‘To think,’ she said to Daddy, ‘that we spent all that time on it and she didn’t even notice it.’
Daddy looked at her and said, ‘It is above her line of vision.’
He seemed rather surprised, too, and because I didn’t know why, I imagined that it was my fault in some way.
During the first few months at the bungalow, I called Mildred ‘Auntie’, but now and then I forgot and said, ‘Mummy’ instead. Perhaps the threesome set-up reminded me of the time when it had been three of us before. I don’t know—even now. So Mildred asked me if I wanted to call her ‘Mummy’ or ‘Auntie’ and said that I should make up my mind. I felt that she wanted ‘Mummy’, and by then I was beginning to realise that it was best to do what Auntie wanted. Also, I wanted to feel more like the children at school who talked of their ‘mummy’ saying this or ‘mum’ saying that. One or two had taunted me with a cruel sing-song: ‘You haven’t got a mummy, you haven’t got a mummy.’ I crept off at these times and cried in the lavatories. I didn’t tell anyone—neither teachers nor Daddy nor Auntie—about this.
But still, surprisingly, I told Auntie that I would make up my mind soon. Equally surprising was the fact that Daddy had said it was up to me, although he must have known that Mildred wanted to be called Mummy. Could he have been thinking of my mother? Perhaps he was uneasy with yet another act that would separate her time from the present? Had he begun to think, after the initial excitement of a new marriage, that he had been indecently hasty? No one will ever know.
So, given the opportunity to make my own decision (I think it hardly ever happened again), and wanting to conform at school and feeling that I was expected to please at home, I decided to call her ‘Mummy’. As soon as I said so, however, I regretted it. It didn’t feel right. But I could do nothing because I didn’t know how to describe the feelings inside me. I knew instinctively that it would displease Mildred, and perhaps Daddy too, if I told them that I had changed my mind.
Everyone accepted the decision. Those at Meadow View said very little, and I didn’t know if they thought it a good idea. I’m sure Mummy’s family would have been hurt and disapproving, but we hardly ever saw them now. But, for once, it felt like I had an opinion of my own and was not afraid to voice it.
After a few days, I suggested, ‘Perhaps it would be more grown-up for me to say “Mum” like the bigger children do?’ That felt better. And by that stage I knew that Mildred and Mummy were very different people.
I think it was at about this time that I began to imagine what it would be like to have a sister. I used to make up various scenarios where she and I would play together, even have adventures and sleep in the same room and giggle and tell each other secrets. I knew other girls who had sisters—perhaps older ones—and they seemed to have fun with them.
I was chatting away to this imaginary sister one day, thinking that I was alone, when Daddy came in.
‘Talking to yourself? First sign of madness, they say!’ he laughed.
‘I’m just pretending that I have a sister to play with,’ I said. I didn’t want him to think I was mad!
Daddy stood quite still for a moment, then he said, ‘You did have a sister.’
I looked at him, not understanding. I was an only child, I knew that.
‘When your mother died, she had just given birth to a little girl. She died, too.’
I went hot all over. I had had a sister! She was dead! Just then, Mum called and Daddy turned away. My sister was never mentioned again.
Although I was sad to think that I would never be able to play with her, and I knew I could not ask questions about her, I hugged the news to myself. I had not always been an only child.
The Great Flood
So we come to the time of the big flood. The river that ran on the other side of the lane was prone to flooding, but this year it was on a Noah’s Ark scale. The brown, swirling water rushed down the widened river and overflowed onto the lane. It came in at our gate and onto the lawn. Then gradually it crept towards the bungalow. We were not in any danger because the garden sloped up to the building, then the front door was at the top of a lot of steps, and there was another step to the inside—and so we stayed dry, but marooned. The steep back garden rose to some vertical rocks, with a hedge on their summit. Behind this were fields stretching away to the village, so Daddy came and went by climbing up the garden and out over the fields. From the windows, Mum and I watched the water in the garden and the swollen river. I thought it was all great fun, as I saw tree branches, hay bales, boxes, a shed and all manner of rubbish hurtle past in the foaming brown water. Mum was frightened, but I couldn’t see why. We were warm and dry, Daddy brought in whatever we needed, and our coal shed was full.
In the field on the left of the bungalow, there was a wooden house. It was built quite close to the lane and therefore on lower ground than the bungalow. Because of the risk of flooding, it had been built on sturdy wooden stilts in much the same way as the school on legs, with a sort of short staircase up to the front door. There was another one a little farther along the lane, occupied by old mother Weston, an old lady who hobbled up and down the lane day after day. I once asked Daddy why she spent all her time in this way. He said that she had nothing better to do. I wondered what she ought to be doing instead but never found out. I remember her as being very talkative, and, looking back now, I can see that she was just looking for company as she plodded to and fro.
