Churchill’s Angels

Daisy looked at the old man, wondering for the first time if he was as old as he appeared to be. What horrors had he encountered that had forced him to leave his own country to live in another where he could worship in his own way? Every day that he came in for his paper or a few groceries, he was always perfectly dressed: collar, tie, hat and, in cold weather, gloves. He had his standards and dignity. She smiled at him with affection. ‘I don’t suppose you’re interested in wedding pictures and lists of the guests, but …’ she looked at him shrewdly and decided cricket rather than football might interest him, ‘… there’s some cricket coverage and a very good recipe for cabbage soup.’

‘Today no war and rumours of war, Daisy?’

‘Not really, but my brother Sam – the one in the army – well, you do know that he has been saying since last year that there will be a war with Germany. He says I should think hard about what I want to do for the war effort.’

‘And what have you decided, young Daisy?’

Daisy shook her head ruefully. ‘It’ll be factory work, I suppose, same as Rose. Clever girls with an education will get the exciting jobs.’

‘Someone will still have to sell the newspapers, with or without jam on them.’

‘Actually, it was stewed apple. Mum baked turnovers for the party. Sorry, Mr Fischer, I like you, and most of the customers, but measuring out bits of cheese and weighing tea leaves isn’t very exciting, is it?’

The old man folded the newspaper. ‘One day, Daisy, you may thank God for the comforting ordinariness of it. As always I like our little chats. I may try the cabbage soup; I have a liking for cabbage. Good morning.’ He left the shop, lifting his hat to Daisy as he went and she stood looking after him. Such an odd Dartford resident …

Someday I might be glad to be doing something ordinary – I don’t think so, Mr Fischer. What happened to you? Daisy wondered. She recalled some of their serious discussions and many of the wonderful things he had explained so that she could understand. He should have been a teacher, she decided, and went back to reading the paper until several housewives arrived, almost every one accompanied by children of various ages.

It was a very tired Daisy who closed the shop at the end of the day and climbed the stairs to the flat. Customers accompanied by children were always the most difficult to serve. Sometimes children whined or opened the doors of cupboards they had been specifically told not to touch, and tried to pull out the contents. Some mothers were good at keeping their children in line, others paid no attention to them; it all made extra work.

In the kitchen a pot of carrot, not cabbage, soup was keeping warm on the back hotplate.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ Daisy said aloud to the empty room as she helped herself to a large serving and cut herself a slice of bread.

Daisy had been on duty in the shop all day because Flora and Fred had gone to an afternoon meeting in the Market Street Clinic. Mr Chamberlain might still be telling the nation that there was not going to be any conflict but Dartford had taken the threat of war very seriously and had been preparing for some time. The town had been designated a vulnerable area. To find out the exact meaning of that word, the family had consulted the heavy dictionary in the front room.

Early in May Fred and Flora had gone to the State Cinema in Spital Street to see a film called The Warning, which dealt with the possible effects of an air raid, and Fred had been so affected that he had immediately volunteered to become an air-raid warden.

‘Dartford’s not the safest place to be if war comes,’ Fred had told his children. ‘The enemy’ll have to fly over us before they reach London.’ He tried to smile. ‘Could get quite noisy here.’

Already there were thousands of sandbags, stacked like secondary walls, protecting important buildings, and since it was believed that, if war came, there would be gas attacks, gas masks had been issued. Air-raid shelters and first-aid stations had been set up in the St Alban’s Hall and at the County Hospital. Trenches that reminded Fred and others of the ‘war to end all wars’ had been dug in Central Park and on Dartford Heath. As one of the first wardens to volunteer to help in assuring that Air Raid Precautions were carried out, Fred was learning how to deal with incendiary bombs at the clinic. Flora went along to all the meetings. After all, Fred would often be away from the flat and the shop, and she was determined to find out how to deal with anything that might fall on her home and her children.

