by Anne Doughty
‘My mother died when I was born,’ said Mary steadily. ‘My father left me with my grandmother and went away. Even Granny didn’t know where he went. But he never came back. She died when I was seven and that meant Dr Barnardo’s for me.’
‘But at least by the 1930s they’d stopped sending children abroad,’ interrupted John hastily. ‘And they were good to you, weren’t they?’ he insisted, turning towards her, his face shadowed with anxiety.
‘Yes, they were,’ she said promptly. ‘And I still went to the same school just outside Norwich. Some of the teachers there were very kind. I still have friends from those days,’ she went on, smiling, ‘but I always felt lonely. Till I met John that was,’ she said, looking Clare straight in the face.
Clare nodded, suddenly unable to speak, as tears jumped unbidden to her eyes. Mary’s look, one of complete and trusting honesty, was totally endearing. Clare would never forget it, nor the moment that followed when she asked herself if it was always like this for children who had lost their parents, or was it just coincidence that both she and Mary had felt such loneliness until they had found someone they could love, someone who would return their love and make a life with them.
‘I know Uncle Alex and Aunt Emily live outside Banbridge, but where do you live?’ she asked. ‘I can tell Mary isn’t from Ulster. Are you living in Norfolk?’
‘Yes, spot on, Clare,’ replied John. ‘I ended up on an air base there at the end of the war and we met at a camp dance. Married in 1947. We have two boys, fifteen and thirteen.’
‘And you’ve left them behind?’
‘Oh yes,’ replied John vigorously. ‘We’ve always wanted to come and visit Annacramp, but we couldn’t while the boys were small. By the time we could afford it, we’d decided we’d like to come on our own. First time, at any rate. We only have a week, so the boys are staying with our next door neighbours. We’ll return the favour when we get back.’
‘But what about Aunt Emily and Uncle Alex?’ Clare asked abruptly, suddenly aware she had no idea what had happened to them. They hadn’t been at Granda Hamilton’s funeral two years ago and she couldn’t even remember him having spoken of them on her few visits to Liskeyborough from Belfast and then France. Surely they hadn’t died and she hadn’t even known.
‘Dad retired in 1955 because his health wasn’t too good. Chest problems. He’d been having a bad time every winter and Ma was really worried about him. Doctor suggested moving to Spain or Italy if they could afford it, but neither of them felt happy about that. It was my sister Jane who solved the problem. She married a German prisoner of war. Lovely man called Johann. They’d tried to set up a small business outside Banbridge and found there was such ill-feeling towards Germans that it would never thrive, even though Johann had actually flown to Ireland to escape the Nazis, but no one seemed willing to believe it. So Jane suggested they all go to Australia.’
‘They came and stayed with us before they went,’ said Mary, breaking in, ‘so I did finally meet them. And Australia has been a great success. For all of them. Johann started a nursery and garden centre, which is pure delight to Emily. She and Jane work with him. There are two little girls now, both at school. They take it in turns to keep an eye on them. It’s a small town in an area called the Hunter Valley and it does sound quite lovely,’ she went on. ‘Alex is working on what he calls “An Orphan Project”. Having found out the story of his own past, he’s been studying the records of children sent to Australia, as well as, those sent to Canada and the United States. He says we “don’t know the half of it”, but one of these days he’ll have enough information for a book. Emily encourages him and tells us about some of his discoveries. And about the country too. We’ve learnt such a lot from her. She’s a great letter writer and she says that out there no one appears to know or care where you’ve come from. Australia is all about here and now. She wishes it were like that back in County Down.’
‘And doesn’t she miss County Down and her garden and the rain and all her friends?’ asked Clare anxiously, thinking how awful it would be living half a world away, weeks of travel by sea to get home or costing a fortune should you think of coming by air.
Clare noticed how Mary and John looked at each other when she spoke of ‘missing County Down’ as if this was something they often talked about. She wondered, too, how John felt about making a new life in Norfolk. Not as far away as Australia, but still a journey to make and an expense they hadn’t been able to afford until now.
