The Diaries of Nella Last

by Patricia Malcolmson

  We went round by Ulverston and then sat all afternoon on the Coast Road, my husband writing and I had my books and dipped into them, mended some stockings, and had a nap with the sun on my face. We were home for 8 o’clock and made a wood fire and we listened to Music Hall. Mrs Howson came in with her husband who is home on leave, and they had a drink and a chat. I feel sorry for Steve. He will soon be 40 and is a Warrant Officer whose time is up about February. His pension will not be enough to keep them – he has only been a Warrant Officer a short time – and he says he will be up against young, well educated men in the wage market. There is a possibility of him staying on till he is 50, but that means he would have to give up his dream of a real home of their own for over ten years. I feel Mrs Howson has not been as careful as she could have been. She could have had a well paid job all the war – she is a very expert dressmaker – and saved money instead of spending all on non-utility materials and making lovely unnecessary things, always for herself. They haven’t by any means enough to set up much of a home, and she whines about it a lot, blaming poor pay and treatment by the Navy for them not having more money saved. I wondered as I looked at her tonight what she would do if compelled by circumstances to live on Steve’s pension.

  Wednesday, 5 June. Down town I met several people I knew, and they and the women who hurried from shop to shop looked so harassed, all speaking of ‘more difficult to get things than in the war when U boats were sinking our ships’. Not one word about V celebrations. No one seems to be bothering in Barrow. My mind went back to last Peace celebrations. We were in Southampton. Cliff was only a few months old, Arthur 5½ years. I recall the happy feeling, the wonderful parade where Southampton history from prehistoric to 1918 were wonderfully portrayed, the lavish decorations, the fire works, the fun and gaiety. We went out before lunch and came back about 3 in the morning, with Arthur curled up asleep in the big pram by Cliff. I’d taken flasks of tea and Glaxo for Cliff, lemonade and sandwiches and fruit. We bought ice cream and hot baked potatoes, and hot Horlicks as we trailed home to where we lodged. Such a wonderful day. I recall my happy heart as I looked at my sleeping boys, the feeling of deep thankfulness that the war was over, that ‘we will never have another war’. Now no one feels gay or happy about this one being over. People feel suspicious about ‘war to end war’ and no one talks like that now. Rather there is that feeling that discord is spreading, that given the opportunity, there would be an even bigger war, where ‘nerves’ and atomic bombs would wipe everyone out. We have so little to look forward to. As I came home I felt my little loved house more welcoming than ever. I closed my front door with the feeling that not even the raids ever took from me, as if I shut all discord out and entered a little corner of peace. It’s such a nice house somehow. I feel it likes me.

  Thursday, 6 June. Mrs Higham said ‘I hope I’ll not begin to grow old as well as fat’. I said ‘Steady on. What about me? I’m ten years older than you and never had your good health.’ Her answer gave me a little sadness. She said ‘You will never be old. You have your two sons and are too wrapped up in them to notice such trifles as passing years.’ She and her husband would have made such good parents and could have done much for children, both with their understanding and money. It’s been a great grief to them. We had buttered malt bread and shortbread and parkin biscuits by the fire, and she went at 5 o’clock and I made my husband tea, savoury sandwiches, lettuce, baked egg custard, honey and whole meal bread and butter, malt bread and shortbread. He said he would cut the lawn in spite of it being rather too damp, and I got a bit of ironing done and some mending. Margaret sat down for a chat when she ran in to show me some lovely Fair Isle gloves and berets she had knitted – at work, of course! – and I took down our small suitcases and laid them on the back room bed ready to pack at leisure. I cannot think that we will be in Ireland this time next week. I’m not looking forward to the journey. I wonder how my wretched tummy will stand the sea trip and a week is not very long to get over any upset and enjoy things, and my husband is NOT a good traveller. It seems to bring out the worst possible in him! He doesn’t like a change in any habits, hates strangers, especially if they talk to me, gets excited about things left undone at home, and is sure he left a light on or a door unfastened, etc! When he goes anywhere in the car it’s not so bad. But memories of holidays by train come back – after weeks battle to go at all. I’m glad we are going to Arthur and Edith, though, for the boys never stand nonsense.