‘Nothing learned is ever wasted,’ she was fond of telling her children, ‘but what on earth we’re going to do with all the sand when them that’s in charge decides we’ve been wasting our time, I do not know.’

Daisy decided to make toasted cheese to go with the soup and was busily slicing cheese when she heard the flat door open and her parents and sister come in. They had met on the way home.

‘The boys show up yet, love?’ Flora asked as she hung up her lightweight summer coat and looked for her apron.

‘Sorry, Mum,’ Rose interrupted. ‘I’m that tired I forgot to tell you. They’re doing overtime and said not to worry about their tea, they’ll get some chips on the way home.’ She took herself off to the small family bathroom to change and to wash off the grime from a long day’s work in the oily munitions factory.

‘They’ll have a proper tea when they get home; chips isn’t nourishment for such big lads.’

‘Don’t worry about them, Flo. I bet they take some liquid nourishment with their chips.’ Fred was already sitting in his chair by the empty fireplace, a glass of his favourite Reffells’ ale in his hand while they waited for Rose’s return.

When she reappeared, he teased her, ‘I think it’s our Rose needs nourishing.’

Rose, her long fair hair released from its firm elastic bands, and washed and combed, sat down at the kitchen table. ‘It’d be easier if the people in power would make up their blinking minds. Down the factory we’re past caring, we’re that tired, but we do want to know. There’s been more than enough muttering. I can deal with the truth but all the shillyshallying is getting on my nerves.’

An outburst like that was so unlike Rose that even her father took notice. ‘Pour your sister a cuppa, our Daisy,’ he said as he reached across and patted Rose’s knee. ‘Don’t fret, love; they don’t know neither.’ He turned back to Daisy, who was filling the big breakfast cups. ‘Anything I need to know about the shop, Daisy?’

‘No, except, thank heaven, it’s Sunday tomorrow and I don’t have to go near the place.’

Two Sundays later, after church, the family put their gas masks in the hall cupboard with their Sunday coats and settled down in the front room to listen to the wireless while their dinner was being prepared. Fred was reaching for the switch when, with a groan of exasperation, Flora turned to Daisy.

‘Be an angel and run down the shop for peas. Go nice with that lovely bit of beef, and I forgot them yesterday.’ She gestured to the table by the door. ‘My purse is in my shopping bag.’

Daisy took the purse and hurried downstairs. The Petrie family were meticulous about never taking anything from the shop without paying for it. According to Daisy, reading the newspapers from cover to cover was ‘not exactly stealing’. She stood for a moment enjoying the unusual quiet of the empty shop. The blackout blinds were still on the windows and she pulled one aside for a moment to light her way. Sunlight streamed into the little shop, burnishing the polished oak counter and the brass scales and making a tiny rainbow as it shone on a glass jar of multi-coloured boiled sweets. No customer ever saw it like this. Daisy smiled in satisfaction as she found a tin of peas. She toyed with the idea of opening the old till to pay for her purchase – she loved the musical ping that the machine sang out each time the lever was depressed – but decided against it. After all, it was hardly worth opening the till only to close it immediately. She left a shilling on top of the till, closed the blinds again and hurried back upstairs. Mum wouldn’t mind waiting for her change and, first thing Monday morning, she would finish the transaction.

She found her family standing in a stunned group in the kitchen. Flora was sobbing loudly as tears ran down her cheeks and Fred and Rose were patting her back in an attempt to comfort her. Her older brothers, Phil and Ron, standing close together, watched helplessly.

‘What’s happened?’

Everyone except Flora turned to look at her. ‘We’re at war with Germany, Daze,’ her father said as he continued to hold his almost hysterical wife. ‘Prime Minister’s just announced it on the wireless.’

Everyone began to talk at once but eventually Fred’s voice rose over those of his children. ‘Do the dinner for your mum, girls, and that’ll give her a chance to take it all in.’ He turned back to Flora. ‘That’ll make you feel better, love.’

Poor Flora had no time to feel anything for, just at that moment, the air was full of the piercing wailing of an air-raid siren.

