Nell and the Girls

by Jeanne Gask

Apart from the attic and the forlorn garden, there was very little to do and very little space to do it in.

  It was around this time that Nell heard that her mother had died back in January two months before – just after her mother had heard that Nell and the girls were safe. The only means of communication was through Tom. Gramp and Rikkie wrote the sad news to him, and he in turn wrote to Nell. Nell was only allowed a twenty-five-word message once every six months through the kind auspices of the Swiss Red Cross. Tom, on the other hand, was allowed two letters and two postcards to France and one letter and two postcards to England a month. So it fell to Tom to write and tell Nell that her beloved mother’s funeral had been and gone and she had not known anything about it. It was extremely hard for Nell. These turned out to be the hardest times for her and she hardly had time to mourn.

  Settling in, Nell found she was required to sign on at the Kommandantur once a month, and that she was not allowed to travel anywhere without a special permit. Otherwise they were free to lead a normal life.

  After she had got rid of the fleas from the house, her next priority was to find schools for the girls. Marie, aged fourteen-and-a-half, had been a serious, straight-haired, bespectacled child. She was enrolled at the co-ed technical college on a business course and within a short space of time turned into a beautiful teenager, popular with everyone and always full of fun.

  Nell next applied to the College Fenelon for Girls hoping to get both Irene and Jeanne accepted. They had attended the girls’ college in Calais, and it seemed the obvious choice for them.

  Mademoiselle Provino, the headmistress, sat at her desk and considered. In her unrelieved black dress with a white ruff at the throat, a tight chignon and a pince-nez on the end of her nose, she was straight out of a Victorian novel. She had quick, pert movements, and nine-year-old Jeanne, squirming uncomfortably in her chair, likened her to a farmyard bird – a bantam hen, perhaps, or a guinea fowl.

  Mademoiselle Provino and Nell discussed Irene’s education at length. Irene, was thirteen and bore the burden of being the clever one of the family. She was prepared to work and Mademoiselle Provino was pleased; she liked studious ‘gels’.

  She next turned her acid smile towards Jeanne, fixing her with her small bird’s piercing eyes, ready to peck at a choice morsel. ‘And this is Number Three, is it?’

  Jeanne wished she were a thousand miles away. She wasn’t prepared to work. There were far more interesting things to do.

  From that day on Jeanne was referred to as ‘Number Three’ by Mademoiselle Provino, and was to be a constant thorn in the headmistress’s side.

  The Germans always requisitioned the best buildings of a town for their own use. The fine hotel on the main square, the casino, the newest and best cinema; all these had been taken over in Cambrai and the French population had to make do with what was left over. The beautiful, newly-built College Fenelon was now a hospital for sick and wounded German soldiers.

  The college girls were cramped and squashed into an entirely unsuitable building on the other side of the town. It was behind an unimposing facade, through a carriage entrance into a courtyard. This was the college playground. There were no sports fields, no grounds, just a yard for break and lunchtime. It was the same inside the building. The girls were hopelessly overcrowded, the rooms quite inadequate as classrooms.

  Jeanne’s class was taught by an old lady, far too old to be dealing with a pack of mischievous nine-year-olds. The girls teased her mercilessly and made her life a misery. She was given to repeating herself and the girls kept a score of every ‘alors’ and ‘eh bien’ she uttered during the lesson.

  They would chew a piece of paper until it was pulp, draw a paper parachutist, cut it out and attach it with a thread to the papier maché and flick it up to the ceiling with a ruler. There it would dangle for the next month or so, until it dried out, to the great annoyance of Mademoiselle. At times, the high ceiling was studded with a whole army of parachutists, all waiting patiently for their day to come when they would drop on a pupil’s head. When that happened, the whole class erupted and pandemonium ruled.

  In the winter everyone wore their coats in class. At the start of the lesson, the girls argued and jostled and the lucky ones ended up sitting by the inadequate pot-bellied stove at the back of the classroom. It was replenished at regular intervals during the lesson by the teacher.

