Authors: Eileen Haworth
‘Get down!’ Beryl screamed.
Everyone fell to the floor in a heap…everyone except Betty who found herself paralysed, eyes bulging with fear, mouth bulging with her dad’s cake. Only with the sound of the explosion did her knees buckle.
The house hadn’t suffered much damage downstairs, but upstairs the girls found the window of one of their bedrooms had been blown clean out. From now all six girls would have to cram into the room that had previously slept three. They set about rearranging their salvaged belongings and left it to Beryl to go out fact-finding.
According to her, the next street had taken a direct hit and a woman and baby had been blown out of their bedroom window. Beryl was full of such stories but how much truth was in them the girls had no way of knowing.
Like the time she told them a German spy had parachuted and landed in the next street and the neighbours had found him and “torn him limb from limb”. Could that have been true? Sometimes Beryl and her tall stories reminded Betty of her dad.
With Christmas morning came a welcome break from rehearsals. Hungry and homesick, the girls huddled on one of the three small beds in their bedroom. The conversation inevitably turned to family life, or in Connie’s case the lack of it.
‘Don’t talk to me about families, you lot are the best family I’ve ever had, or ever
will
have.’ She brushed off their questions and tried to change the subject but Isobel was insistent.
‘But surely you had a mum and dad, didn’t you?’
‘They’re dead, both of them,’ Connie said, bluntly.
‘Oo, how awful! Was it an accident or did a bomb kill ‘em?’ Isobel never did know when to keep her mouth shut.
‘All right, if you
must
know… he came home drunker than usual, gave my mum another good -hiding and threw her down the stairs.’
‘Oh no, your poor mum. Did she die?’ and when Connie nodded, ‘What about your dad…how did
he
die then?’ The others cringed at Isobel’s persistence.
‘Dangling from the end of a bloody rope, that’s how…and even that was too damned good for him.’
‘You mean… he got….he got… hung?’
‘Issey, shut your stupid little trap, for God’s sake,’ someone said.
‘It’s all right … she’s only a kid… now let’s forget about it, we’ll not mention it again.’
The conversation then turned to their present impoverished existence. They talked of their love of the stage, the adventures they had shared. If only they were not so tired and hungry life would be a lot sweeter.
‘Right! Bugger all this moaning and groaning, it’s Christmas Day and we’re supposed to be happy and enjoying ourselves,’ Connie said firmly. ‘Betty, go downstairs right now and ask Beryl to cut your Christmas Cake up for us.’ She shoved Betty off the bed so hard she fell on her knees. ‘Go on, hurry up, bring it back up here and we’ll have a party and a sing-song, we’ll shove the beds together and make a bit of room to dance.’
Minutes later Betty returned, crestfallen and watery-eyed. ‘She…she says
we’ve
eaten it all… she says there’s none left… she says it’s…it’s all gone,’ she stammered, bursting into tears.
It was the first time any of them had seen her heartbroken. What with the homesickness, the hunger and the bombing, there had been tears from everyone except her and Connie, it was as if
the pair of them
could endure just about anything. They clambered across the beds and enveloped her in five pairs of arms.
‘They’re saving it for themselves, the thieving buggers,’ Connie spat through clenched teeth. ‘I hope it chokes them, the greedy sods.’
She moved away from the bundle of weeping girls, her face a mixture of fury and sadness.
‘Well, that’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m clearing off after tomorrow’s matinee. I’ve been thinking for a while about leaving. Now all of you girls had better keep your mouths shut, or else…’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
This was the worst thing that could happen to them. If they had any voice at all it was through Connie, and hadn’t she just told them they were her best family? She was the one that lifted them when they were troubled and now all of a sudden she was deserting them and swearing them to secrecy. They clung to her begging her to stay but her mind was made up. It would break her heart to leave them but tomorrow would be the last time she’d dance with “her young 'uns”, as she called them.
The Starlight’s next performance was automatic, lacking in exuberance and even with the audience’s encouragement Betty struggled to finish her hundred high kicks. During the interval Bert ranted relentlessly about their laziness, their lack of enthusiasm and talent.
‘You’re a bloody disgrace all of you. You’d better pull your socks up for the second-half or they’ll be asking for their money back.’ He stormed out of the dressing room then swung his angry face round the door again. ‘Starting tomorrow, rehearsals will be three hours a morning - not
two.
I’ll knock you lazy little buggers into shape before I’ve done.’
Just after dark a bare-footed Connie, shoes in one hand and small parcel of clothing in the other, said goodbye to them one by one.
‘Don’t go Connie, please,’ Betty cried.
‘Hush, they’re in their room, they’ll hear you,’ Connie whispered, hugging her tight. ‘Best of luck Betty…you too Issey… all of you. I’ll not forget any of my young 'uns.'’
They hung round the bedroom door watching as she crept down the darkened stairs with only the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall below breaking the silence. And all at once… crash… her shoes slipped from her grasp and arrived at the front door seconds before she did. The front door closed softly behind her.
‘What’s that? Who’s there…I say what’s going on?’ Beryl’s strident voice came from the far end of the landing. ‘Connie? Tell them from me… if they don’t make less noise there’ll be trouble, I say there’ll be trouble if I have to come along there.’
The wail of the Air Raid Siren sent them scurrying to safety before she could carry out her threat. It was morning before Connie was missed.
‘Looks like Connie didn’t make it to the shelter last night, ‘Beryl said, as they made their way home, ‘I say I wonder why she didn’t make it. Poor Connie, well at least we made sure her last Christmas was a good Christmas, didn’t we?’
