The Diaries of Nella Last

by Patricia Malcolmson

  All this compulsion must make for unhappiness. I looked at the dirty unhealthy looking people who came to our lumber sales† – not really poor people for they had well filled purses – both Friday nights, pay nights at Yard. We said ‘Just imagine having that one – or that – billeted on anyone, anyone clean’. Mrs Higham, who comes from Liverpool, said ‘I never realised you had the real slummy people in Barrow. There is little excuse here in a so modern town.’ We passed the remarks among ourselves about the dirty white ‘cushioning’ hands of some of the dirtiest women – no sign of work worn fingers. People like that should never be billeted on anyone. They should be in camps or some place where they could be shamed into some semblance of cleanliness. The people who only need a chance should be helped in every way but to see women with unwashed faces and straggling hair after tea – and purses full of money – showed a lack of decency rather than anything else.

  Nella was now volunteering part-time at a stationary WVS canteen that served refreshments to the Forces, and her work there had a prominent role in her life. She also continued her work with Hospital Supply on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  Friday, 3 October. Isa called and I was glad of her help to carry my dish and pile of begged plates and saucers and the two big basins of potted meat and beef and ham roll. The cakes and bread did not come [to the canteen] till 3 o’clock but we cut beetroot and tomatoes and the beef roll and washed and dried lettuce and got kettles boiling and then the rush started and we got a real surprise. There were six of us, one to make tea, one to take money, one to wash up, two to serve, and I cooked, and whenever we could do we went on sandwich making. We were going to be really smart and make the evening shift a pile of all kinds of sandwiches but we used them as quick as we made them and there was beans on toast, sausage and potato cakes, and waffles or pancakes as some called them. I made them as quickly as I could but try as I would I could not get them out quickly enough, and then the flour gave out for the order from the wholesalers was late. One young soldier came in and said rather shyly ‘A plate of waffles please’ and Isa said ‘Do you think the flour will be long?’ I moved to counter and said ‘I’m sorry, we have no more flour at present – would you like sausage and a potato cake and two slices of bread and butter for 6d?’ He hesitated and said ‘No thanks, I’m not a “working man” now and those waffle things were jolly good. I’ll wait. They are such a “fill up”.’ A pity seized me. Such inequality. Some lads earn big money and stay in their homes – or good lodgings. Others leave all and have muddle and frustration and maybe lose their lives. Surely there must be a pattern. Surely somewhere, someday all will work out right.

  By 4.30 we all felt we were ‘heading for the last round up’ as the squeaky old gramophone blared out old cowboy tunes and the men sang or whistled them. As a rule 5 o’clock sees a falling off and they reckon on an easier time to straighten things up and leave all tidy for next shift but we worked hard till 6 and the next lot were slow in coming in and we worked on till full shift could take over.

  Sunday, 5 October. My husband was sleeping upstairs with having such a heavy cold and people were all round in the quiet houses and as I turned out the light I thought of lonely women in isolated places. People’s nerves are too taut and strained for sadistic horrors to hurt and terrify their bruised mind and people who like those sort of plays* should go work at a canteen and see the real horrors in some of the soldiers’ eyes. Perhaps because I like and understand young boys – as much, that is, that one person can understand another’s inner hopes and fears – I see such quiet desolation, and my Cliff’s letters often sadden me with their outcry of frustration. For one really happy looking boy there are twenty who only ‘laugh with their lips’ and if one sees a ‘jolly good fellow’ he is generally a very young soldier or the ‘club man’ type. A merry eyed laughing boy with sparkling eyes and wide mouth showing perfect and marvellously white teeth laughed and joked at the counter and won Mrs Walker’s heart completely. ‘Such a nice boy. So gay. I like people like that, Mrs Last.’ Me, I like them without that ‘touch of the tarbrush’† that his dusky nails and kinky hair showed. It was racial inheritance rather than a happy heart that made his happy smile.*

  Mrs Walker would delight a clever person who wrote books. She is the present day Mrs Kenwigs [a character eager to please in Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby] and coming from Durham County has either a whine or a gush in her sing song voice. She is a good worker and brings me roses and onions to raffle and is just the kind of person I attract always! As soon as she heard at Centre that I was on [at the canteen] Friday afternoons, she rushed off to Mrs Thompson, the head of Canteen, and asked to be put on my shift as I was ‘such a good sport’. I said ‘What a pal, Mrs Thompson. Would you like her on your shift?’ It’s no use worrying, and she is a good worker, that’s one thing, and we all have our funny ways. She will be about 45–50 and calls everyone ‘love’ and promises ‘a nice kiss’ as a reward. The other day I went to the store cupboard and left the door so that I could see to find the switch. There was a draught and a soldier got up and shut the door and Mrs Walker said ‘Thank you, luv, you deserve a nice big kiss for that’ and his pal said ‘He would have to have an athletic missus’, and Mrs Thompson said they did not know where to look for they all wanted to laugh. I wondered what the joke was when I came back grumbling about having to find my way back in the dark and with my hands full of tins …

