Nella Last in the 1950s

by Patricia Malcolmson

  We had a very nice tray lunch at Kew – good salad with ham, a roll and butter and a fresh salad of pineapple, orange, cherries and sweet apple with a little wedge of ice cream. The shade of the trees drew people, the lovely flowers and hot houses only being noticed by parties of people who seemed to have come by motor coach, and dozens of children, with harassed-looking teachers seeming bent on telling them everything. A huge though shapely figure moved majestically along alone, a negress really black as coal, in the hottest most shrieking shade of zinnia purple. Our eyes met and she smiled in so friendly a fashion as she seemed to flow down the path. Such interesting people you see – the lovely flower-like Eastern women in filmy saris, beautiful as houris, fascinate me, as I wonder if they are on holiday, knowing their mothers would have been strictly purdah†, making me realise as nothing else the †have been strictly purdah mass movement to ‘freedom’ of today.

  Monday, 7 July. We had the most enjoyable day of our holiday and at the last place I’d have imagined – the Food Fair at Olympia! I knew the right bus to take from Piccadilly for Cliff – I used to use a No. 9 or 73 to go Richmond way and passed Olympia. I’d never seen a big Food Fair, but used to like the travelling Exhibition that came to Barrow. We were in at 11 o’clock and didn’t leave till 4.30. Being Monday, there was no crush, and till mid-afternoon not many people at all. We had lunch at the best place of Lyons yet – quite good soup, roll and butter, and good choice of sweet, with a salad extra, made up at the counter … I love gadgets and new ways with food. I use ‘Serocream’ and watched new ways of icing and piping, and a kind of ‘baba’ made out of a piece of cake, small block of ice cream ‘insulated’ with a thick layer of the whipped cream, and scorched rather than baked in a very hot oven. But I pointed out to the two nice young fellows that they hadn’t anything as nice as the ‘butterfly’ cream bun I make, or the sandwich with raspberry jam and thick cream between – ‘Ordinary no doubt, but after all, ain’t we all?’

  It grew hot. We rested frequently in comfortable chairs, watching the ebb and flow around. Even since my last visits, six years ago, there seem a more cosmopolitan crowd, and India and her peoples, with South Americans, make the biggest difference. I dearly love perfume, and nowadays there’s no ‘lasting’ fragrance, even in simple things like lavender, when once handfuls strewn in linen kept it fragrant till lavender time came round again. Some of the expensively dressed, dark-skinned ladies in saris have the most beautiful clear oil perfume. I coveted a big bottle. I bought wee oddments of 3d jars of jam, crisps and biscuits for the little boys, and three small 9d jars of Brand’s meat paste, for Edith and I will make sandwiches of one to eat on our way home. We sat in Kensington Gardens till the rush had gone in bus and tubes.

  The next day they were exposed to a different slice of London life. ‘We went down to Euston to book two seats on the train, seeing our first real “working” part of London. I realised the hopelessness of behaviour and decency of many evacuees was the result of such drab places, where ordinary standards of cleanliness were impossible in the smoke and squalor of railways and big concerns which made smoke and soot.’ Then, on Wednesday the 9th, they were back in Barrow, and ‘I was surprised to find our house seem so small after Arthur’s’.

  There were, of course, some local happenings to catch up on. Mrs Higham ‘told me Sheila Diss had a lovely baby boy after an oddly easy confinement. The doctors say it’s usual in polio cases. Poor girl – she has been dreadfully depressed since Julia was married and spent her honeymoon in Paris. At 24, it’s hard to feel she will be more or less crippled for the rest of her life’ (10 July). Mrs Salisbury, at her first Wednesday visit to Nella’s house, had alarming news to report about one of her boarders, ‘a very odd type’ whose ‘great hobby was model airplanes. He always seemed to have young boys of 14 and 15 around, but they were all interested in model making, and he always seemed busy developing photos’. One day ‘Mrs Salisbury was turning out his room and saw some of the photos and to use her own words “I felt I could have died of shock”. They sounded not only beastly but dangerous. The naked boys in acts of perversion and masturbation were plainly recognised from the group he went about with. Mrs Salisbury was the most shocked by photos of a 15-year-old Grammar school boy, a member of the Scouts and choir and one of the two sons of a widow Mrs Salisbury knew. After thinking things over, she took the photos to her, saying, “I’d have been glad if anyone had let me know about the dangerous friendship if it had been one of my boys”. There was a big row. The widow wasn’t without the advice of sensible friends, and a condition of not going to the police was that he had never to be seen in boys’ company – and the photos are retained by the one who gave the advice as “guarantee”’ (16 July).

