大象传媒

From the Blitz to the Cambridgeshire Fens 1940-1945

Part 2

Ollie Goward, the Walpole Highway blacksmith and out landlord, was my hero, a huge man with forearms like oak branches, sparkling blue eyes under grey hair in a face constructed of wrinkled leather. I鈥檇 sit on a pile of old discarded iron railings beside his workshop and watch him shoe a horse. He would run his arm down the foreleg of a carthorse that towered eight to ten feet above him and the beast would lift its foot. Ollie would talk quietly to the animal the whole time, sitting on a low stool while he pulled the nails from the old shoe and discarded them. Young Tim, his youngest son, not yet called up, would be at the forge heating the new shoe in the furnace, pumping the bellows with one hand and holding the shoe in long iron forceps into the heat. He鈥檇 take it to the anvil and shape it with a hammer. When Ollie called, he鈥檇 be out to give the white-hot shoe to Ollie, who with his back to the horse and holding its leg between his knees would position the shoe on to the horse鈥檚 hoof and it would burn and steam while Ollie tried it for size, hammered in the new nails, a supply of which he held between his teeth, and cut away the excess hoof. All the while the horse stood patiently and waited.

I loved to sit somewhere in the forge among the bits and pieces of old machines, bicycle wheels, iron bars, or more comfortably, on a heap of discarded nose bags, usually filled with oats and hung round the horse鈥檚 neck so that he could feed while waiting to be shod. Sometimes to my immeasurable pleasure Tim would beckon me over to stand by the bellows and pump the handle to make the coals burn to white heat while he heated the horse鈥檚 shoes and shaped them for the hooves. In this forge Tim and I assembled my first bicycle, christened the ASP, All Spare Parts, as it was put together out of bits and pieces that were lying about in the forge. The bellows lever in the smithy was not the only handle I pumped in Walpole Highway. I remember on a Sunday being up in the village church organ loft pumping the lever to the church organ bellows, and what hard work. If I slackened off and the organ notes began to slide, I would be wildly gesticulated at by the clenched fist of the aged organist. I have no idea how I came to be bellows pumper at the local Anglican church, unless it was money. I never set foot in the church itself, but I knew all the hymns and sang them; the psalms didn鈥檛 appeal. We never went to church although from time to time my father used to say how much better the Catholics and the Salvation Army were than the Church of England, because they helped the poor unreservedly, while the Anglicans were hardly ever seen. I was baptised and later confirmed in the school chapel when I was fifteen, but religion played no part in our lives.

The Gowards did not impose themselves on us. They were our landlords and my mother paid them 10/6 (52陆 p) a week rent, and at the end of the war, when we returned to London, Ollie Goward wrote a letter of recommendation to 鈥榳hom it may concern鈥� stating that she was an ideal tenant, clean, decent, honest, trustworthy and always paid the rent on time. She kept this in her little box of treasures until the end of her life, together with a reference from the butcher saying much the same thing of her as a customer. The Gowards helped us in unobtrusive ways, let us get water from their well, and arranged for me to collect water in a bucket from the Bell Inn鈥檚 outside tap when the well froze over. They gave me a pair of tame rabbits, from which I bred many families of rabbits to supplement the meat ration and provide fur to decorate my mother鈥檚 home-made suits and hats. Those rabbits! They had a genius for escaping and running through gaps in Mrs Austin鈥檚 hedge and eating their way through the back-gardens of the terrace houses. I was yelled at and sworn at as I leapt over hedges and fences, dived into vegetable patches and flower beds to grab those rabbits. Does were fairly easy to catch, but the bucks were as heavy and as fierce as alsatian dogs, with sharp teeth and claws that they sank into any bare flesh they could get hold of. Ollie also gave us some bantam chicks, which were no trouble and grew into fine layers; they were pretty and docile, perhaps because they didn鈥檛 have a cockerel. When they died Ollie gave us some more. Mr and Mrs Goward gave us help, advice and friendship, and yet, I cannot remember once having been invited into their home even for a cup of tea. It was perhaps much the same sort of relationship that existed between rich farmers and their tied tenants.

