Authors: Millie Gray
As soon as they arrived at the ward Kitty parked the chair before going to speak to the Ward Sister to earnestly plead with her.
Five minutes later Connie was sitting by Johnny’s bed, willing him to open his eyes and yet afraid to disturb him if he was asleep. Gently she whispered, ‘Johnny, Johnny, dear, look who I’ve brought to meet you.’
Slowly Johnny’s eyes flickered open. The drug that Sister had administered to dull the pain had also given him a feeling of floating above everything. When Connie leant over to rub his cheek he willed himself to look at her.
Yes,
he thought,
it is her.
His heart then became so full that he thought that it would burst.
Extending out his right hand to her he mumbled, ‘Connie, I was in an accident.’
Tears splashing down her face Connie replied, ‘That right? Well know something? I had an accident nine months ago and yesterday I gave birth … Look, Johnny, it’s our baby … Jackie.’
Johnny struggled up in bed and Kitty lifted the baby out of Connie’s arms and she held the baby’s face next to Johnny’s. ‘She’s lovely, Dad. Smell her. She was all powdered with Johnson’s baby powder this morning.’
‘She?’ exclaimed Johnny.
‘Yes. Remember I told you last night that Connie had given birth to a wee girl. The spitting image of Rosebud she is.’ Kitty hesitated to control her emotions before she added with a chuckle, ‘Now, Dad, if that’s not the stuff that nightmares are made of then I don’t know what is!’ Kitty glanced up when she heard the distinctive impatient tap of her grandmother’s heels on the ward floor. ‘Well, Dad,’ she conceded when Jenny arrived at Johnny’s bedside, ‘it just might be that the two wee lambs take after their organising matriarchal granny.’
The afternoon visiting hour coincided with Kitty’s break but instead of having a quick meal and a sit down, she dashed over to visit her dad.
To her dismay the visit from Connie and the baby had really done nothing to lift Johnny’s spirits. In fact Connie saying to him not to worry as she would soon be able to go out and work just seemed to have completely floored him. Without really addressing anyone in particular he then stuttered, ‘On the scrap heap – the scrap heap. That’s where I am.’
From the little training she already had in the hospital she knew that, if Johnny was to recover quickly, he had to have his mood lifted. She had in the past managed to help patients to see that life, although changed, was still very much worth living. She remembered how Sister Burgess, who could make young nurses buckle at the knees when she chastised them, only two weeks ago had said to Kitty, ‘Anderson, you remember last week when we discharged Mr Young that I was concerned about how he would manage?’ Kitty nodded, but stayed mute, as she watched Sister packing a brown paper carrier bag with food that patients’ relatives had brought in. ‘Now, it is evident that all these eggs, and the jam, biscuits and apples, are surplus to what our patients can consume,’ Sister declared. ‘So as it is a sin, a sin do you hear, Anderson, to waste food, especially now with the rationing, I wish you to nip over to Bowling Green Street and give this bag to Mr Young.’ Kitty’s mouth gaped. ‘You see his wife died last year,’ Sister confided to Kitty, ‘and his only son is a prisoner of war. Mr Young is therefore all alone and requires our compassion.’ Kitty dutifully nodded again before Sister continued, ‘I also wish to know that he is managing to cope. Loneliness and a feeling that nobody cares, Anderson, are as much killers as disease.’
So with Sister Burgess’s words ringing in her ears, Kitty knew she had to reach out to her father and have him believe that life was still very sweet.
Later that afternoon, an exuberant and smiling Kitty arrived back at her father’s bedside. Before she uttered a word she was surprised to see that he already had a visitor. But then she should have known that as soon as he would be permitted to visit, Jock Weldon would be in to see his old friend and sparring partner.
‘How is he?’
‘Well, Kitty, I’ve been here for ten minutes and he still hasn’t opened his eyes.’
‘Aye, might be that I didnae want to open them,’ Johnny drawled.
‘Oh, you are really with us,’ chorused Kitty, going over to sit at the opposite side of the bed from Jock.
Johnny’s eyes were now wide open and he signalled to Kitty by pointing towards the water jug that he required a drink. Rising and pouring some fresh water into her father’s drinking glass, she then handed it to him.
‘Surely you’re going to hold the glass up to my mouth for me?’
‘No,’ was Kitty’s terse reply.
