The Diaries of Nella Last

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Tuesday, 14 October. Mrs Burnett came out in the open with the scheme we had heard was to be in opposition to WVS. She has never had any sense – and I’ve known her all my life – but this ‘beats Brannigan† and since he beat the Devil’, as the Irish say! It seems she has taken a large house, £100 or so for the year’s rent and rates, and in which there is little or no furniture, crockery etc. There are three equally impractical women in the scheme which is to turn into a kind of hostel for WAAFs or girls in the Yard, of which there are only 40 from out of town. She has got a licence for tea, buns and biscuits ‘for the girls will only want breakfast and supper’. I got hilarious – I felt like it – and got all dense and pretended I thought she was ‘expecting bears or sumpin’ and expressed surprise that she had not included nuts ‘just in case’, and she lost her temper and said I was a fool. I said ‘Of course I am – but I score by knowing it. You don’t seem to see what a mad scheme you are lightly undertaking. What about cooking? You cannot give a girl a bun and your blessing to start the day, and a cup of tea and a biscuit for supper may be alright for you but not for a girl working hard.’ I went on to ask about carpets, chairs, bedding, towels. Who would keep the place clean, make the fires etc? And I could see by her blank look that there was a lot she had not taken into consideration. I asked her if the Government was subsidising the scheme and how she expected to pay £100 for rent and rates, coal, light, gas for cooking on. Forty girls who were only in to sleep – and buns and biscuits! Mrs Waite sat and let me do all the talking and when I asked her crossly afterwards why she did not speak up she laughed and said ‘Oh, I liked to hear your cross talk and you seemed to think of everything’ …

  Mrs Lord was in distress – a huge shell cap had dropped through her roof and broken her bathroom curtain on Sunday night. I raffled a little basket of groceries – I got 14s 6d – and sold some sloppy looking blackberries and some cooking apples and helped make tea and at 4 o’clock I had done all my own work and didn’t feel Pollyannaish to stay and help clear the big room and said ‘My back is pretty bad. I think I’ll go home.’

  Coming home in the bus I’d such a strange experience and I feel undecided what to do – whether to report it to police. I had to stand for awhile and then there was a vacant place on seat that goes the same way as wheels and I took it. As I sat down the other occupant gave a loud yawn and half smiled and I said ‘You are tired’ and she said ‘Yes, I think it’s the weather’. Then there started one of those hard to remember little conversations – about Sunday’s raid and how the first night made one the tiredest and she mentioned she had been in London all last winter through the raids and we discussed our raid of last May. She asked me if I was frightened and I said ‘Oh, horribly, but not frightened enough to run out of town’. She had such greenish grey rather prominent eyes and she stared at me and said ‘Well, it’s best to get out of town if you possibly can. In a little while from now there will be no buildings standing in any town’. I said ‘Oh, I think our defences are better than that. We are better prepared, you know, and the Jerrys won’t have it all their own way again.’ Just then we stopped and she got up and glared fiercely at me again and said really malevolently ‘Well, I know’ and got out. She was such an odd looking woman with big greenish grey eyes and the oddest looking fur cap seen in Barrow for some time – if ever!

  Wednesday, 15 October. I kept waking up and thinking of the words of that woman in bus – not in any frightened sense for myself but rather the effect on others, and I wondered if she was Fifth Column, amateur or professional. This morning, in spite of my extremely busy and well filled day ahead, I went down to police station and told a sergeant in charge. He did not laugh – listened carefully and said quite frankly that ‘Little could be done in circumstances’, but after taking a statement he asked me to go through and have a word with a detective. He was looking at a paper in his hand and at my statement on desk and he asked a curious question. He said ‘Tell me, Mrs Last, what were your reactions?’ I did not quite see what he meant and said ‘Well, I thought she was foolish and might frighten people’ but could see that was not what he meant and he said ‘Did she strike you as showing off or threatening?’ and after reflection I said ‘Rather the former, I think’, and when I had spoken I wondered if the woman was really one of our ‘back street seers’! I wasted 1¼ precious hours and was rather tired to start the day but my mind felt easier …

