大象传媒

The following passages have been taken from the diaries of Gwen Brewster (nee Brockway) that she has written over many years. I am writing her story from when she was born in 1920 and became a florist after serving an apprenticeship from the age of 15. Gwen was coming up for 19 when World War 2 broke out. The following piece is from 1942, at that time she was going out with a soldier in the royal engineers called Sandy. He was more than just a boyfriend; they were very much in love and making arrangements for their wedding and life together. Gwen was in the Women's Land Army, working for a nursery owned by Mr Lawrence and billeted in Nazeing.

Mr and Mrs Reynolds lived in a cottage by the vicarage 'Church House' and worked for the Reverend Sutherland; the house backed on to the churchyard. Mr R was also the gravedigger. The Reynolds had two married daughters, Ella and Winnie, one married son and the youngest Dougie, who was in the navy. Ella lived nearby with her two children a boy and girl and her husband. Ella was deeply religious and helped her Mother a great deal cleaning and other work to do with Nazeing church. Winnie and her husband lived between Waltham Abbey and Upshire. The tiny cottage had two small rooms, a sitting room where the door opened onto the winding stairs to the bedrooms. The parlour downstairs that Mr and Mrs Reynolds used as a bedroom and next to the living room was the very tiny scullery. My room was the front upstairs bedroom, the back one looked down on the graves. I loved it there, as it was so quiet. After our evening meal by the light of the fire and candles, Foxy as Mr Reynolds was known locally would tell me tales of his adventures in the First World War. When they went to bed Ma Reynolds would leave me a candle to write to Sandy (which was every day) and sometimes to his friend Jock Alan who was now in Burma.

As I had to work some Sunday mornings and hadn't had time to cycle home to Billericay, Mrs Reynolds asked me if I would like to join her at evensong. When I explained that I didn't know anything about church services she was very shocked and was even more so when I said I had never been christened. I tried to explain about Mum and Dad being bible students and giving children a choice to make up their own minds when old enough. In fact Dad cycled over to meet Mrs Reynolds one day to explain things himself and they ended up getting on like a house on fire and Dad falling in love with the cottage. After that I started going to evensong and loved it. The peace and quiet of the church and the Reverend Sutherland was so sincere I felt I had truly missed out on something in my life. Mrs Reynolds also pointed out that if I wanted to get married in church (which I did) I really aught to be christened; so we decided on a date and time.

The big rectory set back in the trees had a very large cellar and the vicar said that if any time there was an air raid we were to join him, Mr and Mrs Mansfield and Dorothy there for shelter. It was very comfortable down there, but I hated the thought of that enormous house coming down on top of us. Personally I preferred to be out in the open during a raid. After one air raid everyone had gathered outside in the garden when suddenly we saw a huge ball of fire and the screech of a plane as it plummeted to earth. We all stood and watched to see where it was going to land as it smashed into the front garden of a cottage near the pub and nursery. There was nothing anyone could do and as we watched, the ammunition on board started to explode. I don't think any of us had been known to move so fast, as we hurled ourselves into the nearest ditch. As things started to calm down the vicar said that it was possible that the pilot of the plane had bailed out and we aught to find them or him. We had no idea if the plane had been one of ours, or the enemy, but they could be lying dead or injured somewhere.

It was a very dark night with no moon and neither of us had a torch, but Cecil and I started off across the common. I was going slowly feeling my way carefully with my feet and trying to see what was around me. I came up against a haystack, so stretched out my hands to find my way round it. Suddenly my heart started to thump as I came up against a body, a huge body, alive and walking, it gave out a quiet but sharp sound of fear; it was Cecil coming round the haystack the other way. I don't know which of us had the biggest fright, but Cecil said he thought it might be better for us to go home and wait until daylight. The next morning we learned that the pilot had died in the plane and he was one of the Polish freedom fighters.

A letter arrived form Sandy telling me that he had a weeks leave coming up, so he was making his way to Northampton to be with his Mum and Dad for the weekend, then coming on to London for a night with Sally (his sister) at Balham and then coming on to Elsie and Stan Fincham near The Talbot, North Weald so that he could see me in the evenings, either by bike or walking over to Nazeing. 'NO way' I thought. I would have to wait half a week before I could get to see Sandy. I will cycle to Northampton to see him there first. I hadn't the faintest idea how far it was or where, I only knew it was sort of North. It was not easy to obtain maps during the war and most of the sign posts had been removed form the roads in case of an invasion, so I went to see the vicar, he had lots of lovely maps and he wrote down the names of towns and villages I needed to go through - Hoddesdon, Hatfield, St Albans, Dunstable, Fenny Stratford, Stoney Stratford and on to Northampton. It didn't look very far written down like that.

