The Diaries of Nella Last

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Friday, 16 May. We [on the WVS mobile canteen] went round demolition squads and bomb disposal squads, grave diggers and repair gangs and the cry of ‘The Jolly Roger’ made me chuckle when they saw our van – it’s called that. When I looked at Mrs Cumming wrestling with an engine that needed attention and when I’d nearly taken a header out of a door that catch was faulty, I could only add amen to her lurid description of the ultimate end of the sonofabitch who was responsible for maintenance but who ‘went out to sleep each night’ and had ‘absolutely no time’! I hope that Barrow is not representative of many other towns – I do indeed. With the second-in-command of Home Guard, a quarter of the special police and more than half ordinary Home Guard, uncounted AFS† and Wardens and about all the voluntary fire watchers flying into surrounding districts at about 8 o’clock at night, I wonder what we would do if incendiaries fell in the numbers they seem to do in other towns. Mrs Cumming is ‘Naval’, with all the Navy’s ‘gift of expression’, and I thought her description of wooden-headed, fat-bottomed, cigarette-grabbing, fur-coated louse for one woman who refused her SOS was pretty good. I reflected that it was rather a pity I’d answered the M-O question and posted it – I felt I could have really let myself go on the question of conscription of women – for men too for that matter, the Home Guard and AFS. Perhaps I am old fashioned but it seems so dishonourable to go back on a ‘plighted word’ and so many rushed in to avoid calling up into the Services. I thought they were a sorry lot at the time and when I looked at Isa’s husband [Jack Hunter, a prominent grocer] I felt a better man than he was in spite of my 51 years and not too good health as against his 34 years and thick set sturdy body.

  I said to Mrs Cumming ‘Let me get you a rota if you want one. I know of quite a few eager ones – the “lower decks” of WVS are sound enough. A lot of us waited for a call and there was so much muddle and confusion.’ And she said savagely ‘Pity the blasted bomb did not wipe out that inefficient creature of a Burnett [head of Barrow’s WVS] and let someone take over who knew their own mind – AND had one to know.’ I said ‘She is really well meaning – she has no actual spite, you know’, in a feeble effort to stick up for a fellow townswoman. Mrs C. said ‘Bah – give me a real bad hat† if they are strong minded rather than a flapdoodle† with an elastic mind that anyone can pull in any direction’.

  The destruction saddened me as we went from one group of demolition workers to another and to bomb disposal groups and grave diggers with our welcome hot tea and sandwiches. So many have been brought into town from districts outside town – Cumberland and Westmorland mostly, and many over age miners – and things are a bit at sixes and sevens yet. Others, coming into town by bus each day and returning to sleep, have no hot drinks but bring food and it’s so bitterly cold. The barrage balloon boys try and wangle tea but we have to be hard hearted for they are well looked after by their own Army and Service vans that never give tea to any civilians and our tea has to go round so many. Looking round Barrow it’s amazing to see the wasted bombs – the huge craters and shell holes in fields and sands and mud flats. A plane dropped bombs and land mines early this morning – stuff that could have wrecked half the Yard. It fell on mud flats with the exception of one in the docks that did little damage. Every street seems to be damaged, more or less, and few houses have escaped, but services have not been much damaged or disorganised and only about 50 deaths so far …

  I lay down each night with a prayer that if the raiders come they drop bombs in the sea and on the fields instead of on the poor people’s homes and rise with a prayer of thankfulness if we have had a quiet night and that I can tackle all that comes my way in the day and take things as they come. Not very inspiring but very simple and not a bad rule of life – at least for ordinary people like myself.

  Saturday, 17 May. When I got to Control I found no one had thought of a driver for mobile canteen and a mad hunt by phone began. Such a muddle all seems in – no rota of anything at all. At last we thought of applying to Mr Newman, the head of ARP – or seemed head – and he growled over phone that he ‘would see what he could do’ and hang on. After another wait he phoned that a fireman was on the way. I kept looking out and when I saw Mr Newman I walked to meet him. He is hilariously like Alfred Drayton, the stage and screen star, just his slightly jaundiced expression and hoarse hoot of laughter. He said ‘Hallo Mrs Last, I did not know you were on control’ and before I could answer went on about one thing and another and after a few minutes said ‘I’ll have to pop off. I’ve a darn fool WVS woman waiting to see me somewhere about!’ I frowned and threw me coat back à la ‘sheriff of Red Gulch’ and showed my badge and he said ‘God Lord! What are you doing in that bunch of saps?’ I said ‘Oh, I’m not in the Canteen really. I’m Hospital Supply really and only a Jolly Roger pro tem.’ He said ‘Well, take care it is only “pro tem” or they will drive you crazy for they work without system or sense!’ I suppose all towns have the need of settling in, but oh dear, there does seem muddle and inefficiency, childish fear and cowardice and a dropping of all responsibility here.

