by Daisy Styles
‘I mustn’t forget mi make-up and mi jewellery,’ Maggie flapped. ‘Oh, and the perfume that Les bought me for Christmas,’ she added, all dewy-eyed at the mention of her boyfriend’s name.
But poor Nora continued to fret. ‘Do you think they’ll have an iron at the Savoy?’ she asked. ‘I’ll need to give mi ballgown a proper good ironing; it’ll be creased as buggery after it’s been stuffed in mi suitcase for ten hours!’
‘They’ll have ten irons!’ Edna assured her. ‘I hope you’ve all got a decent pair of shoes to wear under your posh frocks? Don’t want you letting the side down and turning up in clogs!’ she chuckled.
‘Why not? We are lasses from Lancashire after all,’ Maggie declared proudly.
‘I’ll pack a load of spam and beef-paste butties and fill as many flasks as I can lay mi hands on,’ Edna promised. ‘Can’t have the swing band dying of hunger on their way down South!’
‘If we leave on 30 December, will we get to London by New Year’s Eve?’ Maggie asked dimly.
Myrtle raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Did you never study geography, child?’ she asked.
Totally unabashed, Maggie answered, ‘Oh, yeah! I just never understood which way was east or west!’
‘We’ll be in London on 30 December,’ Gladys explained. ‘The same day that we leave here.’
‘It’s not like we’re crossing the equator,’ Edna snorted.
‘And the day after we arrive we perform with Joe Loss and his famous orchestra,’ Gladys reminded her friends.
‘What arrangements have you made for Billy?’ Edna asked Kit when the younger girls had left in a flurry of nervous giggles.
‘He’s coming with us!’ Kit replied. ‘Ian will take care of him whilst we’re rehearsing, and we’re hoping that when Billy’s asleep on the big night we can pay one of the staff to babysit, though Ian’s keen for Billy to see his mammy bang the drums!’
Edna smiled at newly pregnant Violet. ‘Will you be all right travelling, lovie?’ she inquired solicitously. ‘No morning sickness?’
‘I’ve never felt fitter,’ glowing Violet replied. ‘Though I could sleep for England when I get home from work!’
‘We’ll leave the back seat just for the pregnant,’ Edna decided. ‘Then young Violet can snooze all through the journey.’
Checking her watch, like the mother hen that she was, Edna said, ‘You know what, ladies? I think you should get yourselves off to bed in readiness for the morning.’
As barn owls hooted across the moors, Kit, Gladys and Violet linked arms and walked together up the moorland track that led to their digs. Thrilled as a child who was going on holiday, Gladys suddenly let go of her friends and ran hell for leather up the path.
‘I’m going to London,’ she cried as she lifted her arms to the starry sky. ‘I’m going to meet Joe Loss!’
The Phoenix workers gave the Bomb Girls’ Swing Band and their companions a rousing send-off. Lining the way out of the factory, they clapped their hands and waved as they sang in unison Gracie Fields’s popular song ‘Sing as We Go’. The band girls hung out of windows and sang back as the coach drove away; then, as their Phoenix friends receded and their singing faded away, they sank back into their seats and smiled.
‘At last!’ Kit exclaimed as she cuddled an overexcited Billy on her lap.
‘We’re on our way!’
The journey to London was long and often depressing. Driving from north to south through towns and cities bombed and burnt by air-raids brought the horror of war even closer. When they drove through Stockport, Violet reached for her husband’s hand.
‘Remember?’ she whispered fearfully.
Though the livid red scars on Arthur’s face were healing, his skin still stretched tight when he smiled, which he did now to soothe Violet.
‘It’s all right, my sweetheart, that’s over and done with forever.’
Feeling the baby flutter lightly in her tummy, Violet smiled contentedly as she said, ‘Yes, you’re right: this is a new life.’
As they drove through Birmingham, the chattering laughter of the passengers fell silent. Shocked beyond words, they gazed in silence as they passed stark black and scorched factories with roofs and rafters caved in and windows blown out. Streets where communities had lived were raised to the ground; church steeples lay toppled; and in between the dirt and ashes children played ‘Catch’ and ‘Hide and Seek’.
‘Good grief,’ Edna gasped. ‘Our cities are in ruins.’
