Chapter 6: Coldness and Comprehension - January 1941 to March 1941

As soon as the war was declared I knew I must learn to live with death.

In my previous butterfly existence I had not been touched by its cold fingers.
I could vaguely remember my maternal Grandmother’s funeral, but chiefly because it meant an unexpected visit to Hull.
My cousins, brother and I were left with Mrs Masters, a neighbour of Grandad, and we were excited to go into another house in the terrace.
Gordon and I were surprised to find it was not exactly the same as Grandad’s house.
I was specially taken by a lovely stained glass window that was in the lavatory.

When my friend Eileen’s Father died suddenly two years ago I was most sympathetic and very sorry for her. Last year I showed the same concern for Peter Pearson but I knew that death was something that happened to other people and not to me.
I was quite sure that in the war some of the boys growing up with me would be killed but it would be a glorious sacrifice made in the heat of
battle for our country.

These childish notions were destroyed when Mr Davis, our Headmaster, announced our first school casualty. “R.W. Baker died in Army barracks last December.” I was so startled I cannot remember the exact cause but I think it was pneumonia.
Immediately I saw all those soldiers, rolled in blankets, sleeping in the fields surrounding our house. How many of them are dead without
seeing any action?

January 1st
Another new year and we are still fighting on our own. Surely the Americans can see that we need their help.
I sometimes wonder if there is just a load of cowards on the other side of the Atlantic.
There must be some of them who want to join in because it is their money that pays for most of the equipment for Y.M.C.A. tea vans which are the first on the scene after a bomb disaster.
They also provide basic equipment to help the bombed out set up home again. I cannot start Gordon’s motor-bike and neither can Dad.

I wonder who I can get to come and look at it for me.

January 10th
It is trying to snow and today Mum and Mrs Binns have been up to London with me.
I have been for an interview at King’s College. It is situated next to Somerset House at the junction of the Strand and Fleet Street.
There is chaos in the forecourt where a high-explosive bomb fell, penetrating the concrete and destroying all the women’s cloakrooms underneath.

The College is evacuated to Bristol so they had opened up the Board Room to interview prospective students.

It was eerie to be called into a room at midday with all the lights burning, because all the windows are broken and boarded up.
There was a fine layer of dust everywhere but in spite of this, seated behind a long table, were the interviewing board in their full academic dress.

At first glance I was frightened until I saw at the end one person in ordinary clothes, so I sank into the chair facing the board determined not to let anybody down.
At least I was able to answer all the questions thrown at me by the various members of the board, the most difficult one being the reason why I am the Head Girl but only the vice-captain of my house.
Probably Miss Morris had that situation in mind when she first refused to accept my nomination for vice-captain two years ago.

When it was over we negotiated the debris at the front of the College again and debated whether we should go at once for a meal.

Looking down Fleet Street we could see St. Paul’s standing in solitary blackened grandeur, so we walked towards it to have a closer look at the area of devastation surrounding it.
It looked as if there had been a volcanic cataclysm, leaving a surreal waste of tangled girders and jagged walls.

Some of the basements have been turned into ‘static water tanks’ and there is havoc in the Inns of Court.

Despite everything the shops in the Strand are still open and the newspaper offices in Fleet Street still operating.

Mrs Binns took us to Barkers in Kensington for a meal but after travelling on the top of a bus, looking at more devastation, I hadn’t my usual appetite for a meal.

I can now picture Gertie and Frances trapped in their basement for ten hours with no lights and not hearing any outside sound.
I can understand the necessity for Gertie to organise three groups to take their turns at community singing.
She told us that not only did it help morale but it ensured that any one outside would hear them and know there were people still alive and trapped.

As I pensively ate my meal I thought of Gertie teaching Gordon and I community singing when taking us on rambles through the fields and woods.
All the time we would be singing lustily and we always argued over which of us would sing the solo verses for ‘Green Grow the Rushes O’ and ‘Twelve Green Bottles’.

In the shelter every time those two were sung Gertie shut her eyes to visualise Gordon and I skipping along beside her in the warm spring sunshine.
She said it kept her going throughout those terrible interminable hours.
I wonder if the next time she hears those songs she will see the Surrey woods or only the horror of that terrible tomb.

After dinner none of us wanted to stay in London as it was not the same as our previous visits.
There are still kiosks on Victoria and Charing Cross stations where you can buy drinks and, if you have your coupons, sweets but all the glass in their roofs is shattered.
W. H. Smith’s still have stands selling newspapers, stationery and a few books and magazines.

London Bridge station is so badly knocked about that Mum and Mrs Binns had difficulty climbing over the piles of rubble to get to the platforms.
At first we thought it was closed but there were still trains running and although
the platforms have broken edges and great holes gouged in them the lines are intact.

The railway between Charing Cross and London Bridge stays at about third storey height after crossing Hungerford Bridge and we were either level with whole buildings sliced open or looking down on the devastation.