  Monday, 19 May. We went out in the car and sat by the sea. I read the papers. There were hundreds queued up to sleep out of town and the appalling muddle extends there for the Shipyard buses are filled at beginning of journey and then pass waiting men at places where they have always been picked up and brought in, and are now often an hour late for work! Why on earth the railway do not run a ‘jitterbug’ local and take them out and bring them back in again in the morning is a mystery; something like that will have to be done before long. Really the irritating little muddles everywhere is astounding. It’s as if Barrow people, and especially the powers that be, have up to now lived in a beautiful dream and, waking suddenly, have the dazed ‘Where am I?’ of a person wakened up roughly. One good thing though – our War Weapons Week was a triumph and we made well over twice the amount we aimed at, £350,000 [in savings stamps, certificates and bonds], the price of a super sub’ like the Thetis.

  Talking over fence as we gardened, Mrs Atkinson said she felt tired. I said ‘We have had peaceful nights – don’t you sleep well?’ and she said ‘No, I take all up ready to fly up the street to shelter and feel as if I only sleep with one eye shut all the time’. I know there will be nearly £10 a week going into the house for her husband has a good position in the Barrow News printing works and the elder daughter is a typist and has a good post, and I said ‘Why not get an indoor shelter like us and go to bed and feel safe? It’s no use worrying about upset of a well kept home now. We have so much to think of.’ A rather odd look crossed her face and she said ‘Upset indeed. It’s not that at all that keeps me from getting a shelter. I just cannot afford it. We put all spare money on the house and I have paid more than half – my husband thought it best. A year ago when we got the new furniture I got carpets, lino etc. that we could have done without, and you would stare if you knew how big a slice went out of my weekly allowance for “instalments”. I’d buy a shelter tomorrow if I could get one by weekly payments.’ I felt so sorry for her. She is such a nice neighbour and I reflected that a small allowance and no prospect of ‘big money’ is not always to be despised for it never allows for urges that would be tiresome to keep up and not leave a tiny margin for vital things.

  The gardens are so dry and the big clouds pass over and it looks as if we are going to have a drought like last year. Green fly and ‘maggots’ are everywhere. The lonely beech I brought in was so ragged and ‘eaten’ this morning that I threw it out. Two of my three little apple trees look promising with blossoms, and the third is not too bad. It’s curious, though, how different I feel about storage of food since our bombing. Perhaps it’s seeing the smashed-flat look of houses getting a direct hit. Perhaps it’s the knowledge of difficulty of getting furniture and goods not only salvaged but removed and stored; but a curious and hitherto unknown feeling wraps me round and seems to change my outlook entirely. I’ve not had it long enough to see it clearly but it’s an odd mañana
feeling, a ‘live for today’ I’ve never known in all my well ordered, well planned life. I’ve always had to dodge and contrive, save and plan, to do the things for my boys I set out to do, always to try and prepare for eventualities, to be able to meet setbacks, to ‘have a cake in the tin’ so to speak; to always face anything that could crop up, and that’s saying a lot with those two boys. Cliff especially had a positive flair for the unexpected and to keep pace with that one’s ‘gift of friendship’ and prepare for the oddments he picked up and brought home, from a stray cat or dog to a lonely Australian, homesick and ill in a London hotel, took careful budgeting, in time as well as money.