Before taking a long slurp from the glass Johnny looked at Jock and hissed, ‘Calls herself a nurse, would you believe.’
Kitty was about to respond that she was a nurse, and therefore she would not be party to her father turning himself into an invalid, when Jock put up a hand to signal that she should stay mute.
‘Johnny, lad,’ he began enthusiastically. ‘Do you know what day this is?’
‘Aye, I might have lost half an arm but my brain still works so I ken fine that it’s Tuesday.’
‘That’s right. And this day will go down in history.’
Johnny cackled. ‘What for? Surely you’re not trying to make a joke out of me having half my arm hacked off?’
‘No. It’s nothing to do with your arm, Johnny. This is the day that you and I knew would have to come. The one we’ve been waiting and praying for.’
Johnny became animated. He stretched out his right hand towards Jock’s. ‘Are you saying that the invasion has started? Overlord has begun?’
‘Aye, the long-awaited invasion of France started on the beaches of Normandy before dawn.’
Flopping back down on his pillows Johnny slowly exhaled before gasping, ‘Normandy. Good. Now I know there will be casualties, but …’
‘Johnny, listen. Remember you asked me about the concrete building-like things that were in our launching harbour?’
‘Aye, but they were taken away months ago.’
‘That’s right. And know what they were?’ Johnny shook his head. ‘Parts of Mulberry …’
‘Mulberry? What in the name of Dickens is Mulberry?’
‘Floating harbours, Johnny lad. Our wee shipyard built parts of the vital floating harbours that are at this minute taking our soldiers, and all the supplies that they need, on to the shores of France.’
Johnny smiled. ‘Aye, our wee shipyard did more than her bit to win this war.’
‘That’s right. And I know this invasion is not the end of the war but as sure as hell it’s the beginning of the end.’
‘Right enough the end of the madness, the evil … the utter waste of our youth.’
Now that Jock had Johnny back to thinking about something other than himself he continued slyly, ‘You’re right, Johnny, we in Leith, in our own wee shipyard, did more than our bit to win this war. See when it’s all over I hope that people dinnae forget that it was through sheer hard work and determination to make sure that we – by that I mean the whole of Great Britain – wasnae starved into submission and that we in Leith did our bit.’ He sighed. Johnny nodded. ‘And ken this, Johnny, by the time it’s over we will hae repaired around 2,800 ships.’
Johnny again nodded in agreement.
‘And, Johnny lad,’ Jock quickly added, ‘our fame is such that we are to hae a visit from their Majesties. Aye, the King and his Lizzie are coming, to acknowledge what we achieved and will continue to achieve.’
‘Aye, we did work so very hard, so we did. And, Jock, our men never grumbled when they had to graft twenty hours out of twenty-four to get the ships back out and into service again.’ Johnny now silently remembered some of the vessels that had come in broken and useless. Vessels like the
Cossack
,
Jersey
,
Zulu
, HMS
Tyrian
, HMS
Fame
, the two Town Class American Destroyers, the
Ludlow
and
Leeds
, to name but a few. He had to swallow hard to keep his emotions in control as he thought how all of them had been repaired and made seaworthy again by the artisans, labourers and apprentices in the wee shipyard in Leith. Sniffing and panting he then muttered, ‘And, Jock, ken something else, at the height of the conflict our yard repaired one sea-going vessel every week!’
‘And don’t forget the fifty-plus new ships that we built,’ Jock uttered jovially because he did not wish Johnny to go back to thinking about his own plight.
‘I don’t. The Admiralty asked us to build trawlers, corvettes, minesweepers, frigates and rescue tugs, and we never let them down. One entirely new ship was built by us and launched from the Victoria Shipyard every six weeks. Some of the ships that we created with our skills, that are second to none, then went on to fight the enemy.’
‘That’s right, Johnny lad.’
Kitty was listening intently to all the reminiscences. Slowly it dawned on her that Jock had an ulterior motive for jogging her dad’s memories. Where this would all lead to she just didn’t know. She did, however, decide to sit quietly until the course that Jock wished Johnny to take became evident.
‘Remember, Johnny lad, when we used to sit and have a quiet pint in the Links Tavern at the bottom of Restalrig Road?’
‘Now how could I forget our chats on putting the world to rights?’ Johnny mocked.