  When Jeanne had her turn by the stove, she would put her apple on top of it at the start of the lesson. If the teacher hadn’t seen it and told her to remove it, she had a half-cooked apple by break time, warm and delicious.

  At break they were made to queue up for two casein biscuits each, which the government provided as a protein replacement. Protein was lacking in the children’s diet, milk being in such short supply. The pupils got thoroughly sick of them and fed them to the caretaker’s dog, who finished up a fat, matted teddy bear – the best fed dog in occupied France!

  Meanwhile, what of Tom?

  When the British men had left Caserne Negrier, in Lille, they were taken to the infamous Loos prison nearby and put in solitary confinement. Every now and then, sitting in his cell, Tom heard someone being marched out to the courtyard and shot. He suffered torments, wondering when his turn would come.

  ‘They can’t shoot me,’ he reasoned. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, I’m a civilian, a family man.’ But lying sleepless at night, doubts and fears would overcome him, making him question the sanity of his captors, imagining an odd, trigger-happy gunman.

  ‘And Nell and the girls. What’s happened to them? Where, oh where are they? Are they all right?’ Poor Tom, confined to his solitary cell, wondered what their fate would be.

  After a few days, the men were moved to Belgium: first to Liege prison, then on to the impregnable Huy prison fortress. More men joined them, day by day.

  Whenever he was allowed to write a letter, he wrote to Nell in Calais, to the neighbours, to his firm – anyone he could think of, hoping for news by some means or other. He was not to hear from Nell for fourteen weeks.

  Tom never spoke much of his incarceration in Huy afterwards. It was his worst experience. When they left after a few weeks, he barely had the strength to carry his cases across the yard.

  A total of 850 men were put in cattle trucks for an unknown destination and, after an unspeakable journey of three days and nights without food, arrived at Tost, near Gleiwitz on the Polish border (now Toszak in Poland). There, a redundant lunatic asylum, ‘cleansed’ of its occupants by the Nazi system, was opened up and made into an internment camp for 1,300 British civilians. For Tom and his friends from Calais, this period was to be a long saga of deprivation, humiliation and boredom. To quote Tom in one of his letters, ‘Wife, family, house, job, car, all “Gone with the Wind”.’

  Nell too was having a hard time. Being a Britisher in wartime France, her assets were frozen and she wasn’t allowed to withdraw money from her bank account. First she had to apply for charity. She also had to manage on a small French government prisoner-of-war allowance, and a similar one from Courtaulds in Calais. It didn’t amount to much and was precious little when you had to feed three hungry, growing girls. She found it extremely difficult to make ends meet. At times she took in washing and taught English.

  Anything could be had on the black market, of course. It was a topsy-turvy world: the butcher sold coal; the hat shop, eggs; the sweet shop, meat; but all at an inflated price that Nell couldn’t afford. Also there was little or no gas, and electricity was restricted too. Sunday was the only day when there was enough gas to boil up the washing. It was not unusual to be entirely without salt, soap, sugar, potatoes, coal or eggs, all at the same time, and Nell never saw any tinned goods of any kind. Sausages and chips were a distant memory! The monthly coffee issue consisted of a few coffee beans at the top of a large bag, which were scooped up and kept for a special occasion, then a layer of chicory. The rest was roasted grains, barley perhaps. It was awful, but did make a hot drink of sorts. T
he bread was dark brown, soggy, unappetising and better eaten stale, usually without precious butter or margarine. They often spread it with mashed potato or stewed apple. Jam was awful. Nell suspected it was flavoured swede. She always crossed a new loaf of bread with the knife before cutting it; an old superstition that meant they would never go without bread.

  Often the main meal consisted of black-market potatoes with swede one day, carrots the next – boiled of course; there was not a scrap of extra fat to be had.

  Being under thirteen, Jeanne was the only one of them eligible for a milk ration, a quarter of a litre every two days, which Nell used in their ration coffee to make it more palatable. On the other hand, Nell, Marie and Irene had a wine ration, and Jeanne shared it with them.

  ‘Drink it. It’s full of iron,’ Nell would say.

  Jeanne also got a monthly bar of inferior chocolate, which was ceremoniously cut into four sections and distributed among them.