  On this approach to winter I have none of the wild uncertainty of these last two winters – rather the feeling that I can ‘put my hand into the hand of God and go out into the Great Unknown’. It’s a blessed feeling for a scatty nervy woman to attain – one who sits and thinks too much. I’ve no wild regrets and longing for the dear past when the boys were at home and they and their friends filled the house with laughter and noise, and no bright golden hope for the future; just take each day as it comes and at night lay it aside like a brick on the wall that stands between me and the terror of brooding and worry. I try to make it a good sound brick and my wall stout and true. When I know I have done something for the fighting men, even if only a rag dollie for the funds at Centre, I am content. More do I get a thankfulness for Centre and the Canteen, and to know if a blitz came I’ve my place without having to ‘wonder what I can do’.

  Monday, 6 October. I got my curtains mended and put away and a cowboy dollie finished tonight and I could have done more but an aunt and cousin came in. She is a nice aunt, a sister of my father, and I rarely see her, but she is lonely and has taken a furnished house near where her own was blitzed. She is only about eight or ten years older than myself and she said when she half apologised for wanting to start, ‘You know Dearie, I must be getting old. I have such a longing for my “own folks” and lately I’ve had a positive craving to go down to Woolwich, which was always home to mother and where we spent all our childhood holidays.’ My husband likes her and she is gay amusing company so it will be very nice if she comes round sometimes this winter.

  It is so heavy and close tonight. No air seems to circulate anywhere and the moon looks unreal as it hangs against the misty sky like a plaque on a wall. Cliff’s letter today from Newcastle [where he was now based] did not mention the raids again. It’s nice but quite silly of him to think he is sparing me worry. News travels fast these days and people travelling between one shipyard and another take news and it filters into town. There are still 7,000 people homeless in Barrow although everyone connected with repairs have worked marvellously and roofs and doors have gone on houses and plasterers work all the hours God sends.

  Wednesday, 8 October. Unkindness and frustration, cruelty and suffering [for servicemen] – and it seems to grow worse. To so hurt a sick man, to let him think he was going HOME [on leave], to love and care, and then to act like that [cancel leave]. The tears I’ve shed, when an imaginative little crippled girl and when books were my life, over Harrison Ainsworth’s Tower of London and Windsor Castle, and the sick horror of the Spanish Inquisition in Westward Ho!
[by Charles Kingsley, 1855]. I remember my Dad saying soothingly ‘But that is all past, my little love. No one acts like that now. They did not know any better then.’ All our progress, our civilization, our cleverness – and yet sick and pitiful men can be so used. There will be sad hearts in lots of homes tonight – poor mothers and wives …

  Mrs Diss, the head of the WVS, came in this afternoon and she looked fagged and unhappy. I wonder if there is another so hateful a Council as ours in the Kingdom? Every obstacle they can put in her way they do. One would think the WVS was a Communist or Fascist organisation bent on smashing down instead of her trying to do all that should have been done these last two years when Mrs Burnett was in charge. Now to make matters more complicated Mrs Burnett is going to start a rival canteen to ‘show us’ and I was interested to learn that ‘that clever little Mrs Last was going to be asked to help’. Ye Gods – I wish the old battle axe would ask me; it’s quite a while since we have crossed swords. She will want someone to cook, plan and manage and then she will ‘take a bow’. I do hope things pull together a bit better for Mrs Diss is such a good worker, tactful and clever, and if she got support would put our WVS on a footing with the rest of them who have done such good work in different places …

  The friend we have our house and furniture policy off – through – came tonight to tell us it was alright about increasing our insurance and I will do it for another £300 for we only have it for £400 at present. It means too our clothes and the car will be better protected and as Cliff has a lot of good clothes too I shall feel easier. He was telling me that his wife and child have been in the country since our blitz and he has let his house, sleeps at First Aid Post and gets his food at Communal Centre. I said ‘You manage fine, then, Lacy’, and he stared into the fire and said ‘Oh yes, I suppose so, but I’ve no home life you know and when we had a quiet summer [for raids] I wish Maud was not so nervous’. I said ‘It’s rather a long way to Broughton to go by trains each day’ and he said ‘Yes, when Maud said she was going I made it quite clear that she must not expect me to act like a lot of these daft fools who to please jittery wives get up at 4 o’clock to catch an early bus and stand waiting in the rain at night to struggle home late and tired’. He talked of various people we knew who when we had ‘the first little bother’ left their job for anyone to do and flew out of town not caring who carried on. He said ‘Oh, you know Nell, I’m perfectly convinced that quite 65% or 75% of British people yet do not realise war. It’s only in the big badly hit places and other people are going along in a dream of rosy hope.’

