A Christmas Wish for the Land Girls
Page 35
‘Give that man a medal.’
‘I know. What would we have done without him? Anyway, how was Hettie’s funeral?’
‘Big. The church was full – people came from as far away as Northgate to pay their respects. Les saw to it that there were yellow roses on her coffin.’ Brenda had sat with the family in the front pew, sharing her order of service with Arnold, helping him to stand for the hymns, holding his trembling hand as Donald delivered the eulogy. Full-throated organ music had risen to the rafters as the mourners had followed the coffin into the churchyard. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
‘And afterwards?’
‘Tea and sandwiches at Dale End. Old school friends swapped stories about Hettie being the bossiest class monitor in the history of the school, neighbours remembered how she was the backbone of Attercliffe WI, organizing village galas and so on. It ended up quite cheerful.’
‘I meant you and Les. How were you?’
Brenda paused then gave Joyce a quiet smile that said it all.
‘And now we have to keep our fingers crossed.’ That Les would rejoin his ship and stay safe, that Joyce’s own Edgar would soar over enemy territory and return unscathed – day after day, night after night until the fight against Herr Hitler was won.
Joyce and Brenda savoured the quiet moment. ‘It makes you think,’ Joyce continued after a while. ‘There we all were in the Cross Keys, not too long ago, making our Christmas wishes.’
‘Ah, yes.’ The memory brought a smile to Brenda’s face. ‘Dorothy hankered after going to see Aladdin.’
‘And Evelyn was all for equal pay with men, and quite right too.’ So much water had flowed under the bridge since then, Joyce realized.
‘But you were the one who hit the nail on the head.’ Brenda leaned forward to place her hand over Joyce’s. ‘You wished for all our loved ones to stay safe … and so far, so good!’
‘Yes, thank heavens.’ It was the only wish that truly mattered. ‘Let’s hope it’ll all be over by this time next year.’ By Christmas 1943 – surely, surely …
The door opened and Grace and Una came in. In the middle stage of her pregnancy Grace lived up to her name. In a flowing dark blue dress with white collar and cuffs, with her fair hair pinned back, she glided serenely towards Joyce and Brenda’s table while Una bent to remove her bicycle clips then straighten her blouse.
‘Guess who else has just got here,’ Grace announced as she sat down next to Joyce.
‘Let’s see now – Father Christmas?’ Brenda suggested.
‘Wrong.’ Una joined them, the wind still in her hair and roses in her cheeks after her ride from Fieldhead. ‘Guess again.’
‘We don’t know – we give in.’
The door opened a second time and Alma came in ahead of Evelyn. Under scrutiny from the farmers gathered at the bar, she strode towards their group, head up and with a confident swing of her hips. Evelyn followed more quietly but still attracting attention in her tailored grey jacket and a green dress.
‘Don’t look so surprised,’ Alma told Joyce and Brenda as she dangled a car key in front of them.
‘You drove all this way?’ Joyce opened her eyes wide.
‘Only from New Hall, with a little help and advice from me,’ Evelyn confirmed. ‘After she and Laurence dropped by and she made me come with her. She said it would do me good. It turns out Alma can be quite the bossyboots when she wants to be.’
Chairs were drawn up and Grace went behind the bar to pour glasses of sherry all round – an inch of tawny liquid in six small crystal glasses.
‘To celebrate Christmas,’ she told them when she returned with the drinks.
Evelyn took her glass and raised it. ‘Here’s to a better year ahead of us,’ she said quietly then added, ‘By the way, I thought you’d like to know – Walter Rigg has finally been knocked off his perch.’
Brenda and Joyce gasped. They shot back questions at Evelyn – who, when, why?
‘The bishop’s office issued an order with immediate effect – no more evacuees, no more Reverend Rigg, thank you very much. The vicarage is locked up and Charles Nicholls from St Margaret’s will stand in for tomorrow’s Christmas services.’
