by Daisy Styles
Bella interrupted Ava’s line of thought. ‘One thing’s for sure – today we’re going to have a celebration like we’ve never had before!’
And, with that, the girls leapt to their feet, grinning. Bella was quite right, they needed to celebrate, and they didn’t have a minute to lose if they were going to top their usual standards!
After Churchill’s speech to the nation at three o’clock, the whole country was in victorious mood. Children had been let off school to enjoy VE Day and, dressed up in red-white-and-blue paper hats and costumes, they ran wild through the streets, waving Union Jack flags. At Walsingham, estate workers laid out rows of tables, draped with Union Jacks and decorated with jam jars brimming with buttercups and bluebells. On the sweeping lawn women and children quite spontaneously started to dance to the music that was jangling out from a loudspeaker somebody had fixed up.
When the girls heard from Kit that virtually every man and woman at Holkham airbase planned to join in the Walsingham festivities, Bella panicked.
‘Much as I want them here, I’ve no idea what we’re going to feed them.’
As strains of ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ played out of the loudspeaker Ava grinned. ‘Leave it with me,’ she said as she dashed up the kitchen stairs.
‘What’s madam up to now?’ chuckled Ruby, who was making a mountain of pastry with the help of Rose, whose face was covered in blobs of flour.
Suddenly, from outside, Ava’s voice rung out, loud and clear through the loudspeaker system.
‘If we’re going to have a peacetime party, we need all your help!’ she announced. ‘Empty your cupboards and larders, dig up your spuds and veg, bring everything you’ve got to the hall and we’ll cook up a storm for England!’
Half an hour later, when the Brig arrived from London to join in the VE Day activities, he found his son sitting up in the Silver Cross pram, gurgling at Rose, who was singing nursery rhymes to him. His wife was in the kitchen with the other cooks, who were being assisted by Tom and Kit. The table was heaped high with contributions from all over the estate, and from the RAF base, too.
‘My God!’ laughed the Brig. ‘What’s on the menu?’
Bella flew to him and, after kissing him warmly on the lips, handed him a pinafore.
‘Here you are, darling,’ she laughed excitedly. ‘We need all the help we can get!’
By early evening, the tables on the lawn were groaning with every imaginable pie: bacon and mushroom, corned beef and onion, cheese and leek, sausage and tomato, mince and potato, cheese and potato – and that was only the savoury ones! The fruit pies, made from bottled and tinned fruit scavenged from all over the estate, consisted of damson, greengage, blackcurrant, apple, blackberry and spicy pear. There were piles of hot baked potatoes, salads from back gardens and allotments, Maudie’s warm bread, and pickles and chutneys, too. Booze was supplied by the airmen, who rolled up with beer, stout, whisky, gin, and chocolate for the over-excited children.
‘No more gas masks! No more black-outs! No more war!’ the ecstatic children chanted.
Later that evening, after King George’s awkward, stuttering voice faded away across the Walsingham lawns, which were fragrant with the perfume of stocks, peonies and lilacs there was hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Everyone gave a rousing rendition of ‘God Save Our King’ and the party started in earnest. Food was eagerly consumed by nearly two hundred hungry people, toasts were made, then, as night fell and the first stars came out, oil lamps were lit around the improvised dance area, where Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood’ played out from a gramaphone and the dancing got underway.
Kit drew Maudie into his arms and, removing her cook’s pinafore with a quick flourish, he swept her on to the dance floor, where, to the strains of Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’, they waltzed with all the other couples, locked in each other’s arms. As the song faded, and was to be replaced by a loud Joe Loss and his Orchestra number, Kit whispered in Maudie’s ear, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’
Taking her by the hand, he led an intrigued Maudie across the lawn to his MG, and they drove at top speed to Holkham airbase. Maudie laughed in delight when she saw his bright-yellow Tiger Moth sitting on the virtually empty runway.
‘I think I’ve guessed your surprise!’ she said, as she reached up to kiss him.
This time, Maudie knew where to sit. She hopped into the front seat, while Kit, in the pilot’s seat behind her, settled the earphones over her head.
‘We’re connected, just like last time,’ he explained, as he adjusted his own set. ‘Now we can chat during our flight.’
Shaking with nervous excitement, Maudie adjusted her flying goggles.
