Child from Home (19 page)

‘Yes, Mrs Harris,' he meekly replied.

To me she said, ‘Our bedroom, the parlour and the pantry are strictly out of bounds.'

Her kitchen sink was stained brown and the gas oven was coated in burnt-on grease and it was obvious from the start that it was going to be a case of do as I say and not as I do. That night it took me a long time to get to sleep as I lay between the two bigger lads, snuggling up to Jimmy's warm back, but eventually I must have dozed off.

I was a resilient and amenable lad and I had no choice but to accept the new regime and get on with it. There was no laughter in the strict and bad-tempered Mrs Harris, who always seemed to look on us with unforgiving eyes, and her cold stare could take the warmth out of the sunniest day. She said and did many unkind and unpleasant things, which I felt deeply and thought very unfair. Her philosophy seemed to be: Give them a good hiding and they won't do it again. Such treatment came as a shock to me so soon after my cocooned life in the nursery school where I had been accustomed to love and tenderness. Mr Harris, although dominated and hen-pecked by his wife, was always kind, affable and gentle with us and, when she was not around, he let us get away with many minor childish mischiefs. He had smiling eyes that crinkled at the corners and he would often secretly slip us a sweet or two from behind the now depleted sheets of his
Daily Express
newspaper when she wasn't looking.

The next day our Jimmy, who had picked up the local dialect and mannerisms of speech, said, ‘I'll show yer t'way t' t'shops.' He took me into the village centre to show me Torvill's newspaper shop where comics could be bought, and it was just over the road from the school that I would be starting at on Monday. I became even more interested when he told me where mouth-watering gobstoppers, aniseed balls, penny chews, lemon barley and stretchy jelly babies could be had. He was referring to Bryant's little shop with its sweet, sugary-smelling interior and it was to become a regular port of call for us. I found that Haxby was very old with a quaint mixture of farms, ponds, greens, stone walls and wrinkled, red roofs.

Mr Harris had said that, ‘'Axby's typical of many o' t'auld North Yorkshire villages bein' originally just one long street.' Many of the locals, including Mr Harris, were happy to till the land and raise animals as their ancestors had done for years without number, but it was poorly paid work. The main road through the village followed the boundaries of the ancient fields. Life here had changed very slowly, and very little over the last few decades, and cows still ambled down Usher Lane at milking times.

Front Street with its wide grassy verges was the main thoroughfare. Jimmy informed me that, ‘those old houses and cottages by The Green are two or three hundred years old and are still lived in.' The
Red Lion
on the north side and the
Tiger Inn
on the south had been public houses for over a hundred years. Behind Front Street there were back lanes, also lined with older houses and businesses. At the western end was Wyre pond; the boundary of Haxby where ducks skittered and floundered about on the thick layer of ice that covered its surface. There was a short open area before it became Wigginton Front Street.

Jimmy, who was one year older than me, held tightly on to my hand as he took me down York Road to call on my young uncle, Harry, who was living with two ladies called Miss Law and Miss Barker. I got a bit of a shock on going through the front door, for looming over us was the head of a large, shaggy Highland cow. It had great long horns that curved outwards and upwards and it had been stuffed and mounted on the wall of the hallway some years back. Apparently it had once belonged to Miss Barker's family, who had been farmers for many years. Miss Barker said, ‘It won many prizes at agricultural shows, such as The Haxby Show, which was a very popular annual event before the war.'

I was very surprised by the poshness, the space and the superior – even though faded and dull – quality of everything. Compared to our humble and basic, but relatively new billet it was a palace. At Usher Lane there was barely room to swing a cat, even if we'd had one. Harry introduced me to the Misses Law and Barker and they could not have made me feel more welcome and at ease. The warmth of their reception was in sharp contrast to the one I received at the hands of Mrs Harris and I found them very nice and friendly in their genteel old-fashioned way and came to like them very much. A pleasant, outgoing couple, lively of mind and well spoken, they delighted everyone with whom they came in contact. They were noted for their old-world hospitality and good manners and they obviously loved Harry a great deal, fussing and doting on him (much to his embarrassment).

