Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys

by Mary Gibson

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  About Mary Gibson

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  Dedicated to the memory of my parents Mary and Bill Gibson, whose service in the ATS and RAF during the Second World War was my inspiration.

  Contents

  Cover

  Welcome Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Home Bird

  Chapter 2: Babes in the Ruins

  Chapter 3: John Bull Arch

  Chapter 4: A Black Christmas

  Chapter 5: Predicting the Future

  Chapter 6: Doing Time

  Chapter 7: Play On

  Chapter 8: Leaving

  Chapter 9: Poppies and Planes

  Chapter 10: The Broken Bridge

  Chapter 11: Gunner Girls

  Chapter 12: Defences

  Chapter 13: Leave It To Love

  Chapter 14: No Taste in Nothing

  Chapter 15: Engaging the Enemy

  Chapter 16: Passionate Leave

  Chapter 17: Foundlings

  Chapter 18: Crypt for a Bed

  Chapter 19: Bombed Out

  Chapter 20: Gold and Pleasant Land

  Chapter 21: Invasion

  Chapter 22: Love On Ration

  Chapter 23: The Land of Begin Again

  Chapter 24: ‘I’m Looking For An Angel’

  Chapter 25: ‘Always Together, Whatever the Weather’

  Chapter 26: ‘Tomorrow is a Lovely Day’

  Chapter 27: Letters

  Chapter 28: Absent

  Chapter 29: Missing

  Chapter 30: Wings To Fly

  Chapter 31: Ships That Pass

  Chapter 32: Ashes and Angels

  Chapter 33: The World That Was Ours

  Preview

  Acknowledgements

  About Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys

  Reviews

  About Mary Gibson

  About The Factory Girls Series

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  1

  Home Bird

  3 September–December 1939

  Heat burned May’s cheeks and stung her eyes so fiercely that water trickled from their corners. She jerked away from the searing blast, and the wailing continued.

  ‘Everyone’s running to the shelters! Come on, May, we’ve got to go!’ her sister Peggy’s terrified voice came from the open kitchen door.

  May slid the beef into the hot oven and slammed the door. She knew she should leave the dinner, turn off the oven and run, but though the siren’s howl was like a cold knife slicing her heart, it opened a deep vein of defiance in May. If she could only carry on with the weekly Sunday dinner ritual, she told herself, then nothing could harm her home or loved ones. The keening note, rising in intensity, held all the essence of fear, the seeds of panic and the promise of loss that her eighteen-year-old self strained to resist. Momentarily, strength and youth drained from her limbs. But she held tight to the oven door, drawing courage from its domestic familiarity.

  ‘I can’t go to the shelter. I’ve got to put the dinner on!’ May said, her face flushed with heat from the oven and irritation with the Germans. ‘Typical! They have to choose a Sunday dinner time to start dropping their bloody bombs!’

  She spun back to the oven, checking the temperature, while her sister strained to look up at the sky from the kitchen window.

  ‘Where’s George? He’ll get caught in it, and Mum and Dad! May, what the bloody hell are you doing? Come on!’ Peggy pleaded, her face an odd mixture of panic and bewilderment.

  Just at that moment, their brother burst in, his face flushed, eyes wide with excitement.

  ‘She won’t come to the shelter, Jack. Tell her,’ Peggy said.

  ‘May! Didn’t you hear on the wireless? We’re at war! Leave the soddin’ dinner and get to the shelter now!’ His voice sounded unusually tight in his throat.

  She stood her ground, back to the oven, as if shielding the heart of her home. ‘No, I’m waiting here for Mum and Dad, and then we’re having dinner.’

  ‘The dinner’ll be no good to us if we’re all dead!’

  When she didn’t move, he grabbed her arm. ‘Come on, do as you’re told!’

  She twisted out of his grasp. ‘Do as I’m told? Who put you in charge? You’re not in the bloody army yet, Sergeant Major!’

  She registered the shock on his face. Normally she indulged her brother’s every wish, as they all did, but her defiance towards the Germans seemed to have infected her normal peace-loving nature with a belligerence that matched Jack’s own.