‘Yes, she does,’ Mary said quietly. ‘Even John here admits he misses Ballydown and Corbet Lough and the view of the Mournes from the back garden of Rathdrum, the house where he lived as a boy, even though he knows he can come back. Not every year and probably not to live, not yet anyway, but at least to make sure the places he loves are still here,’ she said, glancing sideways at him. ‘Emily and Alex can never come back, at least not together,’ she added sadly, ‘but Emily says it is different when you’re old. If you’ve lived and loved in a place, then it is part of you and you have it forever, so long as you choose to cherish it. She says Australia has been kind to them. It’s given Alex back his health and a new project. It’s given Jane and Johann a fresh start. They all have work and there’s a future for the two girls and a different kind of beauty surrounding them.’
‘So you haven’t been back here since the war, John, and this must be your first visit, Mary?’
Mary nodded and smiled back at Clare but it was John who took up the story.
‘I’ve been back once. I wasn’t demobbed till the end of 1945 so I waited till the summer of 1946, the summer you lost your parents, Clare. Mary and I were engaged and I hoped by waiting she could come with me, but she was nursing and I’m afraid military hospitals were very overworked at that point. I stayed with my parents at Rathdrum but I did actually come to Armagh. Jane borrowed Da’s car and insisted on showing me the tree on The Mall where she and Johann got engaged while he was on a working party. Then we visited both cathedrals. If Da had been able to get away, we might have managed Annacramp then, but he couldn’t, so Jane and I went to see the Hamiltons at Liskeyborough on our way back to Ballydown . . .’
Clare listened carefully as John talked about the visit to her grandparents, his meeting with her grandmother, Martha, and Aunt Dolly and the time he’d spent with Granda Hamilton out in his workshop, sitting on the same two empty oil drums where he and his father had once discussed what they would do if war came in 1914. Uncle Jack was away working in Belfast, but her grandfather had told John where each member of the large family was, what they were doing and how they had fared. He’d mentioned her parents, of course, said they had a girl and a boy and were doing well.
How strange to see such an important part of her life through the eyes of someone older and more experienced, someone coming from outside the known places. She found it hard to believe how much she simply didn’t know about all these people who would have been so important a part of her parents’ world.
Andrew was home later than usual that bright, sunny evening. Tired and dispirited from a day in court when one more of his clients had suffered a raw deal, he parked the car at the back of the house, tramped along the basement corridor, found the kitchen empty, dropped his briefcase in their bedroom, then headed upstairs to find Clare. Surprised to hear laughter from the dining-room, he stopped at the top of the stairs just at the moment she appeared, a smile on her face, her eyes shining.
‘Andrew, we heard the car and were waiting for you. We have guests. Real guests. Come and meet them,’ she said, giving him a kiss and leading him into the dining-room.
‘Andrew, this is Mary and John Hamilton from Norfolk. John is Uncle Alex’s son. You remember Uncle Alex, don’t you?’ she added, a hint of anxiety in her voice.
‘Of course, I remember him,’ he said evenly. ‘Small boy in big ship. Exported to provide labour for colonial development. But he got away, came home and proved to be a true Hamilton,’ he said, managing a smile as he s
hook hands with Mary and then John.
Clare relaxed as she saw the two men size each other up. There was instantly an ease between them more commonly seen when men talked about cars or golf. Mary was watching them too, as Andrew sat down wearily and looked hopefully at the teapot.
‘Andrew, the tea’s stone cold,’ Clare said firmly. ‘But June has put a casserole in the Aga for us. If you and John would take the cases up to Number Two, Mary and I could clear away tea and lay dinner. It’s our night off, remember,’ she said encouragingly. ‘John Wiley isn’t here yet, but I’m sure he won’t be long.’
‘Would you like me to fetch some sherry from Headquarters?’ Andrew asked, beginning to look more cheerful.
‘Yes, please. But please do the cases first. Mary and John have had a long day. We’ve been talking our heads off ever since they arrived and suddenly they’re going to want to go to bed.’
‘What time did you get here?’ Andrew asked.
