The Diaries of Nella Last

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Wednesday, 1 October. My husband came rushing in excitedly and said ‘How would you like a fridge for your birthday?’ and said a shop had four in and the proprietor, an electrician who often works on big jobs my husband has, had promised him one for a long time. In fact, he first did nearly five years ago, but any that has come in has been either ‘shop’ ones or priority. I feel a bit dazed and a bit indifferent, as I think if I’d been let have one and paid for it myself by instalments when the boys were home, it would not have cost so much – £29 10s – and I would have had it when most needed. I’ve done so long without it I could have gone on doing so. I didn’t voice my thoughts. If we have another hot summer it will be grand for we both like ice cream, as well as the advantage of well kept food, hard butter and marg, and crisp salads. It’s my birthday and Xmas present, so I’ll buy my shoes, and if I decide on a costume, out of my year’s income – this year only £19 odd.

  Poor Dad. I’m always glad he died before he saw his investments dwindle and crash after the 1914 war. They had begun to weaken in 1919, when he died suddenly. In a queer expansive mood on the cold wild March day before he died, when I sat on a low stool with my sleeping baby on my lap – Cliff was 15 months old – he said he knew he would never realise his dream, to retire to Cornwall, and live retired, but he said he realised it was ‘much better to journey than arrive’. He had had a queer unhappy marriage. Mother should never have remarried. Her thoughts and heart were forever in the never-never land of her idyllic short marriage. She thought married life would always be like those few months.* Dad puffed at his pipe as he rather shyly said ‘You were always a blessing and interest to me. You know I’ve only really had two women to mean anything in my life, you and my mother, and it makes me very happy to know I’m leaving you comfortable. I can see Will will never get far, and I know you want to help the two little boys.’ If he had lived to see how money and investments went down so rapidly, it would have grieved him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  HIGHS AND LOWS

  October 1947–August 1948

  Thursday, 2 October. Mrs Higham came in to see my fridge. Like Mrs Atkinson, she has that feeling I have – that we could have bought it years ago ourselves out of housekeeping money by instalments. ‘When things pass, both good and bad go’ – by the wee man.† I’d not go back, wars, atom bomb threats, or anything else. I’d like the more leisurely days, the plenty of simple amenities, of quantities of plain food like butter, milk, coal, etc., cheap. I’d like the ignorance that really was bliss, when war was something in the history books for ordinary people. The South African Boer war only touched a few deeply. To the rest and especially to we children it was a confusion of flags waving and ‘Soldier of the Queen’ and happy cheering, cakes in bags and mugs of tea sent to outlying fields in beer barrels which made the tea taste very odd.

  But under all the freedom, women could only speak and write, and all men were tyrants, however loving.* I see red when a silly song out of I think Annie Get Your Gun is sung, ‘The girl I will marry’, is drooled over the wireless. It sums up the Victorian–Edwardian attitude so thoroughly, and I was one of the unfortunates who ‘looked like a doll’. I’ve always looked incapable, or something, for added to my weak streak, I’ve been over ruled by first my father and then husband, ‘taken care of’, ‘far too attractive to give much education – she will only marry and it will be wasted’. Men folk of my day had a very ‘Man of Property’ outlook, ‘I earn the money, I must know where it all goes’ attitude. No housekeeping savings could possibly be spent on anything not liked or approved by the lord and master of the house, father or husband. A woman’s place, unless sickness or loss drove her out to work, was, except in districts where women worked in mills, decidedly in the home. When my husband had such a lot of rheumatism and was off work six months at a stretch, he would never let me have boarders to help out – there was only men boarders in any quantity in Barrow at any time, with there being no work to bring women into the town. I was not let take advantage of my father’s offer to put me into a little shop of whatever line I chose. Every idea that didn’t coincide with his was condemned utterly. If the boys had not backed me up more or less by their outlook on life and their ambitions I couldn’t have gone on – and I saw to it they had no false ideas of lordly superiority toward women!

