Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  27 March

  Such quiet nights lately. I wondered aloud today at HQ if maybe the bombing of London is over and there was a bark of contempt from Miss Buchanan. She says of course it isn’t, am I a simpleton, this is just a lull. It is amazing the way everyone except me seems so confident that they know best. I am so tired of Miss Buchanan. Someone told me that in real life she is a prison warder at Holloway and I can well believe it.

  30 June

  Awful dreams about Robert, can’t bear to record them, but as a consequence woke up determined to involve myself more in this hateful war. I want to try to be more active, to share in the fighting. So I went to the Recruiting Office today, feeling very self-conscious. There were several others already waiting, none looking all that much younger than me, though I’m not good at guessing ages. Filled in a form (lied, said I was 35) of basic information. I enjoyed putting social worker as my pre-war job and even more writing down ambulance driver as current employment, pure swank of course. And then went into another room for a physical examination. Was weighed (8 stone), measured (5 feet 2 inches) had my eyes tested (20/20 vision) and teeth looked at. Then questions about illnesses I had had – none. I kept quiet about the other thing, feeling not quite comfortable about doing so, but it was not an illness and is none of their business and makes no difference to my fitness and general health. They said I was a model recruit. Because of my qualifications they said I was suitable for Admin., which sounds boring but is apparently a high grade, but that rules required me to go before a psychologist. What fun, Daphne will like this. Was then officially enrolled, and another form was filled out which asked for next of kin. I hesitated over that. I wanted to put Robert, and I know he has put me, but it would have led to so many questions and I’d already put that I wasn’t married, and I don’t know exactly where he is now, and so I put Tilda. Poor Tilda, being next of kin to so many of the family and always bound to get any bad news first and be obliged to pass it on. After all this, told to report to Gloucester in two days’ time.

  *

  In fact, Millicent would still have been accepted if she’d revealed her true age (40 the following month). Daphne, who is having a great time stationed at Grimsby, sends her a list of what to take when she reports for duty: ‘2 pairs of pyjamas; 1 dressing-gown; 1 pair of slippers; toilet things; natural nail varnish; 1 large tin of Silvo (for cleaning buttons); large tin Cherry Blossom shoe polish; some fine hair nets (to keep your hair off your collar); soap and towel’. She warns Millicent not to wear her hat on one side, not to take anything of value (‘it will be swiped’) and not to get down-hearted at first ‘because take my word for it, it will soon be fun’. Millicent’s comments on what Daphne considered ‘fun’ were sarcastic. She writes that she could not see any fun in tearing around in a Triumph Herald car packed with six airmen (as well as Daphne) and then spending the night in the Airways Club getting drunk on gin, nor did she think it amusing to be told that her friend had slept with one of the men afterwards but couldn’t remember his name. He’d cooked her eggs in butter for breakfast and given her two whole packs of Senior Service cigarettes to take back to camp – ‘to be thrilled, by that!’ writes Millicent.

  *

  2 July

  Arrived at the Depot near Gloucester, after the usual roundabout and long drawn-out journey all travelling now involves. It felt as if it would’ve been quicker walking. In a hut with eleven others, like arriving at boarding-school, I imagine, except none of us are children. Beds awful, with appallingly thin mattresses. Slept badly. Woken at 6 a.m. with a bugle sounding through a loudspeaker and lights going on. It was funny watching the different ways women got dressed, some so embarrassed and modest, struggling to put clothes on under the blankets and others stripping their pyjamas off boldly and standing stark naked before the wash basins (and not always the ones with bodies to be proud of). I like to think I fell somewhere in the middle, not flaunting it but not ashamed. Breakfast was revolting but seemed to please most people and there was lots of it, I was amazed, lots of fried eggs and even bacon and baked beans and fried bread. I’ve never liked fried anything. I stuck to toast and tea (strong, ugh). Boring day after that, seemed to hang about in queues, waiting to be photographed, then to collect pay books, then to be interviewed by the psychologist, tedious. Meanwhile, we got to know each other, or had the chance to while all this was going on. Remarkable how eager some women, or ‘girls’ as we are all called, are to tell their entire life history. I revealed very little. Only said I was a Londoner and had been driving an ambulance. Someone asked me if I had ‘a bloke’. I said yes, smiling to think of Robert hearing himself described as a bloke. The interview was pretty pathetic, with all the questions obvious – or rather the answers which would please were obvious, e.g. if someone shouted ‘Fire!’ while you were at your desk, what would you do: (a) immediately run from the building, (b) collect anything important you were working on, then leave the building as quickly as possible, (c) stay put till the actual fire alarm went off. I mean, really! Only someone who has never been in a bombed city could hesitate over that.

