The Diaries of Nella Last

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Mrs Howson came in for a chat. She got home last night and looks a bit down. She has had a nice time in Portsmouth. She says she doesn’t know what she will do when all the clothing job finishes at the WVS. She is a very lonely and somewhat aloof woman, and at times gets notions that everyone and everything is against her. I feel concern at times when she is in that mood, recalling how her father with no ‘real’ cares felt the same – and one day was found hanging from a beam in his paint shop.

  Tuesday, 16 October. Sometimes I’ve a cold fear on me when I look at my husband. He never had a very firm hold on realities. Now he has an interest in nothing. At one time I grew frettish if I was not ‘bright and amusing’. Often now he never speaks for the whole evening unless it’s a grunt or ‘Yes’ or ‘Oh’. I think of his parents and shudder. Beyond breathing and eating, they have not been alive for years, say quite frankly they ‘don’t want bothering’ when their sons or daughters call. No memory, no interest in themselves or the outside world. I’m heart thankful the boys are not like that. I’d rather never have their company than they should grow so afraid and indifferent to life. All my wild rebellion seems over. Strong people don’t dominate like weak ones. In a strong person there is something to fight, a chink in their armour somewhere. Everyone has something. I count my blessings and find I’ve a good many, and most of us walk alone. I often envy women with a big family. I look at Margaret often and wish she was my girl, though lately we seem very apart. I think my words about the Australian were a ‘cap that fitted’ and for the first time she began to think.

  Saturday, 20 October. I’ve a great sadness on me. Perhaps the grey day and the thought of winter contributed to my mood, but somehow the dockers’ strike, the worldwide unrest, the widespread misery made me wonder how long it will be before we can say ‘Peace in our time, oh Lord’. The only peace is that there are no active hostilities, but the corrosion of the war years is eating deeper into civilization. People have time to think, and their thoughts make them afraid. In the chaos that follows war there seems so little to grip. Things alter and move so quickly. Sometimes I feel I’m on a slide – and a greased one at that. In the simple code in which my generation were reared there was right and wrong, good and bad, things which were just not done, examples we strove to follow. All gone. Freud pointed out that behaviourism [restrained demeanour] could be excused on the count of inhibitions and repressions. In a world where mass murder by bombing was looked on as necessary, where life was as little valued in the Western as the Eastern world, when young men went off on suicide expeditions by air and glider, where clergy had ceased to hold people by doctrine or natural dignity, where no hero lasted for long and where home ties were broken, and ‘Mother’ or ‘Dad’ as always handy to turn to impossible, there seems none of the stability so necessary for each and all, if we have to have peace of mind at all.

  I often feel as if the whole world had been a heap of compact bundles of sticks, and all the strings binding them were going and sticks lying round or floating downstream, blown in high winds, breaking each other or pressing the ones underneath into the ground to rot. I wish I could find some work which had to be done – a job to do outside my home, working with and for others. As I sat tonight I visualised all the piles of mending, my hospital dollies and garments, books I’d planned to read – and found them wanting. I don’t want ‘leisure’ to feel creeping tides of worry and unrest come nearer. I want to feel I am helping, in however small a way. I want the laughter and fellowship of the war years.

  Tuesday, 23 October. My husband rang up and suggested going to the pictures tonight as he could not get home early tomorrow night. I scrambled an egg for him and I had cheese and tomato and there was loganberry jam and whole meal bread and butter, and plain cake and gingerbread. I enjoyed the picture, Roughly Speaking, though it bordered somewhat on fantasy to English people, in its opportunities and ups and downs, but I thought it would be grand to be married to a man who hit back at life without whining and complaining. I had a letter from Cliff today. It looks as if he has made up his mind to go with the Glider Pilot Regiment if he has a chance when they go to Palestine, although he says they may have one of their own flyers as adjutant. Things may work out for the best if he does. I’ve always said he needed discipline, and up to now he has kicked against everything, seeing authority as only to be flouted. Another year in the Army may make him more sure of his own capabilities. He is not lazy and if he can concentrate on a job where he will be happy it will be all for the good. I do miss Arthur sometimes, and long to talk things over and over. I sit and turn things over in my mind as my fingers fly over my sewing. The humour I’ve been in lately recalls six years ago, when I honestly think my rag dollies helped me to hold on. There’s a great satisfaction in seeing a thing take shape and form under one’s hands, especially if they are made from oddments into something worthwhile. I often have a sneaking wish I was strong minded like Mrs Atkinson and could say I was going to a whist drive a few nights a week. She tells her husband quite frankly, if he’s too dull to talk or play cards, she will go where she can be amused. Yet cards never interest me for very long. It would be more of a penance than amusement if I went to play so often. In spite of my busy day I got two more dollies finished, little black girl dollies in gay dresses and a big bow in their mop of hair.