  Whit weekend was approaching, and Nella and her husband had plans to enjoy themselves (drives to Morecambe, Ambleside and Kendal), although on Friday morning she had another reminder of the war when ‘I woke in terror at a loud bang which shook the windows, wondering what it could possibly be. Later I learned it was a big sea mine that they had exploded and as the crow flies we are not far off Walney beach on the Irish Sea side.’ Then they were off to visit Arthur and Edith in Northern Ireland, and spent a happy week there.

  Friday, 21 June. To our surprise, Cliff met us [on their return to Barrow]. He had travelled all night. I think his main object in coming was to bring me a Siamese kitten [to be named Shan We]. He always promised me one after the war but I always put him off, for I didn’t want to hurt old Murphy’s feelings – he is a very odd cat. Between his running wild for a week, Cliff and Mrs Pattison being about, and the kitten, he has held aloof and sulked in the garden all day. I’ve left the garage window open for him and his supper on a plate. I had to set to and do a biggish wash for Cliff – he goes back tomorrow night again …

  This wee kitten is like a baby. He cries bitterly if cold or lonely, but in spite of only being eight weeks, uses an old tin lid with ashes sprinkled as if very accustomed to a ‘lav’ of his own. I felt so sorry for the little lonely orphan, I put an old tea cosy in my basket and tucked him up nice and warm. I brought him upstairs and put him on a chair by the bed. He was quite happy till I got into bed. Then with a joyful whoof he sprung onto the bed and settled himself close to my side as I write, beaming up happily through his slitted blue eyes and purring loudly. I hope the two cats settle down peacefully. I don’t want old Murphy to feel pushed out for the little newcomer.

  Cliff wants to ‘buy everything you have ever wanted, Dearie. I’m going to see you never stand aside again for any of us.’ I looked at my little cat with mixed feelings – he is a darling wee beastie, perfect in every way – but I had old Murphy. I wonder what Cliff has in mind – about things I’ve wanted in the past – and have I rather outgrown them if I get them now, I wonder? I cannot recall a real ‘crave’, except to travel and see the world, and who would want to do that just now? I’ve my little modern house, shabby it’s true, but things like carpets, etc. will come round in the ordinary way – be bought. I’ve simple tastes and little clothes sense. If my clothes are reasonably good I wear them long and carefully; I loathe ‘amusing’ styles. I’ve the garden – and the car, which if it is 1934, to me is as good as a new model, and gets me to my loved hills and Lakes. A Rolls Royce could do no more. I’m puzzled to put a name to one thing to add to my content, unless it’s a fridge, and that’s for family comfort on the whole. As to denying myself, it was never a hardship if it was for my two lads. It was a pleasure and privilege to help them in any way – and still is. Old Cliff over-rates me, I fear, but I looked at him in slight surprise when he spoke of ‘making up to me’ some day. I felt very touched.

  Sunday, 23 June. Margaret came in with a friend who married and whose RAF husband has just been demobbed. He was going to be an architect but ‘thinks there would be more in photography’ and plans to set up in business, and he has only a small folding camera, and never handled a studio one, done much developing, and no touching up. I felt amused as I thought of another young fellow – also married – who has bought a horse with his gratuity and plans to begin a riding school and teach people to ride, running by the horse and rider presumably till he gets another horse to ride himself. I often feel a sadness when I hear the many cases of unreality
this war has bred in young fellows – girls too – who have lived a sheltered life and had no chance of trying out their mistakes as they went along. I felt glad Cliff has a vein of practical common sense. He told of many ex-servicemen who had lost their gratuity and very hard earned savings in get-rich-quick methods, toned down till they sounded genuine in the ears of men who had not been in the rough and tumble of life for a few years.

