Chapter 1: In the Beginning - Prelude

Hello everyone. It's me again. If you're confused about the chapter count, please see this post: https://lukematon-nz.ghost.io/the-wwii-diary-of-margaret-head/

Everything will make sense.

We see this part of the diary with granny writing a kind of 'scene setting' portion. In another life, she could have been an author of fiction or non-fiction (even though this diary is technically non-fiction, in that it is a real account, but now we're getting into semantics about book genre).

She talks about where she lives. The region she grew up in.

I cannot say who "Ronnie" is. Ronnie may be a stand-in, a false person to help us, the readers, establish ourselves in their shoes. Maybe while reading this diary, we'll find out who Ronnie is.

I love the descriptors she uses for the plants. 'Rioting' morning glories. 'Flamboyant' hibiscus. 'Flaming' poinciana trees. She always loved flowers. She would attend flower arranging competitions for a good portion of her young life. And in the time I knew her, she always cared very deeply for her garden.

When she mentions 'apple-scrumping', I had to look it up. I'm sure everyone has done this - to steal fruit from a tree. I remember as a teenager, whenever there was an orchard near one of the parties I'd go to, there would always be a midnight run to steal some fruit. Suddenly there we were, a bunch of 16 year olds munching on some apples in the driveway and laughing about what devious little scamps we were. It's something like vindication to see that granny did the very same thing.

So let's see who our 'actors on the stage' are, as granny would say when she talked about some large event. We have granny herself, Margaret Head - 16 years old. Her brother, my uncle who I never got to meet, Gordon Head - 19 years old, a tool-maker at Gatwick Aerodrome. Gordon is a man who would go on to be a very highly accomplished RAF pilot.

We see here that everyone sort of...knew something was about to happen. '...a tingling sense of anticipation beneath our fear', she says.

'I have seen my father crying' is not something we hear often. Cultures across the world have this terrible view on masculinity where we must not cry. We must not feel anything. It's built into family values, it's at school, it's among our friends.

I myself have seen my father crying. Only ever once. Granny did too, but hers was crying because he knew that the world was going to change forever.

That's my part done. Next is the writing itself. This all is written on September 3rd, 1939. As before, I have applied some format changes to make it easier to read for those with reading difficulties, but the words have not been changed, censored and modified in any way.

Basking in the incredibly blue sea, spread out like a half-closed fist, the ‘Isles of Rest’ reflect the hot sunshine under an azure sky.

Where the waves foam on the outer edges of the coral reef from which the islands are formed, a shifting line of pure white makes a frame for them.

Today is September 3rd 1939. These Bermudian jewels, isolated in the mid Atlantic, are awaking from their rest to prove their value in the war against the U-boats which are lurking beneath the surrounding waters.

On one of the islands in the Royal Naval Dockyard Ronnie Vine, a seventeen-year old Able Seaman, sweats and swears on board his first ship, which he joined the previous year after completing two years cadet training on H.M.S. Ganges.
Their orders are to return to base (Portsmouth), so they are preparing to put to sea.
While he is automatically performing his allotted tasks Ronnie thinks of his home. It is a quiet Surrey village called Lingfield.

He visualises the ancient church, Tudor dwellings, modern cottages, council houses and scattered farms dreaming amid their scattered fertile fields and gardens.
He has to choke back a chuckle as he remembers milking cows and ‘scrumping’ apples in those fields on his way to school.

He wonders if the flickering flame at the top of the slender War Memorial in the centre of the village has already been extinguished by the ‘Black-out’.
As the boat pulls away from the dockside, he sees the white-roofed buildings slowly sliding by the ship as it gathers speed.

Some of them have their walls smothered with the blue of rioting Morning Glories and others are half hidden by flamboyant hibiscus and flaming poinciana trees.
Then he catches a glimpse of the white long-tails soaring in elegant flight above the tiny boats sailing across peaceful Harrington Sound.

In Lingfield, his ‘apple-scrumping’ partners, Gordon and I, are sitting on our garden seat talking.
I am a sixteen year old schoolgirl and Gordon is a nineteen year old tool-maker at Gatwick Aerodrome.
We know that our Mum and Dad are frightened at the prospect of another war. Although we are also frightened there is a tingling sense of anticipation beneath our fear.

All the schools are on holiday for the summer and perhaps none of us will be going to school again.
Maybe I will be killed or become a heroine or perhaps Oxted County Grammar School will be destroyed from the air. Possibly Gordon will achieve his ambition to fly an aeroplane.

Our Mother is in the house listening to the wireless, because the Prime Minister is going to make a statement at 11 a.m. We get up and go inside to be with her.

I expected war to arrive with a noisy flourish, but Neville Chamberlain has been met with an eerie silence.
As soon as she hears on the wireless that the war has started Mum says “Margaret, get your bicycle and go as fast as you can to tell your Father.”

I am so concerned with my own feelings that I am forgetting that Dad, who is down the ‘Works’, does not know the war has started.
He is watering his garden when I arrive to say “Mr. Chamberlain has had no reply from Hitler and we are at war Dad.”
He has put down his watering can to reply, “All right, go back and look after your Mother.”

Then he turns and picks it up again, but he does not turn fast enough, because, for the first time, I have seen my Father crying.

I do not have much time to think about this because as I cycle back to the house the fire-siren starts up, but it is not for a fire because with a sickening swoop it runs down before howling upwards again.

We don’t know what to expect in an air-raid, but we have heard of the appalling devastation in Warsaw as a result of them.
As nothing happens, when Dad comes home at 12.30 p.m. we have our usual Sunday roast dinner. This week it is lamb and it is Gordon’s turn to chop the mint for the sauce while I set the table.

We keep the wireless on the whole time. All the usual programmes have been cancelled and between the pre-recordings of gramophone recitals, etc. we shall get news and instructions.
So far we have been told to black out our homes and men called air-raid wardens have the authority to enforce this regulation.

Dad seems to be well informed but he says very little in front of us.
After dinner he asks Gordon and I to help fill sand bags. As we go down the ‘Works’ I notice there are men on duty in the Highway Depot which is situated between the house and the ‘Works’.
We have not been working long when all sorts of people start arriving from the village and Dad asks them to help with the sand bags. He seems to be a very important person now that the war has started.

Even Mr Hankey from the big house opposite has come over. It is the first time Mr Hankey has spoken to me and I heard him say to Dad when he arrived “I am very frightened Mr Head. Please tell me what I can do to help.”
The sand bags are piled around the engine shed. This is the most vulnerable part of the ‘Works’, since the tanks of diesel oil are safely underground.

After everybody had left we made wooden shutters for the living-room windows and I am responsible for closing them each night. Barbara, my nine-year old sister has to remember to draw the upstairs black-out curtains which she and Mum have been making while we were filling sand bags.

I wonder what is going to happen to us all.