  Saturday, 19 July. If joyous days should be called red letter days, today is a black one. My little Shan We died suddenly, apparently of a heart attack. He ate his usual good breakfast, went to play on the lawn and ran in hurriedly when it began to rain suddenly, and sat on my husband’s lap for the rest of the morning. I’d tidied up, and machined† for an hour. There was good beef soup, cold †up, and machined brisket beef and salad, cornflour sweet and stewed raspberries. Shan We coaxed a meaty bit of gristle and ate it, and then sat on the rug till I’d finished lunch and then jumped on my lap as usual, his paws on my chest, his clear blue eyes lovingly on my face. I remembered again how much more loving – if that was possible – he had been since he came home [from the boarding kennel]. I rose soon saying, ‘I’m going to wash up, and then you can relax till 2 o’clock’ – we had an appointment at the Hospital with Dr Wadsworth, the visiting psychiatrist. I’d lifted Shan We down on to the rug, and my husband passed back and forward clearing the table. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes when he said, ‘Come quickly, Dearie’. I saw my little cat lying on his side, his tongue hanging out, his head lolled helplessly as I put my hands under him and raised him. I’d once brought him out of a similar attack when he was only a few weeks old, with whisky and holding him pressed to my warm body till I got a fire going, but today half a teaspoon of neat brandy poured into his open mouth was no use, or warmth and massaging his heart,which had ceased to beat before I lifted him. The light died in his jewel-blue eyes.

  I felt stunned – and so terribly worried at the way my husband took it. I never saw him so distraught. I wanted to phone to the Hospital and say he couldn’t come, but he roused himself a little and we went. Dr Wadsworth was shocked at his appearance, till he knew about our little friend, and then was so understanding. I’ve always found Ulstermen to be insensitive. We came home. I’d laid my pet in his bed and covered him warmly in the forlorn hope a miracle might happen. I could not believe he would never rush to meet us again. My husband dug his grave in the flower border, and we made a soft cushion of lawn grass clippings and laid him on – he looked peacefully sleeping. As we covered him with more grass I murmured, ‘Goodbye, little cat. Thank you for your love and affection. It’s been grand knowing you.’ And I wondered how many people were buried so sadly.*

  I made tea, but beyond several cups of tea and a little bread and butter we couldn’t eat. I had a lost feeling when no eager little blue-eyed cat jumped on my lap. The moment I’d finished I looked at my husband’s face and shaking hands and thought of Dr Wadsworth’s advice ‘It would be as well to get another Siamese as soon as possible. I don’t like any upset for Mr Last.’ I asked him if he would like another, but he said simply, ‘No, it would never be Shan We’. I said coaxingly, ‘Wouldn’t you like a little dog? You could take him out.’ Nothing could rouse him. I felt I pushed my own grief deeper and deeper till I was choking, Kipling was right – you should ‘never give your heart to a dog to tear’. I felt I hadn’t to keep anything I loved. I looked at poor old Murphy with near loathing as I thought, ‘Oh why couldn’t it have been you? At turned 15, you are past much sweetness of life.’ My dear Shan We was only 6, loving life and living, radiating love and affection. With Cliff buying him and the trouble he was
to rear, he never seemed ‘just an animal’. I’d a feeling I’d lost a real link with Cliff.