  Mrs Higham and I talked idly of our girlhood, of men’s really harem outlook. She said ‘I often wish I’d stayed in Liverpool, you know. I could have felt in things as I grow older.’ We talked of Hospital Supply, Canteen, and Red Cross shop days, when we felt worthwhile. Now there only seems the daily round, and to take each day as it comes and do the best with it. Neither of us are the ‘Housewives’ League’ type who could fight for causes.

  Wednesday, 15 October. Mrs Whittam and I sat and talked. She has had a wonderful lot of things sent from America lately – it cost her nearly £6 for duty! Her daughter has sent shoes and a dress, stockings and rubber overshoes, and stacks of food – dried fruits and chocolates, meat, milk and jam. She is wisely putting some on the shelf. We had a good grizzle as we conjectured about the austerity ahead, wondering how long it would last. She had backed Firemaster and it came in second – she never seems to back a loser in a race …

  It’s a fearful and wonderful thing the way the Russians have emerged from serfdom in so short a time, but virgin minds like virgin soil, and can nourish quicker than old. The Russians are unique in this swift moving modern world. With that clear-cut opportunity to go from night to day, they are not cluttered up with the perplexities and complications of mind the rest of the world have accumulated in the last 200 years. I always have a feeling that Russia is a potency of good or ill, and can swing civilisation as never before, I’ve a feeling, for right or wrong. Communism is THE force in the world, and the worst of it is that it is one of the few creeds (?) or beliefs (?) – perhaps force is the right word – that in this world of inertia of mind and muddled thinking is a living urge. Just as Christianity took a deep hold on people by the sincerity and belief of people who would go to their deaths in Rome, making them feel ‘it must be right’, I’ve a feeling that the very fanaticism of Communism is like a torch on a dark journey for a lot of people. Sometimes I feel as if life baffles me. I sit and think and think, trying to fit things together, feeling I look through a kaleidoscope that changes before I’ve seen the last pattern and making little sense or cohesion at that. Ordinary people can do so little.

  During the next dozen weeks Nella wrote of various matters. Scarcity continued to be a nagging worry; manufactured goods were more and more costly; housekeeping money was ‘ever shrinking’; renovations dominated several days at 9 Ilkley Road; it rained a lot and was sometimes very cold; and there was at least one power cut. ‘People do seem gloomy and depressed,’ she wrote on 8 December, ‘and I’ve noticed those who rely on pictures or whist drives for their pleasure get far more so than anyone who sews or reads.’ There was some winding down of WVS business, and on 5 November Nella and other WVS members from Barrow went to Preston to hear its Chairman, Lady Reading, speak. On Saturday, 29 November she made a rare reference to football. ‘Barrow won, so all those thousands of Carlisle supporters – 2,000 alone came in coaches from the surrounding district of Carlisle, and then there was the long line of cars and the trains – had their long journey to see their side win in vain, and they drop out of the Cup final.’

  Babies were much mentioned. Aunt Eliza was to have another great grandchild in the spring; two new neighbours, both reckoned to be in their thirties, were expecting; and Edith announced that she was again pregnant. (She had had one miscarriage.) Nella was a great admirer of babies. She saw a lot of Norah’s baby girl, born in mid-November, although it was Norah’s younger sister, Margaret, not yet married, whom she was particularly drawn to. On 22 August, before her baby’s birth, Norah had apparently suggested that Nella might help her with some sewing – but she was reluctant to oblige. Norah then ‘said “If it had been our Margaret, Mrs L
ast would have sewn from morning till night” and got the reply from her mother “Oh, if it had been Margaret, Mrs Last would have had the baby for her”.’ Occasionally Nella thought back to her own babies, although she rarely spoke of the one who did not survive: ‘I buried my first baby on a Boxing Day’, she recalled on 7 December (and said no more).

