Christmas with the Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  ‘How did you get here?’ she asked instead.

  ‘I have relatives in Manchester who give me help; they try to teach me the English too,’ she added with a blush.

  ‘Your English is good,’ Gladys said warmly.

  Rosa grimaced. ‘I have much to teach, er … learn,’ she quickly corrected herself. ‘I go to’ – Rosa struggled to recall the exact name of the place she had visited – ‘exchange of labour.’ Gladys smiled at her charming mixed-up words but didn’t comment. ‘I tell la signora I want to build bombs to kill Germans and she send me here.’

  Gladys covered her mouth in an attempt to hide her laughter but it bubbled out of her nevertheless. ‘That’s so funny!’

  ‘Why funny? I hate Nazi.’

  Gladys nodded. ‘Me too,’ she agreed as she gave Rosa’s hand a gentle pat. ‘Don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place. That’s all we do at the Phoenix: build bombs to kill the enemy. We’re all Bomb Girls up here!’ she announced.

  ‘Bomb Girls,’ Rosa mused with a smile on her face. ‘This is good job for me,’ she replied happily.

  Gladys showed Rosa the two free bedrooms, then left her alone to choose which one she preferred. After warming up the fat in a frying pan, she dropped in slices of pink spam, which she sprinkled with the tangy fresh thyme. As Kit’s small new potatoes boiled, Gladys heard Rosa opening and shutting drawers in one of the bedrooms. Relieved that the nervous new girl was settling in, Gladys wondered if Rosa would have had time to sort out her ration cards yet. She hoped so: rationing was getting worse by the week. Even sausages were now rationed and she was grateful for the free wood she could collect from the moors, as coal, gas and electricity were all now rationed too.

  ‘Heck! After the journey she’s had the poor kid will be glad of a quiet supper in a safe place a world away from the damn blasted Nazis!’

  For such a slender girl Rosa proved to have an enormous appetite, eating all the food that Gladys put in front of her and more besides. Gladys had to dip into the precious rations she’d set aside for the rest of the week, but she did it gladly, pleased to see Rosa eat so heartily.

  ‘Buono,’ Rosa said with an appreciative smile. ‘Grazie –’ She stopped short as she chided herself. ‘I must speak English,’ she said, impatiently scolding herself.

  ‘I speak very bad Italian with lots of mistakes,’ Gladys admitted.

  ‘I speak very bad English – with lots of mistakes!’ Rosa replied as she lit up one of her cheroots. ‘Why you speak Italiano?’

  ‘Oh!’ Gladys responded with a start. ‘I was in Napoli during the summer.’

  Rosa exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘Perché, er … why?’

  Gladys could have kicked herself. She spent most of her time trying to avoid talking about Naples, even to her best friends, and yet the first thing she’d told this complete stranger was she’d lived there during the summer.

  ‘Oh, just war work,’ she answered as she stood up in order to put the kettle on the stove and, much more importantly, to change the subject. ‘Do you know where you’ll be working?’ Gladys asked.

  ‘I get instructions from il capo, the boss, Mr Featherstonee.’ Rosa pronounced the manager’s name as if it was an Italian surname. ‘This …’ she replied, as she drew a piece of paper from her pocket, which she handed to Gladys.

  ‘You’ve been assigned to the cordite line,’ Gladys explained.

  To her surprise, Rosa immediately understood cordite. ‘Explosive,’ she said.

  Gladys nodded before handing back Rosa’s document. ‘That’s good, you’re on the same shift as me – we’re both on nights for the rest of the week.’

  ‘We work through night?’

  ‘We work around the clock.’ Gladys pointed to her watch as she replied. ‘The factory never closes.’

  ‘What time we start?’

  ‘Eight o’clock.’ Gladys pointed to the number eight on her wristwatch.

  ‘Tonight?’ Rosa gasped.

  Gladys smiled as she nodded. ‘In four hours’ time.’

  Clearly panicked, Rosa leapt to her feet. ‘I must sleep now, please.’

  ‘Of course,’ Gladys agreed. ‘Me too.’

  Before they went into their separate bedrooms, Rosa sweetly kissed her new friend on the cheek.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  Gladys said with a smile, ‘Welcome to the cowshed!’