  I coaxed my husband to take two codeine tablets and gave him some brandy and water, feeling really afraid he would collapse altogether, wondering what I should do. Often he has said half-jokingly to Shan We, ‘I wish you were a little dog and could come for a walk’. I felt wearily I didn’t want to face training a puppy. I like cats best, but realising how on the edge my poor man is feeling I’d undertake to train a hippo if it made him happy or gave him an interest. We went for a little walk. I suddenly thought of my hairdresser – she bought a Cairn puppy some time ago, an adorable beastie. My husband saw it and wondered ‘if Shan We would agree with a puppy if we got one’. I rang her up for a chat. She lost a much loved dog at about seven years old and said ‘A friend advised us to get another one straight away’. I asked her if she thought there were any puppies at the breeding kennels where she got hers, and she said, ‘Ring up and see. The number is in the phone book – a place near Carnforth.’ When my husband came in, looking wild-eyed and nervy, I said, ‘Now if you would like a puppy, I know where I might get one’. He didn’t speak. He didn’t seem to hear properly. I thought wildly ‘If I could go tonight and get one I’d gladly go – anything to take that lost expression off your face’. I felt my constant prayer rise to my lips – that I could live longer than him. I felt little bargains in a montage of wild pleas. Whatever happened to me, I’d never complain if only I could live longer, to always look after him.

  AFTERWORD

  Following their adventures in London, Nella and Will resumed their (mostly) quiet lives in Barrow-in-Furness. There were changes in their household, one of which was the acquisition of a dog to replace Shan We. Nella had mixed feelings about dogs, and clearly preferred cats. Still, a dog it was to be, and on 21 July 1952, after inspecting a litter of seven puppies, Nella wrote that ‘I’d not have known where to choose, but one little fellow was determined to be chosen – he made such a fuss over my husband. I was delighted. The colour came back into his cheeks. There was no doubt from the first.’ The puppy was named Garry; he and Will hit it off reasonably well and in due course regularly went out together for walks. Nella, an exponent of firm discipline, thought Will over-indulgent with Garry. In January 1953, 9 Ilkley Road became a cat-free household when old Murphy, aged 15½ and seriously ill, was put down.

  Passing scenes of daily life continued to attract Nella’s attention.* On 14 January 1953 she remarked on how ‘Fog or not, the gypsy people keep to their routine’, which involved visits to houses in Barrow in January. ‘A lovely girl rang this afternoon, and the coloured woollen raincoat and hood of deep cherry made her look like a magazine cover. She had a very smart case, specially made to contain toilet articles and perfumes etc., and there were Red Rose nylons – America’s best, “no shoddy English ones”, as she explained. I didn’t want anything but “for luck” bought some talc powder. She offered to tell my fortune. I thanked her and said I’d rather not, and felt taken a little aback when she said, “Well, perhaps not, it’s one of the bad roads you’re travelling just now, lady”.’ A few weeks later Mrs Salisbury saw some gypsies going door to door in a nearby street, and ‘she was very disappointed when they didn’t call. She had sixpence ready to “cross the palm” to have her fortune told. I said, “They wanted me to give two half crowns the other week. The sixpenny days are gone for good”’ (18 March 1953).

  From time to time Nella thought about moving out of Barrow, and while this did not happen, she did have a clear sense of the sort of bungalow – ‘with one room in the roof’ – that would suit her. ‘It would have a long sunshine room, one end to be used as a dining room in a big bay and with a radiator, the big open fireplace heating the living end. A good kitchen place, with an Esse† for cooking and heating water, two fair-sized bedrooms, bathroom and lavatory, with the room in the roof sparsely furnished for my families’ visits, wood block or the new concrete floors. NO fitted carpets – rugs everywhere. Fixture wardrobes made between bedrooms, with sliding doors, window seats with cushions, divan beds with bed head fixtures instead of bedside table, and not one unnecessary article of any kind’ (15 August 1953). Hers, clearly, was a very spare, streamlined and functional vision of household comfort.

  Occasionally she and Will had a memorably cheerful outing. One Saturday in early summer she persuaded him to attend a garden party at Aldingham, and ‘he enjoyed every minute. The lawns overlooking Morecambe Bay were bathed in golden hot sunshine, and the big trees’ shade was more than welcome. The vicar had written a little pageant based on the history of the Norman church, the little brief life of Lady Jane Grey – who was arrested while seeking shelter at the old Aldingham Hall – and bringing in brief items of interest. Very well acted by villagers, members of the choir and school children.’ This was an upbeat event. ‘Everyone seemed so gay and happy in the sun and sea air – really the most wonderful day for such a function. I met so many folk I knew. I felt it was like a party of my own, without the work and worry entailed’ (27 June 1953).