The horrific sights of Birmingham didn’t even begin to prepare the travellers for the destruction of London. The city they’d all been longing to reach brought tears to their eyes. Barrage balloons floated everywhere, even over St Paul’s Cathedral. Blasted streets and fractured pavements disappeared into deep holes, and broken pipes revealed stinking open sewers. Some of the city’s famous buildings and monuments were still standing, but they were strangely juxtaposed against tenement blocks with their façades blown out, revealing shattered homes where curtains still fluttered and peeling wallpaper flapped in the wind.
‘They say the bloody Jerries set ablaze nine miles of dockland wharves and warehouses from Tower Bridge to Woolwich,’ Malc solemnly told Edna, who couldn’t believe the devastation they were driving through. ‘They even bombed Buckingham Palace!’
When the coach finally came to a halt outside the Savoy Hotel, which was surrounded by sandbags, the shell-shocked passengers clambered out and looked nervously around.
‘I’m terrified a bomb might drop on us,’ Nora confessed. ‘Nowhere seems safe in London.’
Myrtle, who was also in shock but kept a stiff upper lip, chided young Nora. ‘Come along now. We must take on the same spirit that London adopted during the Blitz – never say die!’
Mr Featherstone, who was supporting a visibly upset Mrs Featherstone, nodded in agreement with Myrtle. ‘These people are heroes,’ he said in a voice thick with emotion.
It was a relief to be inside the elegant hotel with its tall windows and long, velvet drapes. Billy, for the first time in hours, was set down on the floor and was able to crawl around, but soon got in the way of bustling porters and waitresses with loaded tea trays.
‘Let’s get to our rooms,’ Ian urged as he put Billy on his shoulders and set off up the winding staircase.
They were all on the same long corridor, which was fortunate, as the girls were in and out of each other’s rooms, swapping clothes and hair rollers, and comparing bath products, which were the height of luxury to Nora and Maggie.
‘I’ve never seen anything as posh in mi life!’ goggle-eyed Nora announced. ‘Fluffy pink towels, smelly soap, a full-length mirror and a fitted carpet – all in the bathroom!’ ’ she spluttered.
Violet, Kit and Gladys exchanged fond smiles; it was a joy to see the young girls so frivolous and excited; too soon these days girls as young as fourteen were forced into growing up fast and taking on responsibilities way beyond their years. Nora and Maggie were having the time of their lives, and nobody doubted they deserved it. Though slightly worried that they might overdo it, Gladys said, ‘Get an early night tonight. It’s been a long day, and tomorrow will be even longer. What with rehearsals and then the performance, you won’t be in bed till well after midnight.’
Not wanting to go out for fear of having to take shelter in a strange air-raid shelter or, worse, a jam-packed tube station, where, they’d been told, rats ran over sleeping bodies, the travellers had sandwiches in their rooms. Gladys, Arthur and Violet joined Kit and Ian, who’d put Billy to sleep in Kit’s single bed.
‘I wonder when Joe Loss will arrive tomorrow?’ Gladys said.
Kit, who was brewing tea with the kettle the hotel had provided for them, said, ‘They’ll have to rehearse just like we will.’
‘We don’t want to get in their way,’ anxious Gladys protested.
Violet, who was busy ironing her lovely blue ballgown, smiled as she said, ‘I’m sure somebody as famous as Joe Loss is used to getting
his own way.’
After a treat of a breakfast consisting of coffee, toast and the total luxury of a boiled egg, the girls decided to face the ballroom bright and early. Wearing their normal everyday clothes, they inspected the bandstand, the drum kit and the grand piano, which Myrtle literally purred over.
‘A Steinway grand piano – one can’t do better than that.’
Kit was thrilled with her drums, complete with her favourite hi-hat cymbals. When Billy started bashing and rattling them, Ian said a quick goodbye to his fiancée and took the little boy off to London Zoo, whilst Arthur went to meet an old army pal in Whitehall. After the men left, the rehearsal started in earnest. Musically they were well rehearsed, but, because the bandstand was so spacious, Violet, Gladys, Maggie and Nora had scope to develop their dance movements. For ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’ they went for the same choreography as the Andrews Sisters, who’d created the song. Coming in close, they sang the chorus in harmony, then pulled out to dance their steps. Snapping their fingers and swaying their hips, they moved in sync with each other. By lunchtime, they were hot and sweaty and hungry too.