Flora screamed and the twins clutched each other in terror.

‘In the kitchen, under the table,’ ordered Ron. ‘Come on, Mum, kitchen’s safest. You know we decided that earlier. Good girls, keep calm; it’s a drill, let’s show we know what to do if …’ He could not finish his sentence.

The family struggled to get under the large table, wincing both at their crushed uncomfortable positions and the fiendish sound that went round and round the room. They held their hands over their ears, willing the shrieking to stop. Ron held his mother, who had closed her eyes as if, somehow, that action might make the noise go away.

‘Ron’s right, Mum, it’s a drill.’ Phil was always ready to look for the brighter side. ‘I’ll put the wireless on. There’ll be news or music or something.’

‘Spilled a half of best golden ale,’ complained Fred as he peered under the table at his wife and daughters. ‘I got to go, love. Our Ron’s right, it’s only a practice, but I have to be out there. The boys’ll take care of you. We forgot the gas masks. I’ll toss ’em under before I leave.’

‘I don’t want to be gassed right here in my kitchen.’ Flora felt silly sitting under the kitchen table being held by her son as if she were a five-year-old, but she tried to smile. Feeling silly was better than feeling a bomb land on her head. She grabbed hold of the twins’ hands. ‘We’ll have such a tasty dinner, a nice bit of good beef, perfect for roasting with potatoes; glad I were a bit late with it. Awful to have it too well done, right, lads?’

At last the alert was over and the family, each one with tingling limbs, crawled out from under the table.

Ron stretched. ‘All I can say is thank heaven our Daisy isn’t as tall as the rest of us. Would’ve had to push you out from under, Daisy. No offence?’

Daisy said nothing but playfully slapped her long, lanky brother. ‘Come on, Rose, we’ll get the dinner on before we die of hunger.’

Even though the mouth-watering smell of roast beef permeated the small room, no one had much of an appetite. Once Fred had come home, however, and Flora had pulled herself together, they were able to sit down and talk.

Phil was full of bravado. ‘Don’t fret, Mum, we’ll sort ’em out in no time. With Sam, Ron and me in the Forces, you’ll see. Just watch them run.’

The younger Petrie boys had decided to enlist immediately. ‘We’ll get the top jobs, Mum. Our Sam was right,’ Phil said.

That night, unable to sleep, Daisy and Rose sat up in bed and talked. Rose brushed her hair until it shone. Daisy envied her. ‘You really ought to leave it hanging down, Rose. You look like a princess in a fairy story.’

‘Princesses don’t work in munitions factories. Even with my horrible turban on, dust seeps in somehow.’

Daisy yawned. ‘You should let it down at the dancing. Being tall, you can get away with such long hair.’

Rose laughed and began, as usual, to braid her hair for the night. Then she stopped. ‘Blinkety blink, I completely forgot. Paul Robeson was on at the pictures, Daisy; we should have gone.’

‘Too upset. What was the film?’

‘King Solomon’s Mines.’

Daisy, who loved going to the cinema, thought about that. ‘Can’t really see much great singing going on down a mine, Rose. C’mon, better get to sleep.’

‘You scared?’

‘Dunno. Haven’t had time to think. I mean, what could happen to me? The Germans are hardly likely to be interested in a grocery shop on Dartford High Street.’

‘Suppose not.’ Rose was quiet for a moment. ‘But there’s the docks, Daisy, the Vickers factory, chemical works, Hall’s engineering …’

‘They’re not on our street.’ Then Daisy threw back her blanket and jumped out of bed in alarm. ‘God, did you hear me, Rose? I was working out that no one will drop a bomb on me, and you and the boys work in a munitions factory.’

‘Don’t fret. Get back into bed and go to sleep. You’re the one what’s going to have to handle all the worried old ladies in the morning. Lads’ll be off enlisting.’