  Another thing which Cliff was very bitter about – he says ex-servicemen are being exploited. ‘You cannot expect a real wage till you get into civvy life and you have your allowance for a few weeks’, and then are only kept for a few weeks and another ‘mug’ comes along. He said ‘I never realised myself how dear things were, or the many food problems. I honestly don’t know how I’d have managed if it had not been for the way you shop and plan for me. Money goes nowhere in London. I’ve a good stock of clothes too, thanks to you keeping them free from moths and dodging new collars onto shirts and letting out the jackets. Some fellows I know have no civvies but what they get when they come out of the services and have to build up a wardrobe, both for work and “best”, and I don’t know how they manage for that either.’ Cliff is like Arthur in that he thinks that the danger spot in human relations has yet to be reached; that high hopes and joy at being free again is carrying men along, but when they realise the scraping and pinching to start a home as well as keep on, men will grow bitter, and if things don’t quickly stabilise will tend to turn to anything that holds out more hope, from crime to Fascism or Communism. Arthur is convinced that we are on the road to inflation; that already there show plain indications of it; and the news in today’s Sunday Express that inflation in America will cut down the loan granted so niggardly is not good hearing. It seems a sorry business altogether. The seeds of ill feeling are not only being sown but show signs of sprouting.

  Sunday, 30 June. I never saw so many people at Bowness and Ambleside even before the war. Hundreds had come by charas, more by trains and then steamer and even motor launch. Boat and rowing boat were reaping a good harvest of half crossings as at one time it would have been 6d or 1s an hour and 1s a shot per trip with the boatman. South Lancashire crowds don’t behave ‘tripperish’ in the Lakes as they do at Blackpool. The quiet dignity of the hills and Lakes seem to welcome and impress them. There never seem loud raucous voices raised in song. Perhaps, though, that type don’t come. It may be that they who come have a love of calm serenity. Some who sit on seats in the sun look one with we who feel the hills and fells holy ground, where all the peace and wisdom of life lie, ready for us if we can only reach out for it and claim it.

  The heavy rains of yesterday had been a blessing to the little streams and falls. Everywhere the sound of running water, and cattle and sheep never lifted their heads as they busily cropped the sweet damp grass. Keswick was full of visitors. Moneyed foreigners always make for there. When we stayed at the Royal Oak last year, there were many who had been all winter. We picnicked in a quiet spot. Shan We had water and some minced cat meat and romped happily in the grass. This golden day will pass into rain. The purples and grey, green and brown of hills and bracken moors were too sharply etched against the blue of the sky for it to be fine for long. It was even lovelier motoring back than going. All was quiet on the roads. The charas had left. Only holidaymakers sat about and boatmen dressed up rowing boats and covered motor engines, and the two last steamers down the Lake were crowded to capacity. As they passed I felt a God Bless in my heart, a wish that the memory of peace and beauty would linger through the busy week of bustle, queues, and general worry.

  My deep love of the Lakes never makes me want to shut out trippers. I feel ‘Come and share it. Hold up your arms to the everlasting hills and draw their peace and beauty and healing calm into your tired minds.’ To many heedless people I feel ‘Go to Blackpool – you will be happier there’, but I could never shut people away. My uncle is a rabid ‘Friend of the Lakes’ man. He would put a wall round if he could, so high that no one could see over. I would be very stern with people who wanted to build jerry houses, make wide motor roads, build factories or works, or run a railway through, but I don’t understand or agree with him in other ways. People who are shut in ugly soulless towns need our Lakes and fells. I know I’m not consistent for I wouldn’t ‘tear down the ugly pylons’ as he and his friends would. They are not too obtrusive, and I can only see the beauty and comfort they take to people whose lives have lacked much in amenities.

  People have to live and work in far-off places. The farmers who are so important should not have to live like medieval peasants, their women folk slaves to hard work and having less comfort than the people whom they feed. I can see beauty in a tractor’s moving its way over a hilly field as much as a horse straining out its heart. School buses to me are only a blessing. I never would long for the ‘good old days of the village school’. My Gran as a Quaker was well educated by Friends and believed in her children being taught at home and then sent to school, but mothers of that day could not always teach their children. My husband’s grandfather, who was reared on a lonely sheep farm, could not read or write till he was 18, and only his insistence and the fact he had a little money to pay for an adult school run by a retired school master in Bowness ‘educated’ him in about 18 months. Everything must be shared in tomorrow’s world, beauty and peace, education and all that goes to make a happy child and good citizen.

