The Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  ‘You’re even more beautiful than I remember,’ Bill said as he kissed each of her delicate eyebrows then traced her cheek with kisses.

  ‘And you’re even taller, broader and bonnier,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not army grub!’ he joked. ‘Just a soldier’s life,’ he added dismissively.

  ‘Fighting for six years,’ she said as she carefully avoided adding, ‘Killing and bombing, frightened, hungry, tired and lonely.’

  ‘There’s more fighting to come,’ he said solemnly.

  Emily closed her eyes as she leaned her head against his shoulder. She’d just got him back, only for him to be taken away again.

  ‘Our regiment will be going to the Far East.’

  Emily gazed up at him, her blue eyes wide and blazing with passion.

  ‘I’ll wait, darling. If it’s twenty years, I’ll wait,’ she vowed. ‘I’ve paid for what I did a thousand times over. I was young, stupid – bloody vain! I’ll never stray again, never! I thought I’d lost you, Bill,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll never let you go again.’

  ‘You lost me for a bit, Em,’ he admitted. ‘I was hurt and humiliated. I could’ve strangled the fella with mi bare hands!’

  ‘Me and you both,’ she said as she kissed him over and over again.

  ‘Hell, Em, if there’s one thing this war’s taught me it’s that life’s precious. Love’s what counts, not killing and maiming. When the war’s over, what years I have left I want with you … Whether life’s long or short I want you, Emily Yates, by my side for ever.’

  CHAPTER 37

  8 May, VE Day 1945

  One minute after midnight on Tuesday 8 May 1945, Victory in Europe was officially confirmed. Everybody knew the day was coming – Hitler was dead, Mussolini hanged and the Allies were in Berlin – but for all of that, the day they’d longed for and dreamed of started with a slow burn. Nobody could quite believe the news; there was simultaneously weeping and laughter combined with confusion, which Elsie summed up beautifully.

  ‘What’re we going to do now?’

  ‘Six years …’ Lillian sighed. ‘Six long, long years of poverty, hard work, heartache and rationing.’

  ‘And that dreaded knock on the door,’ said Agnes knowingly.

  Emily gazed around; she simply couldn’t imagine not living with Agnes and Lillian, little Elsie too, who seemed to spend half her life running up the hill from town, pushing her Silver Cross pram overflowing with Jonty and Esther.

  What would they do? Return to the same place, mentally and physically, where they’d been before the war started? Impossible! Millions of women had been part of Churchill’s Secret Army, the special agents working underground; they couldn’t just resume a life of drab domesticity, washing and cleaning, shopping and cooking. Here were women who’d made bombs, day in and day out; they’d been a vital part of the drive to destroy Hitler and prevent an invasion of their precious land. These women, Emily thought passionately, were a powerhouse not to be dismissed. Collectively they were an industrious, driven army who, out of necessity, had survived without their men. They’d made decisions on their own, forged new lives on their own, and how could that be reversed? Surely this war had turned the world upside down; surely the established customs and traditions of a pre-war society would be changed for ever.

  Lillian interrupted Emily’s deep thoughts.

  ‘One thing’s for certain,’ she said. ‘We can’t stay in the Phoenix making bombs that nobody wants.’

  ‘They’re still needed in the Far East,’ Agnes sharply reminded her.

  Along with hundreds of other workers the Bomb Girls converged in the pouring rain on the town centre, where people were flooding out of their homes in the need to share the moment they’d been waiting for with the entire community. They stood in silence in the rain listening to the King’s speech relayed through loudspeakers hastily strung up around the town hall.

  ‘His stammer’s so bad it’s difficult to catch the poor man’s drift,’ Elsie said as she strained to hear him.

  ‘He’s saying the enemy’s been overcome,’ Agnes told her.

  ‘Sshshh!’ hissed several people around her.

  ‘And now he’s saying we’ve got to deal with the Japanese,’ Agnes whispered to Elsie.

  Lillian groaned as she rolled her eyes to the rain-sodden heavens.

  ‘Just my bloody luck! Gary will be on his way over there when all the other fellas are on their way over here!’

  A big woman in front turned to glare at the girls.

  ‘I want to hear the King not you daft beggers – put a sock in it.’

