Christmas with the Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  With tears in her eyes Gladys turned to Myrtle, who after her initial upset looked remarkably calm and resigned.

  ‘I suspected that was the case,’ she said bravely, before turning to the doctor to ask, ‘How long have I got?’

  Dr Grant shrugged his shoulders as he answered honestly: ‘Difficult to say, though we’re hoping your move to Belmont TB sanatorium up on the moors will improve your condition.’

  ‘When do you intend to send me there?’ Myrtle enquired.

  ‘As soon as it can be arranged,’ he replied kindly.

  After the doctor departed, Gladys struggled to find the right words; this certainly wasn’t the time to talk about work or the weather, but neither could she bring herself to talk about the grim reality of Dr Grant’s prognosis. Seeing her awkwardness, Myrtle gave Gladys’s hand a gentle pat. ‘I’m not frightened of dying,’ she said quietly. Gripping her hand, Gladys fought back tears. ‘I have a strong belief in God,’ Myrtle continued. ‘His love comforts me and gives me strength to face death, though I shall miss all of you silly cheeky girls,’ she said with a shadow of a smile. Seeing Gladys’s bottom lip quivering, Myrtle forced a briskness into her voice, ‘Now, dear child, do please get me a cup of tea, and see if you can steal a bit of sugar behind Sister’s back,’ she added with a naughty wink.

  After her hospital visit Gladys immediately joined her friends in the canteen, where, choking with emotion, she sat down and broke the bad news. When she’d finished, her friends stared at her with a mixture of shock and incredulity on all their faces, apart from Nora, who was weeping uncontrollably. ‘Belmont Sanatorium is where they send folks to die,’ she wailed.

  Maggie laid an arm around her heart-broken friend, who buried her face against her shoulder. ‘She can’t be dying!’ Nora sobbed. ‘I can’t imagine life without Myrtle!’

  Rosa, who’d remained quiet out of respect to her friends who’d known Myrtle a lot longer than she had, said softly, ‘We must pray for her.’

  Gladys nodded in agreement with the sentiment. ‘Myrtle has a strong faith – we must pray that what’s left of her life is good and pain free.’

  ‘And we must visit her and tell her how much we love her before it’s too late,’ Nora said, but the very thought brought on another bout of weeping. Utterly heart-broken, she laid her head on the table and abandoned herself to her grief. ‘Oh, Myrtle …’ she wailed.

  Everybody in the workplace was saddened by the news, which flew round the factory in no time. All the women who’d worked alongside Myrtle had a soft spot for the upright middle-aged woman who used to be a Sunday-school teacher and played the piano like a professional musician.

  ‘She’s so clever and knowledgeable,’ one of her colleagues said.

  ‘Always fair, never rude,’ another said.

  ‘A hard worker too.’

  ‘Never had a day off work.’

  A heavy silence followed, broken only by one of the women saying what they were all thinking.

  ‘My God, she’ll be sorely missed.’

  7. Flora

  Early one autumn morning, Edna drove her little mobile chip shop through the dank mist to visit Kit before she left the house to start her afternoon shift at the Phoenix. As Edna drove, the mist cleared and she was able to stop and admire the majestic view of the high Pennines, where moorland sheep grazed or plaintively bleated as they scampered over the flattened bracken to catch up with one another. It was too chilly for songbirds, but she could hear the buzzing of a partridge’s wings as it flew away. The sight of so much natural beauty lifted her spirits but left her feeling guilty when she thought of all those who were suffering on the brutal battlefields of war, not to mention poor Myrtle. Hundreds and thousands of men and women were fighting for the privilege of living at peace in the country they loved. Soldiers who lay dead in mud, RAF pilots lost in deep, watery graves in the Channel and the North Sea, and sailors on minesweepers, weaving their way through deadly seas dotted with German explosives. She sighed as she wiped away her tears. Would the killing ever end? Would it be like the hideous First War, which wiped out ‘The Seed of England’?

  ‘Take a hold of yourself, kid!’ Edna said sharply to herself. These weren’t the kind of questions you allowed yourself to ask, not if you wanted to stay sane.

  Starting up the van’s engine again, Edna set off at a brisk pace along the narrow winding road, and, as she approached Kit’s rambling old farmhouse, she mischievously switched on the loud chime bells that she used to attract customers. When Billy heard them ringing out, he ran full pelt along the garden path yelling, ‘DING! DING!’