  I often feel worried when I look at my husband. He does not worry about the war as he did and I am always careful to not let him see me down and I always try and be gay and chattering about little amusing things that happen at Centre and I keep all worrying things away and always try and make home the one peaceful place where worry and trouble can be shut out. When the boys were young and got to quarrelling I used to run them out in the big yard in the other house and say ‘Go and scrap outside. Home is no place to quarrel. It’s a place to rest quietly and safe – and to lick your wounds for a fresh fight, like a dog over-fond of a fight.’ They often laugh at me for things I said and did when they were boys but they love and turn to their home as a place where ‘all comes right’. My husband sometimes looks so all-in when he gets home* but when he has had his tea and is sitting by the fire with his feet outstretched he often says ‘It’s good to be home’ and I always correct him and say ‘It’s good to have a home, my dear’. It makes me feel so grateful for my ‘own fireside’ and I try so hard to work and work to help even in little ways that come along. I have not the slightest ‘communal’ spirit, and would view with horror the thought of communal feeding or always being with people. Although I like to work and play with others I like to be alone as well and I like all my own way in cooking and serving food. Of course if I was working ‘properly’ I’d be glad of meals made for me, no doubt, but I don’t see myself being happy in a ‘crowd living’ state of existence. Perhaps I’m old fashioned and the next generation will like that way and changing conditions will make for changes in general living, but I would rather have my own corner to live and work than share in a palace. I’m not at all consistent, though, for I’d like to plan cooking etc. for others living in a communal way and really enjoy planning and helping for Canteen.

  Thursday, 16 October. I had to rush round rather when a note from Mrs Higham came to say she would not get down to Centre before lunch. I got all the teacups and saucers out and then went out into the main street on an errand. I’d told Mrs Waite about the strange incident of the woman in the bus and strange to say I saw her again, a queer sluttish figure with untidy hair and down-at-heel shoes. I’d a very busy day with the usual tea making and raffling and I sold pears and apples and some lovely crysanths I’d rather have raffled but someone wanted them for a sick friend so I sold them. When I got in there was a ring at the door and to my surprise it was a young policeman with the police car and a request that I would go to head office, and he would run me back again. I said ‘No, I cannot come now for I have my husband’s tea to make’. He said ‘Inspector Thompson wants badly to see you. Should he come up or can we possibly arrange for you to come down? It’s important.’ I decided to go down and was rather surprised by cordial reception and was shown into a small room where Inspector Thompson was. He said ‘We want your help and I cannot tell you much but we want to link up and identify this’ – and he tapped some papers on desk – ‘with your tale of the other day. We know where the woman lives – with a foreigner – and we want you to positively identify her with the woman of the bus’! I said ‘Well, I cannot go and knock at the door and ask her, can I?’ and he said ‘Well, her name is Mrs Guise – or the name she is living under with the Norwegian – but it is an Intelligence case and I can tell you this much. She has lived in Canada – hence her “coon cap”! – with an enemy of England, has lived in London in comfort if not real luxury, has been the mistress of a member of the household of a European royal family, and we know she is not the slut she pretends to be and we want you to be sure it is the same woman who was so venomous
in her remarks as to ‘no building standing in any city or town in Britain in a short time’. He said ‘The Chief says she must not be frightened in any way but we do want that identification’.

  We sat and pondered and then I said half seriously ‘She had very curious eyes – like a fortune teller. How about me going and asking her if she told fortunes?’ To my real dismay he jumped up and said ‘Talk about woman’s wit. You will do it, won’t you?’ I felt really awful and as if I wished I’d not come and told them but he went on ‘If I dare tell you more I would and you know your [WVS] badge carries all kind of responsibilities – it’s a Service badge’. I just could not promise anything. I felt all jumbled up – spies in my quiet well ordered life – and I felt sick. I had palpitations. I stood waiting for the bus and feeling dreadful and I asked God if it mattered to please give me courage to go and knock at the door, and not think of silly stories I’d read where spies shot people dead. I had a walk up a street when I got off bus and if I’d been going to a dentist’s to have a mouth full of teeth pulled out without gas I could not have felt worse. I lost my taste for detective yarns and spy stories for good but the courage I’d asked for took me to door and I knocked.