  The girls smiled at each other but did as they were told. When the King concluded his speech the crowd applauded and burst into a rousing chorus of ‘God Save the King’, then as the sun broke through the mood of cautious incredulity changed to jubilation. ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ jangled out over the loudspeakers and the crowd quite spontaneously started dancing and singing. Children, who were let out of school for the day in celebration of peace in Europe, ran wild, the pubs stayed open and trestle tables were dragged out of church halls in readiness for a celebratory feast.

  ‘I don’t know what we’ll be eating,’ a woman cried. ‘But we’re sure to find summut!’

  ‘Summut’s not good enough on a day like this,’ Emily replied.

  The woman smiled at Emily.

  ‘Then off you go, lovie, and come back like Jesus with enough food to feed five thousand!’

  Emily persuaded the Phoenix cooks to lend her several portable gas rings and some great metal vats. Malc drove it all down to the town hall square where workmen connected the gas rings up to the mains. The vats were safely secured on trestle tables, then Emily asked everybody in the square to go home and return with their portion of fat rationing. As the vats filled up, Emily ignited the gas rings and the delicious smell of hot fat filled the air. Malc drove all round town picking up potatoes from anybody who had them. Emily and her workers peeled and chopped them, then the victory supper got underway. Bags of chips and bottles of beer hidden long ago under the counter were circulated all night long. Added to this, people brought out what they had stored away in their homes: corned beef, tins of fruit, pickles, meat pies, pasties and sausages.

  ‘When we’ve finished all this cooking,’ Lillian cried, ‘I’d like half a bottle of gin then I’m going to dance my socks off!’

  Hot, sweaty, but radiantly happy, Emily cooked until there was nothing left to cook.

  Esther, who’d been pushing a chuckling Jonty in his pram around the square, approached Emily and saw she was starting to tidy away her improvised kitchen.

  Knowing Emily’s genius for inventive cookery, Esther said in a sweet, persuasive voice, ‘No pudding, Em?’

  Emily cocked her head as she thought.

  ‘Fancy a pancake?’

  ‘Yes, please!’ cried Esther.

  An hour later, after serving up dozens of pancakes spread with home-made jam, Emily called it a day. Drinking thirstily from a bottle of beer bought for her by Malc, she smiled with contentment.

  ‘Thanks for everything, Malc,’ she said. ‘And I do mean everything,’ she added pointedly.

  Malc took a long pull on his bottle of beer before he replied.

  ‘You lasses have led me a right bloody dance and there’s no doubting we’ve had our up and downs,’ he said nodding in the direction of Lillian, who by now was halfway up the flagpole. ‘But you’ve worked hard and more than pulled your weight.’ He raised his bottle in a salute to Emily and her friends. ‘I shall always remember you Bomb Girls with respect and affection,’ he said with a choke in his voice, then he added with a wink, ‘Even if you were a set of little buggers at times!’

  Emily’s happy smile widened as she looked at the partying crowd dancing around the square. This was her community, which she loved with all her heart. All she needed was Bill home for good and her happiness would be complete.

  Churchill’s rousing speech brought th
e street-party revels to a temporary halt. When he congratulated the nation on how valiantly they had fought and how much they had endured there was hardly a dry eye in the crowd, as the Prime Minister’s booming voice faded away, the crowd broke into spontaneous song.

  ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow,

  He’s a jolly good fellow,

  For he’s a jolly good fellow

  And so say all of us!’

  And then the party started in earnest. Children dressed in red, white and blue paper ran wild in the streets waving Union Jack flags. Fireworks were set off and then, to everybody’s astonishment, a beacon of fire fluttered into life high up on Pendle Hill. As it flared, another beacon further along the Pennines lit up, then another and another until the whole of the Pennine ridge was one long line of flaming beacons. For the first time in six years the night sky was lit up.

  ‘No more blackouts!’ the children cried as they danced up and down in disbelief. ‘No more gas masks!’

  Emily wiped tears away as a beacon flared on Witch Crag.

  ‘Alice,’ she said out loud. ‘My sweet Al.’

  They’d won the war but at what a cost. Millions dead, their lives snuffed out, taken too early. She and Alice should have grown into young mothers together, brought up their children together, shared childcare and birthdays; they should have grown old together and been buried in the same churchyard at the end of a long and happy life. But her lovely, delicate, beautiful friend was less than nothing now, her ashes blown by a stray breeze across some unknown part of Germany.