A very, very old man with a beard, Mr. Shepherd, lived in the first wooden house. He kept chickens on a tiny island a little way down the river towards the weir, which was opposite Meadow View. Every morning and every evening he would get into his wooden rowing boat, push off from the bank and partly row and partly paddle down the river to his island to feed the chickens and collect the eggs. The island was just out of our sight from the bungalow. I was sorry about this, as I would have liked to watch him feed the chickens. Now, with the water so high and flowing so fast, we were sure that he would not attempt this trip, but he did. He obviously knew the river well and steered a course towards the opposite bank, being battered by some of the floating rubbish but managing to bounce off and paddle downstream at a frightening pace. Sometimes the current spun him right round. Mum and I would watch him from the window, worrying that he might fall out or be swept away. He would disappear round the bend, and we would wait to see him return. It always seemed to take too long, and on one occasion he was out of sight for so long that Mum rang Daddy at the Works.
Daddy somehow managed to get from the Works to a place farther downriver, where he could see the island. There was no sign of old Mr. Shepherd or the boat, so Daddy waded along the lane to the nearby waterside pub to borrow a boat to try to find the old fellow. There, in the pub, wet but safe, sat the old man, taking refuge in the bar for a warm-up before braving the return journey. He refused any help, and we saw him appear round the river bend sometime later. By now, he was able to row across the lane, the water was so deep, and then tie his boat to the wooden legs under his house.
The next day, we saw him heaving two crates onto his old boat and setting off. It must have been earlier than usual because Daddy was still at home, having breakfast. Or perhaps it was a Sunday.
‘The old chap must be going to fetch his chickens back here,’ said Daddy. ‘The island is probably flooding.’
He rushed outside to go with the old man to help, but he was too late. However, when the boat reappeared, sometime later, rocking wildly with the two crates strapped to it, all looking very precarious, Daddy waded out and helped him to unload and carry the crates, full of squawking chickens, to the higher ground at the back of his house.
I don’t remember the end of the floods, or if all the chickens were saved, or what the garden or the lane must have been like afterwards, but I do remember the horses having to be rescued from their field near the river and being led to higher ground.
Daddy had come in, wetter than usual, saying, ‘We’ve been getting the horses up t
o the top field. Their field and shelter is under four foot of water.’ I was so glad that the horses were safe. How I loved those big Shires!
The bungalow was already connected to the gas mains, and at some point about then the gas pipes must have been extended to Meadow View.
The great big dining table that I used to play under was under the light. Aunt Lizzy had had to climb up to take down the oil lamp to clean the wicks when it started to smoke, then she had had to climb back up again to hang the newly cleaned lamp; now, she just put new mantles into the gas light. I remember it being quite a business and much talked about: ‘the wick needs cleaning’ had become ‘the mantle needs changing’.
I was with her one day when she was changing a mantle. I was asked to hold it and hand it to her when she was on the table. Unfortunately, I touched the papery substance, and, to my surprise and consternation, it virtually fell apart! These mantles were made of very fragile stuff, which looked like snowflakes, or the papery wasp’s nest that Daddy had showed me one day. Aunt Lizzy was not cross; I just took another mantle from the box. Very carefully, this time!
At about the time of the flood, but probably not connected with it, something happened that meant that Grandpa had to retire. I understood that this meant he no longer worked and would therefore have to live in Homelea instead of Meadow View, which belonged to something called ‘the corporation’ and was for the manager of the Works. I expect Grandpa had had yet another stroke, or perhaps he had just reached retirement age.
So my father, who was already the assistant manager and actually did most of the manager’s job to help Grandpa, became the manager, and we had to go and live in Meadow View. Mum was not very happy about this, as she liked the bungalow—not its waterside position, of course, but the small bungalow itself. I suppose Meadow View was a bit rambling in comparison and even farther down the lane. But I had been happy on our visits during my early years and foolishly thought that when we moved there this time, it would be much the same.
Oddly, again I do not recall the actual move. I know that, in addition to our own relocation, my father helped Aunt Lizzy to move all the paraphernalia of Grandma and Grandpa’s years at Meadow View to Homelea. Mum helped, and I remember much talk about throwing things away and how Aunt Lizzy didn’t want to get rid of things that meant something to them all. Mum was not sentimental, and she and Aunt Lizzy ‘had words’. The first of many!
At last, we were there, and I had the little bedroom at the back that had been mine before. It faced the setting sun and was very hot in the summer evenings. I began to notice this, as I was sent to bed much earlier than I had been before Mum came.
But what had happened to Crib? He didn’t go to Homelea with Grandma and Grandpa. And he wasn’t still at Meadow View. He just wasn’t anywhere. Flossie went to Homelea and sat in front of the fire there, but there was no Crib. The big kennel was still by the path, but Daddy soon chopped that up for firewood. Did I ask about him? I don’t think I did. Possibly in my subconscious I knew that something horrible had happened. So I cried to myself because I had loved Crib.
All these years later, I am still sad to think that perhaps he came to an untimely end because his working days were over. If, indeed, this was the case, it proved to be a bad move, as there continued to be many, many rats at the Works—until they started to poison them.
Maybe Mum would not consider having Crib around when she moved to Meadow View; he was a very big dog, after all.
But how I had loved that dog.