  ‘Well, I will be soon,’ he said lamely.

  Just then May heard a voice calling her name. She slipped past Jack and dashed up the passage to find Flo, their next-door neighbour, peering anxiously in through the open front door.

  ‘You all right in there, love? Did your dad finish your shelter? If not, we’ve got room for two littl’uns in ours.’

  ‘Thanks, Flo, he finished it yesterday.’

  Flo retreated into her own house and May peered out at the street. Peggy had been right. The whole world was in motion. All their neighbours in Southwark Park Road without Anderson shelters were streaming out of their houses, hurrying to the nearest public shelter. Suddenly May felt herself grabbed from behind. Before she could resist, Jack twisted her round. Grasping both shoulders, he propelled her along the passage, through their house to the back door and out into the garden. Trampling freshly dug, soft earth, she stumbled forward as he forced her head low enough to enter the dim, curving interior of the Anderson shelter. Whether or not anyone had put him in charge, Jack was undoubtedly stronger than May. Peggy was already settled inside as Jack slammed the heavy door shut, confining them all to the dark, damp womb of corrugated iron. She gave Jack an ineffectual thump on the arm and took a deep breath of dank air. A sheen of sweat covered her face and she found her legs were trembling, mostly with anger at being manhandled by her brother. But as she squeezed herself on to a wooden bunk next to Peggy, she realized she’d forgotten all about the dinner.

  ‘Oh no, I’ve left the oven on!’ she said, getting up.

  ‘Leave it!’ Jack growled, pulling her back on to the bunk. ‘You’re not going nowhere.’

  She knew he was only being protective, but she hated it when he turned bossy like this. She had a feeling he was going to love this war.

  ‘We could be in here for hours!’ He was stronger but she was swifter, and before he could stop her, she dashed back into the house. She wouldn’t let a good bit of beef burn to a crisp for anyone, not her brother and certainly not Herr bloody Hitler.

  And after all that, the first air-raid warning of the war turned out to be a false alarm. No planes darkened the skies; no bombs fell. It had been like the flick of a whip, a sharp warning of what was to come. After half an hour, spent mostly trying to quieten Peggy’s fears about their parents’ and her husband George’s whereabouts, May was back in the kitchen, and soon the oven was piping hot, ready and waiting for the roast beef.

  ‘See! If I’d listened to you, it would have been dry as Old Harry by now!’ she said to Jack, who was looking over her shoulder, waiting to steal a roast potato. She pushed him out of the kitchen. ‘They’re not done yet. You’ll just have to wait. And don’t blame me, blame Hitler.’

  When her mother and father finally walked through the door, accompanied by Peggy’s husband George, May was laying the table. One look at Mrs Lloyd’s white face told her the usual leisurely Sunday drink at the Blue Anchor had been anything but relaxing.


  ‘Oh, me poor kids, and I wasn’t here!’ Mrs Lloyd said, crushing May to her and looking round at her other children. ‘Are you all right? I can’t believe I’m up the pub, just when the war’s finally started!’

  ‘I can,’ her father said, and winked at May as he took off his jacket and cap.

  Her mother gave him a sidelong look.

  ‘Well, if it was up to May, we could’ve all been blown to pieces, so long as you still got your Sunday dinner!’ said Peggy, who had rushed to George’s side and was now helping him off with his overcoat and hat.

  ‘I’ll give it to her, if she ran the railways they’d always be on time.’ Her father smiled at May. ‘Keep calm and carry on. They don’t have to tell our May that, do they, love?’ he said, giving her an appreciative peck on the cheek.

  In that moment May was glad she’d resisted being bullied out of her weekly task of cooking the Sunday roast. She’d taken on the job because it seemed the least she could do for her hard-working mother. And though she might pretend otherwise, May secretly loved it when Jack crept in to steal a roast potato before they all sat down to eat: Mum and Dad, Peggy and George, her brother Jack. The white cloth on the kitchen table, the steam from the scullery, the smell of the meat sizzling in the roasting tin. It was a tradition, home. And she was proud that the small matter of a German bomb had not prevented her from dishing up the Sunday roast.