  How could she keep Alice alive? How could she not forget?

  A rush of emotion surged through her at these thoughts. There might be no body, no hand to hold, no smile to see, no words to speak, but there was love. All that finally remained was love.

  ‘Just like the beacons burning on the moors I’ll keep my love alive for you, Alice,’ Emily promised. ‘I’ll never forget.’

  CHAPTER 38

  We’ll Meet Again …

  A few months later, just before Victory in Japan was declared, the Phoenix reopened as a cotton mill and the digs where Emily, Lillian, Elsie, Alice, Agnes and Daphne had lived for four years would soon revert to being a cowshed.

  A terrible war was still raging in the Far East and the Lancashire Fusiliers were sent there, including Tommy, but not before he and Elsie had a wonderful few days’ leave and Elsie fell for another baby.

  ‘Honest to God, you two are like rabbits!’ Lillian teased poor Elsie, who blushed to the roots of her hair.

  Gary didn’t come home – well, not to Pendle. He and his squadron were flown home to the States where Lillian, after the long years of waiting for her love, was shortly to join him.

  Which is why the girls gathered one breezy day in their old digs. After collecting kindling from the moors they lit the old wood-burning stove just for old times’ sake and prepared a farewell meal for each other. The food laid out on the table reflected their different tastes and their very different lives. Daphne had brought her favourite: foie gras and Bolly; Emily turned up with hot meat pies; Elsie had discovered black puddings in Bury market, and she could not get enough of them; Lillian settled for gin and chocolates, whilst Agnes arrived with lamb chops.

  ‘Courtesy of Stan’s sheep farmer,’ she said.

  As they cooked together and drank tea, champagne or gin, they discussed their futures.

  ‘Well, we all know what you’re doing, Lillian,’ laughed Agnes as she turned the chops in the frying pan.

  ‘At last I’m going to Ohio!’ Lillian exclaimed as she boogied around the room. ‘I’m going to get my hands on Gorgeous Gary and drag him into bed for a week. I don’t care if I fall pregnant right away,’ she added in a softer voice. ‘I want that baby I never had.’

  ‘Will we ever see you again, Lil?’ Elsie asked sadly.

  ‘Of course!’ Lillian replied robustly. ‘We’re sisters and we stick together.’

  ‘Cheers to that, darling,’ said Daphne as she raised her glass of champagne. ‘Though Ohio wouldn’t suit me. Isn’t it full of wagon trains and gun-punching cowboys?’ she teased.

  ‘You’ve seen too many westerns,’ Lillian retorted.

  ‘What about you, Daf?’ Emily asked.

  Daphne inserted a cigarette into her cigarette holder before replying.

  ‘I’m getting a divorce.’

  There was a collective gasp of disbelief.

  ‘Why?’ cried Elsie, who was shocked rigid. ‘You’ve only been married a few years!’

  Daphne blew out a ring of smoke.

  ‘Rodders is a crashing bore!’ she declared.

  ‘I’d second that!’ giggled Emily.

  ‘I was hoping he’d be posted to Burma – somewhere I wouldn’t have to see him – but, just my luck, he’s got an office job in Whitehall, which means he’s home most nights and I can’t go out with my new lover.’

  ‘You’re not generally supposed to have lovers if you’re married,’ Agnes pointed out.

  ‘Well, I’m not the marrying kind, I’ve decided,’ said Daphne totally unconcerned. ‘I like men and I like fun and Rodders is certainly neither of those!’ she concluded.

  ‘One thing’s for sure – I’m going nowhere,’ said Elsie predictably. ‘When Tommy comes home, and pray to God he does,’ she added as she crossed herself, ‘we’re going to save up and buy a little two-up, two-down near Tommy’s mum.’

  Lillian burst out laughing.

  ‘You’re joking!’ she cried. ‘Two-up, two-down? You’ll need a six-bedroomed house for all your kids, the way you two are going!’

  ‘Come on, let’s eat,’ Emily called before Elsie started hurling cushions at cheeky Lillian.

  As they gathered round the table where they’d sat so many times in the past, Emily wiped away a tear.

  ‘Alice should be sitting here with us.’