‘Let’s go to the nearest Lyons Corner Café,’ Gladys suggested.
The tasty mince and onion pie, cabbage and mashed potatoes they were served by the smiling Nippy soon restored their energy, and the vanilla ice cream with two wafers that followed was a real treat.
‘This place reminds me so much of my time in Leeds, before the war,’ Gladys sighed as she poured them all a second cup of tea. ‘I was a Nippy too, just like these girls, happy as a lark, not a care in the world, with no idea what was just around the corner.’
‘I was picking spuds in Ireland,’ Kit recalled.
‘Who could have guessed that as a consequence of the war we’d become a swing band?’ Violet mused thoughtfully.
‘A very successful swing band!’ Maggie boasted. ‘The best in the North!’
They didn’t return to the ballroom for fear of bumping into Joe Loss, but that didn’t stop the girls singing and practising their steps in the long corridor outside their bedrooms. Barefooted, they danced on the fitted carpet, laughing themselves silly as they wriggled and jiggled in line to the beat of their songs.
As the afternoon drew to a close Gladys said, ‘I’m going to have a nice long bubble bath, courtesy of Myrtle, who’s offered to share her bottle of bubble bath with all of us.’
Violet yawned and said, ‘I’m going to have a nice lie-down.’
‘I’ll have a snooze too,’ Myrtle added.
There was no luxurious time out for Kit once Billy returned. ‘Mama! Mama!’ he cried as he came running into her arms, clutching a little woolly giraffe. ‘Look, gaffe off Dada.’
Kit’s heart melted every time she heard Billy call Ian ‘Dada’. Soon it wouldn’t just be a name of affection: it would be the rightful name of the man who would legally adopt him when they were married.
Leaving Kit to have a bath with Billy, Ian took himself off to the Savoy bar, where he restored his flagging spirits with a couple of whisky and sodas and the Evening Standard, where with a sinking heart he read more about the Germans’ mass execution of the Jews, which Anthony Eden had recently disclosed in the House of Commons.
Upstairs, Kit was beginning to panic: she’d fed Billy his supper but after all the excitement of the day he wouldn’t settle down to sleep. Glancing at the bedside clock, she realized she hardly had time to get herself dressed and made up. Luckily Violet walked in wearing her Bomb Girls overalls and turban.
‘I’ll take care of him,’ she said as she sat down on the bed and started to sing nursery rhymes to Billy.
As grateful Kit wriggled into her uniform she said, ‘We mustn’t forget to take our ballgowns down with us; we’ll have to leave them in the wings and change there.’
‘I’ve got terrible butterflies,’ Violet admitted with a nervous giggle.
‘Me too,’ Kit admitted.
‘We must keep reminding ourselves we’ve played in public before – this isn’t the first time,’ Violet said firmly.
‘But we’ve never performed in a grand hotel in front of famous people!’ Kit laughed.
Finally they were all ready. Standing in front of the full-length mirror by the lifts, they did a final make-up check and pulled their hair out from under their turbans, so it hung loose and pretty around their excited faces.
When the lift arrived and the automatic doors flew open, Gladys turned to her friends with a smile on her face.
‘Time to face the music, ladies!’ she announced.
With their hearts fluttering in their ribcages, the girls, all clutching their ballgowns, and Myrtle, draped in the blue stole Kit had promised her, slipped into the wings, whilst Mr and Mrs Featherstone, Malc, Edna, Ian and Arthur sat at a candle-lit table close to the stage, where they ordered cocktails.
‘I don’t want to get tiddly,’ Edna said as she lit a Woodbine.
‘Let yer ’air down, lass!’ Malc laughed as he downed his Martini cocktail in one.
Eyeing him saucily, Edna said, ‘Somebody’s got to keep an eye on you!’
As tables filled up and couples sat down to eat supper, a low hum of conversation filled the room, broken by an occasional high tinkling laugh. The entertainment manager appeared backstage with a tray on which were set crystal goblets of sparkling champagne.
‘On the house, ladies. You’ve come a long way – in more ways than one – for this event,’ he joked.