‘So you’ll remember then how you would talk about how life for the working man and his family would have to change when this war is over.’
‘And it will change. Dinnae forget that the Beveridge Report that was published by parliament at the beginning of December 1942 was accepted by all political persuasions.’ Johnny had now become quite lively again and he was wagging his right index finger forcefully to emphasise his point. ‘And they all agreed that it would be fully implemented when the war was over and a new parliament had been sworn in.’
Jock nodded. ‘You’re right. That is assured. Oh aye, when the hostilities end we have been guaranteed that war will then be waged on poverty and want in this rich country of ours.’
‘Aye, and it will be good to see the back of them two plus disease, ignorance and idleness. Nothing seeps into and destroys the soul and will of the working man like these five evils do.’
Jock allowed a couple of minutes to pass so that Johnny could be inspired again by the hopes and dreams he had for the working man and his family. ‘Mind you, Johnny lad,’ he eventually said, ‘the making of this Welfare State and National Health Service will take great effort on the part of good men to make sure that the government of the day doesnae water them down.’
‘You’re right there. We all have to remain vigilant.’ Johnny was now in a state of rapture and as if just speaking his thoughts out aloud he murmured, ‘Imagine it, Jock: we will see the rat-infested slums around our dock area being bulldozed to the ground. No longer will six families hae to share one lavvy. Naw, they will be able to rent one of the newly built spacious bright and airy houses and,’ he emphasised, ‘they will all hae bathrooms and electric light.’
‘And if we get it right, Johnny lad, the likes of our children will be better educated and expect to be able to go on to university. Imagine it – our grandchildren could end up being doctors, lawyers, accountants.’
Johnny nodded and chuckled. He liked the idea of the people who created the wealth of the nation at last getting a better share of it.
Before Johnny could go on, a nurse came to check his temperature and pulse. When the thermometer was placed in his mouth it reminded him that he had not elaborated on one of his dearest dreams – a National Health Service. ‘Jock,’ he spluttered as the thermometer waggled up and down in his mouth, ‘when we do pass the bills to create the new fairer Britain it will benefit the like of this wee hospital that up till now has depended on charitable donations and gala days to fund it.’
Kitty, who had never really taken much interest in politics, looked quizzically at her father before she said, ‘Dad, are you saying that by the time I have qualified my salary will be paid by the state?’
Johnny nodded. ‘And what happened to your mum because we couldnae afford for her to go into hospital to have Rosebud will be a thing of the past.’
Leaning back in his chair and rubbing his hands over his chest Jock then quietly added, ‘Aye, it will be just great. But och, Johnny, you and I ken that there will be those in the government that will start hollering that we cannae afford it all. We cannae afford it all.’
‘We bloody – sorry, Kitty, for my French – but we just have to afford it all, Jock.’
‘You’re right there, Johnny, but we will need good men on the floor of the House of Commons to make sure it doesn’t get sidetracked.’
Kitty was very pleased that Jock had got her dad’s thoughts away from his own worries. But she was not quite sure where all this rhetoric was taking them so she quietly asked, ‘And where, Mr Weldon, do you think the country will find all these people you seem to think will be required to bring in this Welfare State?’
‘Well for a start your dad here could stand for parliament.’
‘Me?’ Johnny screeched. ‘Are you off your trolley? I left school at thirteen where I was only educated to work by my’ – Johnny stopped and put his right hand over his bandaged stump – ‘hands because then I had two of them.’
‘Nonsense. You have more than proved your worth. You are an orator, Johnny. You know your arguments and plead your cases well.’
‘That right? Next thing, Kitty, is he’ll be telling me to stand as a Tory.’
‘Why would I do that when you are a fully paid-up member of the Labour Party and the Tories will not form the next government after the war?’
‘Of course they will. Churchill is a hero. He is the man, the only man, who wouldn’t do a deal with Hitler – the man who gave us the confidence to keep on fighting when common sense was telling us to roll over.’
‘I grant you that. He’s the war hero and you cannae take that away from him but he’s not the man to lead us in the post-war world.’ Johnny was now bemused. Jock smirked. ‘Johnny lad,’ he went on, ‘Winston doesn’t understand where Britain’s going. He’s upper class – never been on a bus. Don’t you understand he doesn’t identify with the wishes and needs of the ordinary people?’