One place must have been a convent as we could see mouldering crosses and holy pictures hanging on the walls that were left standing.
We could see broken staircases and crazy doors hanging from disintegrating walls.
In another building we could see an open oven with the pie dish still inside.
Doubtless rats ate the contents long ago.
I was glad to reach Upper Warlingham and see green fields and trees as those ruins made me feel as if I was staring into the broken lives of other people.

I hope I do not have to go to London again until they have cleared up some of the mess.

January 14th
The snow has been falling steadily for a few days and I hope it has covered some of
those blackened ruins, the memory of which still keeps me awake at night.

Alan Jarrett came to see us in school today. He has passed out at the Elementary Flying Training School and is scheduled to go off and train to be a fighter pilot. He asked me to let Gordon know.

January 16th
The snow is about two inches deep and it was bitterly cold in the shelters yesterday
for the Juniors when the siren went at 1.45 p.m.
Fortunately it was only a reconnaissance plane as the All Clear went at 2.05 p.m.

It has been very quiet here this month but they have been bombing other cities.
In Bristol there are over 1,000 citizens dead and I wonder if it was worth evacuating King’s College to Bristol.

Malta is taking a pounding too.
I think they have some Hurricanes to defend them but the aerodromes are being hit although one called Luqa seems to keep going.

Mr Davis has asked the senior boys to volunteer for fire watching as it is such a strain on the staff to do it on their own.
Cliff has organised Gunner, Raymond, Carter, Knight, Weisz, Shepherd, Griffiths, Rice, Faulkner, Bell and Easter from the upper and lower sixth to join him.
They are on duty about one night in nine.
When there is no raid Cliff gets quite a lot of solid study done in the long hours of waiting.

We now have to dodge round pails of water, buckets of sand and stirrup-pumps placed in strategic positions.
Mr Richards, our caretaker, and Miss Morris managed to deal with the only incendiaries that have fallen so far on the premises.

This morning I got up early to catch the first train as Dad wants me to deliver some
important papers to the Council Offices for him.
I arrived at the station by 6.30 a.m. but no train arrived.
An hour later the little two-coach runner to Oxted came so all the London bound commuters had another chilly delay waiting to see if a train came from Edenbridge to take them up to London.

I had my Physics results for the end of term examinations. As I got 58% I could relax and enjoy myself at the dramatic club in the afternoon. Miss Dean is the Chairman with Sonia, Cliff, Weisz and I on the Committee.

We have decided to do the play “A Hundred Years Old” and give the first performance on March 5th.
Cliff is to be Papa, celebrating his one hundredth birthday and I am a disagreeable, trouble-seeking old lady.
I am looking forward to being on the stage again as I really enjoy acting. The others in the cast are Hachenburg, Vera Firmager, Knight and Weisz.
I think young Knight will make a good excited, half-tipsy member of the proletariat.

When I arrived home there was a letter from Reading University calling me for an interview.

January 21st
It is pouring with rain so it has washed away all the ice and snow that were making the roads and pavements so dangerous and delaying the trains.

I delivered Dad’s papers this morning and at last the members of staff on the Up line got to school before 11.30 a.m.

The only fly in the ointment is the raiders are back again.
Although we could hear them droning over we couldn’t see anything as they were above the clouds.
There were no bombs locally so I’m afraid they got through to London.

We had orchestra this afternoon and in spite of the painful rheumatism in my shoulder I managed to play the piano.
Miss Davis is pleased with my 60% for Pure Mathematics but Mr Denholm is not satisfied with my Chemistry Examination.
I can understand the Benzene ring but the Organic acids and Aldehydes are a complete mystery to me.

As far as Applied Mathematics is concerned the least said the better. In any case Mr Davis rarely has time to give me a lesson and the text books are no help to me.

January 22nd
The bombers got through yesterday and a bomb penetrated Bank Underground
Station which was full of travellers and shelterers.
It killed one hundred and eleven people.

Bank Station is on the Northern Line which is one of the deepest lines so that depth would decrease the chances of anybody getting dug out alive.

January 31st
For the last three days I have had a splitting headache, sore throat and hacking cough.
Mr Callard said I looked like ‘death warmed up’ which just about describes how I feel.

I was certainly poor company for Mabel when she came for tea.
She has not heard from Gordon and neither have we.
We are both very careful not to express our terrible fear of his being at the bottom of the Atlantic.

The hockey match for tomorrow has been cancelled and today in school we had our Physics lesson in front of the fire in the men’s staff room and maths in the clinic where there is a paraffin heater.
There is no heating in the classrooms or laboratories and the school feels like an ice-house.

February 3rd
I spent the week-end in bed so I was able to go to school this morning.

The siren went in the middle of the hymn and the guns let rip.
The raids are now the back-drop of all our lives so we just carried on as usual with the Assembly.