‘OOOH! This is the life!’ cried Maggie as she took her first sip of ice-cold champagne.
Nora sipped her drink too, then giggled as bubbles popped in her mouth and made her hiccup.
‘I feel right glamorous!’ she laughed. ‘Like Betty Grable or Rita Hayworth.’
‘TOAST!’ Gladys cried as she raised her glass and smiled at her beloved friends. ‘Success to the Bomb Girls!’
‘SUCCESS!’ they replied in unison.
Just before they were about to go on stage, the manager collected their empty glasses, then explained the evening’s running order.
‘We’ll start at eight o’clock sharp, right after Mr Loss has finished his supper with the ENSA scout. You’ll open the show, ladies. Mr Loss and his orchestra will follow, then you’ll return to the stage, when both bands will play together.’
‘What if we’re not up to scratch and Joe Loss thinks we’re a dead loss?’ Maggie joked.
‘He’ll love us!’ replied Gladys with a confident laugh.
‘What’s ENSA?’ Kit asked curiously.
‘Every Night Something Awful!’ Violet giggled. ‘No, not really,’ she said as she turned to Gladys. ‘What does it stand for?’ she asked. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘Entertainments National Service Association,’ Gladys replied. ‘Singers, dancers, actors, musicians who tour England, entertaining the workers.’
‘They tour Europe too, lifting the spirits of the Allied forces on the front line,’ Myrtle added. ‘It’s all part of the war effort.’
‘Sounds a lot more fun than filling shell cases,’ Kit chuckled.
Their whispered backstage conversation was interrupted by the lights dimming in the ballroom and the manager standing centre stage to introduce the trembling girls.
‘All the way from Lancashire, the winners of the Northern competition – the Bomb Girls’ Swing Band!’
The bandstand’s lights came up as they took up their positions and launched into ‘PEnnsylvania 6-5000’. Gladys ran her fingers up and down the saxophone valves, sending out a series of high clear notes that immediately stopped all conversation and made the audience turn to the girls on stage. The unusual sight of real Bomb Girls dressed in their white overalls and turbans brought the house down. Wolf-whistles rang out, followed by loud cheers.
Gladys’s beautiful strong voice resounded through the ballroom, enhanced by Maggie’s and Nora’s harmonizing backing, and Kit hit the drums so hard she almost fell off the tiny stool where she was perched. There was no way t
he audience could sit through the number: seeing the Bomb Girls tapping, swaying and singing, they leapt to their feet and started to dance. As the dancers swelled into a throng, the musicians looked at each other and their delighted expressions said it all: They like us!
Edna, dressed in a pretty sequinned dress, was completely astonished when a smart, slightly balding middle-aged man in an elegant dinner suit asked her to dance.
‘Dance? ME?’ she gasped.
‘If you would do me the honour,’ he said politely.
Edna rose and followed him on to the floor as if she was sleep-walking.
Malc’s eyes were just about bulging out of his head. ‘What the ’ell?’ he spluttered. ‘The cheek! I thought she was with me.’
On the dance floor Edna’s heart fluttered as the stranger laid a hand on her arm and moved into a lively foxtrot, which Edna hadn’t done for years, but as she moved around the floor she recalled the steps and really began to enjoy herself.
On stage, the tempo changed when the band began ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’, which Maggie opened with a superb piece of trumpet playing; then Gladys, Nora and Violet came in singing the chorus exactly as they’d practised earlier that day. Though the rhythm was faster, Edna managed to keep up with her accomplished dancing partner, who twirled her this way and that, until she was dizzy! When she saw some young couples throwing their partners up in the air, Edna’s heart skipped a beat. Surely her partner wouldn’t try that with her? She was all of fourteen stone – if he as much as tried, he’d be carried out of the Savoy on a stretcher!
At the end of the number the manager leapt on to the bandstand, where he announced the next act.
‘Please put your hands together for Mr Joe Loss and his orchestra!’
As the band played the opening chords to ‘Little Brown Jug’, the Bomb Girls slipped into the wings, where they hurriedly changed into the silver-blue ballgowns. Myrtle wore a full-length black velvet gown with the pretty blue stole that Kit had had made up for her. Using little powder compact mirrors, they touched up their make-up and brushed their hair.
