Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  6 June

  Today I got my revenge on George. I know it is petty to want revenge, but all the same I relished it. George could not find his cricket bat. Well, of course he couldn’t because I had hidden it. It was almost time for the match and he was frantic. Have you seen my bat, he asked, and I said dear me, no, have you mislaid it, what a pity, you are late already. I then said I would help him search for it, and called for the twins to help too, and we rummaged through the house making a fearful mess. George was almost in tears before I said I knew where it was and that I would only produce it if he apologised for setting the twins to tie my plaits to the chair. He said sorry, and I gave him the bat, which I had hidden in the laundry-room, and he immediately slapped me and said he was not sorry at all, so I snatched back his beastly bat and threw it out of the window. It landed in the water butt and George vows it is ruined. Mother came to see what the commotion was and said we should both be ashamed. I am ashamed, but only slightly. George isn’t, I’m sure.

  6 August

  Father says he cannot come on holiday with us this year, the business will not allow it. They are already short-staffed because of men going to the war and he is training replacements. George cannot come either. There was a fearful row last night because George wants to volunteer. At least, he does not really want to, in my opinion, but most of his pals are in uniform and he feels embarrassed not to be. I am sure that is it. Father told him not to be a fool. He asked him, Have you no imagination do you not know what war is? I do not think George does have any imagination whereas I have plenty and I know what Father is talking about. I have read his newspaper, about the trenches and the poison gas and the Germans mowing everyone down and I can see it all in my head. Edna’s brother was wounded at a place called Ypres and he told her what it was like and she told me. He has lost his sight in one eye and Edna says he screams at night. I thought I should tell George this but he would not listen.

  7 August

  Father is furious because now Matilda says she does not want to go on holiday, she wishes to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment. Father says he has never heard such selfishness and that her place is at Mother’s side in these difficult days when we have lost Ivy as well as Gladys and Pearl, and there is so much to do in the house. He says if Matilda wants to do her bit she can do it right here at Number 25 Victoria Road. Matilda cried and said she was not selfish, that Mrs Pankhurst herself had said women want to fight just as much as men, and Father interrupted her and said he did not want to hear that dratted woman’s name. Then Matilda said she had been to a big meeting last month and she had been persuaded it was her duty to become a VAD and she wondered at Father not wanting her to do her duty. But it did no good. Father just repeated that her duty was at home. Matilda cried all night, which was very wearing for me, but I bore it well because for once I agreed with Matilda. If I were as old as her I would want to be a VAD even though I do not agree with war and have decided to be a pacifist. The atmosphere in our house is not pleasant. Father scowls and cannot be spoken to and Mother sighs and is very tired and does not want to go on holiday either, but the house is taken so she is bracing herself. Father says he wants us out of London because there are rumours that there will be more Zeppelin raids and it is no place for children. He is going to look into renting the holiday house in Westmorland for the duration of the war. I cannot believe he means it. We have rented that house before. There is no library for miles and miles, and no school for me. I would be entirely at the mercy of the twins and Baby.

  12 August

  We are in Westmorland, only Mother and I and the twins and Baby, and I am so unhappy. I cannot think of one single thing to be glad about. It is raining and the house is cold and I have been made to play with the twins for hours and hours. Baby has earache and cries all the time and Mother has been sick and says she depends on me. I do not want to be depended on. I am weighed down with the responsibility and there is no one to share it. I wish Matilda was here. I never thought I would say that. Mother says I ought to be happy because I have my own room here but what good is that when I am tied to the twins and have no chance to be in it. There is no peace or time to read and in any case I must be sparing with what I have to read because there is no hope of getting to a library. I have made Lorna Doone last for ages and I do not even like it.