Miss Elsie Law was a forty-six-year-old spinster of average height who was rather thin and wiry and of a slightly nervous disposition. She wrung her hands a lot and there was always a faint scent of Pond's moisturising cream, soap and smelling salts about her. She had an almost pathological fear of germs and there was not a speck of dust to be seen due to her obsessive dusting and polishing. She was of a more reserved and nervous nature than Miss Barker, who was a jolly fifty-two-year-old easy-going woman, on the small side with a matronly figure. She enjoyed life and exuded kindness and goodwill, and when she laughed, which was often, her whole body wobbled and shook. I never heard Miss Law laugh out loud, she only smiled sweetly from time to time. They were cousins and had been very close and loving friends for many years.

Miss Elizabeth Ann Barker was born at her father's farm. Her ancestors had lived and farmed there for 150 years or more. In 1923 when her mother died, her father worked on at Westfield Farm for a couple of years before retiring and buying the fine town house on York Road. His sepia-tinted photograph hung in an ornate, gilded frame above the mantelpiece in the parlour. He left the farm to his son, Arthur, and came to live at Haxby with his daughter. He promised to leave her most of his money on condition that she looked after him and didn't marry. Miss Barker's mother's maiden name was Law and she had a brother, whose daughter was born in 1895. Elsie had moved in with her cousin shortly after the death of her father.

They were a friendly and generous couple who had an air of gentility about them and had become accustomed to living the high life. The middle-aged ladies loved to entertain and be entertained and were wholesome company, and their friends and family were often invited to their garden parties. They had always dressed fashionably, but good clothes were becoming much more difficult to obtain and their pre-war wardrobe had to last much longer these days. After a day of shopping they looked forward to a cup of tea and a couple of mouthwatering, fresh cream cakes in the refined atmosphere of the restaurant of Betty's Café.

The large, imposing three-storey building had high, plate-glass windows, and square-shaped, white columns flanked its wide entrances – it had enjoyed a reputation as a high-class venue for many years. There was seating for up to 220 people and it was frequented by celebrities and the local rich and famous. It was a world of uniformed waitresses and white linen tablecloths; a place where fashionable people liked to meet for tea and a tête-à-tête. It seems that the place had recently become a magnet for servicemen based at the camps and airfields in the Vale of York. American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Free French, Czechoslovakian, Polish and British officers were now amongst its customers but it was out of bounds to ‘other ranks'. Some left their photographs or other mementoes in what they called Betty's Bar or The Dive on the ground floor. Others scratched their signatures on the frame of the large mirror in the oak-panelled bar that the RAF crews nicknamed The Briefing Room. After the war it became a kind of memorial to the many young men who perished.

The middle-aged spinsters had been regular clients prior to and during the early months of the war and their self-indulgence had angered Mrs Harris, who often asked, ‘Why should the well-to-do eat as much as they want? It always seems to be the common folk that have to tighten their belts and do without.' However, with her buxom bosom and generous behind, she didn't appear to be too undernourished.

Both women were shod in sensible, rubber-soled shoes. Heeled shoes had been the style for well-to-do ladies about town in the late 1930s, but in the early part of the war they had been asked to wear shoes with flat heels, and most of the ladies felt it their duty to do so. The aim was to save on wood, which was in short supply; even paper was now being made from straw. It had been recycled so often that it was now coarse in texture and of a yellowish colour.

They got in quite a flutter and blushed like peonies when a dashing Polish officer bowed, clicked his heels and kissed their hands. They thought that the Poles and the Czechs were so colourful and handsome. Some wore heavily braided uniforms with the tassels on their golden epaulettes dangling from the shoulders. The Poles, who were sometimes referred to as Polacks by the locals, had large floppy berets. Although embarrassed, the maidenly pair were quite flattered by the gallant behaviour of the flamboyant foreigners who all seemed to have extremely good manners and spoke politely in broken English. In recent weeks, the formerly well respected, licensed premises had started to lose something of its good name as too many young women were flocking there to consort with the free-spending servicemen.

People had started to suggest that nice girls should not be seen there, so they switched their allegiance to Terry's Restaurant and Café. Terry's was, of course, the city's other major chocolate-making firm and their brands were prominently displayed in the large bow windows. Later in the war part of their factory was taken over to produce aircraft propeller blades.

