The Evacuee War

by Katie King

  ‘I was thinking that perhaps you and the lovely doctor might have to spend a little time together if you need to go to him to talk about the panto skills of his patients and, as they say, one thing might lead to another?’ Barbara elaborated in a manner that she could have used talking to any small child.

  ‘The thought had never crossed my mind!’ declared Peggy.

  Barbara laughed. She hadn’t needed to add, ‘Liar!’

  Peggy refused to acknowledge her sister’s joshing, but nevertheless the pregnant silence told Barbara she was definitely smiling at the thought.

  All of this meant that Peggy decided to postpone the opening of her playgroup until the end of January.

  She felt she needed to be on hand in the meantime for the pantomime preparations in case of any emergency there, and she wanted to repay Roger and Mabel’s kindness in not insisting that she and Holly, and Jessie and Connie, leave Tall Trees after causing yet another drama, and Peggy thought she could do this by making herself useful at the rectory. The festive season was always a busy one for the clergy.

  And as the Blitz – as it was now routinely known, being slang for the German term for military strategy, Blitzkrieg, or ‘lightning war’ – continued with prolonged Luftwaffe assaults every night across the country, and especially in London, Peggy devoted much time writing to Barbara, as she wanted her sister to know that she was thinking of her and Ted, and was worried about them.

  But letter writing tended to be done in the evenings, and so during the days Peggy threw herself into doing useful things such as dropping Holly over to Granny Nora’s for Gracie to look after, which gave Peggy a chance to finish off Porky’s stall, and to stand in a biting wind with Milburn at the farrier’s while the pony had a spanking new set of metal shoes made and then nailed on, so that he could once again be ridden and used in the trap.

  Peggy hadn’t realised that a farrier would make the shoes from red-hot metal, or that after shaping, the still burning-hot shoe would be held against the pared-back hoof, causing smoke and the smelly sizzle of burning keratin, before it would be plunged into cold water to cool, after which it could be nailed on properly.

  Milburn seemed none the worse after his kidnapping. (Dave and the other Hull boys never did let the cat out of the bag to the others as to where they had hidden him that Sunday night, but Peggy thought that to allow them this one small victory would mean they could save some face after their foolish idea was shown up as the silly thing it was.)

  The pony seemed much less excited by his new shoes than Peggy was, she thought as she watched him close his eyes and doze while the farrier worked, and she stroked his velvet nose, telling him it was good to see him back where he belonged and ready for work once more.

  Then she wondered if she needed to remind the Tall Trees children that camaraderie and finding peaceful resolutions with people you might disagree with was always going to be better than making enemies and holding on to grievances. Goodness knows why the Hull lads had taken against the Tall Trees lot, but it had happened, and although Peggy felt she had personally failed in averting the tensions that had escalated, now she felt the important thing wasn’t what had already occurred but what was still to occur, and in this respect the children needed to be quite grown-up. They were all finding new types of family and homes away from home, and it was only natural there were teething troubles. It didn’t mean that valuable lessons hadn’t been learned along the way.

  But as a gust of wind whipped her skirt against her leg and a fluffy-looking Milburn, now his woolly winter coat had come through, and nuzzled her pocket just in case she had hidden a windfall apple there (she hadn’t, much to the pony’s disappointment), Peggy thought that actually perhaps it was best if she didn’t say anything to the children.

  Moving towards adulthood meant that at some point adults needed to step back a little and let children come to their own conclusions about the best manner of doing things. While every instinct was to keep helping them all every step of the way, Peggy didn’t feel that long-term this would be doing any of them a favour.

  She must trust them to do the right thing, and to recognise that wartime had meant that each and every one of them now had several ‘families’ to which they belonged. And each of these families – whether blood relations, school classes or friends – had a lot to offer, provided each one of the children was open to it.

