The Diaries of Nella Last

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Thursday, 28 February. We settled by the radiator, I thought for a quiet evening, until my husband began to wonder what he could hang on the wall in place of the picture I would not have up again. Then the balloon went up. I felt something snap in my tired head. He got told a few things – not altogether connected with the picture! Yet through all my anger and annoyance I strove to control my tongue a little. With so many of his uncles and his father ageing so soon, he has always feared it. At fifty he had the worn out physique and mentality of a man ten or fifteen years older and any energy of mind or body has gone in his day’s work. I feel such a deep pity for him. It’s made me give way so much but I wonder if it’s been altogether wise. I think of the real squalor of mind and body of his people’s home. I see the writing on the wall as I strive to keep things together, try to interest him in outside things – in the boys and their affairs – making excuses for him always, that he is tired or worried or busy. Tonight I could have run out into the cold wintry night and ran and ran till I dropped. ‘Boyishness’ which is engaging at twenty can be childishness at thirty, and each ten years grow more hard to put up with. I came to bed, feeling things work out. I felt lost and a little adrift when he decided he would like to sleep alone, but it’s another oddity of the family and now I’m glad of it. I feel my bed is a peaceful haven where I can relax alone and read or write, try and sort out my values, and count my blessings.

  Friday, 1 March. Mrs Howson called for me to go to Canteen and I posted a little parcel of ‘bits’ for Aunt Sarah in case we couldn’t get up this weekend – a tin of soup, a scrap of marg and dripping, a slice of bacon left from what I’m brought, and a bit of cheese. There is so little to give nowadays. It often gives me a sadness.

  Somehow so much of the ‘sweet’ of life has passed. How can we teach children to be unselfish, to ‘pass the sweeties’, ‘give a bite of their apple’, or ‘break a piece of cake off and give a bit to the poor doggie’? It used to be said of a greedy adolescent, ‘Well, he was the only one and there was no one to share things with’. A generation is growing up who don’t know what it is to have many little goodies themselves, and even tiny tots know the value of points and what is rationed. Sometimes I think all the colour as well as sweetness is dormant, if not dead. I see Norah Atkinson borrowing oddments for her new home – and she is so grateful for my old curtains. When I reflect that I bought them in 1939, had them always up at my front windows, mended the glass cuts after the raids, turned them so that the faded side was inside and then altered them for the dining room where the remaining colour was almost bleached out by the sun – I feel they are no treasure. I wondered whether to cover two old thin blankets with them, and wondered if it would be worth the trouble. Little things annoy, and on the other hand, delight women. If bright gay curtain material could be coupon free – say four yards on each coupon book – it would mean such a lot. If it only meant one window bright – there doesn’t seem much hope though, and everything grows shabbier and more down at heel.

  Saturday, 2 March. It was a lovely bright morning, but cold enough to keep the snow wherever the sun did not melt it. I was not feeling too bad with myself, just going slow, when my husband came in. Then the fun and games started. He was determined that all pictures should go back on the walls [which had just been painted]. I was as determined they should NOT. Knowing my hatred of a scene, I felt he played up, thinking I’d give way when the painter and Mrs Cooper were about, but this time he was quite mistaken. I’d got to that pitch of nerves when jumping on them would have been the mildest thing I’d do. I’ve won, beyond my two good little oil paintings of Wartdale Lake and the Tarn above Hawkshead, the mirror over the fireplace and the little carved garden mirror facing the window. My nice new wall papered room is not cluttered. Of all outlooks to live with, the Victorian cum early Edwardian is the darndest – always to bring back mementos from a holiday and buy useless dust traps for presents, and never part with anything.