There always seemed to be a lad standing outside selling the
Yorkshire Evening Post
in all weathers and he would bawl out newsworthy items. In the refined and genteel atmosphere of the high-ceilinged establishment there was a low, genial murmur of refined voices as waitresses in black dresses and frilly white aprons passed in and out taking orders, and quiet, soothing music added to the relaxed ambience. Despite the clinking of teacups and cutlery and the clatter of food trays the paper lad's tortured, elongated vowels still managed to reach their ears. Miss Law wondered whether they were trained to do this or did it come naturally?

It was cold and frosty with a leaden sky as Mrs Harris walked me under the large, ornate clock to the village school that Monday morning to be enrolled as a new and very apprehensive young pupil. Fortunately I was placed in the tender care of the gentle-natured Miss Francis in the ‘baby' class at St Mary's hall. Not much older than Kitty, she was slim and of medium height with short, wavy, mid-brown hair. Wearing a Tweed two-piece, she tended to push her head forward as she clumped along on flat, sensible shoes. Of a kind and pleasant disposition, she usually wore a smile and she believed that you could accomplish more by kindness than you could ever achieve by force. She was not as bossy and strict as the slightly aloof and formidable Miss Curry, whose hair was tied back severely and held in place by Kirby grips. Miss Francis's friendly nature, calmness and gentle manner had a great deal to do with my settling in fairly quickly in the infant group.

Even so, initially, it was not a happy time for me. In my unsettled state, I felt rather lost and out of sorts as I gazed at the exposed rafters, purlins and tie beams of the rooftree above me. The schoolroom seemed dark and cheerless and the small windows only let in so much cold winter light. The atmosphere seemed strange and depressing and this was reinforced when I looked out of the window at the graveyard. I had a morbid mental experience in which I imagined that I could see the skeletons of the village forefathers lying cold and still beneath the snow-covered sods. Even the lichen-splotched headstones, which leaned at all angles, looked mottled and diseased. My imagination ran riot and I felt shivers up the back of my neck and I buried my face in my arms. Even though I was among so many children, I felt lonely, sad and apprehensive. To make matters worse it was said that some of the local parents had told their children not to mix with the dirty ‘vaccies', as they called us. They were inclined to blame us when things went missing or if their kids got into arguments or fights.

Following so soon after the coddled and insular life of the nursery school I found this new way of life hard to accept and my heart ached for Mam, Kitty and my friends at Grove House. It had been an enchanted place to me and I longed to be back there being hugged and cosseted and told that I was loved. I resented being so cruelly torn away from the things that were familiar to me, and felt angry at having my loving and secure world so abruptly taken away for a second time. It seems that we do not appreciate what we have in life until it dawns on us that we may not encounter it again. I kept my head down hoping to go unnoticed, indulging in daydreaming the hours away ‘woolgathering' and clock-watching.

It was slightly reassuring to know that I would be with Jimmy again at playtime, as he was working away in Miss Curry's group behind a curtain that separated his group from mine. Time seemed to pass slowly and I tried to hide my sadness, shedding my bitter tears once I was alone. We had been told from our earliest days that big boys don't cry and I tried hard to suppress my tears and felt ashamed when they came unbidden. The only time that I was able to be by myself was when I visited the school toilet or in the Harrises' bathroom. There was no privacy to be had anywhere else. Gradually I made the necessary adjustments to overcome this new and daunting phase of my life.

The teacher on duty started the school day by blowing a long blast on her whistle. The powers-that-be had stated that a rattle was to be used only if toxic gas was present in the vicinity. On hearing the whistle we stood perfectly still waiting for the command, ‘Get in lines!' A second whistle was the signal for us to march into the building where we hung our hats and coats on the rows of low wooden pegs in the cloakroom. Our teacher called out the names in the register and marked the column with a tick or a cross every morning and afternoon. We were called up to her desk each morning to be given a spoonful of cod liver oil, quickly followed by a spoonful of concentrated orange juice to mask the vile taste. This was followed by a spoonful of gooey, sweet-tasting malt, which I loved. The same spoon was used for all three and it was not washed between one child's turn and the next. Some of the local children and many of the evacuees were entitled to free dinners depending on their family's ability to pay. We, always being hungry, envied them and wished that we could stay, but that would have meant Mrs Harris paying for the meals out of her evacuee allowances and it was much cheaper for her as things stood.