  Friday, 9 January 1948. Jessie Holme* came in for the afternoon, and Mrs Atkinson came in, so distressed. Her sister-in-law who went back to Canada sent parcels and a whole ham to be divided between Mrs Atkinson and another sister. It looks really perfect but is salt as brine and curiously tasteless. Even Norah and Dick hadn’t eaten two thick slices Norah cooked, and when I tasted a wee piece I couldn’t wonder. I could only suggest she boiled the whole piece after soaking well, with vegetables to add flavour. She had looked forward to it coming so much. It could have been such a grand ‘standby’. Jessie was so delighted with a dressing gown we partly dodged up some time ago and finally fixed this afternoon – a few hours sewing will finish it. She had a very good but shabby raglan camel hair coat. The cuffs and collar were worn, and she had only worn it about the garden when she lived in the country. Her sister had a nice wine coloured one, with an ‘overcheck’ in fawn, equally good but old fashioned and worn. Between the two, after we had had them cleaned at cut price, we’ve made a dressing gown both smart and better than money could buy nowadays. It’s got a deep border, wide deep cuffs, and roll collar of the check material as well as the big patch pockets Jessie wanted and made from the fawn front facing which we discarded, with a band of check material. She didn’t want a belt, so I fitted it slightly with darts.

  She is tall and stately. I said admiringly ‘Jessie, you look as if you had stepped straight out of Vogue’, and she was delighted as she prinked and preened. Suddenly I realised why I had liked her as soon as I saw her. She is ‘my kind of folks’, perhaps because of her country origin, for she has always lived in Broughton, a very small market town just up the coast from Barrow. I gave her a piece of Xmas cake with her cup of tea. I wished suddenly Edith was as friendly and showed signs of liking me. I couldn’t imagine Jessie showing resentment or jealousy in any way. Her husband’s mother is coming to be in the house, and she has a good ‘visiting’ nurse, and Mrs Atkinson and I will see to anything she needs till her mother-in-law gets here from Whitehaven. I opened a small tin of salmon for tea. Jessie had to go to make her husband’s tea for 5 o’clock, and I gave her a tin of cheese and macaroni out of a parcel from Australia. She has an appetite like Norah and a good digestion. My goodness but I hope baby Holme is a boy. It’s not that she ‘hopes it will be a boy’. To hear her talk, there’s only one sex! I recalled my own calm assurance – I wanted boys myself – so hope she too has boys. She wants two or three children.

  Tuesday, 13 January. Jessie Holme came in. She feels restless and unsettled, now her time is near. She looks very drawn and ill. I looked at her in pity today – 34 is not the time to be having a first baby. Apart from the physical side, babies and young children need the patience, or rather the joyousness, of youth, to rear them. Jessie would be sedate, though sweet, at any age. Young wives of today have a lot against them, if even they are born home makers. Jessie has some good bits of furniture from home, but her house has such a cheerless look, so few rugs or carpets, and poor skimpy curtains. The polished lino looks so cold and bare. I thought of the houses that are going up now with concrete floors. Some very nice maisonette type of flats are going up nearby, on the main road. I look at them every time I pass – concrete floors and stairs, and all woodwork eliminated that is possible. I thought of stepping out of the bath, or warm bed, for I cannot see any floor covering making concrete ‘warm’. We sat and talked of babies, and little children and their odd sayings. It was a pleasant afternoon, and after a cup of tea, Jessie went at 4.30. Her husband has such odd hours for work.

  In 1948 Jessie was to figure prominently in Nella’s diary. Her baby – a girl – was born on 21 January. ‘Even allowing for Jessie’s exhaustion, she was indifferent to it. I asked if she had thought of a name and she shook her head and said “We never thought of a girl coming”’ (22 January). The next day Nella visited her again. ‘I felt concern for her listless, languid look, all vitality and humour drained out of her smiling face. The baby is thriving but she doesn’t take much notice of it.’ Jessie continued to be uncommunicative, and talk persisted of her and her husband’s longing for a boy (24 January). On the 26th things were looking up. Nella was ‘really delighted to see the change’ in Jessie. ‘She looked her old self, and quite happy with wee Katherine Ann, as they have decided to call baby, and she seemed to have got over her deep disappointment.’ On the 29th all seemed well. ‘To hear Jessie talk now, she got her dearest wish when she had a baby girl! She is such a sweet person. I knew she would come round and love it.’ Jessie was often mentioned in the following weeks, for Nella was regularly doing shopping for her, and sometimes caring as well for ‘wee Kathleen’, as the baby was finally named. Jessie’s baby tended to be sickly, unlike Norah Atkinson Redhead’s robust baby Ann, who made frequent appearances in the Last household.