On the wireless there is somebody called Vera Lynn who sings requests for relatives of men in the forces. She is called ‘the forces sweetheart’.
It is a good idea as it makes us feel as if we are still in touch with those who are far away. I like “We’ll Meet Again, don’t know where, don’t know when but I know we’ll meet again some happy day”. I often hum it to myself when I think of Gordon and all the others.

The theatres in the West End are opening again. (The only one that didn’t close when the blitz started was the Windmill).
The first house starts at 4.15 so that the performance is usually over before the siren goes for the nightly air raid.
Mary is going up for a show with her parents for her birthday but 4.15 p.m will be too early for them so they must go to the last house.

February 4th
We cannot afford to go to shows so I was most interested to hear Mary’s account of
their outing.
Apparently when the siren goes a notice lights up at the side of the stage for the people to go to the shelters but very few folks leave and the show goes on to the accompaniment of falling bombs and banging guns.

As the raid was still in progress at the end of the show there was an informal sing-song and some of the audience joined the stars up on the stage.
Mary had enjoyed it all and I am glad for her after my experience in London.

I suppose Hitler wanted to destroy our morale with this bombing but he was way out because the shared dangers have pulled us closer together so that now we all speak to each other.

Mary was surprised to see the shelterers in the Underground dancing and singing “Knees up Mother Brown” while their homes were being destroyed above them.

February 5th
I read the wrong passage from the scriptures this morning but even Miss Dean’s fury cannot dispel my euphoria.

Yesterday we had a telegram and two letters from Gordon. He is in Bulawayo so once more I can breathe freely again.
Cousin Albert is on leave too so we are all feeling relaxed for a little while.
There is a letter from Bob to say that as soon as he was 18 last month he went straight to the recruiting office in Hull and he is waiting to be called into the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve.
Two of the sixth formers, Bob Smith and Reggie Gunner, have applied for Stats Bursaries in Science for places at the University.

February 14th
Its Mum’s birthday tomorrow but today she went to Reading with me where I had
an interview.
We managed to avoid going up to London to get there by getting a bus to South Godstone Station, where we caught a train via Redhill.

We were home again by 6 p.m. and although they offered me a place I decided to wait until I hear from King’s as that is my first choice.
Waiting for Mum was a birthday card from Uncle Jim, her eldest brother. In it there was a long letter.

He has been bombed out but he has described the experience in his usual style.

He says “We were in bed asleep when the bomb fell and when I looked up I could see stars. I shut them again as I was not sure which stars I was looking at.
I need not have worried that I had arrived in heaven, for immediately Emmie (his wife) spoke to me so I knew I was not there yet.
I told her to stay still while I assessed the situation.
When I cautiously put out my hand the bed swayed and I couldn’t feel any floor so I told her we had better stay quite still and hope for the best.
Sure enough we soon heard the sound of an approaching vehicle and a voice shouting ‘Is there anybody there?’ Soon we had a Civil Defence Air Raid Warden pin-pointing us in the rays of his torch.
When the fire brigade arrived a few minutes later we were rescued and as we were in our nightwear and all the bedclothes were missing we were wrapped in blankets as it was pretty parky I can tell you.
Our bed was hanging across a couple of floor joists that were sticking out of the back wall.
We have nothing left, but the Yankee charities are caring for us via the Red Cross and at my entertainments I can now crack jokes about being homeless as well as gormless.”

I admire Uncle Jim and his letter has given me the courage to pick myself up out of the despondency into which I was steadily falling.

February 22nd
I still cannot start Gordon’s motorbike but I have not told him so in the letter I am writing.
I’ve just mentioned that I have cleaned and oiled all his tools.

It is snowing again and once more all the trains are disorganised. Yesterday at Crowhurst Junction there were three trains all lined up behind each other.
I must say I was glad there wasn’t a raid as that is a highly vulnerable spot.

To my amazement we had some ‘hunters’ on the property today.
They had the hounds but no horses so they were running around on foot hunting for hares! Dad was livid because they ran all over his strawberry bed.
Mr Hankey stood on his front drive and refused them admission to his property.
I had a bit of a laugh because I could see the hare crouching petrified in his vegetable garden.

March 1st
My eighteenth birthday today and it has been a really good one.

Mum has made a birthday cake and Doreen, our hockey goal-keeper, gave me some handkerchiefs and they are most difficult to find.
We had a dress rehearsal this morning at Dramatic Club and with the footlights operating I felt most excited. I would have enjoyed a life on the stage.

This afternoon we played Edenbridge Ladies at hockey and I got four of our goals managing to beat them 6-2.

To crown it all when I got home from Edenbridge the afternoon post had delivered a letter saying the Institute of Education has awarded me a scholarship and King’s College have accepted me to join the science faculty to study there for my degree before going on to the Institute to take my Teacher’s Diploma.