‘Praise be!’ Brenda and Joyce both raised their glasses.
‘What else is new?’ Joyce glanced around the table until her eyes rested on Una.
‘Angelo sent me this.’ She drew a card from her pocket with a robin redbreast in the centre, surrounded by a filigree pattern of cut paper. The signature inside was surrounded by red hearts. ‘Drawn with his own fair hand,’ she said softly as she handed it round to murmurs of approval.
‘Grace?’ Joyce prompted.
‘A long letter from Bill with this lock of his hair.’ She opened the locket dangling from a chain around her neck. Inside was a curl of jet black hair.
Brenda squeezed her hand. ‘Will the baby take after him, I wonder?’ She thought of Les heading for his narrow bunk bed, under new orders to set sail on steel-grey waters on board a cargo ship loaded with supplies for forces in the Med – ammunition, bombs, torpedoes and fuel. Then she set her mind back on the here and now. ‘Which would you prefer – boy or girl?’
Grace blushed at the attention. ‘I don’t mind. Either. Maybe one of each.’
There was another gasp and a chorus of ‘Never!’, ‘Good heavens!’ and a ‘Blimey!’, that last from Brenda.
‘Is it really twins?’ Joyce asked.
The secret was out. ‘We think it might be. We hope so.’
Light from the fire reflected in the cut-glass surfaces as Alma and Evelyn raised their glasses for a toast.
Brenda stood up and the others followed. ‘We wish you and Bill all the best!’
Glasses chinked. The sherry was sweet on the tongue, hot on the back of the throat.
‘And Happy Christmas, everyone.’ Joyce spoke quietly as she smiled at Alma and then at Evelyn. The circle of women drank again. A new year beckoned – new jobs, firm friendships, babies to be born and perhaps wedding invitations to be sent – grief for some and joy for others.
‘Happy Christmas,’ Alma whispered to Joyce who leaned in towards Evelyn and repeated the message.
‘Thank you,’ Evelyn replied. She drank again. Look to the future, deal with the past.
Soon the days would lengthen. Meanwhile, there were warm fires and friendship to light their way.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My mother, Barbara Holmes, joined the Women’s Land Army in 1943, aged 19.
I have two black-and-white photographs of her in uniform that were taken in the back garden of her family home in Beckwithshaw village just outside Harrogate, North Yorkshire. In one she stands bareheaded in shirt and tie, knitted sweater, corduroy breeches, long socks and brogues. The other shows her in a short, belted coat and felt hat, complete with Land Army badge. They capture her in characteristic stance – her head tilting shyly forward, but smiling proudly.
Like Grace in the novel, she continued to live at home to help her father run the village pub, with her two older sisters Connie and Sybil, and twins Joan and Myra. Brother Walter was in the RAF and Ernest had joined the army.
Practical by nature and upbringing, she took to Land Army tasks with determination and gusto, working alongside old school friends for neighbouring farmers whom she’d known all her life; namely, the landowning Williams family who held an almost feudal status in the village (they owned the Smith’s Arms and most of the houses, built the church, vicarage and village institute) and the Wintersgills’ hen farm that was close to the now famous RHS Harlow Carr.
Barbara Holmes in her Women’s Land Army uniform.
There was a certain glamour attached to being a Land Girl – at least to the image of it if not the reality, which meant ploughing, tractor driving, digging, weeding, trimming and labouring in all weathers. After working all day in the fields, Mum would cycle home to join her sisters behind the bar in the Smith’s Arms. It was here that she met my father, Jim Lyne, home on
leave from the Royal Navy in 1944. The story goes that Connie looked out to see him and his pals crossing the yard. ‘Watch out, here comes the Navy!’ she warned. Well, the Navy arrived in Mum’s life and never left. There was a whirlwind courtship and an engagement soon after; a ruby and emerald ring and long separations while Dad served in the Mediterranean, only returning home on leave on rare occasions.
