Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  10 September

  I went for Sunday dinner to Mother’s, Esther being away visiting her mother, which Grace had helpfully told me she would be. Mother looks tired, but then she is nearly 60 and one must expect to notice a difference. Life ought to be easier for her, with the twins no longer living at home and both Michael and Grace being of a more independent and useful age, but she is worn out with looking after Stephen. Grace tells me he is a very boisterous little boy and spoiled by his mother who dotes on him and does nothing to restrain his energetic escapades. Grace, of course, is prejudiced. I heard her declare today that she is never going to have children – my own voice, coming back to me. Well, I meant it and I have kept to my word, but all the same I would not say those words again. It is not that I have changed my mind and now wish to have children. Not in the least. I take great care to prevent such a disaster, but the idea of some day perhaps having a child is not so repugnant. Mother worries about my spinster state and lack of offspring of course, but apart from wistful glances in my direction when any conversation turns that way she says nothing, merely hopes. She is most upset that I have handed in my resignation from teaching at that school even though I graphically described the reasons for it. She pities poor Tommy but wonders if I am helping him by resigning. I said, quite sharply I am afraid, that I knew I was not helping him but that was not the point, nothing I could do could help him, but at least I could disassociate myself from being, by implication, part of the institution that condones his beating. By resigning, I had said I would not stand for it. Mother asked, very mildly, but will the child know that, dear? Well, of course she is right, he won’t. Unless I tell him, and how could I do that?

  18 September

  Went up to London for the weekend and stayed with Tilda on Friday night. Saw Frank on Saturday. Went to the theatre and then dined at a restaurant in Soho and stayed the night at his place. Not a success. I feel so worried about what I am going to do now I have resigned, and Frank is not really interested in my troubles. He is not a sympathetic person. He wants me to be fun and lively and cannot bear it if I mope. It is not, I’m sure, well, fairly sure, that he does not care about my state of mind but that he thinks I ought not to let myself get dragged down. He is impatient with me. He has a lawyer’s way of analysing things and I don’t want to be analysed by him. I can analyse myself, thank you. Everything is so simple to Frank. He sums up what he calls the Tommy Dixon Incident by saying one, the headmaster is a brute / two, you were obliged to witness an act of brutality / three, because of it you made your protest by resigning. Excellent, he concludes. You dislike teaching therefore the fact that you are without a reference and unlikely to be appointed to another post is of no consequence. You are clever, smart, attractive and can easily get any job you choose and meanwhile you have a roof over your head, a little money in the bank, a loving family, and my own good self at your service. That is Frank’s appraisal of my situation and he sees no cause for anxiety. But I am anxious, and I spoiled the weekend.

  21 September

  I am ill. It is only flu, but Mother sent for the doctor. She is naturally terrified of the very word influenza. It was so unfortunate that she happened to call in, which she hardly ever does, when I had had to come home after school and go to bed. I had a fever and hardly knew what I was doing, and she was alarmed. I did not tell her that I had fainted in class during the last lesson, which I am told led to screams of fright from the children and the cry that Miss was dead, bringing Mr Brennan running full of hope, I am sure, that I was. Even he could not deny that I was ill. He declared I had been thoughtless and had in all probability infected the entire school by coming in at all. I had not the energy to make any sort of reply. He asked me if I had money for a cab. I said I did, and one was called, and I came home as Mother happened to call. I lay on my bed fully clothed, glad simply to lie down. She went for her own doctor, whom I have never seen in my life, and he prescribed what I could have told her he would, which is to take plenty of fluids, and aspirin, and bed rest. Mother said she would stay with me and I could not dissuade her so she has been here the last three days, fussing over me. I am much better, but so weak and listless. I lie here thinking of the last time I had flu, and how I resented the lack of attention and wanted to be fussed over. One good thing, I am now released from school for at least the next two weeks and have a doctor’s note to sanction my absence. That will then only leave a few more weeks before I am completely free.

  5 October

  I was ready to return to teach today but was miraculously reprieved. A note arrived from Mr Brennan saying that a replacement for me had been found and his appointment confirmed by the local authority and since fortuitously he could start at once my services were no longer required and I need not work out the remaining weeks of my contract, though pay would be deducted of course from my salary. Good. As if I cared about the money. It is not as if I am rich but I have a nest-egg to see me through, as Frank pointed out. It will not last long though. I have already had enough experience of unemployment, if only mild compared to others, to know that it does not suit me. I want to do something connected with trying to make things better for the Tommy Dixons of this country, but it is the old question: how? It is all very well confronting Mr Brennan as I did, though that was not so brave after all. I was shaking with fury and didn’t say half what I wanted to say. But now I feel so passionate about trying to right the wrongs I saw every day in that school and I must find an outlet for it. Percy told me once that hospitals have lady almoners, who deal with the home problems of patients. I wonder if education authorities have a similar category of employee to help pupils with problems. There is no harm in asking.