That evening the curtain rose to the tapping feet of The
Five
Dancing
Starlights, the audience largely unaware of the strikingly pretty Number Six’s absence.
The Starlights were nearing the end of their tour when Joe and Florrie turned up backstage at The Liverpool Empire. It was meant to be a surprise for Betty but they too were in for a surprise.
*
Peeping round the half-open the door of the dressing room they could see Beryl Harris squeezing the pus from an abscess on their daughter’s left buttock. Betty was slumped over the back of a chair, her ill-fitting scarlet and gold-braided military costume barely hiding the shoulder blades forcing their way through her skin. Beneath the bright freshly applied greasepaint her bony cheeks were topped by large sad eyes sunk deep in their sockets,
‘What the bloody hell’s going on here?’ Joe shouted from the doorway. Beryl stopped squeezing and turned to her husband.
‘Calm down Joe, the show is due to go on any minute now,’ Bert said, throwing his arm around Joe's shoulder.
Joe was in no mood to be placated, he swung his fist and sent him sprawling.
‘You promised me you’d look after my little lass,’ he yelled, ‘and look at the state of her… she looks like you’ve been clamming her, she’s like a bag of bloody bones.’ He turned to Betty, ‘Come on cock, Your not stopping here… you look like a good meal’d kill ya. Get your hat and coat on, your coming home with us.’
The stage manager, alerted by the commotion, arrived on the scene to take control.
‘Please...at least wait till after the First House,’ he said, ‘the orchestra’s playing the overture, the curtain’s about to go up and it’s too late now to rearrange the programme.’
From the second row of the front stalls Joe and Florrie watched as The Starlights in costumes hanging loose on scrawny frames opened the show with “There’s Something About A Soldier”, dancing and singing then coming to attention with a well-rehearsed salute at the end.
Betty’s solo tap and skipping rope routine came after the interval. In short frilly dress and beribboned bonnet she tapped and skipped her way around the stage while the orchestra played, ‘A Tisket, A Tasket, A Brown And Yellow Basket.’
Then discarding the rope she took her place centre stage, her fixed smile hiding her agony ,to perform a hundred high kicks.
Her parents’ muffled sobbing was effortlessly drowned out by the audience’s enthusiastic counting and the applause as they shouted, ‘ONE HUNDRED!' Betty gave a painful curtsey and collapsed into Beryl’s waiting arms the moment the curtain fell.
Back in the dressing-room Joe tackled Bert once more. ‘Right! Give me the money you owe her.’
Bert delved into his pocket and offered 4 half-crown pieces.
‘Is this the lot? Ten bob? Ten shillings for all these months work?’ Joe was incredulous but he still had his pride, his main concern was rescuing his daughter from this loathsome pair. ‘Well shove it up your arse, ya lousy bugger,’ was the best he could think of.
Within an hour Betty was on her way back to Blackburn, with her dad’s promise of a “Welcome Home Party” and an extra special fruitcake, just for her. Not long afterwards it was time for another celebration, and not just for Betty.
*
V.E Day! The War In Europe was over! Children were allowed two days holiday from school to enjoy the festivities and Joe was determined to make the occasion something for his family to remember. He wrenched one of Florrie’s freshly washed white sheets from the washing line and ripped it down the centre. With red and blue paint he transformed one half into the Union Flag, fastened it to the clothes-prop and hung it from the bedroom window.
On the remaining half he painted the face of Adolf Hitler and the words, ‘You’ve Had It Chum,’ fastened it to the washing line and strung it across the street between his front bedroom and the Kingsley’s. Within minutes children throughout the neighbourhood were pelting it with their tennis balls, cheering as they hit Hitler on the nose.
When darkness fell the Pomfrets walked up the hilly terraced streets to the ‘The Cannons’ at the top of Corporation Park, where giant bonfires were already burning. In the town far below there was a bonfire in every back street as if the whole of Blackburn was ablaze. After living with the blackout for six years, making their way with their pocket torches through the pitch-black streets or down the long back yard to the lavatory, the joy of seeing their hometown come back to life and light was indescribable.
The Pomfrets made their way to The Town Hall where the Mayor and other dignitaries smiled down from the balcony at the thousands of revellers gathered on King William Street.
Like moths to a flame the family was drawn to the crowd, cheering, laughing, dancing. And all singing the well-loved songs that had helped to sustain them for six years... Bless ‘Em All…The White Cliffs Of Dover…When They Sound The Last All-Clear...
This was a momentous day when complete strangers became one family. Long after midnight, with Billy sitting high on his father’s shoulders and the girls trailing behind with their mother, they wended their way home; the three children would have been in bed hours ago had their father not been so determined to let them experience a night of excitement that would live in their memories forever.
The war in Europe was over but the war in The Pacific went on for three more months before coming to a sudden and savage end when two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan causing devastation beyond belief. Soon the horrors half a world away would be revealed.
Just like VE Day there were street parties with sandwiches, jelly and custard and a glass of ice cream for each child. Joe Pomfret’s piano was dragged onto the street once more and crates of ale appeared from nowhere.
The initial elation turned to anguish when newsreel pictures were flashed onto the cinema screens, pictures of unspeakable atrocities committed in German and Japanese concentration camps and prison camps, of innocent Japanese civilians killed or maimed by the atomic bombs. Picture-goers screamed and shouted out in horror. At one showing Florrie and Hettie were amongst several who fainted and were carried out of The Rialto into the cool darkness of Penny Street.
*
Now it was time to look to the future and for as long as she could remember Ellen had wanted to be a teacher. Not that she had always enjoyed school, especially when she was compared unfavourably with Betty, quiet, well behaved and a pleasure to teach , or so the headmaster never tired of telling her.