  ‘Well, next time, not so much of the brave Jack Lairy,’ her mother said sharply. ‘If we’re not here, you just get yourself straight in the shelter!’

  ‘Beef turned out lovely, though,’ May said, noticing her father’s small smile as she placed the joint carefully in the centre of the table.

  *

  Peggy linked her arm through George’s as they walked home from her mother’s house. ‘I was worried about you.’

  ‘Hold up, Peg, we’re not runnin’ a race, are we?’

  Twelve years her senior, George Flint suffered from bouts of breathlessness. Today he was bad. She’d learned to hold herself back when walking with him, but sometimes she forgot.

  ‘Sorry, love.’ She slackened her pace.

  ‘Well, if we’d been having Sunday dinner in our own home like most people do, I wouldn’t have been traipsing up to Southwark Park Road during an air raid, would I?’

  ‘Mum loves having us. I thought you liked her spoiling you?’

  In spite of the age difference and his dubious occupation, George had always been a favourite with her parents. Wide’oh, as he was more commonly known, was the local bookie and though this was his primary source of income, he was involved in other unspecified ‘businesses’, which meant he was never without a wad of cash in his pocket. Yet it wasn’t so much his money that her parents approved of as his unconcealed, extravagant adoration of Peggy. This was the first time George had baulked at her mother’s insistence on having them there for Sunday dinner. She counted three of George’s laboured breaths before he replied.

  ‘Gawd’s sake, Peg, you’re a twenty-four-year-old married woman. It’s time your mother understood that. Anyway, I don’t want no one spoiling me but my wife.’ He put a hand over hers and pulled her closer. ‘I think we should knock it on the head, going round there every Sunday.’

  The suggestion was no doubt reasonable, but it filled Peggy with unease. The regular Sunday gathering was a comforting anchor not just to her family, but to the girl she’d been before she married. Perhaps it was because her nerves were still jangling from the fright of the raid, but she wasn’t as careful in her reply as she normally would have been.

  ‘Oh, you know what Mum’s like. She’d rather have us there than eating dinner on our own indoors. If we had a family it’d be different, I suppose.’

  She felt George stiffen. ‘You back on that? There’s more to marriage than kids, you know.’

  ‘I know that, George. Don’t get upset with me.’

  She could have kicked herself. This was a subject she normally steered clear of; it was guaranteed to turn George’s habitual cheery expression to stone. She looked up at him, trying to gauge his mood. His trilby hat shadowed his eyes, but his mouth was set in a way she knew meant a miserable evening ahead unless she could distract him.

  ‘Talking of marriage, I reckon our Jack and Joycie will be next. You were having a good old chat today. Has he said anything to you about it?’

  ‘No, he never said nothing, only that he needed some cash for something – might be an engagement ring?’

  ‘He never asked you for the money?’

  ‘You know I don’t mind helping out. Anyway, he’s going to do a few little jobs for me.’

  Now it was Peggy’s turn to stiffen. She knew her brother’s weaknesses. As the only boy, their mother had spoiled him and, in a house where money was tight, she’d always made sure that Jack had the best. If she only had a shilling left in her purse, it would be spent on Jack. She and her sister were just as bad. May might have occasional tussles with him, but neither of them could deny Jack anything.

  ‘What sort of jobs?’

  ‘Oh, this and that down the lock-up. Nothing you need worry about.’

  His smile dared her to ask more. But their tacit agreement was that she delved as little as possible into how George came by his money.

  ‘Don’t you get him into trouble, George. It’d kill Mum and Dad.’

  Now they’d reached the entrance to their block of flats on the Purbrook Estate. George disengaged his arm from hers and leaned against the entrance arch. He paused to catch his breath, beads of sweat dotting his forehead.