  Now my little loved home is cracked and battered, my household goods packed for safety, my nice little dining room a bed sitting, and we don’t undress properly. Perhaps it’s the shock of it all; perhaps really I’ve been so shaken that all the veneer has pealed off, but I’ve a queer impatience with things – things I possess. I feel that ‘one off and one on’ would be the ideal, not cluttered up with things that don’t matter at all. I reach to my well stocked shelf and get a tin of fruit etc. in a manner that before bombing would have been impossible – it was ‘for the lean times’ I feel sure will come. So far it’s not spread to my garden and hens, perhaps because my chicks are so helpless and wee and need all my care. I’ve schooled myself never to look back. It took effort I did not think I possessed – iron control and a shutting down and a refusal to look back that for a time only found outlet in bitter sobbing in my sleep. That passed, and I found forgetting in work at the Centre, but I think it unknowingly strengthened my ‘thought for tomorrow’. That’s gone and very odd. My husband used to get so cross when I picked many flowers out of the garden. Now when I have a vase of big yellow daisies on the sideboard and my little table garden is gay with pieces of rock plants he just says ‘It makes a place look gay to have flowers. We seem to have been a long time without many about.’

  Thursday, 22 May. A bitter wind and threat of rain this morning but I got up early and got my chicks attended to, Miss Ledgerwood’s breakfast made, and we were down early to Centre, and only six turned up, and five of Committee. I made a cup of tea as usual for it was so cold and draughty; it was dreadful in the whole building – puddles on the floor through holes in roof, no doors and wind sweeping through the church and down passages. Perhaps it was the dismal day but I’d a shadow on my heart, such a queer ‘never more’ feeling. We have lost so many members, and five of original Committee. Several more are ‘staying out of town indefinitely’. Mrs Waite seems to be so different. Her brisk assertiveness has gone altogether and she turns to me with a queer loving smile and says ‘Mrs Last will see to it, won’t you dear?’ and she said ‘You are a good friend, my dear. You know you are faithful, not just to me but to Hospital Supply. Mr Waite said you were a kind little thing.’ She sits quietly and looks her age and never seems to get cross with Mrs Lord’s ‘feather’ outlook – and dear knows she is worse than usual lately. She should not be in any authority where she should be in a position to lead. She has no idea of giving a warm garment – and letting it go at that; she insists on rigging people out fully if she takes a fancy to them, and she really made me cross today. Old Mrs Nelson, one of our original members, is slightly doting and I should imagine has always had a somewhat clutching hand and if she sells raffle tickets for me begs both won articles and odd tickets off people. Mrs Waite and I don’t like it but it’s no use so we try and keep her in the background a little …

  I’ve only seen the farthest edge of things but, dear me, I’ve heard some things – graft and wangling to get a few extra pounds – and from people who would not steal a pin but as it’s the Government seems to think it’s perfectly right! It was good to hear of so many cases where our people had been so kind to each other and only getting to know each other by sitting sewing at same table, when homes went, offered beds and sanctuary, or storage for a few salvaged treasures. There are over 3,800 houses in Barrow damaged, not counting shops and business premises.

  Our laugh today was hearty, even if the subject was macabre! I’ve grown from a child alongside two of our members, sisters, from a queer exhibitionist family who dramatised everything. They lost their mother of 85 in the air raid and someone was getting a bit weepy over the ‘poor old dear – to live to that age’. I said ‘Nonsense, it was a lovely end. Look at the poor things we know of dying with cancer and other terrible things. I hope my end comes like that.’ Betty turned and said gushingly ‘Yes, I feel like that and I saw that everything was beautiful at her funeral.’ I said ‘That was nice of you Bets. Flowers are more plentiful now and you would be able to have a lot.’ Betty drew herself up and said ‘I meant behaviour, Nell, not flowers. Mother brought us up proper and to know how to take our cue and my husband said when I was going to the funeral “Betty my dear, don’t forget you are the leading lady today and your sisters are not here – you must PLAY YOUR PART”’, and she struck a real Sarah Siddons [a famous late eighteenth-century actress] pose! She went on ‘So I did. I knew Mother would have liked me to look nice and I look horrid in a black hat so I got this blue one and had my hair waved freshly and I stood at church door on steps and shook hands with everyone and said a few pleasant words and everyone seemed impressed!’ – or dazed as the case may be!! Mrs Waite went out to a funeral – surprising the deaths there have been since the blitz that can be traced to those two terrible nights. This one was a man of only 47 whose house collapsed on him and although he seemed fit and well he collapsed and died the other day.