  Peggy realised that the same was true for her and Holly too. And then with something of a jolt Peggy understood that Harrogate and Tall Trees properly felt like ‘home’ now, despite it not working out as she wanted with James, and that all her years living in Bermondsey, and her time there as a school teacher and as Bill’s wife had somehow come to seem almost dreamlike and quite unreal.

  She’d never expected that she wouldn’t want to return to Bermondsey at some point, but suddenly she saw that wasn’t necessarily the case any longer.

  Milburn swung his head upwards and he and Peggy stared into each other’s eyes. ‘Tall Trees is where we belong’ the pony seemed to be saying. Peggy grabbed his soft muzzle and gave him a kiss on his nose, and he responded with a deep sigh, one which Peggy hoped was of appreciation rather than irritation.

  After she returned Milburn to his stable, Peggy turned to look across the yard; the lights were now on in the kitchen and the children were seated around the table looking as if they were united in their pantomime project and making money for the war effort.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The first pantomime committee meeting took place after school the day following the trip to the pictures to see The Wizard of Oz. Jessie realised that one of the huge benefits of Roger’s idea was that it meant they could definitely be indoors at breaks and lunchtimes, which was a major win during the harsh winter months whichever way one looked at it.

  Aiden was put in charge of the meeting, and the first thing that he made sure of was that Jessie was elected as pantomime secretary.

  ‘Connie, Dave and Aiden have been told what they need to do; and as secretary I can be in charge of keeping a note of our meetings and I’ll draw a table to make sure everything is happening when it should. Unless anyone else wants to do this?’ said Jessie.

  Everyone else shook their heads as it sounded dull as ditchwater, and Jessie duly made a note of the lack of response at the back of his jotter, where he was going to write up the minutes of every meeting.

  Aiden, looking at what he had scribbled during double algebra, then said, ‘I think everyone needs to have jobs to do. My suggestions would be that Tommy help Dave with the sets, and Tommy can also play the piano on the performance days as he’s good at that; Angela can be make-up artist and do everyone’s hair, and she can also be the promoter prior to the event; Hugh can do costumes; Connie can do prompting at each performance and in rehearsals, as well as write the script everyone will learn; Jared and Sam can set up the rooms for the rehearsals and the performances, and then on the days of the pantomime they can take the money, and be the people who get all the performers when they are needed. Does that sound a plan?’ asked Aiden. ‘We’ll need others on stage for the performances as actors, but Larry can be one of the actors, as can Stuart and Sam, and Angela.’

  Nobody disagreed, although Stuart pointed out that Jared was good at cooking, and so maybe, if they could find the ingredients, he should bake some biscuits to sell at the performances. And then Angela said as it had been a good year for apples and there’d been a lot of bottling, possibly they could do some apple pies to sell on the opening night. Connie added that they could work out a drink they could sell too.

  Jessie made a note of all of this.

  There was then a silence, as Aiden hadn’t expected everyone to be so amenable.

  ‘Which pantomime?’ prompted Jessie in a stage whisper.

  ‘Now, the next thing is that we must decide which pantomime we are going to do,’ said Aiden. ‘I went to the town library and looked at old newspapers to see the pantomimes that had been put on,
and the librarian told me that we can take liberties with the story in whatever we want. I’ve a list here of different ones, but I wondered about Sleeping Beauty, with Angela as Sleeping Beauty, as she can spend a lot of it asleep.’

  They all laughed.

  Aiden looked a tad shamefaced as he said, ‘That didn’t come out quite as I expected. What I meant is that it’s a role that doesn’t require a lot of running about.’

  ‘Well, I probably will be asleep if I’m in charge of all the hair and make-up, and do all the posters – making it very clear we’re doing this to raise lots of funds for good causes – and I can make apple something or other to sell on the door – depending on what we agree should be baked – and have a starring role as the main character …’ said Angela in a mock-grumpy way, although really she was delighted to be given so many jobs to think about, as often people thought that because she was in a wheelchair there wasn’t much she could do. She had clearly decided that working on this pantomime was going to be a great chance for her to show everyone in no uncertain terms how wrong they were to think this even for a second.