  Saturday, 27 October. I thought I’d have all nice for Xmas when Cliff came, but if as he expects he will be in Palestine by then, I think I’ll make all gay for his leave – that is, if he comes. Surely he will come for a few days, dull as he finds home. I often wonder what queer kinks he has deep down, when he finds so much fault with all at home, with its size and set out, my decorations and ‘old fashioned ways’. I look round and think it’s a very nice house really, and kept as well as anyone else’s. Sometimes I tell myself it’s a kind of twisted love of both home and me that makes him lash out. When he was younger he used to get cross at my ‘weak streak’ and say I gave in too much for peace sake, but by Gad I’ve had to give in as much to him as anyone. I’ve known the impulse to strike him flat, to speak cuttingly and to the point, to strip him of some of his conceits and silly values – and that streak in me that made me always insist that home was a place where you came to recover from the knocks and pricks of life and not receive them laid a hand on my lips. Then again, I have a feeling hard to define that in spite of all I stand for some anchorage in Cliff’s life. If Cliff knew how clearly I saw things, his way of thinking and acting, the worthlessness of so many of his ‘friendships’, I feel something would go. It’s better I should let him think I’m ‘sweet and dumb’, seeing and understanding only what he thinks fit, knowing nothing but what he thinks fit to tell me. He forgets – or ignores – that talk and gossip filters through.

  Tuesday, 30 October. It was a fine morning and I decided to go shopping and get rid of my heavy headache in the fresh air, and I wanted to see if my dress had come in to a shop where a consignment was expected. I got a really beautiful one, a real ‘dream dress’, and by Gad my diary and I will be the only ones to know what I paid – 8 guineas. I told my husband it was ‘over £5’ and he nearly had a fit. I felt peeved when I thought how little I’d ever spent on clothes, always making them myself till I got my two last coats tailored. He never realises the days of cheap remnants have gone, and he is so unobservant he never sees changing prices and supplies. It’s a soft turquoise blue that blends perfectly with the russet of my coat. I thought at first it was too young but the shop girl said ‘It’s exactly your dress in style and colours are never considered “young”’. Silly old thing – I don’t remember feeling so excited over a dress since I was a girl. Cliff will understand. Maybe I’ll whisper my ‘sin’ to him when he comes!

  Friday, 2 November. It was such a fair, sweet morning – hard to realise it was so near Xmas. I’d a pile of best tablecloths and napkins, doyleys, and overalls, and I decided I’d take advantage of the fine morning. I had such hindrance – phone calls and people paying bills who li
ngered to chat and I felt I didn’t get near done I’d planned. I had good soup to heat and enough meat roll and I boiled potatoes and carrots and made a good steamed raisin pudding and a little marmalade jam. I felt tired and it was such a nice pleasure to be shut up in Canteen. A ring just before I went told me the result of the specially convened meeting last night. We cannot get a night porter – the one who applied last week only stayed one night – and it’s been decided to close the bedrooms this week, or until we get a porter. If the beds are not let I only give the Canteen till Xmas to stay open, for it’s an expensive place to run now we don’t have as many for meals and snacks. I’d a little shopping to do and Mrs Higham picked me up at the corner and we managed to get all done before going into Canteen. I was glad to see 6 lb of sausage I’d had promised and we had the breakfast bacon but no potatoes for chips, after me getting the fat.

