Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Anne Bennett

  In the room, as soon as the door closed behind Magda and Sarah, Marion said, ‘Magda is always such a mess and she doesn’t seem to care.’

  ‘She’s just a child.’

  ‘She’s a girl,’ Marion corrected, ‘not some hooligan boy. And then to run through the streets like that. I mean, I wonder what the neighbours made of it. I would hate them to think I’d let her out looking like that.’

  Polly laughed. ‘You care too much what the neighbours think. Who the bloody hell cares in the end? And your Magda will grow up and become respectable soon enough. Anyroad, ain’t we got more important things to discuss if you’re going to take in lodgers?’

  ‘Lodgers?’ Tony exclaimed later that day as the family sat eating a meagre meal. ‘Where the blooming heck are we going to put lodgers?’

  ‘In the room you share with Richard now,’ Marion said.

  ‘So where’re we going to sleep?’ Tony asked. ‘In the yard outside?’

  ‘You well might if I have any more of your lip,’ Marion commented grimly. ‘But my intention was that you and Richard will sleep in the parlour. There’s plenty of room if we move things around a bit.’

  ‘Are you moving the bed down or are we sleeping on a mattress on the floor?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Oh, I think for any long-term solution you will need the bed down,’ Marion said. ‘Polly is loaning me the money to get the things I’ll need. I’ll clear out one of the sideboard cupboards for you to put your clothes in, and anything else – like your suit, Richard ? you’ll have to hang in my wardrobe.’

  Richard nodded. ‘That’ll be all right. One room is much the same as another to me, but where will we get the lodgers from?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Marion said. ‘Women and girls are being drafted in from all over to work in the industries and factories round here, according to Polly. As soon as I have the room ready I will start advertising.’

  Richard knew his mother was right about the female workforce. In the brass foundry, as soon as one man was called up, there was a woman to take his place. It had always been a maledominated industry, but it couldn’t be that any longer. He had doubted before the war that women could do the some of the jobs. The heat from the white-hot furnaces was tremendous, and he’d been so exhausted when he begun the work that he could barely put one foot in front of the other in the evening as he and his father made their way home. And though his innards might be growling with hunger, first he had to wash and change his shirt, which was always damp with sweat. He always appreciated the fact that his mother had hot water ready for him and a dry shirt to hand.

  Richard’s idealised vision of women being wives and mothers was being turned completely on its head, for the women in the brass foundry had donned the overalls, bundled their hair under a scarf worn turban-style, and got on with the job. He had to admit they did it very well.

  It was odd now to see a male conductor on the tram or bus. He had even seen women driving them, and also delivery vans and lorries. He remembered his mother telling him that the last lot of coal they’d bought had been delivered by the wife of the coalman after her husband had been called up. It seemed there was nothing a woman couldn’t do any more.

  Later that night, as they lay in bed, Magda said, ‘I don’t know whether I will like lodgers in the house.’

  ‘You like to eat, don’t you?’ Sarah said.

  ‘Course I do,’ Magda said. ‘I would often like to eat more than Mom gives me.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sarah. ‘The way I can see it, we won’t even get the little we’re having now without lodgers.’

  ‘Is it sort of like it or lump it?’ Missie said. ‘Seems like there’s a lot of that in this war.’

  Sarah laughed. ‘That seems the way of it all right,’ she said. ‘I would say that you have hit the nail on the head there, Missie.’

  NINE

  The following afternoon Marion and Polly were moving the things around in the parlour to make room for the boys’ bed when Clara and Eddie made a surprise visit. Marion, knowing that her mother would hardly approve of her decision, had not mentioned a word about taking in lodgers that morning when she had seen her at Mass, and so her heart sank when she caught sight of Clara’s discontented face.

  ‘Hello, Mammy, Daddy,’ she said nervously. ‘This is a surprise.’

  ‘Shock, more like,’ Clara snapped peevishly. ‘I had to see for myself. I could hardly believe my ears when Beattie Roberts, her next door, told me about you thinking about taking lodgers in. You out of your tiny mind, or what?’