  6 October

  Today I went to London to ask Percy’s advice. I did not tell Frank I would be coming, though he has been most solicitous during my illness, sending flowers and telephoning and in general showing he cares rather more than I thought he might do. The truth is I am not up to Frank. Percy was on duty, but I went to the hospital and he was able to spare half an hour to meet me in a little café round the corner. It was embarrassing telling him why I had come and I felt schoolgirlish having no clear idea of what I wanted from him. But he was, as ever, very sympathetic and helpful. He said he had talked to someone who had suggested I could perhaps become a social worker, but I’d have to retrain. I am perfectly willing to retrain, I expected to have to, and will gladly start at the beginning again. Percy is going to ask the lady almoner at his hospital if she knows how I should proceed. I left him with quite a spring in my step, or so I felt, and walked to Tilda’s. She said I was looking very pale and that I had lost a lot of weight. We met Florence out of school. She has just gone into the infants’ class. Waiting with Tilda and Jack in the playground and watching the children come out I was struck by how well they all looked, so well cared for, not a Tommy Dixon in sight. Florence is now very sweet and solemn and full of the importance of being a scholar. I was surprised actually to feel something for her. Tilda says she looks more like me than like her or Charles, but I cannot see it. I think families always tell unmarried aunts this. I wonder if Tilda is happy. She has every reason to be, but I thought I detected a slight restlessness. She said twice that I was so lucky to be independent and free of responsibilities. I wonder about that. Am I free of responsibilities? I suppose so. I suppose I have made sure that I am. Mother is not exactly my responsibility, though I do acknowledge she has a claim on me and I will always honour it. But the truth is that while Esther and George live with her I do not need to and, frankly, I am glad.

  7 October

  Stayed with Tilda overnight, hoping that I might hear something from Percy today, which was really asking far too much of him. I heard nothing, and cannot bother him again so soon. I should return to Brighton but I am reluctant to. I want to be in London. It was such a mistake to settle in Brighton, but in London I would never be able to afford a lovely flat like the one I have and would be obliged to live in a much less pleasant area. T
ilda says I can lodge with them but I could not bear the noise and mess and lack of privacy. I am sure Daphne will say the same, and sharing her house would be a better proposition, but we would clash all the time over all kinds of things on the domestic front.

  9 October

  I am still at Tilda’s and ought not to be, but tomorrow I am to see someone who knows about a course to train people to do ‘social work’. I like the name social worker. Work is what I want to do, not any kind of do-gooding. I had no idea such a job existed. Tonight I am seeing Frank. I could not go on being in London without letting him know and indeed have concealed from him how long I have already been here. Like Tilda, he said the last time I saw him, that I was looking very pale and thin, and what I need is a holiday. He wants me to go with him to the South of France for a week. He swears the weather will still be good there, and that I could lie in the sun and relax and it will perk me up. But I can’t afford it, and don’t want to be a kept woman. I may have given Frank the wrong idea by appearing to surrender my virtue, I’m sure he thought easily, but I will not be paid for. If he cannot see the difference that is too bad. He was very quiet for a while after I’d said this and then he looked me straight in the eye and said, You know how we could solve this? and I knew he was going to propose marriage and I put my hand over his and said, Don’t.

  *

  It is not surprising that Millicent knew nothing about the existence of social workers because in the 1930s the profession was still in its infancy. It was not until the disappearance of the old Poor Law administration that ‘social workers’ came into being, and by 1931 social rehabilitation was becoming the task of local councils, though when Millicent enrolled at the London School of Economics to do her course, few councils yet employed social workers to assess needs and fewer still were giving grants. Unfortunately, Millicent does not write in any detail of what it cost her, or how exactly she was trained. She finds going back to studying hard, and her diary for the period is one of the briefest, with entries very often giving no more than ‘at college 9 a.m. – 6 p.m., too tired to write’. She is also moving from Brighton to London during this time and found flat-hunting exhausting. Eventually, she finds a flat to rent on the borders of Notting Hill/Bayswater but it is in a poor decorative state and not very clean and the little spare energy she has goes into trying to get it into better shape. Her practical training begins in Paddington.

  30 April 1931

  NO ONE, EXCEPT Percy, would believe the sights I’ve seen today, poverty of a sort and degree I never believed existed in this country, but then as Mr Messenger, my supervisor, points out, with something of a sneer – or so I interpret it – I have led a sheltered life. It offended me when he said this, since I think my life has been far from sheltered, but of course he thinks I am quite refined, I dare say. But today when we visited a family in a block of flats off Praed Street I knew he was right, I have been sheltered from this kind of hardship. When we were poor we were not poor like the McPatricks. Mrs McPatrick is only 26 but looks 46, worn out with giving birth every year since she was 16. Three of her babies died, but she still has seven, all of them crammed into two rooms and sleeping end to end in what looked like a big wooden box. They share a privy with four other families, all as large as their own, and there is no bath, just a tin tub brought out from under the kitchen table once a week – though I suspect not that often, but then who can blame her when it is all such a bother. The place was not clean, I saw cockroaches on the walls, and absolutely comfortless without an easy chair in the room and only a wooden table with a broken leg in the way of furniture. On the table was a loaf of bread, already cut into, which Mrs McPatrick said was all they had to eat for today. Two of the children cried all the time, and the others hung about listlessly staring at us. The father is out of work, of course, and Mrs McPatrick supports the family by cleaning offices at night. But now she is pregnant again and too sick to work, and so they have no income at all and have applied for relief. They are Irish and Catholic, and get some contribution from the church – Mr Messenger questioned them closely on this, too humiliatingly closely for my taste – but not nearly enough to provide for even their basic needs. Their rooms are not heated and it seemed colder in them than outside though it was raining and a miserably chilly day.

