Child from Home (8 page)

With the air heavy with the odours of cabbage and onions, we would often catch sight of Mam in the kitchen amid great clouds of steam. There was a constant clatter of pots and pans, and rich, fragrant smells of tasty, savoury stews often assailed our nostrils making our mouths water. As she baked fresh bread and cakes, her hands were often white with flour and we came to associate her presence with the aroma of lovely food. More often than not, when I saw her she was smiling and she had a way of tilting her head as she spoke. She was to stay with us for just a few short, precious weeks and, as the time for her to leave drew near, there was a deep sadness in her speech, which is often the case before a parting. Her face was often red and blotchy from crying but we never saw the tears that undoubtedly dripped into the stew.

Mam knew that we were being well fed and looked after and had settled in well, and that pleased her, but sadly for George and me, she was obliged to go. On the day of her departure there was much hugging and crying on both sides and she tried to hide her tears, but I could see the slight movement of her throat as she swallowed them. She was unable to afford the rent on Keldy Cottage for any length of time even though she had managed to sublet our house in Middlesbrough while she was away. But she now felt that she should be there when Dad got a forty-eight hour pass, as the train journeys were too slow for him to come here. Her doubts and fears remained unspoken and we were told much later that leaving us had broken her heart, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she had done the right thing in getting us away to safety.

That was the bad news. The good news was that my pal Eric had rejoined us, as for some reason he had failed to settle, and I was delighted that he was back. Eric's mother Winifred, who Mam knew quite well, said to her, ‘Rosedale Abbey is in a lovely setting but it's bleak and remote. Eric was billeted at a big house and I had a letter from there. It said that Eric was a nice little fellow and the woman asked for his birth certificate. During the recent wet spell she asked me to send him a pair of Wellington boots. He was thrilled to bits at the thought of wearing them, as he said he would now be able to help her to get the ducks in. That Sunday they had duck for dinner and he asked her if it came from Albert Park in Middlesbrough. That was the only place that he had ever seen ducks before.'

Not long afterwards, as we were playing outside on our tricycles, the garage doors were stood open and Mr Bentley – Mrs Stancliffe's chauffeur – was polishing the car. At that point something caught our attention and we dashed off to see what was happening, but Eric had forgotten his trike and left it by the garage doors. He was devastated to find that the car had backed out and flattened it.

We were told by Miss Thorne that, if the Germans came, they might use ‘nasty smells to make us feel ill' and we had to practise putting on our newly issued Mickey Mouse gas masks. They had a bright red rubber bit at the front and the circular eyepieces had blue rims but some of the children were frightened of them and hated the choking, claustrophobic feeling and the rubbery smell. Eric and I thought it was just a funny game and we collapsed in fits of giggling when the red floppy bit fluttered as we breathed in and out.

There were large storerooms and wine cellars beneath the house, which were reached by a flight of stone steps behind a doorway in the kitchen. The cellars, with their whitewashed walls, were always cool during both the summer and the winter, and many foods, such as cheeses, apples, salted sides of ham and jars of preserves, were stored down there. There were no fridges in those days and eggs were preserved in buckets of isinglass, a kind of gelatine that was obtained from fish. Kitty assured us that if we were bombed or attacked from the air we would be quite safe down there. However, I always had an illogical fear of what might lurk in the darkness behind that spooky cellar door.

In mid-December it turned bitterly cold with severe frosts. The muddy ruts of the forest paths became as solid as rock and light snow flurries drifted down from time to time. On duty the nursery assistants wore a thin, floral-patterned cotton housecoat that buttoned up at the front to protect their everyday clothes, but it didn't keep them warm and these ‘uniforms' had to be bought with the money that they managed to save from their meagre wages.

In the run-up to Christmas thoughts of home crowded in and Kitty kept us occupied to take our minds off them. We coloured in strips of paper, which we then made into links using a paste made from flour and water until we had a long chain. Kitty hung these up in the bothy day-room along with the colourful strings of twisted tissue paper. We beamed with pride when the staff hung up the paper lanterns that we had helped to colour and glue.

The stairwell was wide and deep enough to hold a seventeen-foot-tall Norway spruce from the forest and it was decorated using cotton wool as snow and a fairy was placed on the top. On it we hung a few of the long, light-brown, spruce tree cones that we had collected during our forest walks. We were lucky, but many families had to do without Christmas trees that year, as all timber was now badly needed for the war effort. We painted Christmas scenes and Kitty pinned them up on the walls and we repeatedly asked her, ‘How many days is it to Christmas?' We were so excited and impatient for Father Christmas to come.