‘Fly me to the moon!’ she cried, pointing at the sickle moon hanging low in the night sky.
Kit gave the thumbs-up sign to the air mechanic standing on the runway.
‘Chocks away!’ he called, as the mechanic swung the propeller and Kit opened the throttle.
Maudie gasped as the plane started to taxi down the runway; its light wood-and-wire frame bounced and rattled as it gathered speed, then, as it approached the turnip fields, which on her virgin flight Maudie had been convinced they’d crash headlong into, the Tiger Moth lifted like a great bird and, with graceful beauty, she took to the wide open skies. As the night air rippled through her hair and cooled her face, Maudie laughed out loud with joy and wild exhilaration.
It wasn’t like her last flight. This time, it was inky dark, and the moonlit sky was brighter than the dark earth below.
As they drifted gently, gathering height, they heard the unexpected sound of church bells ringing out. From King’s Lynn to Cromer and beyond, church bells pealed out a paean of victory. Tears stung Maudie’s eyes, as she listened to the triumphant sound that gathered momentum as they flew over the coastal towns. Then, to her amazement, one by one, fires were lit along the beaches: Cley, Blakeney, Wells, Holkham, Brancaster, Hunstanton, King’s Lynn. As one fire flared up, another followed, until the beautiful north Norfolk coastline was a string of burning beacons blazing out, shedding light into darkness. For the first time in six years, the night sky was lit up.
‘Look, Maudie,’ Kit called. ‘Fireworks!’
Way, way down below, red, orange and yellow rockets fizzled up, then shot in a blazing arc before tumbling back to earth. Like a child, Maudie, enchanted, gazed down in wonder. Then, suddenly, her stomach lurched.
‘Shall we loop the loop?’ Kit chuckled, as he banked the Tiger Moth into the sky. ‘Ooooh!’ Maudie squeaked, as, on a breathtaking nose-dive, they dropped sharply, before Kit took the plane curling back up again. At the top of the dizzying spiral, Kit literally took Maudie’s breath away.
‘Maudie, beautiful woman, love of my life,’ he said through the earphones. ‘Will you marry me?’
Before she could answer, they were falling through the sky, looping the loop in a descending cycle during which Maudie could only squeal, slightly hysterically, ‘Yessssssss!’
Laughing, Kit swooped the Tiger Moth gently over the shoreline, which was speckled with victory beacons.
‘Will you love me for ever?’ he asked softly.
‘For all eternity,’ she answered, as tears of happiness streamed down her blushing cheeks.
‘To the stars and back?’ he asked, as he started to bank the plane up again.
Maudie threw out her arms as if to embrace the moon and stars and all the glorious universe. ‘To the stars and back, my darling!’ she sang out. ‘To the stars – and back!’
Books and Sources
Winifred Sullivan’s private library of Second World War reference books, which were given to me after her death by her brother, Lawrence.
Russell Miller, Behind Enemy Lines
R. Douglas Brown, East Anglia 1943
IWM Duxford/ Imperial War Museum
North Creak Airfield and Museum, Norfolk
BBC Second World War Archives
The History Place
Acknowledgeme
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Maxine Hitchcock at Penguin, who kickstarted The Code Girls when she floated the idea of a stately home being requisitioned for wartime purposes, which completely fired my imagination. Clare Bowron, my wonderful editor at Penguin, for working so hard ‒ even in the school holidays! Jon Styles, my very own spy and a mine of information on code-breaking and Morse code ‒ sorry I nearly drove you bonkers! My friend Susie Stevenson, who came up with a brilliant double-bluff plotline; Chris Burton in Cambridge for always putting me straight about Second World War train stations which are no more; Clare and Roger Morton for their expertise on flying a Tiger Moth; Dee and Ellie Johnson in Oldham for being the first on my Daisy Styles Facebook page; my oldest friend, Ed Wrigley, for buying the entire stock of my books from W. H. Smith in Manchester! My children ‒ Tamsin, Gabriel and Isabella ‒ God only knows what I’d do without you!’ Thank you, Norfolk! For your beaches and pine woods, shrines and chapels, pubs and chip shops, castles and towers, marshes and wetland ‒ all wonderful places to set my story. And finally, thank you to the thousands of heroic code girls who worked tirelessly, breaking enemy code throughout the Second World War. They kept their secrets to the grave.