  ‘Raise your glasses, ladies,’ said Agnes.

  As they did so, Emily made a toast.

  ‘Blow a kiss to heaven where Alice said she’d be.’

  After kisses were blown and the toast was drunk a sad silence fell.

  ‘She and her like gave us our freedom,’ Elsie said as she recalled the words on Alice’s memorial stone.

  Taking a deep breath, Emily forced a smile.

  ‘Come on now, the last thing Alice would have wanted was sadness on a day like today,’ she said.

  ‘Absolutely right, darling,’ said Daphne. Then, picking up on Emily’s determined spirit, she turned to Agnes.

  ‘What are your plans? Surely you’re not staying on that ghastly sheep farm?’

  Agnes laughed.

  ‘Actually we’re saving up to buy our own sheep farm. We love the life up here and the fresh air does Esther the world of good.’

  ‘So you’ll be a farmer’s wife? Collecting eggs and baking scones on an old Aga!’ Daphne teased gently.

  ‘I’m planning to do more than bake scones, Daphne,’ Agnes replied with an excited smile. ‘I want to be Stan’s partner and work alongside him rearing sheep.’

  ‘Darling, rather you than me!’ exclaimed incorrigible Daphne.

  ‘So that just leaves you, Em,’ said Agnes.

  As all eyes turned on Emily, she smiled radiantly.

  ‘When Bill gets back from the war we’re getting married!’

  Daphne lit up another cigarette.

  ‘Has he bought the ring yet?’ she asked.

  Emily grinned as she took a big gulp of her fizzing champagne.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I asked for a chip shop instead!’

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank Jacky Hyams for Bomb Girls and Russell Miller for Behind The Lines. Both books provided invaluable background material, as did the BBC World War 2 Archives. Thanks to Diane Banks’ Agency, which led me to the wonderful editorial team at Penguin: Clare Bowron, Maxine Hitchcock and Eve Hall. I’m especially grateful to Jon Styles, for his patience and time spent on endless research, to Sebastian
Neave, for his fascinating and detailed knowledge of military history, and to Isabella, my youngest daughter and a writer too, for her constructive criticism on all the drafts I wrote. Thank you, Kate Wheale, for the hot brandy and pep talks, Theresa Plummer-Andrews, for giving me the confidence to take the plunge, my older children, Tamsin and Gabriel, for their excitement and support, and my sister, Kathryn, who shares the same memories as me. And last of all to the real Bomb Girls who helped win the war and give us our freedom.

  Read on for the first chapter of Daisy Styles’s next book

  The Code Girls

  Due out August 2016

  1. Ava

  ‘Friday dinner time,’ thought Ava as she tucked her long, dark hair under her cook’s hat and checked her reflection in the small cracked mirror hanging on the canteen wall. Even smeared with grease the glass revealed the irrepressible sparkle in Ava’s dark blue eyes, she beamed her characteristic wide, open smile, which revealed her small white teeth and a charming dimple in her left cheek. She was taller than most of her girlfriends, long legged and shapely with a full bust, softly curving hips and a willowy twenty-inch waist. Ava was fortunate: her strong frame and athletic build was down to hard work and years of horse riding on the wild Lancashire moors.

  With her voluminous hair neatly tucked under her cotton hat Ava wrote the day’s menu in white chalk on the canteen noticeboard; two years ago Friday’s menu would always have been fish – cod and haddock freshly delivered from Fleetwood market. Ava had quickly learned how to skin and fillet fish, but that was two years ago before the outbreak of war and the start of food rationing. Nowadays it was impossible to buy enough fish to feed a family, never mind two hundred mill workers. As rationing got tougher and tougher Ava had tried variations: parsnip fritters, corn-beef fritters, fake-sausage fritters, and mince (very little) mixed with oatmeal and herbs made a tasty fritter too. But on a Friday the workers, predominantly Catholics, didn’t eat meat as it was a day of abstinence. The best and most popular alternative to fish was Ava’s delicious ‘scallops’, fresh local spuds washed, peeled and thickly sliced, then dipped in a thick creamy yellow batter, made from dried eggs combined with milk and water. Deeply fried in a vat of fat, Ava served the golden brown ‘scallops’ with mushy peas or butter beans and pickled red cabbage. It made her laugh when customers asked for chips as well.