Courage of the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  ‘Perfect sense,’ Dr Parker said.

  He looked forward to meeting Gloria one of these days.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  One week later

  Sunday 11 October

  ‘Bloody Nora!’ Lily exclaimed as she flailed her arms around, hurrying everyone down to the bordello’s makeshift air raid shelter in the basement.

  ‘Come on! We’ve not got all day!’ she bellowed at two of the girls and their clients as they stood chatting in the hallway.

  ‘George!’ Lily shouted over half a dozen heads. ‘Can you get Kate down here now. Drag her away from her precious Singer before I have a bleedin’ coronary.’

  Lily stomped across the hallway and flung open the heavy oak door so that it banged against the wall.

  ‘And you can get your head out of those ruddy ledgers too!’ she shouted at Rosie, who was still sitting at her desk, her head bent over a balance sheet.

  ‘Coming.’ Rosie stood up and hurried out of the room. There were certain times you didn’t argue with Lily and this was one of them.

  Five minutes later – just before the grandfather clock in the empty parlour room struck nine – everyone was safely ensconced in the basement, though the atmosphere was unusually tense. A few weeks back a bomb had dropped just a quarter of a mile away from their front door.

  ‘Like a tin of bloody sardines!’ Rosie could hear Lily’s voice somewhere in the middle of the packed basement. She peered over heads and could see what looked like an orange bird’s nest bobbing about. A few minutes later they heard a series of muffled explosions directly followed by tremors that pulsated underfoot. It was a sure sign the bombs that had just landed were near. Rosie manoeuvred her way over to the small drinks cabinet to find George acting as barman.

  ‘Brandy?’ George asked.

  Before Rosie had time to answer, Maisie was by her side. ‘Yes, please, George. Make it a large one,’ she said, her voice strained.

  ‘They’ll be all right.’ George read Maisie’s mind, repeating what he always said to calm her concerns about her ma, her sister and her niece. ‘They’ll have got to the shelter in time.’

  ‘George, you always say that!’ Maisie snapped, before reining herself in. ‘Sorry, I know you’re right. I don’t mean to be sharp. It’s just … It’s just …’

  George smiled. ‘It’s just you care – loath though I know you are to admit it – and when you care, you worry. Now take your drink and go and rescue Lily from the Brigadier. You know how she feels about being so close to him. Heavens knows what she’ll say or do to the poor man with the mood she’s in at the moment.’

  George splashed brandy into another tumbler and handed it to Rosie.

  ‘I think this may well be payback for Munich and Saarbrücken,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Rosie asked as she took the proffered drink.

  ‘I do. And I believe there’ll be more. Hitler may be concentrating on Russia and North Africa, but he’s not so busy that he’s averse to a play of tit for tat.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard any more from your chums about life over the Channel?’ Rosie asked quietly.

  ‘The Resistance are still holding their own over there,’ George said, hoping the truth of what he had heard did not show on his face: southern France was just about to fall to the Axis. It would put operatives like Peter in even more danger.

  Rosie took a sip of her drink. She knew George only told her what she wanted to hear, but it didn’t matter, it still gave her comfort.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  The following day

  Monday 12 October

  ‘Where’s Martha?’ Rosie’s voice could not hide her panic when she saw Dorothy, Angie, Gloria, Polly and Hannah arrive for work without the group’s gentle giant.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Hannah said. ‘She’s fine. She was up most of the night doing her ARP duties. She had no sleep and her mam and dad have refused to let her come to work.’

  ‘And rightly so,’ Rosie said, relieved. ‘And are you all right?’ She looked at Hannah, whose childlike face looked wan, her olive skin almost translucent.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. But I feel so sad,’ she admitted.

  Dorothy stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Hannah.

  ‘It is sad,’ she said.

  Helen was in her office when Marie-Anne brought in her cup of tea and the Sunderland Echo.

  Reading the headline: two children dead, she turned down the blinds, shut her office door and cried.