  Edna brought the van to a halt, then stepped out of it and stood with her arms flung wide open. ‘Come on, bonny lad!’ she called.

  ‘He loves his godmother,’ Kit said fondly as she watched Billy hug Edna.

  ‘And I love my godson,’ Edna proudly replied.

  ‘Me do ding-ding,’ Billy pleaded.

  Edna laughed as he ran up to the van, which she’d left open, knowing how much he liked to scramble inside and explore.

  ‘Here’s the ding-ding,’ Edna chuckled. ‘Go on, press the button.’

  Billy banged his little hand on the button that operated the chime bells, then laughed himself silly as they rang out.

  ‘We could be here all day doing this,’ Kit warned as she lifted Billy out of the van and headed down the garden path to the front door. ‘I don’t know about you but I’m dying for a brew.’

  ‘When have you ever known me refuse a cuppa?’ Edna joked.

  Inside Kit’s big kitchen, where Billy’s recently washed towelling nappies were drying on a wooden clothes-maiden that hung from the ceiling on metal pulleys, Kit made a pot of tea, whilst Billy ran to his building bricks scattered across the scrubbed stone floor.

  ‘Let’s have a cigarette whilst he’s playing,’ said Kit as she reached for her packet of Woodbines. ‘We never seem to have a moment in private, not like the old days when I’d come and visit you every night in the despatch yard.’

  ‘Eeh, we had some heart-to-hearts, didn’t we?’ Edna reminisced.

  ‘I don’t know how I would have got through those dark, horrible times waiting for news from Ireland without you,’ Kit confessed.

  ‘It was worth the wait to have this little man by you,’ Edna remarked fondly, as she watched Billy build a tower of bricks, then gleefully knock them down.

  ‘Now tell me,’ said Kit, wanting to move the conversation to a cheerier topic once they had inevitably shared their sadness over Myrtle, ‘have you made any plans for your wedding? It’s not long off now, you know.’

  Edna pulled down the corners of her wide generous mouth. ‘It’ll be a small do,’ she replied. ‘It’s not like I’ve got a big family,’ she added with a wistful sigh.

  Kit knew exactly what Edna meant by that; leaning across the table, she pressed her friend’s hand.

  ‘What wouldn’t I give for my daughter to be there on my wedding day,’ Edna finally murmured.

  Still stroking Edna’s hand, Kit wondered how old the baby girl that Edna’s parents had forced her to give up for adoption all those years ago would be now – twenty-seven, twenty-eight years?

  As if reading her thoughts, Edna added, ‘She’ll be old enough to have her own family by now.’

  Kit, who’d gone through hell in order to stop her father having Billy adopted, suddenly decided to throw caution to the wind. ‘Have you ever thought of trying to trace Flora?’ she asked.

  Edna smiled sadly. ‘Of course! But what right have I to disturb her life and the couple that took her? It would be cruel, not to mention impossible! Even so,’ said Edna, as she visibly slumped in the chair, ‘there’s not a day goes by when I don’t think of her: what she’s doing; where she’s living. Is she married? Has she got children? I’d give my right arm to see her, just the once.’

  ‘You never know, it might not be impossible to trace her – difficult certainly, but you don’t know if you don’t try,’
Kit said thoughtfully. ‘I understand what you say about disturbing her life, but maybe there’s a way of at least giving her the chance to make contact with you?’

  ‘That’s if she wants to,’ Edna commented. ‘And, anyway, where on earth would I begin?’ she added sadly.

  ‘You might try putting an ad in the papers?’ Kit suggested.

  ‘Saying what?’ Edna gave a mocking laugh. ‘Mother seeks daughter, no name known, no place of residence known! And which paper? We don’t know if she stayed in this area – she could be living anywhere!’

  Regretting she’d even brought up the subject, Kit was grateful when Billy distracted them. Climbing on to his godmother’s knee, he cried, ‘Sing, Edde!’

  Edna sang every nursery rhyme she could remember until it was time for Kit to take Billy to the Phoenix day nursery.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Edna volunteered. ‘Come on, love,’ she said, as she lifted the little boy into the passenger seat. ‘You can play the ding-ding all the way to work!’