To his surprise everyone burst out laughing.
‘What’s the joke?’ he asked.
‘It was early afternoon,’ Mary replied, smiling. ‘But we got into family history, and there seems to be an awful lot of it on the Hamilton side. Don’t be anxious. When we heard the car, we promised Clare not to say another word about it for the rest of the evening.’
That evening was one of the happiest Clare and Andrew had spent for a very long time. It was like some of the good times they’d had with Harry and Jessie, helping to do up the house on the Malone Road when they’d just got married and Jessie, who swore she was only learning to cook, produced wonderful meals to share at the end of their long working days.
Over their meal, they shared talk about their respective jobs. Mary worked part-time in the orthopaedic department of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, while John ran an electrical business in Holt, the small town in North Norfolk where they now lived. Andrew said very little about being a solicitor in Armagh, but spoke enthusiastically about their plans for buying land and rearing pedigree cattle when they could afford for him to stop working as a solicitor and have some managerial help with running Drumsollen.
‘Can’t always do what you want, can you?’ said John sympathetically. ‘When the airbase closed, I had nothing to turn to. I’d left school and joined up the moment I was eighteen. I could have applied for a grant to go to university, but I’d already met Mary. Oh, she did offer to support me, and she would have, but I’m afraid I was too stubborn. One of the electricians on the base was going into business and offered me a job. I’d no electrical skills whatsoever. Flying Spitfires and Mosquitos doesn’t qualify you for much else,’ he commented wryly. ‘Happily, it worked out well. I picked things up very quickly and night-school helped. But actually, it’s boats I love. If I had lots of money I’d take up sailing, perhaps do half-crown trips to take visitors out to Blakeney Point to see the seals, or something like that,’ he ended laughing.
‘And have you any experience of sailing, John?’ Clare asked.
‘Only in a Mosquito,’ said Mary soberly.
There was a moment’s puzzled silence and then both John and Mary began to laugh heartily.
‘I ditched in the Mediterranean when we were delivering planes from North Africa to Italy. Mechanical fault. But it could have been the end of me. Parents got the usual Missing telegram. Poor dears, it was hard on them. Aunt Sarah got her Foreign Office husband to pester someone in the Air Ministry he’d been at school with, but even then there wasn’t much they could do. My chum had seen me go down, but that was the last I was heard of.’
‘So what happened?’ asked Clare, horrified at the thought of poor Aunt Emily and Uncle Alex thinking he was dead.
John grinned ruefully.
‘Well, I kept afloat and nothing ran me down or spotted me for quite a while. I could have been picked up by a ship or even an enemy sub. Being run down was much more likely. Not much protection on a plane made of light metal and balsa wood and designed for speed.
‘So what did happen, John?’ Andrew said quickly.
‘I was picked up by a fishing boat, a Greek caique manned by very loud, noisy, bearded Greeks. At least, that’s what I thought at the time,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s actually rather funny looking back now, but that’s what made it all so difficult. You see they weren’t Greek at all, they were British and it was a special ops job. They couldn’t risk giving the game away in case I was a German spy deliberately planted in a ditched Mosquito. They made me take off all my wet clothes and I wondered then why they wouldn’t give them back. They had to stick to their plans, so they couldn’t put me ashore till their job was done. They also had to make sure I didn’t hear them speaking English or using their radio.’
‘But how on earth did they manage that on a small boat?’ demanded Clare.
‘There was a cabin. Someone used the radio in there, while the rest made a noise. Sometimes they sang. Occasionally they did PT exercises, or hammered pieces of the rigging, and they shouted at each other all the time. I knew there was something funny about them but I couldn’t figure it out. The boss-man spoke “a leetle Englessh” with a thick American accent, said he had “sister in New York”. I think he decided I was genuine, but he still couldn’t put me ashore. Once I had to ask for help to get back to my unit, someone would be bound to ask how I’d got there in the first place. I found out afterwards, years afterwards actually, that they were all Oxford and Cambridge men and only one of them spoke any Greek at all and that was Classical. But they certainly did manage to fool me on that one.’