  ‘You and yours all right?’ Marie-Anne asked as soon as Bel came into work. The bombs had dropped in Hendon, just a half a mile from Tatham Street.

  ‘Yes, thank God. Yours?’ Marie-Anne nodded solemnly.

  Neither of them mentioned the two children, four women and one man who had not survived the air raid, nor the twenty homes that had been totally razed to the ground – nor the school on Valley Road that had been reduced to rubble.

  From the moment the klaxon sounded out the start of the day’s shift, every man and woman at Thompson’s shipyard worked flat out, as did every other worker in every other shipyard, engine works, factory, ropery and colliery on both sides of the river.

  Their actions spoke louder than their words. They would not be beaten.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Four days later

  Thursday 15 October

  ‘Sod it!’ Helen said, putting her coat back on. ‘I’m sick of us having to hide out in your flat every time I come to visit.’ She marched over, grabbed Gloria’s coat, which was hanging up on the back of the door, and gave it to her before walking over, easing Hope out of her high chair and swinging her onto her hip. The little girl gurgled with excitement, sensing the sudden change of mood.

  ‘We’re going to the museum. It’s open late tonight.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Gloria asked, still standing in the same spot in the middle of the lounge, clutching her coat. ‘I mean … someone might see us?’

  ‘Well, if they do, they do. I’m tired of all this sneaking around like we’ve got something to be ashamed of. If anyone sees us, they can think what they want. And in the unlikely event someone we know is walking around the museum at the same time as we are, then for all they know we’ve simply bumped into each other.’ Helen opened the front door. ‘We are work colleagues after all. Now come on!’

  Gloria quickly put her coat on, grabbed her gas mask and handbag and followed Helen and Hope out the front door.

  Within minutes they had walked the few hundred yards from Gloria’s flat, across the Borough Road, and arrived at the grand, pillared stone entrance of the municipal museum.

  Helen put Hope down once they got through the main doors and held her little hand.

  ‘This is her first visit to the museum,’ Gloria said, looking down at her daughter, who was staring about her in awe. ‘And I have to admit, it’s been years since I came here.’

  ‘Well,’ Helen said, ‘we don’t have to actually look at the exhibits, it’s just nice to go out for a change. I overheard Bel say the other day that she was taking her daughter to Backhouse Park with her sister – Maisie, I think her name is.’

  Helen pushed open one of the thick glass swing doors and held it back while Hope toddled through.

  ‘It was the first time I really felt resentful that I couldn’t do the same with Hope.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be nice,’ Gloria sighed, ‘you taking Hope out while I stay at home with my feet up.’

  The two women and toddler walked around the large, musty-smelling room, ambling past miniature models of ships from the days of wood and sail. It was Helen’s favourite exhibition.

  ‘Talking about being open about everything …’ Gloria said as Helen took Hope and showed her HMS Venerable, a particularly famous Sunderland-built ship. ‘Perhaps it’s time to be open with yer dad about what’s been going on.’

  Helen’s head snapped round.

  ‘No way, Gloria. That’s something he’s never
going to know about.’

  She turned her attention back to Hope, who was stretching out her arms, demanding to be picked up.

  ‘I want to forget that part of my life now. And if Dad gets to hear about it, it’ll always be there. At least when I chat to Dad I can pretend everything’s the way it was.’ They both knew, though, that nothing would ever be the way it was, no matter how much Helen might try to pretend – or forget.

  Looking at Helen as she hoisted Hope onto her hip, Gloria was just thankful that even though Helen had lost her own baby, she still wanted to be around Hope and clearly loved her as much as, if not more than, before. She just wished the girls at work could see Helen now and realise she wasn’t the Wicked Witch of the West they all imagined her to be.

  ‘So,’ Gloria said as they looked at old photos and maps, ‘how’s John?’

  ‘Oh, he’s practically working round the clock at the moment. I went up to see him the other day at the hospital. He only had an hour spare, so we just had a walk around the grounds.’ Helen moved Hope onto her other hip. ‘It really brings it home to you, seeing all those young men in wheelchairs and with missing limbs.’ As they meandered around the rest of the large exhibition hall, Gloria listened as Helen told her about John’s most recent batch of ‘recruits’.

