by Maggie Hope
Now, as he drove through Spennymoor and across to the Great North Road where he turned left for Durham City, he hummed softly to himself, looking forward to seeing his mother and grandmother again.
The opportunities for such visits had been few when he first came home from Italy, and no doubt they would be few and far between in the next few months, now that the allies were so close to Germany. He expected quite a list of POW casualties to filter through to Bishop Auckland. Then there were the ones on the medical side coming down from the camp up the dale; chest infections were rife among the new prisoners, the winter and the poor diet they had had in the last years of the war exerting the usual consequences.
Ken eased his foot on the throttle. Now he was on a good road his speed had been creeping up. There was little other traffic about but he was approaching New Elvet on the outskirts of Durham and being so early in the morning there was still a covering of frost on the road. He had to watch out for pedestrians.
School children were walking to school in twos and threes, muffled up against the cold, pixie hoods knitted from scraps of wool on their heads and mufflers round their necks, crisscrossed over their chests and tied behind their backs. On the ridge behind the houses stood the cathedral, standing guard over the little city. Ken spared it a quick glance, his spirits lifting as they always did at the sight.
Coming out on the other side of Durham, he took the Sunderland road. He had to go along the coast road through the town, skirting round the ruins where the bombs had fallen earlier in the war, smiling spontaneously as he caught his first glimpse of the sea.
That was it, that was what he had missed since he left Marsden: the sight of the North Sea. All this time in Africa and Italy, when he had often been so close to the sea, had not made up for this. It was different somehow, the smell of the North Sea, even the wind freezing his bones as it swept down from the Arctic.
What a fool he was! he thought. The smell was a mixture of fish and salt and sea coal, mingled with the down-blown smoke from the stacks in the pit yards of the coastal collieries. He grinned at his own sentimentality.
He was still smiling as he drove into the farmyard along the lane from the mining village and stopped the engine. As he climbed out of the car his younger brother Walt appeared in the doorway of the stable, grinning widely as he saw who it was sweeping into the yard, scattering the hens and making the drake honk and spread his wings in defence of his geese.
‘You’re back then,’ was all the greeting Walt gave, in spite of his grin. ‘Look at you now. Causing havoc already, you are.’
The pet porker that had been rooting about in the yard had panicked and fled, squealing, knocking the clothes prop from the line of washing which had been fluttering high above the yard and was now dangerously close to the muddy ground. Ken bent to pick up the prop and put it back in place before answering his brother’s greeting.
‘Ken! Why didn’t you tell us you were coming? By, lad, it’s grand to see you, it is that.’
‘Hello, Grandma,’ he said, bending again to kiss the white-haired old lady who had rushed out of the kitchen door. ‘I thought I would surprise you all. Of course, if you don’t want to see me, I can soon go.’
‘Don’t be daft, lad. Howay in and see your mam. Walt, tell your uncle we’re having our elevenses early now Ken’s here.’
Ken glanced back at his brother before following Meg, his grandmother, into the big old-fashioned kitchen. Walt’s welcome had been genuine and warm enough; he never was one to show a lot of emotion. He was a born farmer, like most of the family on both sides. Their father had been killed in 1933 when his tractor rolled down a bank on top of him and their mother had sold up the small inland farm they had owned and brought her boys back to the farm, which her father, Jonty Grizedale, had bought when he first brought Meg and her two boys away from Winton Colliery.
In spite of his love of farming, Walt had been envious of his elder brother’s scholarship to the Medical School of Durham University in Newcastle. And then, tied as he himself was to the farm when war broke out, he was envious of Ken’s going into the army. Of course he might have enlisted himself, but couldn’t leave his uncle the only man on the farm apart from Ben, a fifteen-year-old boy who intended to join the navy as soon as he was old enough.
So Ken had felt the need to tread softly in his dealings with Walt. The question was, had his brother matured enough by now to forget his envious feeling? Perhaps.