  As Edna drove Kit and her son along the twisting moorland paths, Kit determined that the subject of finding Edna’s daughter was not going to be shoved under the carpet. She’d seen the longing in Edna’s eyes; she’d also briefly known the agony of losing her own baby and the ecstasy of being reunited with him. She wanted her dearest friend, Edna, to have that joy, especially on her wedding day.

  Later that evening, when she’d finished her shift and got the bus home, Kit found her sleepy husband peacefully reading the Manchester Evening News as he toasted himself in front of the warm Aga.

  ‘Darling!’ he exclaimed as Kit kissed him before falling exhausted into one of the old Windsor chairs. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Kit sighed gratefully as she lit up a Woodbine and sank back into the comfy chair. ‘How’s Billy?’ she asked as Ian dropped tea leaves into the big brown tea pot.

  ‘He was tired out when I picked him up after work; he had a bath and a cup of milk, then he went out like a light.’

  ‘He had a busy morning with Edna,’ Kit recalled as she accepted the mug of scalding hot tea from her husband, who sat in the chair opposite her and lit up a Pall Mall.

  ‘Sweetheart …’ Kit started hesitantly. ‘I’ve had a talk with Edna and I really want to try to track down her daughter, who was adopted shortly after Edna gave birth to her.’

  ‘Catherine Murphy!’ Ian chided. ‘You are playing with fire.’

  Kit leant closer in to squeeze her husband’s hand. ‘Think how wonderful it would be,’ she said. ‘Edna and the child she never knew reunited on her wedding day.’

  ‘This is sentimental reasoning,’ Ian playfully chided. ‘Anyway, first things first: does Malc know about Edna’s adopted daughter?’

  ‘I’m sure Edna would have told him,’ Kit replied.

  Ian held up his fingers as he did a quick calculation. ‘You mentioned a while ago that she must be around twenty-seven years old by now. A grown woman, with a life of her own – it would be very wrong to interfere.’

  ‘It’s not interfering!’ Kit protested. ‘What if she’s never had the chance to search for her birth mother? Maybe she doesn’t even know Edna’s name; maybe the parents kept everything a secret from her – that’s common with families who adopt.’

  ‘Darling, if that’s the case, it’s even more important that we’re careful. I know you want to help, but the initiative must come from Edna’s daughter. It’s important from a legal point of view as well as a compassionate one.’

  When she heard this, Kit rolled her eyes. ‘And there was I, the fool I am, thinking how wonderful it would be for mother and daughter to find each other,’ she groaned. ‘Sure, I should have known better.’

  ‘The law is there to protect innocent people, my love,’ Ian said as he caressed his wife’s dark hair, which cascaded in a silky sweep to her slender waist. ‘As you say, we don’t know what the parents might have told Edna’s daughter – you might be opening a can of worms’.

  Laying aside her empty mug, Kit rose and, recognizing that she wasn’t going to get much further in this, their first discussion about Flora, she smiled seductively as she held out her hand to her husband. ‘Come to bed, my darlin’,’ she murmured.

  Ian grinned as he quickly stubbed out his Pall Mall. ‘With the greatest of pleasure, Mrs McIvor!’

  Oblivious to Kit’s fantasy of reuniting mother and daughter, Edna and Malc finally set their wedding date one blustery autumn evening. Edna, as usual, was in her blue van in the despatch yard, serving chips to the last of the Bomb Girls heading off to bed, and to the bleary-eyed ones starting their night shift.

  ‘Eeh! I could stay here all day and all night and still have customers queuing up for chips,’ Edna yawned as she closed her serving hatch. ‘The Phoenix with its round-the-clock shifts is a regular little gold mine.’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ said Malc, as he stowed the salt and vinegar bottles in the van, ‘there’s more to life than work.’

  Edna stopped in her tracks and looked at her fiancé. ‘You’re right, love, but I’ve spent all my life working – how else could I have survived on my own?’

  ‘You’ve done all right for a single woman,’ Malc said proudly. ‘You’ve got a thriving chip shop in the centre of town and a little mobile chippy too,’ he added with a fond smile.