Meanwhile, disaster! Mum’s precious ring was lost while working in the hen huts. She and her Land Girl pals were down on their knees in a frantic search through beds of straw. Triumph; the ring was found and safely restored to Mum’s finger in time for Dad’s next shore leave.
Like many women of the time, once the war ended, Mum settled into the more traditional roles of housewife and mother. She rarely looked back to her wartime service, except perhaps to mention that the uniform was hard wearing and well made, especially the coat, or that the life was hard but worthwhile. She never boasted about her contribution to the war effort or softened her experience with fond nostalgia. That was not her style.
But I found among her possessions after her death in 2008 a plain, somewhat scuffed cardboard box. I opened this little treasure carefully and folded back the tissue paper to reveal a small green and red enamelled badge, embellished with a wheat sheaf and a royal crown with three words that sang out Mum’s unspoken pride. The badge read ‘Women’s Land Army’.
If you loved A Christmas Wish for the Land Girls don’t miss …
The Telephone Girls
1936. George Street, West Yorkshire, houses a gleaming, brand-new telephone exchange where a group of capable girls works the complicated electrical switchboards. Among them are Cynthia, Norma and Millicent, who relish the busy, efficient atmosphere and the independence and friendship their jobs have given them.
But when Millicent connects a telephone call for an old friend, and listens in to the conversation – breaking one of the telephonists’ main rules – she, and then Norma and Cynthia too, become caught up in a story of scandal, corruption and murder.
Soon, the jobs of all three girls are on the line.
Norma’s romance is in ruins.
And Millicent has entered a world of vice …
In tough times, the telephone girls will need to call on their friends more than ever.
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Find out more about the Land Girls in …
Wedding Bells for Land Girls
Summer, 1942.
Britain is in the depths of war and the Women’s Land Army is hard at work looking after the farms while the men are away fighting. While patriotism, duty and a wonderful spirit of camaraderie sustain the Land Girls through tough times, it’s no surprise that love is also often on their minds.
For Yorkshire Land Girls and firm friends Grace, Brenda and Una, romance in wartime comes with a host of challenges. There’s a wedding to plan, but married bliss is threatened when the time comes for the groom to enlist. With lovers parted, anxious women have no idea whether they’ll see their men again. And while single girls dance and flirt, will they be able to find true love among the men who’ve stayed behind?
With the uncertainty of the times hanging over them and danger ever closer to home – can love stand the test of war?
Available now …
About the Author
Jenny Holmes has been writing fiction since her early twenties, having had series of children’s books adapted for both the BBC and ITV.
Jenny was born and brought up in Yorkshire. After living in the Midlands and travelling widely in America, she returned to Yorkshire and brought up her two daughters with a spectacular view of the moors and a sense of belonging to the special, still undiscovered corners of the Yorkshire Dales.
One of three children brought up in Harrogate, Jenny’s links with Yorkshire stretch back through many generations, via a mother who served in the Land Army during the Second World War and pharmacist and shop-worker aunts, to a maternal grandfather who worked as a village blacksmith and pub landlord. Her great-aunts worked in Edwardian times as seamstresses, milliners and upholsterers. All told stories of life lived with little material wealth but with great spirit and independence, where a sense of community and family loyalty were fierce – sometimes uncomfortable but never to be ignored. Theirs are the voices that echo down the years, and the author’s hope is that their strength is brought back to life in many of the characters represented in these pages.
www.penguin.co.uk
Also by Jenny Holmes
The Mill Girls of Albion Lane
The Shop Girls of Chapel Street
The Midwives of Raglan Road
The Telephone Girls
The Land Girls at Christmas
Wedding Bells For Land Girls
and published by Corgi
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Corgi Books
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright ©Jenny Holmes 2018
Cover photograph: women © Colin Thomas; background © Getty
Cover design by Richard Ogle/TW
Jenny Holmes has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473560413
ISBN 9780552175814
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