I’ve been allowed the day off.’
‘I know you’re leaving. I heard from Mrs Teasdale.’
Nobody in the village called Peggy, the post lady, Mrs Teasdale except the children, who were respectful of adults.
‘If you’re looking for a job there’s work to be done at the farm.’ Mrs Nichol placed the handle of the wicker basket over her arm. ‘Good day.’ She moved to the door and with a tinkle of the bell she was gone.
Frieda turned and checked the large round clock on the wall behind her. One o’clock. Dinner time. She thought of the pea soup and wrinkled up her nose. It was better, she supposed, than being at school.
The first day she’d walked into the classroom at Leadburn school, in the autumn term of ’39, she’d seen hostility in the children’s faces. It had reminded Frieda of the hatred she’d experienced at school in Berlin. She’d once overheard a mother warning her daughter, Don’t use the toilet after that dirty Jewish girl.
In the English school, Frieda was considered different – a foreigner; the enemy. The children stared from behind their desks. She’d escaped from one country’s hatred to be confronted with the same here.
The teacher, with caring blue, intelligent eyes, spoke to the class. She must have explained the situation that Frieda was Jewish and fleeing Germany to come to the safety of their country, because most of the children, though they weren’t exactly friendly, left her alone after that.
Not so Dulcie Irwin and her gang. Dulcie had a way of making her gang obey whatever she said. Frieda was picked on both verbally and physically and life became a misery. When the headmistress of the school decided that it was best to send her down to the class a year below, the bullying intensified. She was labelled stupid dunce as well as that bloody German girl. Dulcie and her gang taunted her with those words throughout school.
But there was a part of Frieda that was ashamed she’d fled Germany and survived the horrors of her homeland, and felt this was her punishment.
In the early days, Aunty Doris had set time aside every night to teach her the English language. Frieda was encouraged to build words into phrases. ‘Brush’ became ‘That is my hairbrush’. ‘Teeth’ became ‘I clean my teeth every morning’. The method worked and as she progressed, her aunt made learning fun by making up silly rhymes to repeat. Frieda easily got frustrated when she couldn’t speak as quickly as she did in her own language or when she made the same mistakes: ‘I goed’ instead of ‘I went’ or, ‘zee stamp’ because she couldn’t say ‘the stamp’. Aunty Doris told her not to be so hard on herself and to laugh it off. Which was easy with Aunty Doris but not at school with Dulcie Irwin around. So, Frieda became even more reserved and was considered by everyone at school as standoffish.
With no sign of any more customers, Frieda locked the post office door and followed the smell of pea soup up the stairs. As she did so, memories of when she first saw the house came flooding back. She’d awoken early that first day in her sunlit bedroom at the back of the house. The lady (as Frieda thought of her then) who’d brought Frieda to this home was busy making breakfast in the kitchen and gestured for Frieda to take a look around. Frieda had descended the stairs and gone into the passageway. When she unlocked the front door, she had been stunned at the lovely village that appeared before her, with its attractive honey-coloured stone houses with long front gardens. A snaking stream ran through the village, a wooden bridge with white handrails built over it. Birds tweeted in the still and tranquil early morning air, soothing Frieda for the first time since she’d left Mama. And hope sprang in her young heart for the future.
‘Was that Mrs Nichol I heard downstairs?’ Aunty Doris was buttering delicious-looking homemade bread to accompany the pea soup. Baking was another of her aunt’s talents and probably the reason why Frieda had grown so large. The discussion they’d had the other day when Frieda had broached the subject that she was fat played on her mind.
‘You’re not plump,’ Aunty Doris had assured her. Then she’d regarded Frieda with a suspicious look in her eye. ‘You’re not being teased at school, are you?’
Of course Dulcie and her cronies had been tormenting her – about what she wore, how she looked, how she spoke – but she knew it wouldn’t do to worry Aunty Doris. Besides, the voice of guilt in her head had told her, this is your punishment for fleeing your country.
‘You’re gorgeous the way you are.’ But Aunty Doris was biased, Frieda knew. ‘I was like you at your age and the puppy fat dropped off me when I got older.’
So, there was confirmation. She was fat! The problem was it comforted her to have a full tummy. Frieda had banished the upsetting thoughts from her mind until today.