  ‘Chrissake, Peg, grow up.’ His breath rattled in his chest. ‘Jack’s been doing bits and pieces for me ever since you and me got married. Where d’ye think he gets the money for his expensive suits? Not as a lockman down the docks!’

  She hadn’t known, but perhaps she’d never wanted to. ‘George! You know Mum and Dad wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Don’t tell ’em then.’

  Her mother always boasted to friends that George would do anything for Peggy and her family. And it was true, he was generous, but only in the ways he chose. Peggy gave up trying to sway him and turned towards the stone staircase. When he didn’t follow she looked back.

  ‘Got some business with Ronnie. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘What time will you be home?’

  But he was already walking away, and it was a stupid question anyway. George’s business was best conducted after dark and she had grown used to spending most of her evenings alone. He might love her, he certainly wanted to be seen with her, called her his princess, yet sometimes she wondered if he actually liked her company. Why he was making such a fuss about spending Sunday dinner at home with her she couldn’t fathom.

  She paused a moment, listening, as his harsh, rattling wheeze faded away and he disappeared into Tower Bridge Road. She wouldn’t say anything about Jack. Her parents might turn a blind eye to George’s thieving, but involving their son would be a different matter. If George put Jack in danger they would never forgive him, and neither would she.

  *

  May had rarely seen her mother cry, but in the two months since that first false alarm Mrs Lloyd did little else. It had come as a surprise to May, people’s reactions to the war. Those she thought would be weak often turned out to be the strongest. And now it was shocking to see her capable mother in such distress. Carrie Lloyd had always been the lynchpin of the family, but now May’s throat tightened at the thought that her mother might not be as strong as she’d always appeared. Mrs Lloyd believed they would either be gassed in their beds or overrun by Germans any day. Her mother’s fear seemed to permeate the very walls of the old house in Southwark Park Road, but it wasn’t primarily fear for herself or even her daughters – it was for Jack. May saw her mother jump every time a letter dropped through the letterbox. As a young lockman, Jack’s job wasn’t reserved and though he hadn’t yet got his call-up papers, he would soon, and then May feared Mrs Lloyd’s world really would fa
ll apart.

  It was Saturday evening and her mother had taken herself upstairs for ‘a nap’, which meant she’d been crying and didn’t want her red eyes to give her away. May was in the kitchen with Jack.

  ‘You should get your nose out of that book and go out a bit more,’ Jack said as he stood in front of the kitchen sink, carefully swiping the long blade of the razor up under his chin. Four years her senior, he felt himself entitled to pronounce upon her life.

  She was sitting in the corner, and he had perhaps noticed that her book was not holding her. In fact she’d been mesmerized by the razor ploughing its way through the white lather on her brother’s chin. She looked up and met his clear blue eyes in the small mirror tacked above the sink. It was true that as the world grew grumpier and sadder around May, she’d felt herself yearning for a glimpse of light-heartedness.

  ‘And you should watch you don’t cut yourself getting that bum fluff off.’

  ‘Keep your hair on. I was only thinking of you! There’s always Garner’s girls up the Red Cow, and they’ve got this new piano player – he’s pretty good. You can come with me and Norman tonight, if you want.’

  Garner’s was the leather factory where May worked, and she would probably know a couple of the girls drinking at the Red Cow tonight. She hesitated, feeling guilty for snapping at him.

  ‘Thanks, but… you know me and pubs.’

  But her shyness had nothing to do with pubs. She’d always been the quietest of their large family, with nothing remarkable to make her stand out apart from a useless bookishness, which they found puzzling rather than praiseworthy. She preferred to watch family life from the sidelines. Peggy, the princess, and Jack, the golden boy, always took centre stage in their family dramas. And though May had learned to make herself indispensable around the home, she had also learned to be a great hider. It seemed to her that she’d spent her childhood searching out hidey-holes, spending hours, sometimes whole days, immersed in her own world, perhaps with a book from Spa Road Library, or engaged in imaginary games.

  Jack raised his eyes as he wiped soap off his neck and proceeded to slick back his hair with Brylcreem, till the golden curls were tamed and darkened.