  On numerous occasions in late February and March, Nella remarked on Jessie Holme’s fragile health, which was a big concern for her husband, George, whom Nella thought very well of – he was said to be attentive and considerate. George ‘is so worried’, Nella wrote on 1 April, ‘when Dr Miller says she is so bloodless, and needs meat, liver, and kidneys. When doctors know well it’s impossible for them to give permits for extra, they should be careful about giving orders. Poor George said “I wish I knew where I could buy some” – and he is a railway detective!’

  Monday, 5 April. I called at Jessie’s but she was not back. George left word with Mrs Atkinson she was coming back this evening. She had been so ill on Sunday they had to bring in a Broughton doctor, the one she always had before coming to Barrow. It was a kind of fainting attack and George was badly frightened. The doctor confirmed Dr Miller’s diagnosis but prescribed some kind of liver tablets as well, and said she was in very poor health and must relax and rest, feed up, and have all the fresh air possible. George looks worried to death. I feel they are realising the difficulty of a big rent out of his wage. He is only a plain clothes railway policeman. I don’t think he gets a big wage, and I can tell all extras for the baby and its arrival have been taken from savings.

  Tuesday, 6 April. A cold wet morning. I didn’t feel like going downtown for 10 o’clock, to meet Mrs Higham at Boots, to buy a few prizes for Thursday, and had to hurry and knead bread and tea cakes and leave them to rise. I’d packed Aunt Sarah’s little fortnightly parcel of odds and ends, and when I missed the bus decided to walk. I wished I hadn’t. Halfway down Abbey Road I heard such a dreadful cry not far away and on reaching a corner saw a man lying in a big pool of blood, and two workmates kneeling by him. I asked a man if they had phoned for the ambulance and he said someone was doing so. Nothing could be done by us standing staring – we walked down the road together. I felt sorry for this man. He had actually seen the poor fellow fall off a 50 foot roof. In tonight’s Mail it said he died two hours after admission to Hospital …

  This Easter [the end of March] I felt my mind go back so plainly to Easter spent at Spark Bridge. Oddly enough, Arthur spoke of the same memories, and on Easter Sunday Cliff wrote ‘Do you remember when we all used to stay at Spark?’ and walk down the field to church on Easter Day. Often a feeling of awe creeps over me, to hear little things I’ve said or done so long ago recalled by my grown men. It’s rather a terrifying thought to realise how a child’s mind can be influenced, but perfectly true. In my child-life, my mother seems a rather vague lonely shadow, my father very remote, till I was old enough to realise he was an unhappy man who had a magic key he was anxious to lend me, into a land of books. Odd vagrant thoughts of life and people. But Gran – my prim lipped Quaker Gran – at 58 I find my life shaped by her maxims, her faith, and never failing kindness, and a goodness that was par
t of her very fibre. If Gran said a thing, you could steer by it. If she said a thing was ‘not done’, it lost any charm it promised. When you are young you don’t realise this ‘power’ or else it would have more importance. I always try to impress young mothers with the power of love, the importance of seeing the good behind the naughty, and most of all, letting a child see good in a mother, never telling them untruths or breaking a promise …

  It was my day for shocks. I heard the committee talking amongst themselves about Mr Jefferson, who went back to India last November – he is dead. He has left over £12,000 and has no near relatives. Speculation was rife as to whom it would be left, and hopes he had remembered the Club. It’s a good thing he won’t be unhappy any more. He was of so friendly and kindly disposition and when he was in England so lost and alone.