When Christmas Eve, which was on a Sunday, arrived at Sutherland Lodge, Mam paid us a short visit, but Dad was not able to get leave from the army and, unseen by us, she left presents with the nursery staff. At bedtime we excitedly climbed the wide, plush-carpeted staircase to our dormitory and hung our woollen socks from the mantlepiece above the fireplace. A small glass of ginger wine and a sugared mince pie were left on the tiled hearth for Father Christmas but, due to an excess of excitement, it took much longer than usual to get to sleep and we tried
too
hard. Kitty had said, ‘The sooner you go to sleep the quicker the morning will come,' but to no avail. We had tried to be good in the days leading up to Christmas, as Miss Thorne had told us, ‘Santa Claus brings bags of cinders to children who have been naughty.'

Eventually – on that night of all nights – he must have crept up on us unnoticed, for when we awoke on that most wonderful day of the year we saw that the glass and plate were empty. Santa Claus had been! What other proof did you need? Kitty rubbed our faces and wiped the remnants of gritty sand from our eyes with a warm, damp flannel and, full of childish glee, we emptied our bulging socks on the coverlets. George and I had a few sweets and nuts, an orange (still available at that time), a bar of milk chocolate and a big, shiny, rosy-red apple. Huddled over our presents, I found that I had a popgun and some brightly painted lead soldiers and George got a colouring book and crayons. Christmas morning's magic never failed to thrill us.

The rationing of food hadn't started yet; therefore Dinner Lady was able to cook us a huge and delicious roast goose for our Christmas dinner and we had slices of it with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, vegetables, and thick, rich, steaming gravy in the bothy. We sat on tiny, rail-backed chairs at low tables covered with green-checked gingham cloths where we pulled crackers and drank lemonade. The main course was followed by hot, rich plum pudding with lashings of steaming hot custard. But George and I missed our Mam and Dad terribly on this, our first Christmas away from home, even though the staff did their utmost to try to take our minds off it. It never entered our self-centred minds that the nursery assistants, who were also far from home, might also be missing their parents.

We were too excited to sleep when we were tucked in for our afternoon nap and we were so delighted when Father Christmas came to our tea party. We never suspected that he was actually Lol Bentley, the chauffeur and odd-job man who was the husband of old Spaven's daughter and lived in the big house across the field. The Christmas tree was now fully decorated. The staff had hung up the little parcels we had made earlier, along with shiny baubles and strings of silver tinsel, and under it were the presents from our parents.

We were given presents from Santa's sack and every child was handed a toy or a book. We wore paper hats and played games by the roaring log fire. We gorged ourselves on cheese and biscuits, hot mince pies, cakes, sweets and crisps, and had a slice of the white-iced Christmas cake, until we were near to bursting. We laughed and giggled uncontrollably when Eric burped loudly after drinking too much gassy lemonade. Old Spaven's grandson and the two teenaged Ward girls who lived at Kelton Banks farmhouse came and joined in with our games and carol singing.

Our photograph was taken, and I was all eyes when the man ejected the burnt-out flash bulb. We sat on low wooden chairs and I was behind my friend Eric, who held his new cowboy pistol. Eric was two months younger than me, but he was tall and well built for his age and I thought that he must be older than me as I was at that stage of development when children judge age by height. I reasoned that adults are taller than we are, therefore, that makes them older. Our George was safely ensconced in the arms of Miss Waters and Kitty stood next to her holding the hands of Mary who was kneeling on the carpet in front of her. We had a lovely Christmas in the company of people we loved and who loved us in return.

The whole of January 1940 was bitterly cold, with snow falling thick and fast and the ground frozen rock hard. We had dense, freezing mists as an exceptionally cold wave gripped the whole of Europe and the snow lay deep on all the rooftops. The windows were often covered with intricate, lace-like frost patterns and there was even a thin layer of ice on the inside of the glass at times. The bare branches and twigs of the deciduous trees were pure white and were three times thicker than normal due to the frozen snow that coated them. The woodland birds were twice their normal size due to their feathers being puffed out to retain body heat; with their heads tucked under their wings they looked like little fluffy balls. Many did not survive the cutting Arctic winds of that long harsh winter when temperatures as low as −2°F were recorded in the area. We overheard Tommy Gibson telling Miss Waters that, ‘One of our bombers was so affected by the thickness and the weight of ice on its wings that it crashed three miles away on the moors over by Spaunton.'