  ‘No,’ Marion answered mildly. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’re having perfect strangers living in your house that you know nowt about, and you a mother as well,’ Clara went on. ‘You have responsibilities to your kids. And where the hell you going to put lodgers anyroad?’

  ‘In the room Richard and Tony share now,’ Marion explained. ‘The boys will sleep in the parlour. We’re rearranging everything now so that we can get the beds in.’

  ‘And how do they feel about that?’ Clara demanded.

  ‘They said that they didn’t mind where they sleep,’ Marion said. ‘Though they do mind being hungry and cold all the time. None of us is keen on that.’ She faced her mother and, though her knees were quaking, her voice was resolute enough as she said, ‘You reminded me that I’m a mother, that I have responsibilities to my children and that means that I must care for them the best I can. At the moment taking in lodgers seems the way to do that, and we all understand this.’

  ‘I bet that this was all your idea?’ Clara snapped at Polly.

  But before Polly could speak, Marion said, ‘Polly didn’t have to tell me. Many are doing the same thing as me at the moment. These girls arriving in Birmingham to work have got to live somewhere.’

  ‘And what does Bill say about it?’

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to tell Bill anything yet,’ Marion admitted.

  ‘One of the bosses told Pat that he heard there is a law coming in,’ Polly said. ‘Every woman will have to do summat whether they like it or not.’

  ‘They can’t force women to work,’ Clara said. ‘I’ve never heard of such nonsense.’

  ‘Course they can,’ Polly said to her mother. ‘We’re at war, in case it’s escaped your notice. With the men called up the women will have to set to and do the jobs the men did, as well as make uniforms, guns and ammunition and so on.’

  ‘Polly’s right,’ Marion said to her parents. ‘Anyroad, all Polly did was offer to help me.’

  ‘I see that,’ Clara snapped. ‘Does a day of rest mean nothing to you?’

  Marion laughed. ‘Sunday, a day of rest! I worked harder on that day than any other before the war. There used to be a big breakfast after Mass and then a bigger dinner, and both before dinner and after it I would be cooking cakes and pastries and tarts, and all for the Sunday teas you used to enjoy. I didn’t magic them out of the air, and yet you never seemed to mind me doing that.’

  ‘Marion has a point,’ Eddie said. ‘I often remarked on how hard she must have worked, for there was always plenty on the table.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘I don’t see it,’ Marion said. ‘But I really haven’t time to argue with you. The room the lads had will need a good clean before I could put anyone else in it, so I need to get the parlour sorted so they can sleep in there. Me and Polly went down the Bull Ring last night and ordered new beds, and they’re coming tomorrow.’

  ‘And where, pray, did you get the money for all that?’

  Marion wished she could tell her mother that it was none of her business. It had surprised her that her mother had never offered her a penny piece, however hard up she had been, and yet her father was still in employment. She knew she hadn’t lifted a finger to help Polly over the years either.

  ‘Polly loaned me the money, and I’ll pay her back as soon as I can,’ she said, looking her mother in the eye.

  ‘And what if you’ve gone
to all this trouble and expense and no lodgers come?’

  ‘That’s looking on the black side of things, Mammy,’ Marion replied. ‘I think they will.’

  ‘We’re not waiting on the money, anyway,’ Polly said. ‘We have plenty now and set to have more because Mary Ellen is going to work in the munitions with Pat after Easter. She’ll be sixteen then.’

  Marion gasped and stared at Polly as if she couldn’t believe what she had heard, and even Clara was stunned into silence. In the end Marion said, ‘Oh, Polly, isn’t that very dangerous work?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Polly said. ‘Probably that’s why it’s so well paid.’

  ‘But won’t you worry about her?’

  ‘Course I will,’ Polly said. ‘But that will be nothing new. Don’t we worry about them all every minute of the day anyway? Part and parcel of being a mother, that is, ain’t it?’

  ‘I think the whole thing is a monstrous idea,’ Clara burst out. ‘What kind of mother are you anyroad to allow your daughter to work in such a dangerous industry?’