  13 August

  There was a letter from Matilda today. It was addressed to Mother but began dear Mother and Milly so it was partly mine and I was glad she had thought to include me. Her life as a VAD is very hard, just as Father said it would be if she defied him. She rises at 5.30 a.m. and walks to the hospital and works until 8 p.m. or later. She rolls bandages and empties slops and does much other unpleasant menial work but she is glad to do it and feels useful and that is all she wanted to be. The plight of the men in the wards is distressing, with so many of them missing limbs and in great pain, but there is no time to waste being in tears if you are a VAD. Her legs ache but otherwise she is well. Mother says she will get varicose veins with all the standing and suffer from them the rest of her life. I said I did not know how Mother could worry about such a trifle when there is a war being fought and men are losing legs and Mother burst into tears at what she said was my unkind tone.

  1 September

  Father has come to take us home in three days’ time. I am vastly relieved, and so I think is Mother because she has not liked it here any more than I have. We have had some fine days since the rain stopped but the twins had chicken-pox and were quite ill and we could not take advantage of the good weather. Father looks very worried and thin. He is afraid that there will soon be new rules and that George will be called up and he will not be able to claim exemption. Even worse, he himself may be eligible for service if the war continues. I was astonished and said, But Father you are surely too old, and he smiled sadly and said I might think so but in fact he is only 42. I have never known Father’s age, or Mother’s. I thought about it afterwards and felt shocked to realise he and Mother must have married when he was only a little older than George is now. I suppose Mother must have been near Matilda’s age. How sad everything seems. What we will do if Father is called upon, I shudder to think. I wish I understood why we are fighting. I have tried to understand but it makes no sense to me.

  6 September

  We are home, hurrah. I am so glad to be back in London I have not complained once about standing in for Ivy as nursemaid to the twins. I am sent to do the shopping now so there is some respite from them, but this is no easy matter. The queues outside every single shop are long and my legs get tired standing. Mother said I was to go to the butcher’s first and if possible buy 2 pounds of the best pork sausages, but to take anything if sausages have run out. I did not know what she meant by ‘anything’ but when I asked her what she meant she was cross and told me to use my intelligence for heaven’s sake. I dreaded finding there were no sausages but there were. I hate sausages. I hate meat. It is cruel of Mother to make me go into that loathsome place of slaughter. I almost fainted at the sight of those bloody carcasses swinging from hooks. The knives make me shiver and the dirty aprons are disgusting. It was a relief to go on to the greengrocer and buy fruit and vegetables. My basket was very heavy and I had to stop and put it down often. When I got home Mother was lying down and the twins and Baby were screaming and she said she couldn’t stand the noise and I was to take them to the park. My life is one of drudgery but because of the war I am supposed to bear it without complaint.

  10 September

  Mother is expecting! It is too awful. Baby is not yet I year old and now there will be another. I am embarrassed and I am angry. I am reminded all the time about the war and now this happens and I would like to remind them about the war. What will happen if Father is called up? They should have thought of that. When Mother told me I could not believe it and was horrified. I blushed and wanted to run away. She said she would need me to help her and then she wept a little and said she felt weak and sickly and did not know what sh
e would do without me. I was her treasure. I do not want to be her treasure, or anyone’s. I have told no one at school. I am ashamed. It is so careless to have seven children. It is too bad.

  *

  These extracts, taken from the very first of Millicent’s diaries, give something of the flavour of her personality – outspoken, quite selfish, restless, ambitious and inclined to self-pity. During the rest of 1915, the self-pity gets a little out of hand. She spends pages complaining in her diary of how put-upon she is because of her mother’s pregnancy. Her indignation is often so fiercely expressed, and so out of proportion, that it becomes comical. The twins, 7-year-old Albert and Alfred, particularly annoy her – ‘sent by some malevolent force to be a burden upon my weary back’ – and yet she is obliged to be constantly in charge of them. Michael, the baby, she resents less but she cannot see ‘any charm’ in him. School provides an escape, but she is not entirely happy there either. There is no mention of its name, or exactly what kind of school it was, but it sounds like a small, fee-paying establishment. No exact location of her home is given either – there are thirty-six Victoria Roads in London – but from internal evidence it was clearly in South London, possibly Peckham. Also not revealed is the nature of her father’s business, but he was obviously engaged in either the making or selling of furniture (perhaps both) and was quite prosperous. Millicent is clearly very fond of her father and continues to worry that he will be called up. But it is her brother George who, in the middle of September 1915, goes off to the war and then the tone as well as the content of her diary changes. She says she writes regularly to George and tries to be cheerful.