I had to work on the Saturday morning until one o'clock, so I asked Ma Reynolds if instead of my lunch I could take some bread and a bottle of water in my saddlebag. I didn't possess a puncture kit (so far hadn't had one) so after one o'clock off I went. The roads were lovely and quiet and easy going, but then we didn't have awful motorways then and there certainly wasn't the petrol. I don't remember passing by Milton Keynes, I guess it hadn't been invented yet. However I did make a huge murphy at Dunstable. A left turn at a huge crossroads; having made a calculated guess took me miles out of my way. Up and down hills, they weren't steep but long, I saw a man cycling towards me "am I alright for Northampton?" I asked "No" he chortled "your going towards Whipsnade." I had to about turn and it felt so much further going back again. I must have been somewhere between Fenny and Stoney Stratford when I got 'the knock' that's what it used to be called when one of your legs ceases and feels paralysed. It was my right one and I lay on the grass verge trying to massage it back to life. I felt in my saddlebag for the bottle and it was empty and I'd long since eaten the bread. I eventually walked on with my bike and found a small garage where they kindly gave me some water. As I cycled on I found it hard going and at the garage they said it was still a mighty long way to go. The road also seemed to be going up for miles and miles. As if from nowhere there was a soldier cycling beside me who started to ask me where I was going, I told him the whole story, he could see how I was feeling now. "Keep close and I'll help," he said and for a while we cycled along and he had one hand to my back pushing me along, unfortunately he wasn't going too many miles.

I was getting worried now because the sun was going down. I had no watch and apart from finding Northampton I also had to find the road where Mr and Mrs Parker (Sandy's parents) lived. It was around 11 o'clock at night when I arrived at the town, and seeing a chap I asked if he could direct me to their road, he knew the place well and sent me straight there. I knocked on the door and knocked and knocked, no one came. I knocked again and this time someone from the house next door came out. "Who are you, what do ya want?" I explained and they told me that Mr Parker and his son were already asleep in the back of the house and wouldn't hear from there, and Mrs Parker was deaf. "You'll never make anyone hear," I was told. They suggested I went back up the road to a commercial hotel that was open all night. I went to the hotel and pleaded with them to let me stay there the night, told them my story and that I only had six bob on me. "All right you can stay if you pay up front, that's bed only mind, nothing else included." I didn't care, as I was shattered. Putting my bike in the garage, I staggered off to the room, had a drink form the wash bowl and was asleep before I hit the they hay. I woke early with a start because there was a lot of noise going on, Northampton had a big Saturday market. Having washed myself and made myself as presentable as possible, I left the hotel a bit sharpish. I had started my period, which I had only finished 2 weeks earlier and had nothing with me and now no money, I reckon it must have been the strain of the cycling. This time back at Sandy's house they were expecting me, having been told by their neighbours what had happened and Oh boy, that cup of tea was the best. Mrs Parker wanted to show me the market, but first I had to try and tell her of my predicament, so I followed her into the kitchen and explained it to her; but of course, she was deaf. I spoke a bit louder and louder in the end shouted out "Oh God, at last"! There was a scurrying around for bits and pieces of material, pins and elastic and I was sorted out. (During the war commercial sanitary products were seldom available and you had to make do with what you could make). One tried to be discreet about these things, but Sandy must have heard what was going on, as later when we went for a walk by the river he insisted that I went back by train. He was going to Sally's, so with my bike now in the guards van, he put me on a train at Liverpool Street for Broxbourne, where I cycled back to Nazeing.

The following Tuesday as I came home along the lane there was Sandy waving at the cottage window, he'd walked from North Weald. Mrs Mansfield happened to be outside the cottage as I arrived and said to me "no wonder you're in love with him, what beautiful hair." "Yes, it's the colour of my Mother's stair rods," I laughed. The following night I cycled to Stan and Elsie's and Sandy was sitting outside Stan's shed, he had killed and was plucking a chicken for the evening meal. Stripped to the waist and in the full evening sun he glistened the colour of gold, from his khaki trousers and covered in freckles, to his thick mop of golden hair, in the air surrounding him hovered a light plume of brown and white feathers, he looked up and smiled, "don't come near me, you'll get covered in feathers." I didn't care, but I went in to see Elsie busy cooking and she gave me the job of feeding her two boys with boiled eggs and soldiers. Michael managed his own but Tony was still in his high chair. Later that evening Sandy and I went for a walk and he crawled under a bush to pick me some violets, they weren't blue but white and smelt so sweet.

Life seemed flat after Sandy had gone, but in the mean time the vicar Sutherland had sorted out a date for me to be christened, 5th October 1942. It was such a lovely quiet service with Ma Reynolds and Mrs Mansfield as witnesses and I felt that I now belonged; it was truly a feeling of beginning. The vicar had a little talk with me and asked me if at a later date I would like to be confirmed and I said yes. I'm sure that this taking place in later life is far more sensible, as when a child there is no real understanding. He made the date for my confirmation 6th December 1942 to be held in a tiny church in the little old fashioned town of Harlow. For the next two months I went to the vicarage one night a week to learn the creed and understand more about confirmation. I can honestly say that those quiet evenings were the happiest and most peaceful times I have ever known. There were two young lads, cousins, who were also going to be confirmed, they were nephews of Mr Lawrence.

One evening when the vicar was showing us out and Mrs Mansfield was waiting to lock up, there was a strange humming, throbbing noise in the sky; it was heavy, yet gentle. It was the sound of many planes possibly Lancasters going towards the East Coast. I thought it was a comforting sound and said to myself 'come back safely boys'. Mrs Mansfield looked at me as if reading my thoughts and said aloud "Oh, those poor German women and children." I hadn't thought of it form that angle. Now there's a true Christian, I'm never going t make the grade.

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