  Sunday, 3 March. Norah and Dick came in for a few minutes. He is delighted with the house, but rather taken back at the thought of Norah having to work for two years. He will not be able to pay £2 out of his wages for a beginning, so there seems little to be done if they want a house of their own at first. It’s so dreadfully hard on young people setting up a home. It strikes at the very root of happiness. He had brought a piece of coconut matting – from Woolworths at Gibraltar. It made me laugh when he spoke of shopping there, with all the shops in Sydney and the glamorous East. We went to Spark Bridge. I don’t feel happy about them if I don’t see them fairly often. They had not expected us with me sending the little parcel, so it was a nice surprise. Food seems scarcer than ever in the villages. It’s only with shopping in town there are any little extras, and just now there is so little in the gardens. I wish people would not keep saying ‘Well, you have had no surprise when things worsened’, as if I’d gone round like Cassandra!† Joe said ‘You always said, lass, that things would be worse for a while after the war finished’. I said ‘Well, maybe, but I didn’t see quite the shortages and muddle, or take into account the Allies themselves would start to fall apart’ …

  We were back early. I made up the fire and soon had tea ready. Toasted fruit bread – I put raisins and a little honey in one of my little loaves when I baked – bottled pears and unsweetened milk, lemon cheese and whole meal bread and butter and fruit cake. The table looked so gay and inviting, and still I did not feel I cared whether I had any food or not, and what I ate soon satisfied me. I could have giggled wildly at my husband’s attitude, barely speaking when spoken to, glancing at the changed walls pitifully like a ham actor. Odd how little his reactions affect me nowadays. I cannot believe at one time I worried and worried and let his monkey shines drive me into a nervous breakdown. Now any breakdown would not be mine. I feel often I look at a rather tiresome stranger, wonder at my own weakness of attitude, which led me to be shut up like a dog, only taken out on a chain, called to heel, petted and patted but never let out of sight or off the chain. I must have been a fool. I feel it has fostered something in me that would have been better not. I was never dull or bored that I can ever remember. If I could not do one thing, I turned to another, while longing for friends who would not notice if they were snubbed or let see they were not welcome. My war work bridged that gap. I loved working with people, feeling ‘I’ll never be shut up again’, and when I’m well enough I hope I can find something outside my home.

  I sat and embroidered my cushion cover, feeling tonight I’d be well to start my blouses this week and then I’d have a bit of useful sewing on the go. I’ll have to take my curtains down too and let the hem down. They have shrunk 1½ inches, and it fidgets me if a thing is not right and I have to keep looking at it.

  I keep thinking of Cliff. He is always at the back of my mind. I wonder if he will get a start soon [in interior decorating], feeling the real calamity it would be if he had to come back to work with his father, knowing how impossible it would be, feeling I could never stand the strain nowadays as I once did, when they were so totally different in every possible way, in every line of thought and action.

  Monday, 18 March. The heavy rain and hailstones seem to have broken the back of winter. I woke to birds twittering and chirping, and the garden looked as if spring might be soon here. I felt tired when I rose, and my back was bad to start the day, but I thought fresh air would do me good and I went downtown to get my rations. There was a real Monday look about the shops – no fish or meat, sausage or cakes. I met several women I knew well. All complained of the poverty of Barrow shops compared to Ulverston and the Lake towns. All but two were worried about returning sons and their jobs. One who has been so high hat about her son being a captain – she has been shunned a little – today was especially worried. I’d not known the son or his job before he joined up, but was surprised to learn he had only worked for a newsagent who had asthma badly and could not meet the early train for his newspapers or deliver on cold wet days. Somehow I had
the idea her son had been in a bank. She is desperately wondering how he and his wife and baby will fit into life on their return. She seems in awe of her daughter-in-law, who seems a ‘captain’s lady’.

  Cliff, who had just been demobilised, arrived in Barrow on 20 March for a brief visit. Nella found him in good spirits, although she admitted the next day that ‘I sighed as I noticed how slow he was in his right hand – but checked myself when I thought it was only a finger gone after all.’

  Friday, 22 March. I had to rise earlier to cook breakfast and pack sandwiches for Cliff. I made him a nice breakfast, half a grapefruit prepared overnight, a little rasher of bacon, two sausages and an egg. The potted meat I’d made from the sheep’s head made nice sandwiches with chutney and cress, and I kept two slices for my husband’s tea. I packed a slice of cake, two buttered slices of malt bread, an orange and a flask of tea in the thermos I bought him at Xmas. The taxi came at 8.30 but I didn’t go to the station. I felt a bit shaky with rushing about and laid on the settee for half an hour. I had to take Cliff’s watch back to the watchmaker’s. The repair I’d had done a few weeks back had gone wrong again.