Aunty Doris looked quizzically at her while she waited for an answer.
‘Yes, it was Mrs Nichol. She bought stamps.’
‘She seemed quite talkative.’
‘She was.’ Frieda began to wash her hands under the cold-water tap, putting the plug in the sink so she wouldn’t waste water. She turned the tap off and dried her hands. ‘It seemed like Mrs Nichol was offering me a job at the farm.’
Her aunt smiled and put her hands on her hips. ‘So, what d’you think?’
‘I rather like the idea.’
What Frieda liked was the fact she wouldn’t have to mix with company.
‘Then go ahead. There’s nothing to stop you.’ Her aunt gave a beaming smile as she put thick green soup in a bowl.
After breakfast the next morning, as thoughts of Mrs Nichol offering her a job buzzed in her mind, Frieda collapsed on her bed and picked up Anne of Green Gables, the book she was reading. She had another quarter of an hour before the post office opened.
The knocker banged on the front door. Aunty Doris’s footsteps could be heard descending the carpeted stairs.
After she’d read the same sentence three times, Frieda laid the book down on the patterned eiderdown. She sat up and gazed out of the bedroom window, looking over the fields dotted with sheep to the stone-built farm with its peaked roof and smoke billowing from the chimney pots. Soon she would be free of school and able to work at the farm. Her first job, besides working for Aunt Doris in the post office. Frieda wondered what she would do at the farm.
She heard voices downstairs. One was male.
‘Come on up.’ Aunty Doris’s voice.
Footsteps came up the stairs. Voices came through the bedroom wall from the kitchen beyond. Frieda strained to hear.
‘It’s good of you to call.’
‘Not at all. I’ve decided to introduce myself to the parishioners personally.’
Aunty Doris laughed. ‘The ones that don’t turn up at church on Sundays, you mean.’
The new curate from the local church, Frieda thought. The villagers were agog for news about him.
‘Would you like tea?’
‘I would, thank you.’
There were tea-making noises from the ki
tchen, then general discussion about the village.
Frieda had seen the curate – Mr Carlton – last Saturday outside the church after he’d officiated at a wedding, when the bride and groom were having their photographs taken. The bride wore a flowing, long-sleeved, white dress, nipped in at the waist, and a sparkling tiara headdress and veil, while the groom looked smart in his khaki army uniform. The curate stood behind, dressed in an ankle-length cassock. He was quite young, Frieda had thought, tall and slim with an earnest but pleasant face. His brown liquid eyes looked both attentive and empathic. Instinctively, Frieda knew that the new curate was the kind of man you could tell your troubles to. If only she could tell him about her cowardice the day the boat left for England, perhaps then the self-loathing she experienced would go away. But shame wouldn’t allow her to.
She tuned into the voices coming through the wall.
‘Where did you hear about the Jewish children’s evacuation?’ The curate’s soft mesmeric voice spoke.
‘On the BBC Home Service radio station. Viscount Samuel appealed for foster homes. I volunteered, then someone came to inspect the house to make sure it was suitable. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t Jewish.’
‘It was kind of you to take Frieda in.’
‘Someone had to. She’s such a lovely girl. It’s what Jack, my husband, would’ve wanted. He had a soft heart.’
In the poignant silence that followed, Frieda was surprised as Aunty Doris hardly mentioned her husband. Frieda had been told that he’d died. On the sideboard there were photographs of their wedding day and on the mantelpiece another one of him standing beside a motorcycle.
‘It’s very difficult when you lose a loved one.’ Mr Carlton’s tone was gentle.
‘I find I can’t talk about him. But I think about him all of the time.’
‘May I ask, was it in the Great War?’
‘Good Lord… erm sorry, no. We weren’t married then. It happened eight years ago. Jack was riding his motorcycle home from a farm up the shire. He’d been helping a friend with lambing. It was night-time and Jack wasn’t going fast by all accounts. He couldn’t on these twisty roads. A lorry was taking a bend the same time as him and…’ She didn’t finish the sentence. Another silence – longer this time. ‘They say Jack died outright and he didn’t suffer.’
The Outcast Girls: A completely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 historical novel Page 6