Rabbits and bantams were not our only animals. My mother acquired 鈥� I think from Mrs Austin 鈥� a ginger tomcat, inevitably called Ginger, which grew into a strong, lithe animal. Not being neutered, he remained very agile, a good mouser, in fact a catcher of anything that moved. He鈥檇 go up the conker tree after birds as fast as a squirrel and he lay prone along one of the lower branches like a tiger, waiting to leap into the air after any bird that flew too near. He was the only cat I ever knew who would also chase rats and didn鈥檛 particularly like being stroked or fussed over, except by my mother. He鈥檇 sit on her lap, while she drank her tea, and occasionally she鈥檇 give him a titbit off her plate, possibly a small corner of her bread and precious butter. The cat didn鈥檛 live on bread and butter, although I have never seen another cat eat bread at all. He鈥檇 chew a crust as if it was a hunk of beef, but he also had giblets and bits and pieces from the rabbits or bantams that I killed, cleaned and skinned for the pot as well as left-overs from our meat ration or bits of our under-the-counter non-rationed offal, whenever my mother could get the butcher to part with it. On the whole, though, this cat got his dinner from what he could catch.

I also had a jackdaw. I can鈥檛 remember how I got it, but think Tim Goward probably gave me a nestling from one of the nests in the old smithy roof. I鈥檓 pretty sure I didn鈥檛 take it from a nest myself, although I had a jackdaw鈥檚 egg amongst my collection. It wasn鈥檛 illegal to collect birds鈥� eggs in those days. When you found a nest, you waited until there were two or three eggs and then took one, and the bird would lay another to replace it. You would pierce each end of the egg with a pin, blow through one end and the contents would come out the other. I had about forty eggs of different species, some gathered at some risk and expenditure of energy. To get a moorhen鈥檚 egg - in the fens moorhens are called waterhens for obvious reasons - you had to lean out or crawl out along precarious shrubby branches to reach into the little reed platforms that the birds built at the extreme end of a bush just out of reach of marauding foxes, cats, weasels and rats, all animals that can swim, but prefer not to get wet.

Jackie became a great pal. He came to hand to be fed 鈥� he performed tricks, like fetching something I threw, or turning a somersault when I told him. I couldn鈥檛 teach him any real words, but he鈥檇 attempt to imitate me when I spoke to him. He could certainly say Jack, Jack, Jack very loudly to let you know he was there. When I went to school he鈥檇 fly just above my head and then go on in front to sit on a wall or garden gate to wait for me to catch up. He鈥檇 perch on the school gate when we arrived and fly up to a branch of a tree in the schoolyard when I told him to. Sometimes he鈥檇 be there when I came home, sometimes not. I didn鈥檛 know what he did or where he went during the day, until one day the village policeman was waiting in our kitchen with my mother when I got home. I knew him and he knew me. He was the law in the village, permitted by common consent to clip erring youngsters round the ear, respected and obeyed, supported and aided by all the village elders. I don鈥檛 think juvenile courts existed in that part of the world, and they weren鈥檛 needed. I couldn鈥檛 think of any reason why he should be waiting there for me.

鈥淚t鈥檚 about Jackie,鈥� my mother said, as Mr Plod sat solemnly by. Had he been killed, run over, savaged by a dog? No, he鈥檇 been annoying the old widow lady who lived next to the butcher鈥檚. He鈥檇 taken to sitting on her window-sill and tapping her window with his beak. She was terrified. A visitation from a coal-black bird (he was more a dark, shiny blue with a grey crown, actually, but what鈥檚 that to an old lady who couldn鈥檛 afford specs) was a visitation from hell. It was the devil knocking on her window, a harbinger of death. Everybody in the village, regrettably, knew that Jackie belonged to me, and that something had to be done. Thus spake the policeman. That something was a sentence of death, no appeal, no reprieve, the law had spoken: either Mr Plod would carry out sentence or I had to. This was the first time I had come up against the power of ignorance and prejudice. An innocent animal had to be sacrificed at the altar of superstition. I did the job myself 鈥� I was well used to wringing the necks of chickens 鈥� and I buried him in my patch of garden, and I was sad for a very long time afterwards. If I had been able, I would willingly have exchanged the body of Jackie for that of the old woman who sat and lived in fear of one of God鈥檚 gentlest creatures behind a closed window.