‘And after all that, you still think you’d like a boat?’ asked Clare.
‘Yes, I would. It was a very odd experience but I loved being on the water with all that space and sky. A strange longing for a real landlubber, brought up among the little hills of County Down, don’t you think? Must be a hand down from some ancient ancestor,’ he said lightly.
‘Maybe it is,’ said Andrew promptly. ‘My mother was so good with animals, especially horses, but she wasn’t from a country family. I’ve had no real experience with animals either, but I just know working with them is what I want. It’s the way I feel when I’m with them. I feel more myself in some strange way,’ he added, looking slightly foolish.
‘We’re certainly going to try it,’ said Clare, ‘if we can make a success of Drumsollen. How about you?’
‘Oh yes, there is a Grand Plan,’ Mary smiled. ‘We’ve bought two derelict cottages a little way back from the coast. Baconsthorpe, the village is called. Very small, just church, pub, general store and a few houses. We’re working on them, so we can let them as holiday cottages, or perhaps sell them.’
‘And buy a boat?’ asked Clare.
‘Spot on, Clare,’ said John grinning. ‘Then you and Andrew will have to come and visit us. Do either of you know Norfolk at all, or do you think it’s very flat, as they say in Private Lives?’
‘I’ve been a few times,’ said Andrew easily. ‘I had two aunts, one lived at Wiveton and one at Cley, my mother’s aunts actually. The elder one, Auntie Bee, died some years ago but her younger sister, Aunt Joan, still lives in Wiveton. She’s in her seventies now and keeps asking me to come and bring Clare. I haven’t been over for a while. When was it, Clare, when I painted Auntie Bee’s kitchen after the floods?’
‘Must have been 1954, or 1955. The floods were 1953, weren’t they?’ Clare said slowly.
‘What’s your aunt’s name, Andrew?’ Mary asked quietly, while Clare was still trying to remember exactly when it was. She’d been so worried about Andrew because he had to cross the Irish sea in winter when the weather was very stormy.
‘Well, she had three names and I’m not sure which she uses. Her family name was Ayton, but she married a doctor called Everett, who died, and then a man called Pye who bred donkeys. They were terribly happy together, but he died too, quite suddenly, and she’s been on her own for a long time now. She’s rather poor but doesn’t let it bother her. She has a holiday flat attached
to her cottage and she grows old-fashioned plants and flowers and sells them in summer to the visitors.’
Mary and John looked at each other and shook their heads.
‘You’re not going to believe this, Andrew,’ said John slowly. ‘When the base finally closed and we had nowhere to live, my Commanding Officer said he had a friend who might be able to help, a Mrs Joan Pye at Wiveton. We lived in Joan’s holiday flat for two years till Sandy was well on the way. Your Aunt Joan is our son’s godmother.’
‘And you’re not going to believe this either, Mary,’ said Clare laughing. ‘This is the first time in living history I have ever heard Andrew say anything about any member of his family without it being prized out of him! Now what do you think of that?’
Seven
When Mary and John Hamilton said their goodbyes on the steps of Drumsollen on the last day of June, the sky a perfect blue, the breeze warm even at the early hour of their departure, they had secured a promise from Clare and Andrew to come and visit them in Norfolk at the first possible opportunity. It was a promise happily given. After three days in which they’d shared every hour they could spare with their ‘family guests’, they felt they’d made a friendship that would extend far into the future.
‘My goodness, can you believe all that’s happened in six months?’ Clare said, turning to Andrew as the little car disappeared round the bend in the drive. ‘Have you time to walk up to the summerhouse with me? I’m not on breakfast duty this morning.’
‘Fine. Nothing waiting for me that won’t wait a bit longer,’ Andrew replied. ‘Besides, it’s only eight o’clock. Charles never gets in before ten.’
‘I was thinking of how awful it was in January,’ Clare went on, ‘those frozen pipes we thought might burst and the awful chill of the empty bedrooms and corridors. Do you remember how dangerous the car park was and how we slithered and slid and worried about the few visitors we did have?’