  I looked at scanty and altered Committee as we sat and drank our afternoon cup of tea – so different altogether. Mrs Wilkins is a grand worker but was born and raised in Coniston and has the village woman’s narrow outlook and rather tattling tongue and repeats little things she hears and I can already tell it will not make for smooth going. Mrs Higham is a thoroughly nice woman but thinks Mrs Waite is ‘too autocratic altogether’ and as she has not worked so long with her does not understand her as we do. Mrs Woods has a weathercock mind and veers round to opinions of the last one she spoke to, and Mrs Lord is charming but really maddening in her feather headed way – reminds me more and more of ‘Mrs Feather’ [a character in the 1941 film The Fine Feathers] in her way of dealing with things – and if things go wrong can with wishful thinking make them appear alright.

  I’d such a sadness, such a feeling of ‘Thanks for the memory – – –, We did have fun, and no harm done’ of the song, but would have altered it to ‘We did have fun and much good done’. We worked so splendidly together and our boxes of Red Cross work and comforts were really amazing. Surely all cannot be crumbling as I feel it; surely when things get a little more normal we can pull up and go on as we did. It was so good, so vital, the way we all pulled together and worked and laughed together. It is as if a bundle of sticks were untied. I’ve so realised the truth of the old adage ‘United we stand, divided we fall’. I don’t know whether it was the stolid partnership of Mrs Waite and Mrs Machin or the steady balance of a well tried Committee that kept Mrs Lord from getting too much say and pursuing such an erratic course – I cannot put my finger on it or find a cause I could alter, or try to anyway. Mrs Murray will leave now old Mr Smith is dead so she will not take Mrs Machin’s place as secretary. I’m not clever – I cannot take it. Any talents I’ve got are to make people laugh and to make tea or smooth things over. I cannot add up or write business letters and so it would be hopeless for me to say I’d ‘try and do it’.

  I see a shadow on Mrs Waite’s face. I feel that the shock of her ruined home is only beginning to be felt. I see ‘interest’ having to be turned to battered homes and evacuated children and the shifts being altered at Yard is another blow to our Hospital Supply. When men don’t go out until 1.30 for the 2 o’clock shift or return at 2.30 from it, it is impossible to leave the house or meals. The queer ‘What’s the use of anything, anyway?’ I feel as I reach for a precious tin off shelf and my tin opener seems like the
green fly in my garden, spreading to everything. I’d like to go to some badly blitzed place and go round invisibly and hear and see if they feel or felt like we do and for the first time since I’ve done M-O I’ve got an idea – only a glimmer – of the sense and value behind it. For those of us who come through this mess there will be an adjusting and a fighting that will be hard and I see the word ‘reactions’ as a shuttle weaving in and out of tattered threads and binding and repairing them into a pattern strong enough to ‘hold’ until stronger measures by younger hands are ready.

  Saturday, 31 May. When an alert wakened me last night and the steady beat of waves of bombers going over and the crash of A-A† gunfire started, I wondered if there was a means of knowing in which direction to expect trouble, particularly when cousin Mary told me the Lancaster firemen had come into Ulverston. I felt really angry when I got to Spark Bridge and learned how another cousin – Aunt Eliza’s daughter – and her husband had crammed all their hoards into Aunt Sarah’s cottage and taken oddments of Aunt Eliza’s furniture, including a feather bed. That meant Aunt Sarah having to give up her bedroom – she has only two and her old cousin Joe has the other one – and move up into an attic which is only an ‘apple loft’ really and not meant for beds for it’s only a very small space for standing up in and the rest slopes so much. It’s stifling hot or freezing cold and I looked at Aunt Sarah and thought what a shame she should be so put on after a hard life and at 76. I really did fly off the handle and I said ‘Hell roast the lot of the selfish, greedy pigs, Auntie. They never looked near you till now. WHY do you be so spineless and let them walk over you?’ She said ‘Come, come my dear, such language. Swearing never got anyone anywhere! It will pass and they had nowhere else to go to!’ I could feel better if the Londoners had not the whole cottage next door, or if they would be nicer about things for they know Ruth [Tomlinson] only pays to have her furniture stored and it was a gesture on her part to seem big in ‘lending a cottage in the peaceful Lakes, my dear’ …