  It was growing dark when the alarm went off. The two bleary-eyed girls struggled out of their beds, then made their way down the lane to the Phoenix, where other women were clocking off from their shifts. Rosa looked bewildered as she watched a sea of tired women walk out of the factory, to be replaced by a wave of fresher ones. Taking Rosa by the arm, Gladys guided her to the stores, where she picked up clean overalls for the newcomer, before taking her to the female changing rooms.

  Gladys carefully explained the factory rules for munitions workers. ‘No jewellery.’

  Rosa held out her hands for Gladys to inspect. ‘I have nothing.’

  ‘No earrings?’ Gladys asked as she lifted Rosa’s wonderful gleaming curls. ‘No necklace?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Rosa assured her.

  Gladys demonstrated how all of Rosa’s hair had to be stuffed inside her white cotton turban. It was a struggle, but Rosa finally twirled her thick locks into a pony-tail that she firmly shoved under the turban.

  ‘No hair clips or pins,’ Gladys said firmly.

  Seeing that Rosa didn’t understand, she pointed to a woman removing pins from her own hair.

  ‘Metal is bad with explosives,’ Gladys explained.

  Though Rosa wasn’t fluent in English, she was certainly bright enough to understand the concept.

  ‘Sì, I understand,’ she replied, then added with a grin, ‘Explosion – BOOM!’

  Gladys nodded. ‘Exactly – BOOM!’

  Just as Rosa was struggling into the big heavy rubber boots that were part of the Bomb Girls’ uniform, Kit and Violet came dashing breathlessly into the changing room, followed by giggling Nora and Maggie. They all stopped and stared at the pretty young girl Gladys was helping to dress.

  ‘Hello,’ said Gladys, as she introduced Rosa to her smiling friends. ‘Meet Rosa – the new Bomb Girl!’

  4. Introductions

  Everybody was quickly charmed by Rosa’s sweet, earnest manner, even on shift work in the middle of the night! Over the loud crashing and clattering of the bombs rattling down the production line, she asked questions about the nature of her work.

  ‘Where go bombs now?’

  ‘Further down the line, they’re loaded into ammunition boxes,’ Nora said in a very loud voice that could be heard over the thundering roll of the conveyor-belts. Simplifying her language, she added, ‘They go to our brave British troops who are fighting the war.’

  Rosa nodded respectfully, ‘They bomb Nazis.’

  Even as she said the words, she remembered what she’d seen on her dangerous journey to England: bombs exploding over cities where innocent children slept; skeletal-thin old men and women being forced to run to waiting trucks where they were herded together like cattle on their way to the abattoir.

  ‘This one’s got bloody Hitler’s name on it,’ Hilda, who was in charge of the line, called out, as she sent another filled bomb on its way around the factory.

  Rosa looked incredulously at Hilda. ‘You have name on bomb?’ she gasped.

  ‘I’ve got Hitler’s name on every sodding bomb I pack with cordite,’ Hilda assured her.

  Rosa’s soft curving mouth twitched and then she began to laugh, so much so that tears streamed down her face.

  ‘Did I say summat funny?’ Hilda asked Maggie and Nora, who were staring in some confusion at Rosa, who was trying to catch her breath.

  ‘All bombs are for Führer!’ Rosa cried gleefully.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you think it’s funny,’ Hilda chuckled. ‘I don’t think I’ve entertained anybody quite so much since I first hopped into bed wit
h mi ’usband – he thought he’d died and gone to ’eaven!’

  Rosa didn’t entirely understand Hilda’s cryptic humour, but it set Maggie and Nora off laughing.

  ‘Cordite line is very funny place, eh?’ Rosa remarked.

  ‘A laf a minute,’ Hilda remarked. ‘Now can we stop all the nattering and get back to winning the war, ladies?’

  The big-hearted women welcomed Rosa into their workplace and into their lives. There was always a mug of tea and a chip butty or a bit of meat pie waiting for her at her friends’ favourite table in the canteen. Though Maggie, Nora, Myrtle, Kit and Violet worked in different departments, they always stuck together for a gossip and a catch-up at break times. Clever Rosa was eager to improve her English, which she was starting to speak with a Northern accent, much to the vast amusement of her new friends.

  ‘Say “chip butty” in Italian,’ Nora pleaded.

  ‘I say it ten times already, Nora!’ she giggled.

  ‘Go on, just for me,’ Nora begged.

  ‘Okay, but last time today,’ Rosa insisted.

  Nora nodded eagerly then waited for the Italian words to spill from Rosa’s mouth. ‘Panino con patate fritte.’