  ‘Coming up here was a stroke of genius, even if I say so myself,’ Edna laughed as she recalled how she’d had an old second-hand van adapted into a mobile chip shop for the specific purpose of travelling up to the Phoenix Factory, high up on the moors. ‘Being the hard-headed business woman that I am,’ she said with a chuckle, ‘I thought to miself, “There’s a profit to be had serving chips to them munitions lasses.” Well, that was the original idea,’ she said as she lit up a Woodbine and handed one to Malc. ‘But now, if the truth be told, I come up here for the Bomb Girls themselves. I love them,’ she said with tears in her green eyes. ‘I love their strength, their humour, their swearing and their downright cursed determination to win the war and destroy Hitler!’

  Malc stared at his wife-to-be, whom he’d seen in many moods but never one quite as fiercely patriotic as this one.

  ‘I’ve made friends here, and shared secrets too,’ Edna continued. ‘I just love this factory, and all the brave women who keep clocking on day after day, month after month, year after bloody year, to keep England safe.’ She paused to wipe away a tell-tale tear. ‘Serving them chips, chatting and laughing, supporting them, believing in them, has made me feel like I’m part of their war effort. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without ’em!’ she admitted with a watery smile.

  ‘And what would them lasses do without you, my sweetheart?’ he murmured, drawing her into his arms. ‘What would any of us do without our Edna?’ he added as he kissed her full on the mouth. ‘Now let’s go ’ome and put kettle on!’

  Down in Pendleton, in Edna’s sitting room, after she’d had a tepid bath to get rid of the smell of lard and chips that was part of her working life, Edna sat drinking cocoa with Malc, who was determined to set their wedding day.

  ‘Christmas!’ Edna suggested.

  ‘Churches aren’t open on Christmas Day – well, not for weddings,’ Malc protested.

  ‘Don’t fancy Boxing Day,’ Edna mused. ‘Always a bit anti-climactic.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Christmas Eve?’ Malc asked. ‘Bing Crosby, White Christmas and all that.’

  ‘Ooh, yes, very romantic,’ Edna agreed as she clinked her cocoa mug against his.

  ‘Christmas Eve it is, then,’ said Malc.

  ‘And the honeymoon?’ Edna giggled like a teenager.

  ‘That’s for me to sort out!’ Malc answered with a wink.

  A few days later, Edna phoned Kit’s house, where Ian had had a telephone installed. ‘Essential for business purposes,’ he’d said with a smile.

  ‘And catching up on the football results from your pal at Old Trafford,’ Kit had teased.

  When the phone s
hrilled out, Kit was heading out of the door with Billy in her arms. Grabbing it, she held on to Billy with one hand and the phone with the other.

  ‘I know you’ll be in a rush,’ Edna said, ‘but we’ve set the wedding date and I want all of my Swing Band Girls – and Rosa too, mustn’t leave her out – to meet me in the despatch yard when you can manage it.’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ Kit promised.

  After she’d dropped off Billy at the nursery, Kit rushed into the canteen, where she and her friends normally met before their shifts began. She found them chatting and laughing as they drank mugs of strong tea.

  ‘NEWS!’ she cried, as she joined them and drew a packet of Woodbines from her pocket.

  ‘You’re pregnant!’ cheeky Maggie guessed.

  ‘No! It’s nothing to do with me!’ Kit laughed. ‘Edna wants us’ – she waved collectively at all around the table – ‘to meet her in the despatch yard later.’

  As the girls eagerly agreed to the plan, Rosa said shyly, ‘Perhaps I should not bother Edna?’

  All eyes turned on her in surprise.

  ‘Why?’ Nora demanded. ‘You’re part of our crowd; you must come.’

  ‘But you are all Edna’s old friends; I am new one,’ Rosa tried to explain.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ laughed Maggie. ‘If you didn’t show up, Edna would come looking for you with a rolling pin!’

  ‘Rolling pin?’ Rosa asked with a giggle.

  Maggie mimed rolling out dough on the canteen table.

  ‘Ah, yes, rolling pin, for pizza!’ Rosa exclaimed.

  ‘And for hitting folks who don’t turn up when they’re asked to,’ Maggie added.

  ‘Then I think I must go,’ Rosa conceded with a happy smile.

  Hours later and feeling a lot less lively than when they’d started their shift, Violet, Kit, Gladys, Nora, Maggie and Rosa gathered around Edna’s little blue van in the despatch yard, where Edna handed each of them a bag of sizzling-hot chips.