  *

  6 November

  George is still in this country, being trained how to fight. Father says he will be forced to grow up quickly, he is very young and immature for his age. Mother bridled at this and defended her darling son saying he was very loving. Father said not loving enough to write what I would call a decent letter. I agree with Father. George has only written once and his letter was full of food. He wrote that the grub was fine, and listed all his meals, every one of them, enthusing over bacon and tomatoes and eggs for breakfast and trays full of bread slices and butter and jam and oat-cakes for tea. He wants cakes sent to him and Mother immediately got out Gladys’s recipe book and began making gingerbread, but we had no treacle left and it was essential. I think George thoughtless to ask for cakes.

  10 January 1916

  A letter, at last, from George, only the third in four months, though we have all written to him every single week. He is in France, under canvas, and says he likes it fine. The camp is on sandy soil and in spite of the incessant rain he is dry. He wants cigarettes to be sent and is most particular about what kind. They have to be Three Castles (Star), and sent in a tin box. Apart from that, he only wants butter. He says army butter is frightful stuff. It all sounds so trivial, as though he was at school camp and not in a war. I said so, and Father frowned at me, and made a gesture to indicate I should not say such things in front of Mother. Afterwards, he said George was doing a good job pretending, for Mother’s sake, but that he himself was not fooled and he was surprised that I was. I suppose he is right. Things can’t be as jolly as George makes them sound.

  25 January

  To our great surprise, another letter from George. He is billeted in a small village back from the firing line. The owner of the house is a voluble French woman. He writes that when she gets in a state, which is often, she rambles away at a terrific speed in a mad, high-pitched voice ‘just like Milly when she is in one of her tempers’. My eyes filled with tears as Mother read this out. She was laughing as she did so. I swallowed hard and tried to bear this insult bravely.

  4 February

  Mother got a beautiful postcard today from George. It is so pretty. There is a border of pale cream thick paper with little flowers all over it and in the centre there are three pansies embroidered in silk and all around the purple flowers are green leaves. Above this flap, for the embroidery is done on a gauze flap, are the words ‘To My Dear Mother’ also embroidered, in pale blue, and underneath ‘From Your Loving Son’. And that is not all. When the flap is lifted it reveals another card, very small, resting in a kind of pocket. This card has a castle on it but we do not know where this castle is though we studied it for ages. The words ‘loving greetings’ are printed in ink, and George has written ‘from your own boy’ beside it. Mother was quite overcome. On the plain side of the card it says Carte Postale but though there is space to write George has only written that he is well but the weather not very good, and he trusts we have got his letters. I wonder where George bought this card. Mother examined it closely and there is no doubt the embroidery is genuine and of a high standard. It is strange to think that among all the mud and fighting in France which we hear about someone is making these beautiful cards.

  1 March

  George arrived home today for three days’ leave. We were not expecting him until the afternoon and so when the bell rang at eight in the morning and I had to go and open the door I got a great shock when I saw him standing there. I hardly knew it was him, he looks so thin and worn. Worse than that, he looks old, his face all drawn and his cheeks hollow. I stared at him and words would not come and I was for once glad when the twins came shrieking into the hall and saw him and started shouting his name. He picked them up and seemed glad to hug them though never when he lived here did he show them particular affection, being of my opinion with regard to them. Mother was breakfasting in bed but hearing the commotion rose and put on a wrapper and came to the top of the stairs. I was afraid she might collapse when she saw George but though she was startled she made her way carefully downstairs and held out her arms and embraced him. I saw George’s face as he beheld her and he was alarmed at her vast size and I’m sure uneasy about touching her. He had breakfast, which I made. I have become quite proficient since Gladys left. I used all the bacon for the week and three precious eggs, and then George went to bed. Mother asked him if he was not going to take a bath but he said he was dog-tired and had dreamed of his bed for weeks and longed to go to it.