  ‘John seems a really nice bloke,’ Gloria said. ‘And Marie-Anne says he’s rather dishy as well?’ Gloria looked at Helen, trying to gauge her reaction.

  Helen laughed. ‘Marie-Anne finds everyone dishy! Well, anyone who is male, available and aged between twenty and thirty. Anyway,’ she changed the subject, ‘how are all your lot?’

  Gloria had got used to Helen’s attempts at sounding casual when it came to asking about the women welders. She might be good at hiding any feelings she was harbouring for her doctor friend, but when it came to her curiosity about her workmates she was not quite so successful.

  ‘I think they were all a bit shaken by the bombing on Sunday,’ she said.

  Helen nodded sadly. ‘And Polly. How’s she coping? I’m guessing she’s not heard anything?’

  Gloria sighed. ‘I think she’s coping, but that’s about it. She got his gratuity pay the other day, which knocked her back.’

  Helen’s heart sank. ‘Do you think that means they’ve resigned themselves to the fact that Tommy’s definitely dead?’ Just saying the words brought tears to her eyes.

  Gloria nodded.

  Seeing the sadness that Helen normally kept under wraps come to the fore, she squeezed her arm.

  ‘Come on, let’s go ’n get a nice cuppa at mine.’

  Helen wiped a tear that had escaped the corner of her eye. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you, Gloria,’ she said as they stopped in the main foyer so that Hope could climb onto the back of Wallace, the town’s famous stuffed lion.

  ‘Nothing’s gonna happen to me,’ Gloria said. ‘Yer stuck with me whether you like it or not.’

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The following day

  Friday 16 October

  ‘So, what are you two up to tonight?’ Gloria said, swinging her haversack across her shoulder and looking across at Dorothy and Angie. ‘No, let me guess – the Rink?’

  ‘Actually, Glor,’ Dorothy said with great satisfaction, ‘you’re wrong.’

  All the women welders looked at the squad’s ‘terrible two’ with surprised expressions on their faces.

  ‘We’re gannin on a double date,’ Angie informed them all, taking off her headscarf and ruffling her shoulder-length blonde hair.

  ‘And where are your dates taking you?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘We’re meeting them in the Burton House,’ Dorothy said, ‘and as it’s just opposite you, Gloria—’

  ‘We can pop round ’n see ya!’ Angie chuckled.

  ‘You can if yer want to,’ Gloria said, ‘but you won’t get an answer, because there won’t be anyone there. I’m also going out tonight.’

  Now it was Dorothy’s and Angie’s turn to look intrigued.

  ‘Ohh,’ Dorothy said, ‘and where are you gallivanting off to?’

  ‘Hope and I are going to see an old friend of mine,’ Gloria informed them.

  ‘Old as in old, or old as in you’ve known her ages?’ Dorothy asked.

  ‘Both,’ Gloria said, adding, ‘Mrs Crabtree is old, very old, and I’ve known her most of my life. She’s just moved back to Hendon. Actually, she’s just moved into a house down the road from Polly on Tatham Street.’

  ‘Really?’ Polly asked, curious. ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Right at the bottom end. Number two.’

  ‘I know the one,’ Polly said. ‘I thought there was a family living there?’

  ‘There was. Still is. They’ve just gone to stay for a while with relatives in Whitby.’

  ‘I’m guessing they’re sick of the bombs,’ Rosie said.

  Polly nodded.

  ‘They’ve got five young ’uns. I think they got fed up hauling them off to the shelter every five minutes.’

  They all started to make their way to the timekeeper’s cabin, where they were joined by Martha who had been riveting all afternoon with Jimmy’s squad, which was one man down.

  ‘You on ARP duties tonight, Martha?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘I am, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be quiet. We got a bashing on Sunday. We never have two in the space of a week,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t tempt fate,’ Gloria said, looking up at the admin offices. There was no need to take her headscarf off tonight as she knew Helen was going to Ryhope to see John.