  3 July

  I have been accepted for Admin., though no one has asked me if I want to be, but eight of the twelve of us who were put in for it failed. I can’t say I’m thrilled, it was never my idea to be in Admin., surely I am better qualified to be a driver. Our uniforms arrived today, complete with regulation underwear, ghastly coarse knickers and all. A lot of swopping went on since hardly anything fitted. One girl immediately got out needle and thread and began adapting her skirt to fit her. She proved good with her needle because she alone looked stylish when we were all dressed. She looked a little like Grace and of course because she was so good at sewing she made me think of Grace, which on the whole I try not to do: it is too distressing wondering what is happening to her in occupied France. Haven’t heard from her for months, and neither has Tilda.

  *

  All that is known about Grace is that before the war she was living and working in Paris for one of the big fashion houses (possibly Coco Chanel’s, since there is one reference in early 1939 to her wearing a Chanel suit) and they certainly went on flourishing during the occupation. Millicent often writes in her diary that she is proud of her little sister doing so well and that she intends to visit her. When war was declared, she somehow expected Grace to return immediately to England and when that didn’t happen she was surprised but not too worried because she received a reassuring letter from Grace saying she was perfectly safe, life was going on as normal. But then the German army occupied Paris on 14 June 1940 and Millicent’s worries were justified when Grace proved not to be one of the two million or so who made a hasty exit. But, as her brother-in-law Charles had once told her, the Germans at first were anxious to make the occupation as bearable as possible for the French and life in Paris did indeed go on much as usual. Hitler himself had chosen not to enter Paris at the head of a victorious army because he said he didn’t want to destroy French pride entirely, and he gave orders that the troops were to behave correctly and maintain strict discipline. In fact, the German soldiers were said to have behaved like tourists, spending their time taking photographs of themselves in front of landmarks, and were so much on their best behaviour that they astonished the Parisians with their good manners. So the likelihood is that, though English, Grace was in some way protected and not sent to the St Denis camp but allowed to continue working.

  *

  8 July

  Still dark when we left this morning for our training depot. The camp seemed so forlorn when we arrived, very cold in the huts and, at first, no sign of any food or even tea to welcome us. Mud everywhere. Getting from hut to hut a filthy business. A lecture in the evening, pretty pointless stuff about Egypt, except I think that is where Robert may now be, so I listened carefully. I wish I could start working properly and justify having joined up. At the moment I know I was far more useful driving ambulances.

  12 July

  Saturday, and some
of the girls went to a dance at the army camp, a bus helpfully coming for them. I didn’t go. What a state of excitement they were in, spending hours titivating themselves and pooling all our hut’s resources. I contributed what is left of my last lipstick, never liked the colour anyway, it clashes with my hair, but kept to myself the scent Robert bought me. The rest of us, left behind, pretended we were happy to stay and read. A surprising amount of reading goes on, especially of detective stories which have never interested me – plenty of Agatha Christies around – but a lot of girls stick to magazines. A lot of letter-writing too. I wrote to Tilda, and to Daphne, because I owe her one. I said that as yet the ‘fun’ she’d promised hadn’t materialised and that everything was dreary and I feel like an overgrown schoolgirl in detention. She will say it is my own fault and that I never have known how to join in and that I should have gone to the dance. Those who did came back in the early hours terribly drunk, and making a dreadful noise as they fell over things and tried to put themselves to bed.

  15 July

  What a birthday! Did not mention it to anyone. On the move again, posted to a satellite station. The worst journey yet, via Birmingham. Lucky it is July because there are holes in the roof of the hut I am in and the rain trickles through. I asked why they hadn’t been mended and was told everyone had more important things to attend to. Not much sign of anything important being done that I can see.

  17 July

  Real work at last, though not the type I want. Am being taught how to track planes. I don’t know how that fits into Admin., but here it does. I’m going to complain that I would be of more use driving. The shifts we work are eight hours long, on our feet, and at the end we are ready to collapse. There is a lot to learn and it is all very much more complicated than it looks. It needs a certain kind of mind, more Daphne’s sort than mine. I don’t like working underground. The room is enormous, it feels a mile long though it can’t be. There’s a huge centre table covered with a map of Southern England and we are being taught how to wield long croupier-like sticks so that they move little arrows showing the direction and numbers of aircraft. I am not yet adept at it. One girl is brilliant, took to it straightaway, but then it turns out she plays snooker with her boyfriend.

  20 July

  Heavens knows why, well I suppose I do know why, but we are given lectures on VD. They are always at 11.30 a.m., such an unsuitable time when lunch follows them. The visual aids are disgusting, pictures of women with half their noses eaten away and syphilitic sores on their lips. But instead of everyone being horrified and falling silent so many girls giggled without, I’m sure, being able to explain why. I didn’t, but felt on the edge of doing so just because others were. I was ashamed of myself. Afterwards, there was a lot of talk about French letters and Johnnies and other names for condoms. I kept quiet. I expect the others would think that meant I know nothing about sex. I wonder if the men get the same lectures only with the visual aids showing male noses and lips. Well, I don’t have to concern myself with any of this. I hope Daphne has paid attention.