  3 March

  George and I and Father have had a long talk about the terrible battle at Verdun. We sat in the drawing-room after dinner when Mother and the children had gone to bed and George and Father drank whisky and smoked. George told us how everything was chaos, orders being first given then cancelled, and no one knowing what was happening and all the time the Germans shelling the trenches and the fear of gas very strong. He said his rifle was not a good one and twice jammed in action but that the second time this had saved his life because he had been obliged to halt and look to his rifle and the soldiers in front of him were killed and he would have been where they were. He said he would not talk of the sights he had seen or the sounds he had heard in front of me, though I begged him to and said I wanted to know and was not afraid to hear. Father sighed a great deal and said it was common knowledge that the war was not being conducted as it should be and it was not going our way.

  4 March

  George’s last day at home. He screams in his sleep. I do not know if anyone else heard him but I did. I woke and heard him moaning and then he called out ‘No! No!’ and screamed and my own heart beat fast and I got out of bed and listened at his door. The door was closed but I opened it and at first thought the room empty but then saw he was on the far side of his bed, hunched on the floor. I went to him and crouched down and stroked his back. He had no jacket on, only trousers, and his skin was wet and sticky with sweat. I do not think he was properly awake. I could not lift him, so I took the pillow from the bed and put it under his head and then wrapped just a sheet over him. Presently, the moaning sounds stopped and he seemed to sleep deeply and I left. In the morning, he said nothing and neither did I. He did not want to leave and we did not want him to leave. Everyone cried, Mother most pitifully. He had hardly left the house with Father before her pains began and I was sent for Mrs Allardyce. She is here now,
and the nurse, but all is silent.

  5 March

  At four o’clock this morning my new sister was born, while we were all asleep, even I. I did not intend to sleep, nor did I think I ever would, but I was so very exhausted I could not help it. I slept in the same bed as the twins, with Baby in his cot beside us, fearing that they might waken in the night and try to run in to Mother’s. I knew nothing until seven o’clock when Baby woke and I got up and went to the kitchen to make his bottle. It was a shock to find that Father was there standing by the kettle and about to make tea. I have never seen him in the kitchen before. You have a new sister, he said. His tone was not, I thought, joyous. I asked if Mother was well and he said she was well but very tired and that I could go in to see her but must keep the boys out for the moment. I did not know how this could be managed, but Father astonished me by saying he would give Michael his bottle and stay with the boys for a few minutes. I went up to Mother’s room half fearful though not knowing why I should half dread seeing her. She was lying propped up on the pillows with her eyes closed but when I tiptoed in she opened them and said ‘Milly!’ and looked pleased. I went nearer, thinking I must kiss her, and it was not so difficult. She looked pretty, her cheeks not pale as they have been but quite flushed. She pointed to the cradle at her side and I peeped in and saw my new sister who is the smallest baby I have ever seen but with thick yellow downy hair like a chicken’s when it is first hatched. The hair was so funny I laughed and Mother said George’s hair had been the same. She asked what I thought we should call her and did I care for the name Hope. I said no. Mother said Father had suggested it, thinking of the war and how we must all hope. He had suggested Faith, and Mercy, too. I said I disliked symbolic names. Mother said she had wondered about Helena, or Grace. I like both. I did not go to school today, of course. There was too much to do and no one else to do it. How I longed for Ivy to be still here, and Gladys. Mother has the maternity nurse only for three days and was fortunate to get her. Nurse Tranter is old or she would be working among the wounded in the hospitals. Matilda has managed to get two days’ leave and comes to take over from Nurse and after that I do not know what we will do. I cannot stay off school forever though Father does not seem to think my absences important. I wish more than ever that I were in Matilda’s shoes and already away from home.