Our connection with London was not completely lost. We made occasional journeys back to stay with my Uncle George and Aunt Daisy and visit my father鈥檚 relations. Sometimes London came to us, first in the shape of my cousin Barbara Barnes, daughter of my father鈥檚 brother, Fred, and one month older than me. She came with her friend, Joan, and my brother and I had to kip down in my mother鈥檚 room, while they occupied our beds in the upstairs rooms. We had little experience of girls except Aunt Vi鈥檚 daughters, who were much the same as us and enjoyed the same sort of things, though they didn鈥檛 fight so much. Not so Barbara and Joan, who seemed to believe they were honoured guests, royalty from another planet. They refused to bath like other people. On Monday all the clothes were washed and on Friday all the people. The tin bath was brought in off the nail in the wall of the boiler house, put in front of the kitchen range and filled by me with buckets of hot water brought in from the outside boiler. My brother and I used to take turns to get in first and have the water while it was clean and warm, but these girls wouldn鈥檛 do that. They refused to draw lots and said, where they came from everybody had their own clean water out of a geyser in a bathroom. So what! This was Walpole Highway, not St George鈥檚 Square. But, to my extreme ire, my mother agreed with them. Of course, the posh London ladies wouldn鈥檛 undress in front of us, and I wouldn鈥檛 even take a sock off in front of them, so not only did I and my mother have to carry fresh water in for each bath and empty out the old, but I had also to fetch the buckets of cold water from the well to fill the boiler and stoke the fire with precious logs that I had gathered from the old orchard, and while the duchesses inside enjoyed the fruits of my labour, I had to stand outside in the cold to avoid my catching a glimpse of their noble flesh. I can only remember this happening once, so either I went on strike and they went dirty or they hoofed it back to the Smoke and the Blitz.

My mother鈥檚 elder sister, Emily, also visited us with her small son, Keith. Just before the war she had married a Welshman, who died of tuberculosis soon after her son was born. She later married another Welshman, I think a relation of her first husband, and had twins, one of whom also died, but for the moment she was living alone somewhere in Thornton Heath, far enough away from the main bombing area but still not without danger.

Aunt Em looked very much like my mother. Both were redheads and petite. My mother was five foot two, took size three shoes and was beautiful, not just my partial view; everybody said so. Emily was two years older than my mother and a little taller. They could have passed for twins. In the late twenties, still in their teens, they used to go ballroom dancing together to the local palais de danse and sometimes as far as Streatham Locarno. Both of them were superb dancers all their lives. A year after my mother died, her brother George died, and Emily, now the only surviving child, came to a family meeting to discuss the disposal of her brother鈥檚 assets 鈥� she had not come to my mother鈥檚 funeral. As she entered the room, smartly dressed and looking stunning, my brother and I gasped. We had not seen her for many years and there she was, standing in the doorway, our mother come back to life.

It was not really possible to do anything more adventurous with Keith around than go for dainty walks, until one evening when it was just getting dark, the carter鈥檚 van drew up by the Blacksmith鈥檚 shop, where we were all sitting on the wooden bench in the bus shelter. The carter鈥檚 van was pulled by a single horse and out of the back he would sell all sorts of goods and ironmongery, and deliver packets and parcels he鈥檇 collected for people in Wisbech shops. He鈥檇 lower the tail board to form a counter and offer his wares, hang a paraffin lamp on hooks at each side and then drive slowly along the road and round the square mile dropping things off for people on the way round. Of course, this provided us with an ideal chance to have a free ride, the idea being to see if you could stay on the tailboard undetected until the van had returned almost to its starting point, which meant hopping off and hiding behind the van somewhere every time it stopped.

This evening we had Keith, so I lifted him on, but was a bit slow getting on myself, so the van went off into the darkness with just Keith on board. I honestly believe that I did not intend to send Keith off with the carter all alone in the dark, although I confess to a certain satisfaction in seeing him go. There would be mum and Aunt Em to face when we went back, but it was an accident, wasn鈥檛 it? I don鈥檛 know how long he was gone, but doubtless he screamed loud enough to alert the carter, who brought him back and insisted on coming into the cottage with him and us to tell tales to the parents. I got a clip round the ear and Keith was comforted to his sly satisfaction. The good thing was, however, that Aunt Em took him back to Thornton Heath, where the bombs suddenly were not as bad as life in Walpole Highway.

I was sorry to leave the Walpole Highway school, for the London Grammar School evacuated to King鈥檚 Lynn. I had been happy there and learned a lot. I can still visualise Mr and Mrs Compton and see the playground, the layout of the classrooms, the hot stove in winter, and remember the sing-songs, the spelling tests, the standing-up and reading aloud, the Friday afternoon stories, the desks, the inkwells and wooden pens with bright steel nibs, the workbooks and their motto 鈥� 鈥榃hatever鈥檚 worth doing is worth doing well鈥�, although nowadays I also think it鈥檚 worth doing badly too, if that鈥檚 the best you can do.

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