  ‘The kind of mother with a daughter who wants to do this,’ Polly said heatedly. ‘She’s not a fool and she knows the dangers, but she also knows that later this year her eldest brother will get his call-up papers, and Colm the year after. They’ll both be putting their lives on the line, as Bill is now. How safe will they be then? In fact, if we get raids from the air, like everyone says we will, how safe will any of us be? After all, Pat’s been there this good while now, and nothing has happened to him, and he’ll see Mary Ellen is all right as well.’

  ‘So it seems that it’s all signed and sealed then?’ Clara said, her eyes glittering with malice as they caught Polly’s.

  Polly her mother’s gaze defiantly. ‘Yeah, near enough.’

  Marion thought the antagonism between them could almost be felt. She sighed inwardly and then, placatory as always, she said, ‘Look, I really am busy, as I said, but we both have time for a quick cup of tea. Shall I put the kettle on?’

  Eddie looked as if he was about to accept, but Clara forestalled him. ‘We haven’t come to drink tea,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I came to try and dissuade you from this stupid idea, but I see that it’s too late for that because you seem to have already decided it between you. So I’ll leave you to get on with it, Sunday or not. Come along, Eddie.’

  ‘Daddy shouldn’t let her get away with talking to him like that,’ Polly said as the door slammed behind her parents. ‘Pat said that he doesn’t know how he has put up with it all these years. And she’s crackers as well. She was all for you giving up this lodgers idea, but she hadn’t a plan of action to put in its place.’

  ‘Oh, let’s stop talking about them,’ Marion said. ‘It just depresses me. Let’s finish off that parlour and make the boys’ old room like a little palace for all these potential lodgers.’

  Less than a week later, Marion opened the door to two girls who said they were looking for a room. They introduced themselves as Peggy Wagstaffe and Violet Clooney. Marion thought Violet looked about twelve, with her chubby face, blonde hair and blue eyes, despite the fact that her hair was caught up in a bun at the nape of her neck. Peggy wore her dark brown hair the same way, but she was older and far more self-assured. Her brown eyes were open and clear, and Marion felt herself relax. She wouldn’t mind either girl living in her house.

  Marion and Polly had worked hard on the bedroom and Marion was pleased that even the lino didn’t look that bad after a good clean. Polly had brought along a blue rug she said she was fed up of and had set it down between the two brand-new beds made up with the sheets and blankets from the Bull Ring. She saw by the girls’ eyes that they were impressed. But she left them to talk it over while she waited downstairs.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Violet asked Peggy, a smile playing around her lips and her eyes shining.

  ‘I think we’ve fell right on our feet, that’s what I think,’ Peggy said. ‘Even the road this house is on is a pleasant one.’ She crossed to the window and looked through the net curtains. ‘And there’s a lovely little garden out the back.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Violet said, joining her. She spun round as she exclaimed, ‘I think the whole place is lovely and we have a bed each! In that other place they expected us to share.’

  ‘Yeah, and the sheets were decidedly grey,’ Peggy said. Turning from the window she folded back the sheets on the two beds and nodded approvingly. ‘These are spotlessly clean.’

  ‘Yeah, and there wasn’t much storage for our clothes either, and it was the same price as this place,’ Violet said. ‘While here we have a large chest of drawers, a wardrobe to share, and I love that rug. I cannot abide putting my feet on cold lino first thing in the morning.’

  ‘And best of all is the inside toilet and proper bathroom,’ Peggy said. ‘Height of luxury, that is.’

  ‘So we’ll take it then?’

  ‘Think we’d be mad not to,’ Peggy said. ‘I don’t think we’ll get better. Let’s go and tell the woman and then we can go back to the Buckinghams and give our notice.’

  Marion was delighted when the girls said that they would take the room and felt the knot of worry in her stomach ease a little, for she knew with the fifteen shillings they would each give her every week she would be able to manage much better. However, though she had an initial good first impression of the girls, she wanted to know something about them.