  Angela added firmly, ‘Actually, I think we should say that the profits will go towards something useful at James’s hospital, and we can tell everyone that the patients can decide what that should be. They’re the ones after all who will know most what they’d like to have.’

  The other children thought about this, and then Tommy said, ‘That’s a good idea, Angela, you keep them coming …’

  And so Angela did, and then everyone added something they had thought of, and so, almost without the children realising it, the tentative first steps to putting on their pantomime had been taken.

  The weeks slipped by, and the children were nearly always chattering cheerfully about the preparations, to the extent that they were usually extremely weary by the time they went to bed each night.

  ‘It’s good ’earing those kiddies laugh together again, isn’t it?’ said Mabel one evening.

  ‘Very good,’ agreed Peggy. ‘I hadn’t realised how quiet and subdued they’d become, or how much I missed hearing them bicker and joke with each other.’

  ‘Long may it last,’ said Mabel, and the two of them softly chinked their teacups together in agreement.

  One evening a sleepy-sounding Connie asked Peggy after they had listened to the news on the wireless if she could have a moment with her to talk something over.

  ‘Peggy, I had an idea, and I went to ask June Blenkinsop about it. She was really helpful and put me in touch with a place where retired actors and actresses live, and June took me and Aiden there after school today. A lot of the actresses had taken part in pantomimes before, and so they gave us lots of ideas. And one has trouble writing like I do, and so she said why didn’t I make up the words, and Aiden or Jessie could write them down for our other actors to learn, and so that that is what I am going to do; I’ll just remember what I’ve said. Another had some old scripts of pantomimes and I was allowed to take them away, as apparently there’s always a Prince Charming, and a dame, and a principal boy who is really a girl, and so I’m going to get Jessie to think about who we should have in it, and then I can make up some current jokes,’ said Connie. ‘And we must have a guest celebrity, but I haven’t had any ideas on that yet.’

  Peggy already knew about the visit to the home for retired thespians as the previous week June had popped over to ask if it was all right if she took the children there, and Peggy had said yes, but nobody was to tell Connie that Peggy had known about and approved the visit.

  ‘How clever of you, Connie,’ said Peggy.

  ‘I think Tommy and Dave need to visit that home too, as there is a lot about props and sets the old actors could tell them. And Angela can go as well, as some of them have even got what they called panstick make-up that we can use,’ said Connie. She paused, and then she said, ‘Do you remember when James got some of his patients to talk at the church hall that time?’

  Peggy said she did remember. Actually she remembered this very well indeed.

  ‘Do you think James might know of anyone who could help with building the sets?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, Connie. Why don’t you ask him?’ Peggy knew James would definitely be able to help, but she kept this to herself.

  ‘I will, if you think it’s a good idea,’ said Connie, and Peggy smiled and nodded that she did.

  And then in a rather dreamy voice Connie asked her aunt, ‘Do you think I might make a good principal boy?’

  ‘My dear girl, I can’t think of anyone better suited to be your pantomime’s principal boy than you!’ said Peggy, and Connie smiled at her in pleasure.

  A sombre mood fell over everyone in the middle of November, however, when Coventry was badly bombed in an air raid that went on for an agonising eleven hours.

  There’d been an RAF attack on Munich and this answering raid of almost 500 Luftwaffe bombers was in retaliation, quickly being described in the newspapers as the single most concentrated attack on a British city so far in the war, and the first time that vicious exploding incendiaries had been used on British soil.

  The cost on human life was devastating, with 554 official deaths, but with many families having loved ones tragically unaccounted for. The cathedral was burned to the ground, as was the central library and the market hall, and the sixteenth-century Palace Yard where James II had once held court, and there had been so many firestorms during the night that the next day felt very warm in the city, so great had the heat been from all the fires. The city’s Daimler works had so many incendiaries fall on it that all fifteen acres of the site went up in flames.