  We felt vexed when we had to refuse nice lads a bed, but Mrs Goode, the bed-maker, was talking to us and she said it’s not only that we don’t pay well, but she says that since VE day the Canadian ‘behaviour’ worsened and since VJ day it’s been growing worse. Quite decent fellows come in dead drunk and wet the beds through and are sick on the floor – often all over their bed – without the least trace of shame. In wartime there was nothing of that, but now it’s as if, she says, they don’t fear ‘reporting’ or have any decency when they have drink. She says that two night porters left for that, saying there was more decency in a common doss house. It will be a pity if that element is the cause of the Canteen closing, for we get older and more stable men and fellows on leave or who cannot get train connections. We were very busy all afternoon, for with it being cold we made toast and put cheese or scrambled egg on top.

  We came home in the Highams’ car, and I had a cup of tea and did some mending as I sat by the fire. Margaret came in to show me the material she had bought with the coupons I let her have. She has got black for she says it’s such a good standby when she can use different accessories. She is going to make a long dress after all. She says they are coming back very quickly and she will have it long till after Xmas if not for after March. She looks very thin. She says she ‘has no time for Barrow boys – they are all dull after RAF and Americans’. I held my tongue this time. I could have repeated remarks Cliff had passed about girls who liked Americans better than our own lads!

  Sunday, 4 November. Last night I was kept awake by fireworks going off, as if those kiddies who had been lucky enough to get any had not the patience to wait till Monday. I had my usual rest and before I had my bath I slipped down in my dressing gown and popped a little dish I’d prepared last night in the oven. I put my soup on to heat on a low heat. I had sausage in a flat dish and stewed apples and made apple sauce and put it on the sausage and added a layer of mashed potatoes and it made a very tasty lunch. It was tinned soup – with not cooking my meat – but I added a little Bovril for flavour and extra ‘goodness’. We had a cup of tea and piece of cake for a sweet, and having washed up we were out by 1.45, for it was such a lovely day we planned to go to Ambleside, feeling there would not be many more fine days. The beech trees are still a golden glory and the sun turns the bracken clad moss and hillsides to russet. As we passed under beech or oak trees their leaves fluttered down through the open top of the car, bringing in their scent, like withered apples. At Bowness they had little motor launches and sailing boats out, and even rowing boats for hire, and each big chara park had a good number in – and I counted them in one by the Lake, 27. I’ve never known so long a season and the Lakes, and cafes and sweet and ice cream shops were doing a good trade. It would be dark for the charas going home. It was dusk when we got in at 5 o’clock. There was bottled pears and unsweetened milk for ‘cream’, whole meal bread and butter, parkin* and plain cakes, and a leaping wood and coal fire. When I’d washed up I put a rather damp piece of oak log at the back of the fire and it lasted all right as we sat, and the wood smoke seemed to go through the whole house.

  My husband was writing for awhile so I sat quiet and stitched busily at one of the little cot quilts and got one finished. It’s a really worthwhile little thing – both sides very good silk and neatly and strongly sewn on to a pad of cotton wool. It will do fine for the two tiny cots when they have poor babes of a few days old who need warmth of cotton wool. We listened to Lorna Doone and then the news. My husband has been very moody and quiet lately. I sat wrapped in my own thoughts and surmises – a montage of speculation about Cliff and if Arthur has got his nomination [to sit a Civil Service examination for promotion] and if I’ll see them this Xmas skimmed through my mind. I’d like to see the girl Cliff speaks of. He has spoken so often of never marrying that I think she must be exceptional!* I went into the garden just before I came to bed. The stars were bright as if it were going to be frosty. All round fireworks popped and in one garden they even had a bonfire. Children of today have little restraint. They want what they want right now without that careful preparation for a given festa. It’s part of the ‘take the cash and let the credit go’ of today which creeps in everywhere. ‘Fish is in Jones’, you think rapidly. ‘Will the sausage I had got keep till tomorrow? Better get fish while I’ve got a chance.’ You see cold cream in a shop, and although you have quite half a pot you buy another while it’s there.