Changing Times
We must have moved to Meadow View during the summer holidays of 1939, which means we had spent nearly a year in the bungalow. It did not seem so long, but my life was changing. People still did not tell me anything that was going on or about to happen, but where before I had been used to picking up snippets of news while the adults talked, now I was not allowed to play in the room when adults were discussing things. At Meadow View, there was a big sitting room, quite separate from the kitchen and dining room, and if the weather was not good I was sent in there to play, so I was excluded from hearing the grown-up talk.
If the weather was good, I was sent into the garden to play—usually with dolls but sometimes with books and pencils.
‘Just take out what you want now,’ I was told. ‘I’m not having you running in and out all the time.’ So I had to make up my mind what I wanted to play with and stick to it.
Playing or drawing alone in this way, I had not picked up at all on the worry that the adults must have been feeling, as world events were closing in—even in our remote corner of the world.
My memories of our first year in Meadow View are fragmented and probably entirely out of order. I was almost seven years old by now, and Mum had had a year to teach me how ‘to behave’. This was quite long enough to make me frightened of upsetting her, so almost all of my time at home was spent trying to please but not really knowing why certain things were deemed to be wrong. I was slowly adjusting to her discipline, her total control of my every move and, gradually, most of my thoughts, too. I know now that many of her demands were entirely unreasonable. But as a child I did not probe the ‘why’ but just did as I was told.
When Daddy used to have me on his knee, we both enjoyed a cuddle, but gradually this had to stop.
I remember one day Mum came into the room, glanced at us and said, ‘Huh! At it again, I see.’
With a kind of common consent, I got off Daddy’s knee and he put me down. As far as I remember, I was never to sit on his knee again. Why did he bow to these objections? I was only a child! Did he not realise that I was still bereft and needed love? Maybe he already realised that he had to do as Mum wanted to keep the peace.
One day, Daddy and Mum called me in to the dining room and sat me down facing them. They looked quite solemn, and I wondered, with that awful tummy ache that came when I thought I was in trouble, if I had done something naughty.
‘We were thinking that it would be a good idea to call you by your second name, Julia, now,’ Daddy said. ‘Instead of Mary. You said there were lots of Marys in your class, so that would make things easier, wouldn’t it?’
I was amazed. There had been no hint that any such move was being contemplated, and although I had said that there were five Marys in my class, I had never seen it as a problem. We knew who we were, I reasoned.
I must have remained silent because Mum suddenly instructed me to respond, insisting that she had taught me always to answer any question immediately.
‘Um, yes,’ I said, just to have something to say. This was taken as agreement, and that was that.
It took some getting used to. At home, I was Julia, and, at first at least, at school I was Mary, the subject of much sneering, as no one had ever heard of anyone changing her name. I was a ‘show-off’, they said!
Grandma was most disapproving and never called me Julia, insisting that I had been named Mary, so Mary I should remain. On the rare occasions that I saw Grandmother and Grandfather Radford, I did not even mention the fact that I was now Julia. I must have had some inkling that it would be unwelcome news to them. But one day Mum, who had taken me on a duty visit, was heard to call me Julia. They were very angry.
It seemed that the name Mary had been my mother’s choice and her parents felt that her memory was being tossed aside. Mum was very tight-lipped as we went home that day, and she would not take me to see them again.
I have wondered over the years if the name change was, in fact, an attempt to expunge all memory of my mother. Perhaps not. To me, it was just one more change in an ever-changing life.
But these were small events in the general scheme of world affairs, and we were soon occupied by more important things.
The War Years
War
There was a big, wide, heavy back door at Meadow View. It was painted green and led from the kitchen into a porch, with shelves for shoes and boots, and on down three deep steps into a small yard. An outside lavatory, a coal shed and the le
an-to greenhouse opened off this tiny yard.
One morning, I was coming out of the greenhouse with my quota of dolls or books for the day, which, I suppose, was to be spent in the garden, when Daddy came out of the back door, down the steps and into the little yard. His face was worried as he lit a cigarette.
He saw me and stopped.
‘Don’t leave the house or garden. We are at war with Germany!’
I looked at him, appalled. Not by the news, although it sounded frightening, but by his voice; it sounded so unlike the way he usually spoke. Then off he went to tell ‘the chaps’. I was left wondering what this ‘war’ would mean. I was seven by now, but wars had not figured in my school curriculum. I did know that the term meant people fighting one another, but only from what had been read to me of the Bible.
I went back into the house to ask Mum what Daddy meant.
‘Just go and play,’ she answered. ‘It doesn’t affect you.’
I had to be content with this assurance, but I did not believe her. After all, Daddy had told me to stay in the house or garden. Why did I have to, if this ‘war’ did not affect me? (I was not allowed out of the garden, anyway.)
The autumn term began, and the grown-ups looked increasingly worried as they spent more time listening to the news on the wireless. Our radio was encased in a big polished wooden cabinet, about three feet tall, with patterns cut out of the wood at the front. It had to have accumulators (a kind of battery), which were huge and heavy, and we had to take them to the local garage from time to time to be charged up. Meadow View still had no electricity supply—it would be the 1950s before the lines were extended to the house and the Works—so everything was driven by gas or diesel generators all through and after the war.
The Country Nurse Remembers Page 6