  It was a terrible looking house. All the windows shuttered helped and it had had a few knocks when the blitz came and was very dirty. When the door was opened I could have gasped at the change in the rather vacant faced sluttish woman of the bus. Beautifully made up, good tailored costume, but still the fur cap, she faced me imperiously as I faltered something about how she had frightened me by talking of coming air raids, and she said ‘Little fool, don’t you read the papers for yourself?’ and said ‘Why come to ME?’ I shook with sheer terror but managed to say that I thought perhaps she could read the crystal or something. She glared at me and said ‘Certainly not. And I don’t like strange women coming to my door and making requests like that. Go away.’ It was no acting on my part when I tottered down the path with the awful remembrance of ‘shots in the back’!!

  I got to a public call box and I felt I’d better call the Inspector – I had said I’d contact him if I had news and he said he would come up anytime. I’d never used a call box and felt woolly headed but there was such a nice RAF boy standing by the box and I said ‘Can you phone from a public box?’ and he said ‘Yes’ so I said ‘Well, come and help me for I have rather an important call’. He was such a nice boy for he showed me how and as soon as I mentioned ‘police station’ he went out quickly. Looking back I’ve a gigglesome feeling that I’ve given that lad a tale to tell! When I got in my husband had read my message and had his tea and cleared away and he said ‘Good gracious, what’s to do?’ and when I looked in the glass I was pale green rather than white! I told him but was a bit incoherent for he looked at me as if he thought I was lightheaded but when Inspector Thompson came and was so emphatic on the ‘splendid turn I had done them and how gratified they were’ and how ‘word would go to Intelligence in London who had been rather insistent of more detail’ and how ‘all would be told as soon as they could safely tell me’, I could see by his face that his head was spinning like mine was.

  CHAPTER SIX

  STEADY ON

  October–December 1941

  Sunday, 19 October. I got my M-O done and a pile of letters and had my Sunday morning rest for I’d made my very good soup yesterday and boiled a piece of meat to eat cold. I had mutton bones in stock pot and two lots of chicken giblets that my mother-in-law sent up and I put celery, onion, carrots, barley and small beans and the soup alone was a meal. We had brown bread and meat to follow and as I had a headache with writing so much I made a cup of tea after and we had a biscuit. My husband is always saying how good a manager I am and I think sometimes that if I had been less agreeable to make do on little I might have got more in the past! If I had nagged for more perhaps he would have run his somewhat inefficient business better. Such a lot of good work done and yet we don’t seem to get the results in a good living. It used to puzzle Arthur when he did income tax returns – he used to say ‘More than twice or three times should be made from this business’. It’s too late to worry now and anyway the thrift and economy that is my second nature now is more valuable than if I’d had plenty to ‘go at’.

  Friday, 24 October. I had my fortnightly visit to hairdresser’s and as I sat I wondered how much longer I would go for she will have to register soon and things are rising in price so rapidly and getting so scarce that the older woman whose business it is feels worried. Candidly speaking I think the 3s a fortnight I spend could be saved but it’s my only luxury or extravagance for I rarely eat sweets or go to the cinema. When I hear girls say ‘Hairdressing is a necessity – we could not do without well dressed hair’, I recall my shining mane of dark brown hair that I religiously gave the ‘100 strokes with a stiff brush’ that girls of my day were brought up to do, washed it every week with soft soap taken from the tin used for household purposes, plaited it overnight when we wanted a wave – I never heard of perms or tints or ‘sets’. Yet we had a good time and more ‘romance’ than most girls of today. The boys seemed to like us as we were – ‘in the raw’ as one pert little thing called the girls of our day!