  Wednesday, 10 July. I didn’t feel too good when I rose and 8 o’clock brought a lad to the door with a request I would let five men have some boiling water. I looked out. It was a gang mending holes in the road with tarmac! I put on my kettle, reflecting there must be secret signs on our gate. It cannot altogether be Mrs Atkinson’s idea that they know I’m soft! I had a cup of tea and some toast. I cleaned away and decided I’d make an early start on my bedrooms. The phone rang repeatedly. I had two garrulous callers to pay small bills. Shan We was a great attraction and I thought they would never go. Another start. The dustmen came. ‘Please could they have a drink of water.’ They are such decent kindly men, and always shut the gate. The kettle had not been emptied; I switched it on and made them a jug of tea. It was such a hot morning and they looked tired out. The coalman came, and said joyfully ‘TEA’, so I made him a cup, and started again. More phone calls. No butcher. Luckily the fish came, and I fried two nice hake steaks, and did cauliflowers and potatoes, and fried up a real good gingerbread from the beef dripping Mrs Picken sent, and made malt bread, to bake at the same time. Then the boy came for hot water again. I felt worthy, and said ‘Everyone else are in the street’, but he grinned cheerfully. I’d enough soup for my husband and milk sweet from yesterday. I’d a little fish and vegetables, and a cup of tea.

  I’d said I’d go down to the bank for my husband and I’d to pick up my bacon, or else I’d have relaxed quietly for the whole afternoon. It was hot but a lovely breeze from the sea, which made it pleasant. Two encounters gave me lots of reflections. Both women I’ve known from girls. One was a bar maid, and a very gay bohemian who met an Admiralty man a lot older than herself. When he announced his marriage, several took him aside and pointed out she was not a girl anyone married. He gave the answer ‘She will suit me – a virtuous girl would bore me to death’. He was Harbour Master at Hong Kong and they had four of the nicest well bred sons anyone could ever have. When she returned, no one would have any more to do with her than formerly, and she was a bit lonely, and always glad when I met her in the Park and talked, when we had the children out. Her husband died. They must have had lots of money, for all the lads had good schools and the eldest is a naval architect and going back to Hong Kong where she plans to go back to make a home when the two youngest boys make a start. They all adore her, and it’s the happiest family possible.

  The other woman has never trod the primrose path, prides herself on her respectability, and whined about her son getting married after being a POW and ‘worrying her to death’ – she considers he ‘owes his mother something
for all the worry he has been’. She came up in the bus with me. I felt she was the last butterfly on my wretched tummy. I came in and was very sick and had to lie down for an hour, wondering what was virtue and what was not! The first woman’s gay, vivid personality, too young dress, rather brassy dyed hair – and adoring family; the second’s sour Puritan face, whining voice, holier-than-thou attitude. Life is odd, and seems to grow more so!

  Thursday, 1 August. Mrs Whittam brought a jug of tea and we sat on the little wall of the garden. Some German prisoners passed, glum and miserable but thoughtful, ordinary men. They glanced at us. Mrs Whittam and I smiled and I said ‘It’s a lovely day’. One replied in well modulated English ‘It is indeed’. I wondered where he had learned to speak so well. We talked about the difficulties of life today when they had passed out of sight on their way to the fields, of all the unhappiness and frustration, heartbreak and misery, though we didn’t use exact words. There’s such a streak of wholesome sense in Mrs Whittam. I wonder if cows help country people to have it – or sheep? I’ve noticed people who have much to do with tending them have a clearness of vision and ability to think, however slowly. Both of her daughters rant and rave about German ‘beasts’; she quietly talked of their homes and little children growing up without them. We talked of the misery underneath, the heartbreak and despair that passed unnoticed, little things in human relationships that meant so much, security in the love of home, planting things with the serenity of seeing them grow, of seeing days come and go without anything happening, of laughing without cause, just because you felt happy. Mrs Whittam’s red jolly face, with its flying wisps of hair like a halo, saddened. She said ‘Never long for grandchildren, Mrs Last. What’s in front of mine?’ I thought of my baby of 27 years ago and my heartfelt relief that war was over, never to return. People don’t feel that sense of hope and thankfulness now. It’s more a ‘How long before it starts again?’