  I am going to have to learn so much about how to handle my feelings. I felt like weeping and I’m sure it showed and that my distress and pity were noted and not welcomed by Mrs McPatrick. I could see she both hated and despised me, and had me down for a Lady Muck. Even my clothes must have seemed an affront. My costume is my old teaching costume and by no means smart but in her kitchen it looked glaringly new and expensive and I saw her eyeing it. I felt like taking the jacket off and handing it to her. She looked so cold and ill and her thin, patched blouse gave her no warmth. But Mr Messenger was brisk and business-like. He helped her fill in a claims form and told her where to take it and assured her she would be given some money. She asked when that would be and he said he thought very soon, within a week, and she burst into tears, setting off all the children not already crying and said that was not soon when all she had in the larder was the bread we could see and nothing to put on it, no margarine, no syrup, no dripping. Mr Messenger said he was sorry but there was nothing he could do, and we left. I was shaking on the way out, and crimson with shame. I said could we not have given the poor woman a few shillings in advance to tide her over and he smiled and said nothing would ever tide her over, she was a hopeless case and I would have to harden myself to all the Mrs McPatricks. I hope I never do.

  1 May

  We saw a different side to the face of poverty today. Mr Messenger took me to another street, full of small houses which have been condemned as unfit for habitation but which are still lived in, and we visited a Mrs Riley, also Irish and Catholic but, my goodness, the difference. She, too, had lots of children, five of them, and looked older than me though she was younger, but her rooms were clean and an attempt had been made to make them cheerful. God knows, her resources were small, but from somewhere she, or her husband, had got some distemper and the walls were freshly done, and out of orange crates some crude furniture had been fashioned, seats for the children and a cradle for the baby. There were some colourful religious texts on the walls and a rag rug in front of the fireplace, a cloth on the table. There was even a clock, a rather handsome clock which Mrs Riley said had belonged to her father and had stood her in good stead because it could be reliably pawned, as it had been many times. Her husband is ill but is normally in work. He is a labourer and fell from some scaffolding and broke his leg, hence their application for temporary relief. Mrs Riley was so polite and humble and made the whole transaction painless, managing to fill in the form without help, and understanding completely that there will be a delay. She even said thank you. I said to Mr Messenger how I admired her, and he smiled another of his contemptuous smiles without saying anything. I wonder what sort of background he is from. He seems so knowing. But he has shown no curiosity about me, therefore I hold back from showing any about him. They say he is very experienced at his job and I am fortunate to have him as my supervisor, but I do not feel lucky at all. His manner is so cold and formal.

  5 May

  A glorious day. Picnicked in the park with Percy. We were both so tired, it was bliss simply to lie on a rug on the grass and feel the sun on our faces. I was thinking all the time about Mrs McPatrick’s children, knowing they would certainly not be out in any park having picnics, and Percy was thinking about his patients, who are unable to get out into the sunshine at all. Percy says that, as he expected, the Labour Government is in trouble and will probably be defeated at the next election. I asked what that would mean and he said it would mean no far-reaching social change would take place. The Labour people need the security of a large majority and they will not get it. I have known Percy a long time now, nearly two years. He has never again asked me to go to visit his parents with him and I hope this means he has accepted that
our friendship is just that, a true, platonic friendship. People say – well, Daphne says – that such a friendship between a man and a woman is not possible. I have proved her wrong.

  6 May

  Drove with Frank to Southwold, but we did not spend the night. He wanted to book into an hotel there, but I have work tomorrow morning and must be prompt. I can imagine what Mr Messenger’s face would be like if I rolled up at Frank’s side in his car in the morning. My fate as a hussy would be sealed. I’ve known Frank nearly as long as I’ve known Percy and of course I know him in the biblical sense too, which ought to make him seem even closer and more important to me than Percy. But he isn’t. He is just different. I like to be with him, he is clever and a good conversationalist, but it is his physical attractiveness which is the pull. Frank isn’t particularly tall, so he doesn’t tower over me, but he is strong-looking, and I like that, strong and athletic in build. He has a Cambridge blue for sprinting and plays rugby and is altogether sporty. It surprises me that I should be attracted to a sporty man – when I was young I used to imagine my ideal man as poetic in looks, not that I would ever admit I thought about such things. I’m not sure if it is the same for him. Is it how I look which attracts Frank? He tells me often enough that he finds me irresistible, but I would hate to think that is all. He says that I seem quite the Ice Queen, and he feels in possession of a delicious secret, knowing that I’m not. Perhaps I ought to be pleased, but I can’t say I am. He asked me if I never wanted to settle down and have children, was I going always to be one of these new career women. I said probably. He seemed perturbed.