  ‘It sounds so romantic in Italian,’ Nora sighed. ‘Patate fritte!’ she said, mimicking Rosa’s seductive accent.

  ‘Say “meat pie”,’ Maggie cried.

  Rosa thought hard for a moment, then she said, ‘Pasticcio di carne. Now we speak English, please,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Ignore these two silly girls,’ Myrtle advised, as she budged between giggling Nora and Maggie. ‘Tell me about yourself, Rosa. What was your life like before you came here?’

  ‘I study art, I paint, I draw,’ Rosa replied as she dabbed the air with an imaginary paintbrush.

  ‘Ah, you’re an artist,’ Myrtle exclaimed in delight.

  Rosa blushed as she nodded. ‘Sì, well, not proper artist, not yet, but I study art at university but then I have to leave, so not finish my work.’

  Awed Nora blurted out, ‘I’ve never met anybody in mi whole life who went to university.’

  Ignoring Nora’s outburst, Myrtle continued. ‘Which university?’

  ‘Padova, a city near Venice,’ Rosa replied proudly. ‘Galileo, he live there.’

  Nora’s jaw dropped. ‘Who’s Galileo when he’s at home?’

  ‘A famous scientist who taught in Padova – Padua, we say in English,’ Myrtle quickly explained to an overawed Nora, who looked none the wiser. ‘It’s an ancient city, near Venice,’ Myrtle elaborated.

  By this time Nora’s big blue eyes were all but rolling out of her head. ‘Oooh! Have you been in a gondola?’ she gasped.

  Rosa nodded. ‘Sì, many times.’

  Maggie started to giggle. ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ she cried. ‘Our Nora will be thinking that everybody in Italy floats off to work in a gondola!’

  ‘Do stop, you two,’ Myrtle scolded as the young girls howled with laughter. ‘I want to hear more from Rosa about Galileo.’

  ‘He knew all about the stars, he invented, er …’ Rosa mimed looking through an eye glass.

  ‘TELESCOPE!’ Maggie cried.

  ‘Telescope. Galileo, he study stars,’ Rosa replied.

  Much impressed, Nora reverently murmured, ‘This Galileo fella must have been really, really clever to invent a blinkin’ telescope!’

  Rosa smiled gently at Nora, whom she loved more with every passing day. ‘You are clever, Nora!’ she exclaimed. ‘You teach me English and you teach me to build bombs too!’

  ‘That’s not clever,’ Nora said with a dismissive shrug. ‘That’s just normal.’

  Before Nora could take the conversation off in another random direction, Myrtle quickly got a word in edgeways. ‘Do you draw or paint now, Rosa?’

  Rosa’s honey-brown eyes grew wary, ‘No,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘That’s a pity, considering you’re an artist,’ Nora insisted. ‘You must miss it, drawing and sketching and that,’ she added vaguely.

  ‘I have no … how you say, tools,’ Rosa said guardedly.

  Impressed by Rosa’s apparent genius, Nora looked downright disappointed. ‘That’s a proper shame,’ she lamented.

  As the hooter sounded out, calling the girls back to work, Maggie stubbed out her cigarette. ‘She’s not going to get far without owt to paint with, is she?’ she said to Nora, who was clearly reluctant to drop the subject.

  ‘I could ask mi dad if he’s got any brushes,’ Nora innocently offered.

  Maggie threw an arm around her friend’s shoulders. ‘Sweetheart, we’re talking brushes for painting pictures, not redecorating the back bedroom!’

  Laughing and giggling, with their arms intertwined, Nora and Maggie made their way back to the cordite line, leaving Myrtle shaking her head as she watched them go.

  ‘Silly girls,’ she said with great affection.

  ‘Nice girls,’ Rosa added with equal affection. ‘My friends.’

  Rosa met Kit’s and Violet’s children one sunny afternoon after they’d all finished their shift. At the sight of the babies, Rosa’s English went right out of the window. Crouching before Billy, who immediately grabbed hold of her hair, Rosa cooed, ‘Oh, che bel ragazzo! Quanto forte un ragazzo!’

  Taking beaming baby Stevie in her arms she whispered tenderly, ‘Buon giorno, cherubino!’

  Rosa was curious about where the babies stayed whilst their mothers worked their shifts.