  ‘Yes, Martha, don’t tempt fate,’ Angie said. ‘We dinnit want our night spoiled, do we, Dor?’

  Dorothy chuckled as she started rummaging in her bag for her time card.

  ‘You at Lily’s?’ Gloria looked across at Rosie.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ she said, looking at the women. ‘I’m also going out tonight.’

  ‘Really?’ Dorothy said, shocked.

  ‘Eee, miss, yer never gan out,’ Angie chipped in.

  Rosie laughed.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So, where yer off to?’ Gloria was equally curious.

  ‘Lily thought it was time we all had an evening out together. A bit of a “powwow” is what she said.’

  ‘You, Lily and George?’ Polly asked.

  ‘And Kate, Maisie and Vivian,’ Rosie added.

  ‘Where yer all gannin?’ Angie managed to beat Dorothy to the question they were busting to know the answer to.

  ‘The Palatine,’ Rosie said.

  ‘Cor! It’s dead posh there, isn’t it!’ Angie exclaimed.

  ‘That’s Lily for you,’ Rosie said. ‘Only the best.’

  The women’s banter continued as they entered the bottleneck of workers all in a hurry to leave work.

  It was Friday after all.

  When the end-of-shift klaxon sounded out Helen quickly tidied up her desk, grabbed her handbag and gas mask and shut her office door. She had no intention of working late tonight, but she also didn’t want to get caught in the usual Friday crush. She lit a cigarette and stood at her usual spot by the window. Seeing the women welders walking over to the gates, their clocking-off cards to hand, all clearly excited about either going home or going out, Helen felt the familiar stab of envy.

  As soon as the queue at the timekeeper’s cabin had gone down, Helen hurried out of the empty administration building, across the yard and through the main gates. Walking quickly, she made it home within a quarter of an hour. After changing her clothes and putting on a new red dress she had bought herself, then quickly touching up her make-up and pinning back her victory rolls, she was back out the door. A tram journey into town was followed by a half-hour stop-start journey by bus to Ryhope. As was usually the case when her mind was free to wander, her thoughts strayed to the baby she might have lost – but whom she could not let go.

  By the time the bus arrived at the stop just outside the hospital on Stockton Road, tears were pooling in Hel
en’s eyes. She was used to it, though, and had a handkerchief to hand. Carefully dabbing away any tears that had started to trickle down her face, she stepped off the bus. Looking at her watch, she saw it had gone half-past seven. The blackout meant she could barely see a few yards in front of her, but she knew her way well enough now not to have to get out the little electric torch she kept in her handbag.

  When she was halfway down the long path that led to the entrance of the hospital she could make out John’s silhouette as he waited for her on the front steps. She could see his profile as he stared up at the night sky, which wasn’t as dark as normal due to the illumination afforded by a full moon.

  ‘Now that’s true beauty,’ Dr Parker said, before drawing his attention back down to earth and looking at Helen.

  Like this woman before me, he instinctively thought.

  ‘It is,’ Helen agreed, as she gave her friend a hug.

  Their embrace seemed to last a fraction longer than usual, and Helen found herself momentarily loath to break free. She looked up at Dr Parker’s face. He seemed uncannily serious.

  ‘So,’ Dr Parker said, reluctantly letting go of Helen, ‘where to?’

  ‘Well, I think it’s either the Railway Inn – or the Railway Inn,’ Helen laughed.

  ‘So, how come I have the pleasure of your company tonight, not Gloria?’ Dr Parker asked as he put his pint of beer and Helen’s gin and tonic down on the small round table they had managed to commandeer before the pub got too busy.

  ‘She’s seeing an old friend of hers,’ Helen said, lighting up a cigarette. She didn’t add that she had rearranged her usual Friday night with Gloria in order to be here, as it was rare for John to get a few hours off in the evening. Especially on a Friday night.

  ‘They going anywhere nice?’ Dr Parker asked, taking a sup of his beer and loosening his tie.