  Unconsciously we are all changing in little ways. I thought tonight as I sat how hard I’d grown these last six years. No one would fret me into a nervous breakdown now. When my husband gets his moods, beyond seeing he has nothing to annoy him further, then a tasty meal, and warm fire waiting if it’s cold, I let him alone with ‘Ah the back of my hand to you’ feeling. No coaxing and worrying – and he doesn’t get the black moods he used to do. When he does, I don’t even notice them. Somehow I’ve learned – or gained – serenity. I’ve come at long last to that place where Gran walked, and know what she meant when she talked of ‘laying her burden down before God after she had done what she could to bear it’. Knowing too the Rhythm and Strength she spoke of – all there if we ‘reach out’. She had big worries and came through. My little worries fade before hers, but they are ever present. I feel too that now I don’t go out two days a week I don’t throw things off the same.

  Sunday, 18 November. We went to Spark Bridge. It was such a lovely bright day, like we get at the end of December when we have ‘crossed the line’. Aunt Sarah was baking bread and they had chops done in the oven for a treat. The stock pot bubbled and, adding to the smell of baking bread and wood smoke, made a smell of home and comfort. They are as bright and cheerful as can be, happy in all their little blessings as if they had money and every of their hearts’ best wish – maybe happier! It grew dark rapidly and we came home, giving a lift to a very odd couple. He was a very young RAF officer; she was a pretty, very silent girl of perhaps 18–19. They were walking along with heavy suitcases and I know they had a very long way before they could catch a bus to take them to Ulverston station. They didn’t speak one word to each other, and he had a very pettish manner when he spoke of ‘hanging round Ulverston till the 6 o’clock train’. I suggested spending an hour in an ice cream cafe over a cup of tea and said ‘Perhaps they will have fires in the waiting room’. He gave me a look as if I’d suggested he pass the time singing in the streets. A more haughty spoilt infant I’ve not seen for awhile, in spite of his RAF uniform. I tried to talk pleasantly to the girl but she was either very shy or afraid of him.

  My husband said when they had got out ‘Perhaps a honeymoon couple’. I said ‘I hope it’s only an unofficial one. That girl looked too nice to make a mistake and be punished all the rest of her life. She could live down a stolen weekend.’ I could often giggle wildly when I see the effect of a lawless remark of mine on my husband. Poor lamb. He is really unique. His mind clings to the catechism and prayer book in general. He thinks marriage means utter possession of body and soul, thoughts and interest, of a wife by a husband. That I should say such things of a lord of creation shocked him to his soul case. He wou
ld get a bigger shock if he realised my whole impression of men in general sometimes!

  Christmas was approaching, and Nella decided to put austerity aside. ‘I’m not going to save and scratch ever again’, she declared on 5 December. The immediate beneficiary of this resolution was her husband, for whom she bought an extravagant Christmas gift – a lovely oak framed electric clock (costing almost £3) which she thought would go nicely with the oak trim in their dining room. Hard times had gone on long enough, she thought, and in her view the restrictive policies of the new Labour government were decidedly objectionable. ‘This government is going to rob us of all individuality. I’ll not live to see the reaping of the whirlwind, but I’m not going to help them. For the rest of my life I will spend any little surplus I get’ (5 December). As if to underline this determination, later that day, when her husband asked what she would like for Christmas, she indicated that a fur coat and a diamond ring would be much appreciated.

  Monday, 10 December. It’s been a really evil day of icy fog, and maybe it was partly the cause of a really nervy day all day. I felt depressed and sad. I pictured homeless cold people, little children and old ones without fire and warmth. My snug little home and glowing fire seemed both lonesome things – and a reproach. I baked bread and some plain biscuits to put in a tin for when Cliff comes. He loves biscuits for supper and I’ve still half a tin of parkins so he will not have to worry about eating out. I had a bit of pastry in a bowl from last baking day, and I made a nice damson tart with a jar of bottled damson. I made a very good suet pudding and there was some to send down to the old ones, with a little new cob of bread and a few biscuits …