Chapter 1: Emily
The sun shining through the canteen window illuminated the cloud of flour that Emily had created as she pounded the pastry for her lunchtime meat pies. Blowing stray auburn curls out of her eyes, Emily smiled to herself. Butter might be rationed but there was more than one way to skin a cat when it came to culinary ingenuity. She’d been collecting wartime cookery tips from various magazines and newspapers, discovering alternatives to the real things, like cheese, eggs and milk, that were as rare as hen’s teeth these days. Because pastry and pies were big on her canteen menu (and cheap too) she couldn’t keep knocking out tasteless flour-and-water-based pastry tops for the poor sods working ten-hour shifts in the cotton sheds. She knew better than most that mill workers needed something to get their teeth into at dinner time.
Emily herself had worked at the looms before she got her lucky break in the canteen. She’d always hated mill work, which was seen as her destiny along with that of every other female in the small Lancashire town of Pendle. She hated the grease and the fluff, the cotton fibres that went everywhere, up your nose, in your hair and clogged your lungs.
‘I want to run a canteen,’ she told her mother. ‘I want to cook food, be a chef!’
Mrs Yates shook her head in despair. How did she and her even-tempered, steady husband ever manage to produce a firecracker like their Emily? What with her blazing hair, wide sky-blue eyes and generous mouth, she didn’t even resemble her parents. Her spirit and laughter, her exuberance for life and her energy were boundless; nothing and nobody ever got in Emily’s way. When she started walking out with Bill Redmond, Mrs Yates breathed a sigh of relief. Bill was a lovely boy, the good-looking eldest son of a nice, respectable family, and she’d known him since the day he was born. Bill would soon calm Emily down, Mrs Yates thought. Not so. Love and romance sent Emily into overdrive! Kissing and cuddling, whispering sweet nothings to Bill up on the moonlit moors, made Emily realize there was even more to life than she’d previously thought.
With the coming of the war Emily’s major concerns were for her twenty-year-old sweetheart, who, handsome in his soldier’s uniform, had left Pendle to fight in northern France with the Lancashire Fusiliers. With the exodus of hundreds of local men, apart from the old and medically exempt, the mill became a predominantly female place. It didn’t take canny Emily long to clock that Mr Greenhalgh, the canteen manager, an affable but lazy man who disliked hard work, was in need of an extra pair of hands. Smiling and sweet-talking Mr Greenhalgh, Emily wheedled her way into an interview for canteen cook, a position that Mr Greenhalgh had been planning on giving to his brother.
‘But he’s no qualifications,’ Emily reasoned at the interview while Mr Greenhalgh sat smoking roll-ups with his feet on the scoured kitchen table.
‘Neither have you!’ barked Mr Greenhalgh.
‘I can cook,’ Emily protested.
‘That’s as may be but I’m used to working wi’ lads not lasses,’ Mr Greenhalgh replied.
Emily smothered a snort of irritation. What planet was this man on? Only a few months ago over three hundred thousand troops had battled it out on the beaches of Dunkirk. Did Mr Greenhalgh really think there were spare men around to peel spuds and wash up kitchen pots?
‘There’s a war on, sir,’ Emily said. ‘Needs must.’
Mr Greenhalgh blew out a cloud of smoke as he waxed philosophical.
‘Women are funny buggers …’ he mused. ‘I’ve got one at home,’ he said, as if he was talking about his cat. ‘She’s either waiting for “you know what” to happen or getting over it.’
Assuming ‘you know what’ was a period, Emily briskly said, ‘My “you know whats” won’t cause you any trouble.’
Her cryptic comment sealed the deal. Mr Greenhalgh swung his big feet off the table and stubbed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray.
‘I’ll give you a week’s trial. Start at seven tomorrow morning – and bring your own overalls.’
Now here she was, six months into the job and loving it. Rationing might be hard and getting harder but that shouldn’t stop a cook from experimenting in times of need. Of course it wasn’t easy, but it was satisfying to get a result like the pastry she was busily rolling out. She’d kept the dripping back from the weekly roast – it was only a shin of beef but there was enough fat to create dripping – and this she’d combined with thick white lard. Broken up and worked into the flour it worked a treat, making the pie crust light, fluffy and remarkably buttery. Emily expertly spun the large sheet of pastry then cut it into wide strips for topping the meat pies. She’d made three trays of mince, carrot and onion stew, spiced up with a handful of wild herbs and a generous dollop of gravy browning. After sealing the pastry around the trays she bent down and opened the door of the huge industrial oven. Popping the pies inside she quickly closed the door and turned around to find Mr Greenhalgh admiring her shapely backside.