  The children were horrified by what had happened, pictures of which being splashed over all the papers, and Roger had to answer some taxing philosophical and theological questions from the children about how God could allow such things to happen.

  Peggy felt that such events proved to her that there probably wasn’t a God, but as she was in Roger and Mabel’s household, and obviously they did believe, she chose not to share those opinions, even when directly questioned on the matter by the children.

  A lighter moment in analysing the tragedy came when the boys spent a lot of time trying to work out through algebra and physics how an abandoned tram had managed to be lifted by a blast and blown clean over a house, landing in a garden with every single window still intact.

  They couldn’t prove the mathematics, although when Larry wondered if this was the sign of a bona fide miracle in the technical sense, both Roger and Peggy shared a smile of amusement when Tommy scathingly replied, ‘Funny of God t’ reveal a miracle by usin’ t’ empty tram, when ‘e could’ve shown it more impressive by somethin’ much bigger. Like a full train.’

  For several weeks Peggy half expected James to get in touch now that it had thawed slightly between them, and sure enough he telephoned at long, long last.

  ‘Peggy, I’m going to go down to Coventry for a week to help out, as they are so overwhelmed with casualties, and then I’ll bring some patients back with me who we can treat here at the hospital,’ he said.

  ‘I wondered if you might go,’ Peggy said. And then she hoped that her comment didn’t sound as if she had been thinking of him when perhaps he would prefer that she didn’t, and so she added quickly, ‘I’m sure you could do an awful lot of good there, James. There’ll be some horrible injuries though, won’t there?’

  ‘There will, and burns are very painful for the sufferer as well as difficult to stop infection taking hold,’ he said gloomily. ‘But what I want to say to you that if the children do need help with staging the panto, I’ve left a list with Nurse Bassett of patients and people here and who could do what, and I’m sure Nurse Bassett would be able to help out too. I know you want to leave everything to the youngsters to arrange, but if you let them know casually I’m going to be otherwise engaged but that I have a very capable second-in-command they could speak to in Nurse Bassett, I think that would be very helpful.’

  Peggy f
rowned. ‘Would Nurse Bassett be the nurse you were talking to when I dropped off the letter all those weeks ago, by any chance?’ she tried to say in as casual, devil-may-care a manner as possible.

  ‘Maybe. If it was a fair-haired nurse, it probably was. Susan is always very capable and thorough, and is a favourite with the doctors and patients,’ said James. ‘People do tend to remember her.’

  I blimmin’ bet she is a favourite, thought Peggy as she looked down to inspect her hand that wasn’t holding the telephone receiver. But I bet too that those doctors haven’t noticed how incredibly stubby her fingers are, was her next thought and she had to tell herself off then for being spiteful, as spite was a nasty quality, Peggy always felt. However, her next thought was how incredibly annoying it was that James had slipped in that ‘Susan’ in a matey tone. A very matey tone …

  What was particularly galling to Peggy about Nurse ‘call me Susan, Connie dear’ Bassett at the hospital was that, according to Connie, she was really helpful and able to persuade even the most recalcitrant patient to help with the panto, as well as proving to be an absolute mine of information that Connie could call upon. It seemed as if nothing was too much trouble for Nurse Bassett, as far as Connie was concerned.

  And Connie was bowled over by how exceptionally beautiful Susan was too (Peggy knew this already, but Connie was determined to point this out anew what felt like every single time the dratted nurse was mentioned, which seemed an unbearable number of times). Of course Nurse Bassett was always happy to give Connie tips about how to style her hair, and to let Connie try on her lipstick.

  It was Susan who pointed Connie, Aiden and Dave in the right direction to plunder various skills from servicemen at the hospital – who, Peggy could see, all had clearly been primed by James – and so very quickly the children had appointed undermanagers for lighting, props and set-building culled from the large pool of talent at the hospital.