  No food was imported into occupied France. Anything the least bit luxurious such as tomatoes, olive oil and good wine, found its way to Germany. Winter was especially hard: only root vegetables, potatoes, cabbage or apples, the most basic of foods, were available.

  People who were lucky enough to have relatives or friends who lived in the country would strap a basket on their bike and cycle out to collect fresh eggs, butter and even occasionally a chicken. Nell had no such luck. Had she stayed in Calais where she had many friends, she would have been able to take advantage of such connections. But here in Cambrai, she knew no one.

  She tried growing her own vegetables in the back garden, but the soil was poor, and her self-esteem would not allow her to follow the coalman’s horse and cart with a bucket and shovel to pick up the steaming horse droppings, which might have improved it. She kept rabbits in a lean-to at the end of the garden, and made it plain to Jeanne from the outset that these were not pets, but for eating.

  On the appointed day, she and Jeanne selected one of the rabbits. They felt each one in turn and decided which one was most ready for the pot. The chosen one was pulled out of the hutch, struggling and fighting. Nell gave it a ‘karate chop’ on the back of the neck. It fought a little then went limp. The dead rabbit was hung up on the lean-to wall by its back legs. Like all good housewives of the time, Nell knew how to skin a rabbit. She told Jeanne as she worked, ‘It’s easier to skin it while it’s still warm. See, it just comes off like a pair of pyjamas!’ And so it did. Nell pulled and tugged at the pelt and it came away easily, inside out, all in one go. She then cut a slit right down the rabbit’s abdomen, plunged her hand into the cavity, and pulled out the entrails. Jeanne, holding a bowl underneath, watched in fascinated horror as the disgusting, steaming, smelly mess spilled into it. Nell retrieved the heart and liver, saying they were the best bits and, arms bloody to the elbows, tidied up the extremities with a sharp knife, and cut the rabbit’s head off, setting it aside for tomorrow’s soup. The rabbit was ready for the pot.

  She then said, ‘Go and tell Marie I’ve been able to get the skin off all in one go. She wants to stretch it and see if she can back her new mittens with the fur.’ Nothing was ever wasted.

  Marie’s experiment was not a success. Although she did back the mittens, within a week or so, the lovely pale grey fur came away in handfuls and the mittens were ruined.

  Nell was forever chasing food. She spent long hours queueing for meat, vegetables and bread. She would be down at the Boucherie Chevaline at 5.30am, joining the queue for a piece of cheap horsemeat. She couldn’t afford to be fussy: this was wartime. Tom was complaining how few letters he received, always begging for more news. But Nell didn’t want to confide in him just how difficult things were. After all, he was locked up and shouldn’t be worried, and anyway she had very little time to write letters.

  In pre-war days Nell had been, to put it kindly, voluptuous. She had matched Tom’s appetite for the good life and had a lot of weight to lose. However, Marie hadn’t and was getting painfully thin. They tried to make light of it, laughing and quoting their own private joke to each other, ‘Five francs left till the end of the month!’

  Then she had a stroke of luck.

  She and the girls had been kindly received by the only Protestant church in Cambrai and, hearing of their plight, the small congregation offered to pay for Irene and Jeanne’s school dinners. This was wonderful news for Nell. She now knew that two of her girls would get a square meal every school day. She accepted gratefully.

  After some time a letter came from their Calais neighbour, May Youll. Her husband Sandy was in camp with Tom. May was held in a nearby women’s internment camp in northern France. She enclosed a photo of herself, looking fit and well, she said, because of the Red Cross parcels.

  This was news to Nell. It was the first she’d heard of Red Cross parcels. She was sure she too must qualify and it would make all the difference to them.

  After making some enquiries, she wrote to the large internment camp centre at Vittel, claiming her right to Red Cross parcels. The answer came: ‘Parcels are exclusively for internees, people behind barbed wire. Sorry, but you do not qualify.’