  *

  The diary for the rest of 1941, and for the first six months of 1942, shows how much Millicent begins to relish the feeling that she was doing something worthwhile and satisfying at last. She feels guilty that she actually enjoys being in the WAAF, and is reluctant (unlike Daphne) to admit this or to acknowledge that her part in a war which has already killed one brother, and might go on to kill the others on active service, is giving her a real sense of fulfilment, especially after she is transferred to a bomber squadron in Yorkshire. Here at first she plots planes but then is switched to being a driver.

  This was something of a demotion, because drivers were the lowest paid class (12s 6d a fortnight), but Millicent didn’t care. She not only loved to drive but felt that having been an ambulance driver she had valuable experience which was not being put to good use and she had petitioned to change jobs.

  She drives lorries on the airfield, learning to drive the RAF way (double-de-clutching when changing gear, changing down before a corner, and using hand signals). She collects and delivers crews to planes, and helps lay the flarepath when planes signal for landing. Early in 1942, she is put up for a commission. She goes to the Air Ministry in London for an interview but is not given a commission, claiming in her diary to have sabotaged her own chances by not being respectful enough to the ‘Brass’ interviewing her.

  *

  30 March 1942

  On leave. Decided to come home even though the difficulties of the journey mean I’ll only have a full twenty-four hours here. It is so long since I’ve been in London and I wanted to walk in a park and go to a cinema and just feel like a Londoner again. Felt lonely when I woke up in my own lovely bed, remembering Robert’s last leave here, I suppose, not that that was exactly blissful and worth recalling, but then relished the comfort and privacy. Met Daphne in the afternoon. She’s here to see if her house has survived, and also for the same reason as me, just to stop feeling like a country bumpkin for a few hours.

  We decided to go to Kenwood and walk there. The house is closed and the pictures stored somewhere safe. We walked all round the grounds in beautiful sunshine and then carried on to Highgate where most of the houses seemed empty. We walked back on to the Heath and sat by one of the ponds under a tree and talked. Daphne is determined that I should admit I have wasted time being with Robert and that I don’t love him any more, but it isn’t true, though sometimes in low moments I have wondered if it might be. She can be quite cruel when she wants, though she likes to think she is just being ‘honest’. Funny kind of honesty. She’s never liked Robert, though has always admired his looks, looks being so important to her. Tell me, she said, why you love him, convince me, do. I sat and thought about why for a long time, long enough only to convince Daphne that I had no answer, but in fact because the answer was so hard to put into words. I am not glib about such things as she is, I can’t joke about being in love. Finally, I said I had to admit that I was very physically attracted to him but I hadn’t equated that with love. I knew it wasn’t. There is just something about Robert which responds to something in me, an ease with him, a feeling of belonging and of being understood by him. That was the best I could do, and it was a poor, stumbling best but, surprisingly, Daphne appeared impressed. I have never felt that with any man, she said, and she patted my hand and said, Lucky old you. Daphne’s not really the ideal friend to have a heart-to-heart with, she is too abrasive and lacks real sympathy, but then I’ve never really had the sort of friend I could confide in properly, or maybe it is that I am not the sort of person who can do the confiding. I am not well off for friends whereas Daphne has heaps, or says she has. She’s met an American, a GI, and is sleeping with him, that’s when she’s not sleeping with a Dutch airman called Kees. She insisted on showing me one of the Dutchman’s letters, which I didn’t at all want to read so she read it aloud, roaring with laughter. It was all about her kisses and how he’d never had kisses like them, and how he could feel her communicating her true self to him and other tosh. But thinking of any man trying to write so intimately and obviously struggling to find the right words, and in a foreign language, I couldn’t see anything funny about it. I thought it was mean of Daphne to mock him, and said so. It is odd, but listening to Daphne I sometimes feel, in spite of what I’ve just told her, as though I have never loved or been loved, as if I’ve returned to a virginal state. Stupid.

  31 March

  Robert’s regiment has been captured. He is almost certainly in Changi Prison. Everyone was talking of the fall of Singapore last month but I paid little attention, because the Manchesters were supposed to be in Palestine. His last letter was from a hospital where he was being treated for some strange stomach infection and was on a diet of milk only. I don’t understand how he can then have been sent to the Far East. Why wasn’t he invalided home? The Japanese have not yet given out a list of prisoners but the information, such as it is, suggests he will be among those in Changi.
I wish it was not a Japanese camp. There are so many stories leaking out already about how prisoners are treated. And he is not strong, especially with having been so ill recently. I thought of him, more frail than ever after his milk diet, and suddenly feared he would not survive. He hasn’t the physical resources and he may not even have the spirit.