The icy wind wailed as it whipped through the trees and the tops of the conifers rocked and lashed about wildly. We were kept indoors, cosy and warm, as a huge spruce log crackled and spat in the grate throwing out blue and yellow flames that licked around it and roared up the wide chimney. The Reverend Illingworth, the vicar of Cropton and Middleton, had some difficulty in reaching us through the deep snowdrifts. After we had sung a hymn, he asked us to close our eyes and put our hands together to pray for the thousands of British soldiers and airmen, who, he said, ‘are having to endure atrocious weather conditions of frost and deep snow as they prepare to defend France and the Low Countries from an expected German attack. The training is going badly as their gun mechanisms, their lorries and they themselves are frozen stiff as quite often a foot of snow falls overnight.' Uncle John was among them, and the vicar said a prayer which went, ‘Pray for all who serve in the Allied forces by sea and land and air; pray for the peoples invaded and oppressed; for the wounded and for the prisoners. Remember before God the fallen, and those who mourn their loss.' We were too young and full of the joy of life to really understand what it was all about.

The walnut-encased wireless that sat on a shelf in the kitchen was often on and its fretted speaker was carved in the shape of a sun and sunbeams. On it Kitty heard that the River Thames had frozen over for the first time in sixty years and, during slight thaws, when winter deigned to ease its icy grip, huge icicles hung like long daggers from the eaves. We were only allowed outside for short spells, wearing our warm Melton coats, knitted mufflers, woollen balaclava hats and Wellington boots. In Middlesbrough we would never have had a hope of possessing such warm, top quality overcoats, which had been bought with funds raised by generous-hearted benefactors.

We snapped off icicles and sucked them and sometimes used them as swords and had mock fights until someone, inevitably, got hurt. Bursting into tears they had to be comforted by the staff. We made slides on the frozen puddles and played out until the frost nipped at our fingers and made our noses red. After crunching through the deep snow, we kicked the verandah steps to remove the thick chunks from the soles of our wellies. Taken inside, we were given hot soup and steaming mugs of cocoa or Bovril as we sat in front of the fire. The tops of my wellies had chafed my legs, so Kitty gently smeared the red, raw places with a soothing salve. Later that month the worst storms of the century swept the country, with several trees being blown down, and the becks were frozen so solid that we could walk and jump up and down on them with no danger of falling through.

Winter dragged on and it often grew dark, making it seem later than it really was as snow fell softly and silently. Large flakes floated and spun in the air as the snow hid our deep footprints, and the dense forest was hushed as the house lights came on in the gathering gloom. When Jack Frost bit at our noses and the icy air hurt our lungs, Kitty ushered us inside. The blackout curtains were drawn and the rooms were flooded in golden light and we warmed ourselves at a fireplace built not for coal but for a raging log fire. At bedtime Kitty rubbed our chests with Vicks or camphorated oil, and the pungent, soothing vapours crept up from under our wincyette pyjamas to clear our clogged-up nostrils. She always gave each of us a kiss after tucking us into our beds, which had been warmed by means of glazed, earthenware ginger-beer flasks filled with hot water. There was much human warmth and loving kindness in that isolated place so far from home and it helped to make the disruption a little more bearable.

Those northern winters were harsh indeed and in February the countryside lay asleep under a creased and rumpled white sheet. A wan winter sun reflected back from the freshly fallen snow that thickly blanketed the grounds as Kitty dressed us warmly to go outside following a long spell indoors. We wore thick socks under our wellies, and our woollen balaclavas were pulled over our heads to keep our ears warm. Long knitted scarves were crossed over our chests and pinned at the back, and we had thick coats and warm mittens on as we excitedly ventured out, squinting into the blinding glare. Kitty brought out the Stancliffe's beautiful, highly polished, wooden sledge, named ‘The Yankee Clipper' after a fast nineteenth-century Royal Navy cutter that had won the Blue Riband in sailing schooner races across the Atlantic. She sat on it with two excited, giggling children at a time sitting between her legs and, starting slowly, it picked up speed as it slid down the long, snow-covered forest drive. Kitty tugged on the rope and dug in her heel to make it shoot round the sharp right-hand bend at the bottom and this was repeated over and over again, until every one had had at least one turn. It was a long hard trudge for her as she repeatedly dragged the heavy sledge back to the top of the track that was like a long white gash as it cut through the avenue of dark-green trees. Giant spruce trees with their distinctive greyish-brown trunks lined the sides of the woodland path in their serried ranks, towering above us like majestic, sylvan gods. Masses of glossy, waxy-leafed rhododendron shrubs crowded the sides of the track beneath them. It was great fun, and in between our turns we threw snowballs at each other, waiting for Kitty to trudge back to the top where we clamoured impatiently for another go.