  ‘Come and see for yourself,’ Violet said as she led her to the Phoenix day nursery, which was to the east of the complex, well away from the noise and dirt of the factory. It consisted of various rooms that all opened on to a large partly covered play area, where the babies in the prams could sleep and the older children could play.

  ‘Billy’s in here with the toddlers,’ Kit said, as her son ran off to play with his friends in the sand pit. ‘It’s a long day for them, as long as our shifts, in fact, unless someone arrives to pick them up early. They get all their meals here and after their dinner they always have a sleep on these,’ she said, pointing out a stack of child-sized metal-and-canvas beds.

  ‘The babies are next door,’ Violet added. ‘They have their own cots and when they’re not sleeping there’s a carpeted area where the older ones can roll around with their little friends,’ Violet said with an indulgent smile.

  ‘And what about mother who is feeding baby?’ Rosa asked.

  ‘I breast-fed Stevie until I had to come back to work, then it was on to the dried baby milk for him – there’s no choice,’ she said a little sadly. ‘But at least I got the chance to breast-feed him – I loved it,’ she admitted.

  Rosa’s face softened as she watched Violet tenderly kiss Stevie on both cheeks before she settled him in his pram.

  ‘Let’s go home and see Dada,’ she said, as she set off for her home in the nearby domestic quarters.

  ‘She is very good mother,’ Rosa observed.

  ‘A wonderful mother,’ Kit agreed. ‘Though she was a bag of nerves to start with, all fingers and thumbs.’ Seeing Rosa’s puzzled expression, she added, ‘It was difficult at the beginning.’

  ‘Why?’ Rosa asked.

  ‘Violet’s a nervous woman,’ Kit answered thoughtfully. ‘Bad things happened to her before she came here.’

  ‘Poverina, poor thing,’ Rosa said with genuine compassion. ‘How could bad things happen to her? She’s an angel.’

  Kit shook her head as she answered sadly, ‘Believe me, they did.’

  It was difficult to get Billy away from his friends, who were now busy eating sand.

  ‘Ugh, no!’ Kit cried, wiping sand off Billy’s face.

  ‘He looks like you,’ Rosa commented. ‘Black hair, beautiful big dark eyes and lips like ciliegia, like cherries!’ she laughed.

  After swinging gurgling Billy around in a circle, Kit popped him into his pram and tucked a blanket over him.

  ‘You must come and see Billy’s garden, right up there on the top of the moor
s,’ she said as she pointed through the nursery windows to the high moorland peaks.

  Rosa followed her gaze. ‘Oh, yes, please, I would like that very much!’

  Kit and Ian organized a picnic party for Rosa at Yew Tree Farm.

  ‘It’ll give her the opportunity to meet us all outside of work,’ Kit said. ‘She must think we sleep in our white turbans and overalls!’ she joked.

  Rosa was charmed by Kit’s home. She especially loved the garden, half of which Kit, having persuaded local gardeners to give her their spare seeds and cuttings, had given over to growing fruit and vegetables. Billy had claimed his own little patch too: when Rosa arrived she found him sitting on his tomato plants!

  ‘Your garden, it reminds me of home,’ Rosa said wistfully as she scooped the little boy into her arms and kissed him on both chubby cheeks. ‘My mother grew zucchini and melanzane.’ Rosa quickly translated: ‘Aubergines – and big tomatoes – we had cherry trees and peaches.’ She stopped short, biting her lip in an attempt to control her emotional memories. As Billy slipped from Rosa’s embrace, Kit asked softly, ‘Are your parents still in Padova?’

  Unable to hold back the tears that seeped from the corner of her honey-brown eyes, Rosa blurted out, ‘No, they hiding in the hills, I pray God to watch them.’

  Gladys, who was close by and listening in on the conversation, quietly thought to herself, ‘So I was right when I thought her family were on the run from the Nazis.’

  Only last year Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, had announced in Parliament that the Nazis were exterminating the Jews, and there’d been footage on the Pathé News of Jews being rounded up and forced to leave their homes.

  Thinking how unbearable it would be to be separated from her own family, Kit asked, ‘You couldn’t stay together?’

  ‘Too many to hide,’ Rosa replied. ‘We try, but my brother and I, we got taken …’

  Seeing her friend so upset, Gladys quickly joined Kit. The two women, sat on either side of a sobbing Rosa, knowingly eyed each other, as it was clear the poor girl sat between them had suffered a great deal before she arrived in England.