  They understood that perfectly and told her of their families in a little village called Rugeley, which was some way from Aston. ‘It’s a pretty isolated place,’ Peggy said. ‘To get there from here you would need to get a train from Aston station as far as Lichfield, and then a bus out to the village. Our place is at the end of a lane.’

  ‘And the bus runs only three times a day,’ Violet put in.

  ‘Yes, and so virtually the only chance of a job there was at the one of the big houses in the area. We worked at Birchenfield House, owned by Lord and Lady Buckingham. Still do, of course, until we go back and give our notice. We’ve been set on at Tube Investments. Marion looked at the two young women before her, little more than girls. ‘But why did you choose work in Tube Investments? That’s a drop forge. Did you know that?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Peggy said. ‘The man who came around recruiting people told us that, and he also said they needed more people there. There was munitions work as well, but I’d given my word to my mother that I wouldn’t do that.’ And then, at Marion’s raised eyebrows, she went on, ‘My mother’s younger sister, Dolly, did it in the last war. Mom said that she was tempted herself but my elder brother, Sam, was a handful and I was only a baby, and we were too much for our grandmother to handle and so Mom had to stay behind and look after us. She told us that after only a little time, Dolly’s skin went all yellow and her hair went all coarse and turned a sort of red colour, and she had a permanent cough. After the war she married, but never had any children and died before she was thirty, poisoned, Mom always said, by the sulphur. I said it was probably different now, but she wouldn’t hear of me working somewhere like that.’

  Marion thought of her niece Mary Ellen, who would be involved in that dangerous work very soon and she gave an involuntary shiver. ‘I do understand that, but neither of you will have done any work in a drop forge before, I’m sure.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Peggy said. ‘But these days lots of people are doing things that they have no experience of.’

  Marion couldn’t disagree with that.

  ‘I suppose we can learn as well as the next person,’ Peggy continued. ‘And neither of us is a stranger to hard work.’

  Marion saw the determination in the two girls’ faces and acknowledged that they certainly looked robust enough. Even Violet, despite her diminutive stature, didn’t cut a frail, delicate figure. But Marion did hope that they hadn’t bitten off more than they could chew, not least because she liked the girls and she also thought they would fit in well to her household.

  ‘So when do you intend mo
ving in?’ Marion asked.

  ‘Well, the man we saw at Tube Investments was keen for us to start as soon as possible,’ Peggy said. ‘It all hinged really on whether we were able to find somewhere nearby to stay. We said that we would call back and tell him as soon as we found somewhere suitable. Then we have to give notice, of course. It should be a month, but for war work these things are waived, and it’s a particularly early Easter this year.’

  ‘Yes,’ Marion agreed, ‘a week today is Good Friday.’

  ‘Right, so what if we leave the Buckinghams at Easter, move in here Easter Monday and start at the drop forge on the Tuesday?’ Peggy said. ‘How does that suit?’

  ‘That suits just perfectly,’ Marion said.

  Marion had loved her time in service and so she said, ‘Will you miss your old lives?’

  ‘Not likely we won’t,’ Peggy said fiercely. ‘I’ve had my fill of bobbing my knee and kowtowing to people who think they’re better than me because they have money.’

  ‘And me,’ Violet said. ‘One of my jobs was to light the fires in the rooms, and I would always fill up the coal scuttles before I left. Yet when the fires burned low the family would ring the bell for me to go and see to it. Not one of them seemingly was capable of putting coal on the fire, and yet the tongs were there for them to use.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Peggy said. ‘That’s what they were like.’

  ‘Do they know that you’re after war work?’

  Peggy nodded. ‘We told them, but they knew anyroad because a man came round trying to recruit people, and my brother, Sam, and most young men his age in the village are already in the army.’

  ‘My husband is in the thick of it as well,’ Marion said.

  ‘That why you’re taking lodgers in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Marion said. Though she seldom discussed her finances outside of the family she found herself saying, ‘Before the war my Bill worked in the brass industry. Birmingham is famous for its brass and he earned a good wage. It was a shock to me to manage on the little amount the army pays.’ She gave a smile. ‘I always find that there’s too much week at the end of the money.’