The kitchen was exactly the same as he remembered it. Still the same red-tiled range with shining steel hinges on the oven door, the terracotta tiles on the floor which Grandma had had laid just before the war. Only a new proddy mat before the fire – bright red in the middle and grey round the edges with what looked like strips from his and Walt’s old school trousers – was different. The table was still scrubbed white and the old rocking chair still stood by the fire, the one Grandda Jonty had rocked slowly back and forward in when Ken was small.
‘Fetch me my slippers, lad.’ Ken could almost hear Grandda’s voice from the past. And he and Walt would squabble over the slippers, in the end taking one each for the pleasure of being lifted up, one on each knee, and being allowed to bring out the old man’s watch from his waistcoat pocket and hear it chime the time when Grandda pushed the button.
Today, though, it was his mother in the rocking chair, sitting forward and looking eagerly towards the door as he entered but evidently not strong enough to get to her feet. Ken was shocked to his core as he saw her. Even though she had been fine-boned and ethereal-looking ever since he could remember, she had never looked so frail as she did today.
‘Mam, how are you?’ he asked as he strode over to the chair and bent to kiss her. His professionalism stood him in great stead, his voice was steady even though he could not quite prevent his feelings from showing in his eyes.
‘It’s nothing, son, just a touch of the flu,’ she assured him. ‘You know what I’m like, soon knocked down.’
‘Have you had Doctor Brown out? Mam, you know you have to be careful. Why didn’t you let me know you were ill?’
‘Don’t fuss now, Ken. I told you, it’s just a touch of the flu. Doctor Brown agrees with me, he’s given me a bottle. I knew you were busy anyroad, else I would have written. I was going to today at least.’
‘Touch of the flu!’ Meg said sharply. ‘By, our Jane, you know full well the doctor said you’d had congestion of the lungs. Who do you think you’re fooling, like? Have you forgotten the lad’s a doctor? Nay, man, he’s a surgeon now, aren’t you, Ken?’
Ken didn’t reply. He picked up his mother’s wrist and felt her pulse – not all that fast or erratic, he noted. And her skin was fairly cool. She must have got over the worst of it.
‘I was telling her, Ken,’ Meg went on, ‘she should keep that Thermogene vest I made her on till the weather gets better at least. But she minds me not at all, thinks she knows better. Now tell her, lad, she’ll have to look after herself – she’s as weak as a kitten.’
‘Why don’t you get the kettle on, Grandma?’ he asked mildly. ‘I’m ready for a cuppa after that drive, and won’t the men be in for theirs in a minute?’
Reminded of the job in hand, Meg picked up the heavy iron kettle and went into the scullery to fill it.
Jane smiled. ‘If I was half as strong as your gran, I’d be doing fine,’ she said, forgetting she had just been saying there was not much wrong with her. ‘As it is, I feel just about ready for the knacker’s yard.’
‘Mam, don’t you talk like that,’ he replied, his face stern. ‘You just feel weak from the flu. You’ll be all right in a couple of weeks if you eat properly and keep warm.’
‘I know. Sorry, Ken. I’m lucky really, living on a farm. At least we have more to eat than some poor beggars. But, by, it’s good to see you! As good as a bottle of Parrish’s Food. Does your leg still bother you, pet? I think about you working in that hospital, all hours an’ all. I’m sure you could have been invalided out of the a
rmy long before now. Doctor Brown could do with an assistant, you know. Don’t you think—’
‘Mam, I’m a surgeon, not a general practitioner. I want to work in a hospital.’
Ken looked at his mother and smiled. This was practically a straight continuation of the conversation he had had with his mother the last time he had been here.
Walt and Uncle Jack came in, removing their boots at the door and walking into the kitchen in their thick woollen socks. Meg had fresh singing hinny scones and farm butter ready, a great luxury to Ken.
‘Grand it is,’ he said, licking his fingers after picking up the last crumb from his plate. ‘The scones too.’
‘I never could get away with margarine,’ said Meg. ‘I would just as soon do without anything on my bread. Luckily we usually have enough to do the house after sending in the quota. I can let you have half a pound, Ken, and some for Tucker an’ all.’ She gave him an anxious glance. ‘How’s he getting on? We don’t see much of him, not since Betty died. He’s not doing too much, is he? He forgets he’s getting on now, time he let the younger men do their share.’