  She then approached the German authorities, begging that she and the girls be interned. Even if they were locked up, she reasoned, at least they would get enough to eat. The Germans were just as adamant. ‘Families do not qualify for internment camp. Families stay free, signing on monthly. The children must continue with their schooling.’ So she was back where she started: ‘Five francs left till the end of the month!’

  Some time later, trying every avenue that might be open to her, she heard of a possible loan through neutral Switzerland. She applied and, to her great delight and relief, they were allocated a small monthly sum of money, just enough to help them out.

  From that day on, she and Marie had enough to eat. They ate at a cheap restaurant nearby where there were two systems of payment. You either paid the lower price, in which case ration tickets were handed over for meat, bread and butter, or you paid the higher, black market, price. Nell chose the higher price, saving the precious ration tickets for evenings and weekends when the family was together. The system worked well, though Nell swore that the ‘Rabbit Chasseur’ they enjoyed at the restaurant regularly, was in fact Cat Chasseur!

  1941–1944

  6. Settling in Days

  Jeanne was settling into her new life. It really didn’t look as if they were going to be moved again this time.

  The main square in Cambrai, the Grand Place, was where the imposing town hall stood. Effigies of the town’s heroes, Martin and Martine, stood either side of the clock tower, and every hour a carillon rang out playing their tune. The Kommandantur covered in flags and swastikas stood at one end of the square and the casino at the other.

  Most of her school friends were Catholic, and thought she was strange attending the tiny Protestant church. She enjoyed it so much, especially the singing. She loved singing. The minister, Pere Lacheret, became a surrogate father to the family, always ready with comfort and advice. He had been a missionary in French New Caledonia in the Pacific, and had returned home to France with his wife and four children at the outbreak of war. He was a fine, handsome man with a long black beard and flashing eyes. He stuttered, except when he gave a sermon. Then he never stuttered at all. Jeanne adored him.

  The church was also used by many of the German soldiers who were Lutheran Protestants. They filed out after their Sunday service, having prayed to God for victory. The French and German ministers exchanged courteous greetings then the French congregation filed in, sat down, and prayed to God for victory, so that the Germans might all go home and leave them to live in peace!

  At Christmas time, the Germans put a huge Christmas tree by the altar and decorated it with sparkling cotton. Jeanne thought she had never seen anything so lovely. She sat with her friends and sang carols to her heart’s content.

  After church, if they could afford it, Nell and the girls picked up a cake or tart from the pat
isserie, then walked on to the one remaining cinema not requisitioned by the Germans to book for the evening’s performance. They saw every film that was ever shown at the little picture house; it was the week’s treat and they never missed it. This was long before the days of television and the internet. It was their only entertainment.

  Before the main film, they were treated to German newsreels showing how well their boys were doing on the Russian or North African fronts. They saw RAF planes shot down by the valiant airmen of the Luftwaffe, young fresh-faced Germans coping admirably in all adversity. Nell had to be almost held down in her seat, she would get so angry. Footage of Hitler and Mussolini meeting somewhere or other was also shown; the same pompous march by Sibelius was always played at such times.

  Then came the main film, the one they had come to see. They saw dubbed German films: costume extravaganzas about the Strauss family ad nauseam; German-made musicals with stars such as Zara Leander; and tear-jerkers – stories of German soldiers leaving for the front and sweethearts waiting for their return. They also saw low budget French films made on a shoestring where beautiful ladies sang to incredibly handsome men in fantasy lands where there were no wars and the sun always shone. They even saw a colour film from Czechoslovakia. Very garish, but a novelty nevertheless. It was all such a treat.

  Jeanne lapped it all up. For her, this was real life and where she wanted to be. She truly wished that she could step right through the screen and be part of that other world. She had made up her mind: she was going to be a film star.

  On Saturdays, she met her friends at the market on the main square. She never had any money to spend but liked to play the What-would-I-buy-if-I-had-ten-francs? game, going from stall to stall, taking her time and choosing carefully. She particularly liked books about film stars: their private lives, their loves, their homes. Yes, that is what she would buy if she had ten francs, a film star book full of colour photos. A book about Charles Trenet, or Danielle Darrieux, or Fernandel perhaps? She liked Fernandel; he was funny.