  Nella was sensitive to the passage of time, and she occasionally thought about the momentous changes that civilisation – notably her civilisation – was experiencing, which gave rise in her mind to big questions. Modern technologies certainly produced vastly more power – but to what purpose? On 7 September 1952 she was wondering if ‘there’s already a sign of a “brave new world” after all, not in our time – or in our children – but perhaps when they have harnessed atomic power to something useful, and then turned to put all the resources that split the atom to simple, necessary things, like food growing, irrigating useless deserts, and finding cures for things like polio.’ On another occasion she commented on talk that she had heard of the possibility that one H-bomb might destroy the whole world. ‘No wonder there’s such a “live for today”, “grab while you can” philosophy today’ (17 November 1952). One evening that autumn she thought about humans in space. ‘When I came to bed I leaned against the casement, looking at the so bright stars, wondering afresh how man could be so presumptuous as to think none but our Earth has inhabitants, and idly wondering if man would ever land on the moon and other planets, glimpsing in a very small remote way that we are indeed entering on a new era’ (16 October 1952).

  This new era left Nella with mixed feelings, partly because she detected a decline of mutual trust. She heard of (and perhaps observed the results of) some vandalism of the decorations and floral displays in Barrow for the Queen’s Coronation, and this led her to a gloomy reflection. ‘Times change, but in some ways I do feel the old ways of responsibility towards others and their possessions were good. I never knew fear – of lonely places, roads, living alone and the like – but today’s “attacks” and disregard of other people’s property makes for fear. No country person even would go out and leave a key under the mat. I feel in many ways our young Queen belongs to my girlhood, when there was right and wrong, kindness or cruelty, clear-cut ways of thought, and when “spiv” action was yet to be universal’ (2 June 1953).

  Other changes that she thought about were more mundane. On Sunday 25 January 1953, after an outing to Grange-over-Sands, she thought about ‘how shortages and circumstances are changing people’s habits’, notably Sabbath observance. ‘I never saw as many big washings blowing in the sun and wind on a Sunday and in gardens of houses whose owners wouldn’t under any circumstances put washing out on a Sunday – Saturday even! Farmers worked normal too, not actually doing field work, but busy tidying, carting turnips from pies† in nearby fields to be cut in barns, clearing out shippens† and pigsties, and carting away the dung and straw.’ When Will and Nella later arrived home they ‘saw another changed [Sunday] habit – two big farmers’ carts coming slowly down our road – and at the top could see loads of farmyard manure dumped on the sidewalk. We wondered how it would be possible to clear it into the gardens before it was dark. Bad enough having it delivered on a Sunday morning, but hopeless late afternoon t
his time of the year. We wondered too, knowing the habits of one neighbour, if they would be in till much later in the evening.’

  Then there were the thoughts of the might-have-beens in Nella’s life, and the roads not taken. One day, when reviewing her personal past, she wrote of some decisions made when she and Will were young parents. ‘We were down in Southampton [in 1919], Cliff a baby of a few months. My husband had such good prospects. A man – he was in the Navy – wanted him to go in partnership, building as well as shop fitting. His wife and I were very good friends and she adored my two little boys. My father, who had always said he would retire to St Austell in Cornwall, decided to come down to me when he retired. In every way the future looked good – and free from worry of narrow-minded in-laws who thought a son in the business and a slave at his father’s command were one and the same. With my husband’s fear of change of any kind, he decided to come back to Barrow, and I came back to a deeper bondage, till when Father died and I had a little income all my own. I refused to be answerable for every gesture, every deed, years of ill health and operations, aggravated by rheumatism keeping my husband off work for months at a time. I often feel we took the wrong road when we chose to come back to Barrow’ (3 May 1953). Later she disclosed her more general feeling on the subject of regret. ‘It’s what you haven’t done when you get to my age, not what you have done, that saddens you’ (19 July 1953).