  Why do newspapers print things before they are official? Every knot of women I passed seemed to be talking of the marg and soap cut – then tonight on the wireless there was ‘nothing sure’, as if women haven’t enough worries. There were no queues for fish, and plenty of variety, but I never can have fish for Fridays what with going to Canteen. The bus conductors are quickly replacing the clippies† and it’s a real pleasure to be spoken to politely. So many of the girls gave one the feeling they were completely indifferent, whether you rode on the bus or fell off it! …

  I had half an hour’s rest after lunch for we were going down in Mrs Higham’s car so had no waiting or walking to the bus stop. I’ve felt so out of joint with Canteen since I had flu. Somehow the gaunt nearly empty place, short supplies of food, cutlery and crocks, and the type of soldiers who come in, seemed to repel me. Gone are the friendly nice lads, and rather curt and sometimes insolent fellows come in now, as if instead of friendliness they work off annoyance on us. Today two of them did upset Mrs Fletcher. Poor Marjorie. She is so big and strong looking but her thyroid makes her very nervy and frightened. We had such short supplies of cakes and could only eke them out with cheese sandwiches, buttered teacakes and hot dogs. I like to be fair to all the boys and said to the helper ‘We will only let each lad have one cake’. These two piled up four on one plate, six on the other, and gave Marjorie cheek. I’d been sitting down resting and she served for me. I went to the counter and one of them snarled at me and told me he would darn well please himself – they were for sale, weren’t they? I tipped the cakes back on the dish and I said – he was over 6 feet and soared over me – ‘Little man, what a shock you are going to get in civvy street after your life of luxury in the Army’. If I’d been as nasty as I felt it would have done little good. I felt the roars of laughter of his friends were better than any sharp remarks. Mrs Whittam said ‘You can get under anyone’s skin. That lout said “please” when he came for his cup refilled.’ …

  Mrs Whittam is an oddity. She has always a huge roll of notes in her bag from selling something – horse, cow, etc. – or looking for something worth buying, and we thought nothing could surprise us but she certainly did today when she fished out of her sleazy leather bag 100 clothing coupons for which she had paid £10! It was more of a bombshell than once when she had over £300 in her bag and I revolted and trotted her off to the bank with it, fearing at that time, when we were always so crowded, someone could hear her – she has a loud voice – and rob her as she went home. I saw Mrs Higham’s mouth open and shut like a fish’s and felt mine did the same! I said ‘Now what on earth are you possibly going to do with those? You naughty old thing. You know you have stacks of good clothes you say are “too smart” for you.’ She beamed all over her very weather beaten face and said ‘Well, I badly want a new hat’, and joined in the burst of laughter. She has a very good velour hat that wind and weather has altered and which she puts on her head with the delicacy of a cow stamping in the mud and which we always call her ‘creations’. I said ‘Silly, you don’t need coupons for hats, and I know you have some nice ones. Pass that one for keeps to your cat. I know she must have had kittens in it several times.’ Crude remarks like that are priceless wit to Mrs Whittam. She shook and rolled with mirth till she nearly fell off the chair. Dear knows what she will do with all those coupons if, as I pointed out, she kept out of jail.

  Saturday, 23 March. I’ve had a maddeningly tiresome day. I don’t remember worse. I had a hair appointment for 9 o’clock but missed two buses which were crowded and when I got down it was 9.10. I needn’t have worried. I had to sit waiting till 9.30 and then the water was not as hot as it should have been, for something had gone wrong with the thermoset in the tank. I got fish for lunch – nice haddock fillets – and a nice piece of smoked cod for Aunt Sarah. It’s such a problem nowadays to get a little tasty bit for them.