‘He told me to tell you he would try to come on Sunday, Grandma. But he’s fine. I spent the night there, Mrs Jenkins looks after him well.’
‘Not like a wife, though,’ she commented.
‘I should hope not an’ all,’ said Uncle Jack, and laughed.
‘Aye, well, you can laugh but I worry about the lad.’
The idea of Tucker with his grey hairs being classed as a lad made Ken smile. Grandma never changed. She was even known to call Walt ‘the bairn’ at times, big as he was.
‘I’ll be getting on with the fencing,’ he said, pushing back his chair. ‘The sheep will be in the winter wheat if I don’t fix the fence in the far field.’ He hesitated before looking at Ken. ‘I don’t suppose—’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Ken offered quickly, pleased at this overture from his younger brother. He found spare overalls in the scullery and an ancient pair of Wellington boots. Walt stood patiently as he pulled them on then strode away up the path to the gate to the pasture and on up Sugar Hill, to the expanse of ploughed land. At the top he turned and waited for Ken who was finding the going hard with thick clarts sticking to his boots.
‘Eeh, sorry, I forgot about your leg,’ he said when Ken finally caught up with him, breathing heavily.
‘That’s all right.’
They stood there, looking round. There was a good view on all sides, the land sweeping down to the sea to the east, the smoke stacks and winding wheels of the colliery right on the edge, seeming from here almost to be rising from the sea itself. Beyond, a couple of collier boats were steaming south. A trawler was coming in, making for Shields with gulls wheeling above it, their harsh cries carrying on the cold wind.
The hedge to the north, where the ploughed land stopped and a small windbreaker wood began, its trees bent all at the same angle by the prevailing wind, was neat and dense, well cared for.
‘You the hedger, Walt?’ asked Ken and nodded approvingly when his brother admitted it.
Ken turned towards the fence that bounded the farm. It looked in good condition to him and he said so.
‘Aye? Well, wait till we get a bit closer,’ Walt grinned. And, indeed, close up there were a few weak places which sheep would soon break through if they got the chance.
The brothers worked companionably for the next couple of hours, saying little apart from commenting on the job in hand. But that feeling of resentment which Ken had once felt coming from his brother was absent; they were back again to how they had been as young boys, sharing the work, though Ken sometimes had to look to Walt for what to do next.
It had been a grand day, he thought as he drove back to Bishop Auckland. The manual work had tired him but relaxed him too. And it had been good to be with the family again. Perhaps he would get a position at Sunderland Infirmary after the war, then he would be close enough to drop in more often. After the war, he thought, and sighed. For the duration at least he would be staying in Auckland. Well, it wasn’t too bad. Funny that his grandmother and grandfather had set out from there all those years ago and now he was directed back. As his uncle had been drawn back, he thought.
Perhaps he would call at the manager’s house on his way back. Uncle Tucker should be home. He had the butter to deliver in any case. As he drove along the road at the top of the rows of colliery houses, towards the lane that led to the manager’s house, he found himself looking out for Staff Nurse Wearmouth. If she was there, perhaps he could give her a lift back to the hospital again.
There was a girl just turning into West Row. Ken slowed for a moment and she turned her face towards him. But no, this was a younger girl, very like the staff nurse but white-faced and with a scarf tied carelessly round her head, dressed in slacks with a mackintosh over the top. Ken dropped a gear and accelerated on up the lane.
‘Do you know the Wearmouth family, Uncle Tucker?’ he asked after they had eaten their poached eggs on toast and apple dumpling and custard.
Tucker looked up in surprise. ‘Why, of course I do, lad,’ he said. ‘Been here as long as I have. Good solid workers all of them. I was sorry when two of the lads went in the army, I could have done with them now. The youngest was killed at Dunkirk, I heard,’ he paused for a moment and lit his pipe before sitting back in his chair. ‘Why do you ask?’
Ken shrugged. ‘Oh, nothing but idle curiosity, I suppose. The daughter is a staff nurse at the hospital. I gave her a lift back not long ago.’
‘That would be Theda,’ nodded Tucker. ‘The youngest, Clara, works in the munitions factory over at Aycliffe.’