‘Nice bit of rump!’ he joked.
‘Enough of that, Mr Greenhalgh,’ she scolded.
‘Only talking about the pies, lovie, nowt else!’ he chuckled.
The jolly strains of the Workers’ Playtime theme tune faded away on the Bakelite radio sitting on a wide shelf in pride of place at the front of the canteen. Joe Loss and his popular swing band were replaced by Ernest Bevin, the Minister for Labour, urgently appealing to all women between the ages of twenty and thirty to volunteer for war work.
Emily caught her breath as she incredulously repeated the words she’d just heard.
‘We have to report to the local Labour Exchange and register for work in farming or in shelling factories,’ she gasped.
Mr Greenhalgh nodded his approval.
‘I suppose somebody’s got to stand on the production line and make the bullets for our lads at the front,’ he said lugubriously.
Emily bit back the angry words that sprang to her lips: Somebody … ? Anybody but you!
Her boss rambled on.
‘Who’d a thowt it’d come to this, eh? Lasses manning factories.’
In a rage, Emily turned her back on the radio and opened the heavy oven door to check her meat pies. With heat steaming around her already red face she looked fit to burst.
‘It’s taken me three years to get out of the weaving shed and into this canteen. Three years!’ she seethed. ‘And for what? To be conscripted as a land girl or work in a dirty munitions factory!’
‘It’s that or breaking the law,’ her boss answered flatly.
Banging three pans full of peeled potatoes onto the gas rings, Emily lit the burners beneath them as she muttered under her breath, ‘I might just do that!’
Serving dinner to over a hundred hungry mill workers soothed Emily’s spirits; chatting and joking with her customers was the second best thing to cooking for them.
&nbs
p; ‘What’s for pud, love?’ asked her mum’s sister, who was covered in cotton flecks and, like the rest of the workers, smelled of the oil they greased the machines with.
‘Apple fritters for you, Auntie Anne,’ Emily replied with a wink. ‘Steamed jam pudding for’t rest.’
‘You’re a little lovie,’ her auntie said fondly. Dropping her voice to a whisper she added, ‘Heard the news on female conscription?’
Emily nodded grimly.
‘It had to come,’ said Auntie Anne. ‘We’ll never win this blasted war otherwise.’
Emily knew her auntie was speaking the truth; she knew she was behaving unpatriotically thinking only of herself. She knew she should feel ashamed, but all she felt was frustration. Just as things were looking up it was back to square one for her.
‘I’ll go and make your fritters, Auntie,’ she said brusquely.
‘Plenty of custard, lovie!’
As Mr Greenhalgh puffed on a Woodbine whilst reading the early edition of the local evening newspaper, Emily washed up the lunchtime pans and crockery in the vast double sink that had a fine view of Pendle moors. With the windows thrown wide open to the pale spring sunshine she breathed in the cool air drifting over from the high tops still specked with the last of the winter snow and wondered if she could plead illness or insanity, or both? No doctor would back her up with a sick note. At twenty, Emily was the picture of health, youth and beauty. Tall and strong with fine legs, a narrow waist, full breasts and a lovely face, Emily was unquestionably fit for work.
As she scoured the pans with a worn-out piece of Brillo, another thought worse than the first entered her mind: would she be forced to leave home and work in another part of England? Mr Bevin had said conscripted women would be deployed where they were needed. Her blue eyes roved across the familiar line of moorland rolling upwards towards the high, blustery Pennines. She’d lived all her life in Pendle, a small quiet town nestled in the folds of a valley, its skyline spiked with mill chimneys and plumes of factory smoke that coloured the sunsets deep crimson and purple. She didn’t want to leave home and she desperately didn’t want to be far away from Bill. Emily’s stomach lurched at the thought of him. She didn’t even know when his next leave would be, and what would happen if she was posted to Aberdeen and Bill turned up in Pendle with a night pass?