  Saturday, 25 October. An old friend at Spark Bridge [talking of the war] said ‘I feel we will be up against the wall – not, mind you, that we will lose the war; we have too many recourses – but that the winning will be a hollow thing and only be worthwhile for those who come after’. My Aunt’s cousin [Joe], an old man of nearly 70, used to get annoyed with me when either I would not discuss the war or failed to share his enthusiastic conviction that the whole of Germany would crack in a year, the railways would not stand large movements of troops or guns for the rolling stock had been so neglected as to be done, that Germany knew it had to be a quick, sharp war. He sat over the fire today and when I went through and sat down he started talking of Russia, of scorched earth and the desperate courage that would make Russia destroy as they left their home – to live where? He looked sadly up at me and said ‘It looks as if you are right, my lass. It’s going to be a hell of a long war and the “end of the world” all right.’ My husband took up discussion as we travelled through the gold and brown and green glory that was the countryside we love – so peaceful, so content to sink into sleep, with no rebellion, just an acceptance of ‘God’s plan’. He said ‘I wonder what will have happened before the trees leaf again? It’s a queer feeling isn’t it – like waiting for something? I feel in a way as I did when I waited for the boys to be born and you were so dreadfully ill and I’d the uncertain feeling of wondering what the next hour would bring.’ He said a very curious thing for he said ‘I’m thankful for your calm acceptance of things and for the peace you radiate. You give me courage, my love.’ At one time I would have been terrified, thought he was going to be ill to talk like that, but now he says things that surprise but don’t alarm me. I said ‘It’s odd, you know, my dear. I am not strong, nor do I feel very well ever, but I am so conscious of the peace and serenity you speak of – and the strength – although it’s not mine at all. I feel as if in some way I have “tuned in” to something and that however afraid I am of bombs and raids there is something I can hold onto and say “this will pass, be not afraid”, and we will find comfort and support.’

  When we came in Mr Atkinson, our next door neighbour – such a nice wee man – was tying up his crysanths in the garden. I said ‘What a lovely day, Mr Atkinson. It makes us forget the war, doesn’t it?’ And a shadow fell across his face as he said ‘Aye, for awhile, but for how long now will our feeling of security last’. It was odd that so many different people should have the same feeling so uppermost in their minds, and I never remember on one day meeting so many people who shared the same thought, or talked of it so freely.

  Friday, 31 October. When I set off for Canteen I felt I carried a chip on my shoulder and the feeling was not improved when only three turned up to help me. With it being a cold frosty day there was a great demand for hot
waffles, potato cakes and bacon – there was no sausage to be had from butchers this week. Meat must be scarce and what is made will be ‘wanted for customers’. I felt irritable at lack of oddments – the tin opener broken last week had not been replaced, there was only beetroot for sandwiches, and a little cheese. There was no flour for baking either but luckily enough bread and tea cakes left over from last night to enable us to carry on till baker brought our supplies.

  The conchies† working on cement unloading on dock came in and I thought of an old music hall joke when I looked at them – ‘What were you before you joined the Army?’ Reply, ‘Happy’ – they looked so sullen and apart from the rest. One leaned over counter and said in a surly tone ‘Bacon and waffle and potato cakes’. Off flew my ‘chip’ and I said ‘Will you please choose something from counter and I’ll get you a cup of tea’. There is one who looks like a school teacher and they seemed to have a little debate and he walked back to counter and looked down at me – he is very tall – and he said ‘May I awsk why we are refused a cooked meal? Is it because we are non-combatants?’ I smiled sweetly – I hope! – and said ‘Supplies are limited and we try to keep cooked meals for soldiers and sailors who for some reason or other have not had a hot meal in the middle of the day. You, I understand, have regular meals and hours.’ The rest stood round and glowered at me as he stood round and glowered at me as he drawled ‘Oh! If that is the case – I thought perhaps you were taking it on yourself to draw a line, madam’. I could have smacked him in the face with a meat pie as I said ‘and if that was the case, would you deny to others the right you claim yourself – free thought and action and a right to your own way? This is a voluntary canteen and we work hard – too hard – with short staff, and I will be obliged if you will make your choice off counter, eat your meal and leave room for others who are waiting their turn.’