  When I got back there were two real tinkers mending jute doormats and I said they could mend mine. I could have done it myself with a packing needle and coarse string, but they looked so lost and hungry, and they talked in such sing song Welsh they were bad to understand. I made the mistake of not asking how much it would be, and I’m sure I look soft, for when they brought it back they demanded 15 shillings. It’s a very good ‘has been’ for I always believed in buying the best, or else I’d have said ‘You can have the mat’. They came in the garage and were half in the kitchenette before I realised they were there, and both neighbours were out. I don’t remember being so frightened of anyone, but I stood firm. They would not let me have the mat, but on the pretext of examining the work – very badly and sloppily done – I seized my potato knife off the stove where I had laid it and said ‘NO – I’m going to give you your valuable jute back’, and made to unpick it. They agreed to take 5 shillings – for about ten minutes badly done work and 6 pence of jute string just caught round and not oversewn as usual, and I told them I was ringing up the police and laying a charge of trying to extort money. They believed me for they gathered up their bass bag† and left the road hurriedly.

  It upset me badly and I shook from head to foot and felt glad when I heard a ring – till I went to the door. A queer eyed untidy woman who might have belonged to them stepped up on to the top step and began begging, for food, coppers, and clothes. I felt it the last straw. I said ‘There is a telephone at my hand. If you don’t go away I’ll call the police.’ She looked very surprised and stopped cursing me and began to whine. I said ‘The police of this town are very severe with beggars’, and off she went. I’m sure they were all together. I cannot recall beggars at the door for years.

  During the next couple of months Nella travelled much more than she had in the previous year – day trips to Lancaster and Kendal, drives to Ulverston and the Lakes, Easter weekend in Morecambe and a weekend in London to visit Cliff. In London she shopped and on 27 April ‘went to Derry and Tom’s lovely roof garden’ and later to the theatre, and did lots of sightseeing, although not as much as she had hoped to do (her 27-year-old son did not approve of his 56-year-old mother going out on her own). Cliff, she felt, put on some big-city airs. ‘I tried not to act country cousins and only slipped up a few times,’ she wrote on the 29th, ‘and was only reproved once, and anyway the little waitress did look tired and the aspirins I gave her and the sniff of my smelling salts did her good, for her head ached. She was a really nice little girl but annoyed Cliff when she stood talking and told me she had a baby of three and twins a year old and worked every Sunday in the Richmond café to help out while her husband minded the babies. Cliff said “Londoners don’t talk to people. You would be looked on as eccentric if you lived here, you know.”’

  Saturday, 1 June. I looked round at the shoppers. A casual glance would have said ‘so well fed’ but the too fat young and early middle aged women, to a keen observer, would have con
firmed too big a starch diet. If bread and potatoes are cut, women will be the hardest hit – those who just buy a pie or cake and who make do on that for themselves, especially. I’m always so thankful we like soup, odd savouries, and vegetables. One confectioner had a great idea – little trifles set in paper cases, the prices ranging from 3d to 1s. Mrs Higham brought in four for tea at Canteen, saying they were quite good. Granted I’ve a picky, finicky appetite and prefer a very small portion of anything nice than double the quantity if it doesn’t appeal to me, but I thought I’d never tasted such trash. It had synthetic jelly at the bottom, tasting and looking like red ink, and then a tasteless layer of yellow custard sweetened with saccharin and topped with a flavourless dab of something like soap suds. Politeness alone made me swallow the nauseous concoction and I managed to palm most of the jelly in the bottom and put the paper container in the pig bin. I felt more grateful than ever I could look after Cliff’s food for him. I believe in good wholesome food well served as one of the chief essentials of life, from both a physical and mental standpoint.

  I reflected how things work themselves out. I come of a clever family, whose girls dance, sing, roller skate or go in for sports effortlessly, and of whom many are really beautiful. I was lame when a child. Only somewhat crude methods of sleeping with a heavy weight on my right foot while lying on a hard mattress stretched my right leg out after a hip and pelvis fracture. I was never very active. My father scorned a good education for women as unnecessary. I always felt a sneaking envy for my clever cousins. Now I’ve no envy of any cleverness, not even for people who can add up well. I’ve a superiority complex instead!! I’m never at a loss for a meal. My husband says he has ‘never known there has been a war’ because he has always had tasty meals, has never been without some little tastie of bottled or preserves for a little treat, and my thrifty country ways of always a bit on the shelf rather than a feast and then a famine has been after all a gift that is better than a cleverness.