  Friday, 10 October. The Canteen was full all afternoon and it was so nice to see the two old but good settees full all afternoon – lads sprawled out reading – and in the reading and writing rooms I could see them quite at home. I said to one boy ‘I thought you might have deserted us now there is one at the Methodist church in the centre of town, so much nearer to your camp’. He was a twinkling eyed lad of about 22 and he said ‘Not for me. I dislike the ’earty ’andshake they insist on giving all of us “dear boys”.’ One of our lot this afternoon brought in an armful of decent records and I was surprised to find we have quite a good gramophone – must have been the scratchy old records that made such an awful noise. The wife of one of my husband’s cousins came and I could have groaned when I saw her for she is a rackety† cocktail drinking girl who lives with a cigarette always in her mouth and I wondered how she would fit in with my busy efficient gang. Cigarette ash was dropping into the coffee and beans she was preparing and she said in a would-be clever way, ‘I always smoke when I make our own meals and I’m not going to stop now for Mrs Thompson or anyone else. It will do for pepper in the beans. Don’t you ever smoke?’ I know the little cat – never had anything in her life till she got working in an office and married a man who could seize opportunities. I said ‘Oh, there is a time and place, Dora, and what can be jolly good fun in one place is merely bad form in another’. I knew that would shake her. People like her have a horror of the word ‘bad form’.

  Saturday, 11 October. The lashing cold rain has marked a definite step into autumn and this morning all was crystal clear in the cold sunrise. Gone was the heavy close feeling of the last few days and all looked new in the hard sunlight. Lately when we have been so short of pans I could do with another gas stove at Canteen I’ve felt like doing a bit of looting from the ruined houses near to us! In one house there is a good gas stove going red rust and a lovely dining table, couch and chairs – just do for Canteen. Last night I found a cousin’s husband was the solicitor and I’ve got the address off him and written to the owner and asked if we can take the things and use them. It looks a bit hard faced, my husband says, and it was not an easy letter to write, but it’s done, and posted. The real owner died through shock and the sister who now owns it lives in a hotel at Grange and she is old …

  We called in at cousin Mary’s at Greenodd and picked up the good blankets we left last spring when we thought we might be glad to have some place to go and sleep when bombing was ‘on’. My husband said ‘Why not leave them at Mary’s? We might need them yet.’ But I pointed out that small country cottages were damp and my good new blankets might mildew; besides I like to look after my own things and see that they are cared for. Mary is a part-time post woman for she has to look after her widower father and she looks tired. I said ‘Will they make you take a full-time job, Mary?’ and she said ‘Don’t talk to me of full-time jobs and the Government’s “cry for women”’ and said at Labour Exchange they say there are no jobs for women ‘just now’ at Ulverston and at the Armstrong Siddeley works they are ‘laying them off’! I said Ruth was given a quick choice between the Services and the Yard and Mary said ‘We were asked in a “don’t say yes” tone of voice if we would like to be an ATS girl and when I said “What about the Yard at Barrow?” was told “They have more than they want down there at Labour Exchange”’. When I think of all the households where the maid was taken and women left to struggle with a big house and a small family – I mean small children – and then girls not wanted, when I hear the clarion call for women to work in factories, sheds and Yards, I wonder how much longer there will be overlapping and muddle. I used to feel unwanted myself and had to look for jobs and have always felt so grateful for Hospital Supply but I often hear people say ‘Oh, why worry? I’ve offered my help. Let them come for me if they want me’ – and they cannot really be blamed.

  Monday, 13 October. We got a surprise last night when the siren went and when I put the light on to see the time found it only just after 11 o’clock. The guns roared and spat from A-A camp not far away and shrapnel fell like hail on the roof. It’s very funny how brave you feel when the guns are not going off and how they give you palpitations and make your skin tight as soon as they do. Noise of any kind, from ‘hot’ music [jazz] to a mechanical pick, are all distasteful to me. Luckily the sticks of bombs fell across playing fields and did no damage to anything worthwhile. I got up feeling tired and very sick. My tummy is a weak spot and last blitz made me sick for weeks …

  After tea cousin Jean popped in for a while. She hopes that I can hear of a small house so that she can get married. She has a good position at the Yard in the tracing office and will have to go on working. A few girls and young marrieds will get a shock when they heard tonight that women were to be called up quicker. My hairdresser will be about 27–28 and said ‘Oh, I’ll not be called up till November. A lot can happen before then.’ Now it looks as if the 31s will be up in a few weeks time. Isa cannot see that she will be affected, and anyway she ‘does voluntary work’, one half day at Centre and one at Canteen! There was a picture of her sister Dolly Fell in the paper tonight and it was a lovely one of both Isa and Dolly in the latter’s wedding group. They are the most astonishingly ageless women I know – or have ever known; frail looking but can work, play, eat – and drink like strong men. Dolly looked a little shrinking girl, and is 37 and marrying a man 27 or 28. He looks that much older in the photo. Doll
y has racketed round and been a weekend girl and had more fun and experience in her life than any three women I know, and if I know [her], that one will go on doing so in the WAAFs† where she will be called up this week, and her Captain husband goes East. Isa said smugly ‘We are the Liliths [female demons] of the world’ – someone had been telling them so!