He said no more, but looked curiously at his nephew. Could it be that Ken was at last interested in a girl?
Chapter Ten
‘I think they could at least let you have Christmas day off,’ grumbled Bea as she watched Theda chop up dried prunes to make pretend currants for the Christmas cake.
‘Mam,’ she said patiently, ‘if we all had the day off, who would look after the sick?’
‘Let them look after themselves,’ said Chuck from where he lay sprawled on the horsehair sofa in the corner of the kitchen. He was reading the Daily Herald but as usual never missed a chance to show his resentment of the German prisoners his sister was nursing.
It was half-past four in the afternoon and Chuck was on fore shift. He had come in from the pit a couple of hours before and was bathed and fed and lying in his stockinged feet and braces until it was time for his date with Norma Musgrave. They were going to the pictures in Eldon Lane; the Working Men’s Club there had a picture house built over the club house. The entrance was only fourpence, so much cheaper than going into Bishop Auckland, and they were saving all they could for the future. Mostly Norma’s idea, Theda suspected. Chuck had always been free with his money until he began going out with her. Norma was careful with money to put it mildly.
‘Chuck, get up off that couch and go and pull me some Brussels sprouts,’ his mother said sharply. ‘Your da will be coming in before we know it and the dinner not ready.’
He pulled a face but went to do as he was bid.
‘They could let some of you have Christmas Day off, anyroad,’ Bea continued the conversation as she sifted dried egg and dried milk into the flour for the cake and added cinnamon and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. Theda finished cutting up the prunes and began grating carrots before she replied.
‘It’s fairer if no one gets it off,’ she explained, as she was sure she had explained every other Christmas since she had entered nursing. She raised her hand and brushed a lock of dark hair away from her forehead with the back of her arm.
‘Hmm,’ her mother snorted. She began beating margarine and white sugar together, for brown had been unobtainable in the Co-op where her ration books were lodged. Her strong arms were soon bringing the mixture to a light fluffy texture so she could add the other ingredients.
‘I’ve got Boxing Day afternoon,’ offe
red Theda, as a sort of consolation prize.
‘Well, I’ll just have to save some of the goodies for you, won’t I?’
Though the blackout restrictions had been eased to a ‘dim-out’ recently, the kitchen curtains with their black lining had been drawn as soon as it became necessary to put a match to the gas mantle over the table. So they didn’t see anyone coming up the yard until there was a knock at the door and Violet Mitchell came in, her arm around and supporting Clara. A white and trembling Clara, fighting to hold back the tears glistening in her eyes. Both Theda and her mother dropped what they were doing and started towards her.
‘Whatever—’ Bea began, but was interrupted by Violet.
‘It’s all right, Mrs Wearmouth,’ she said. ‘Clara wasn’t feeling very well, that’s all, so instead of working overtime I thought I’d bring her home.’ She practically carried Clara into the kitchen and set her down on the sofa where she lay against the raised end and closed her eyes.
Theda went to her at once, feeling her rapid pulse, the clammy coldness of her skin. ‘What happened?’ she asked as Bea hovered, looking anxious.
‘She was sick, that’s all,’ explained Violet. ‘Then she fainted. I blame the powder. I’m telling you, the smell of that stuff is blooming awful. It’s enough to make anyone throw up.’
It passed through Theda’s mind that Clara had worked among the yellow gun powder for a year or two now but it had not made her sick before. Looking at her sister, she had her own suspicions and they were pretty dismaying.
Clara suddenly sat up and lifted her head. ‘I’m fine now, really I am. Don’t fuss. I couldn’t fancy the dinner in the canteen, that’s what it was. And then afterwards I was hungry.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on, pet,’ said Bea. ‘You can have a bite of something. You an’ all, Violet. It was good of you to come home with her.’ She shook her head at her youngest daughter. ‘I don’t know, you’re nowt but a worry to me, you’re not. You never do eat enough. You should be thankful for what you can get to eat these days, never mind not fancying anything.’ She was working herself up, venting her alarm in sharp words now she felt there was nothing seriously wrong with Clara.