But no old lady rushed into the shop next morning. Daisy was measuring out tea leaves when Sally almost burst through the door. ‘It’s closed, Daisy.’ She looked round the little room to make sure that no customers were lurking among the shelves. ‘What am I going to do? There was a notice on the college door.’ She drew the shape of a large notice in the air. ‘Closed for the duration. What will I do? Look, I even put on my new costume.’

‘You look lovely,’ said Daisy automatically. ‘What did your mum say?’

‘They don’t know. They’re already at the picture house.’ She could say no more. Huge tears began to spill over and run down her beautiful face.

Daisy was at a loss. She put her arms around her sobbing friend. ‘The duration, Sally. It’s not going to be long, really it’s not. Everybody says so. It’ll be over by Christmas and you can start college next year. New year, new career.’

Sally pulled herself away. ‘Christmas. That’s a lifetime away,’ she said dramatically. ‘And what if it’s not over? What will I do – work in a factory? I can’t go to a university now because I turned them down.’ Her voice rose hysterically. ‘First one in the family ever to qualify for a university and I said no because I wanted to be in pictures.’

‘Stop it, Sally.’ Daisy’s voice was kind but firm. ‘So one college closed. That’s not your fault. Ring up another one somewhere else.’

Sally straightened up and was suddenly very mature. ‘How can a working-class girl like me afford to go somewhere else?’

Heavy footsteps on the stairs heralded Flora’s arrival with a tray. She smiled when she saw Sally. ‘Hello, love, I thought you was starting in the acting college today.’

Sally stared at her for a moment, burst into tears, turned and ran from the shop.

‘What on earth …?’ began Flora, and Daisy filled her in, finishing drily, ‘She’ll be a great actress once she gets started. First the local rep, then London, then Pinewood Studios, I bet. Something exciting is bound to happen to Sally.’

‘But such a shame the school closed. Poor Sally. That shows it’s really beginning, Daisy.’ Flora broke off to greet a customer cheerfully. ‘Morning, Mrs Richardson. Your usual Monday shop? We’ve got some nice tinned peaches just in.’

The declaration that Britain was at war with Germany had, on the surface at least, made very little difference to daily routine. Life went on more or less as it had been before the Prime Minister addressed the nation. Phil Petrie was excited because he had been accepted for training in the Royal Navy and younger brother, Ron, discovered that his mechanical skills were much prized by the army. ‘I told ’em I could drive anything, Mum, and strip and fix it too. The recruiting sergeant was thrilled. “We gotta keep our army moving,” he said, and told me I would be invaluable – that’s the exact word he used – invaluable. We’ve got to take medicals first and learn basic drill and stuff, but then we’re off.’

‘We’ll come home before we join our units, Mum.’

Daisy listened to their excited boasting and found herself wishing heartily that she too was joining a unit, any unit, anywhere. But for the next few months she continued working in the family shop and, with Grace, took a first-aid course.

‘Some use I’ll be Mum,’ she moaned. ‘Even working on a doll makes me ill. Remember how useless I was when the engine fell on Ron?’

‘Without knowing what to do, Daisy Petrie, you did the right thing and you helped your brother. You’ll be fine if and when something happens.’ Flora laughed. ‘Then you can be as sick as you like.’

‘Thanks a lot,’ said Daisy, but she was laughing too. She was determined that, in whatever way she could, she would contribute to the war effort. Therefore she forced herself to attend all the first-aid classes and also to work a few hours a week in Grace’s garden. With the help of her friends, Grace, who was the only one of the four friends to have a garden, attached to the tiny rented cottage halfway up West Hill, had started growing vegetables as part of her war effort. Almost every week there were fresh vegetables for the three families and everyone was delighted when the tiny patch Grace had been able to dig over yielded enough crunchy Brussels sprouts for the Paterson, Brewer and the Petrie Christmas dinners.

Flora had ordered a capon from the usual farm near Bexley and, on the Saturday before Christmas, Daisy drove out to pick it up.

Nancy Humble, the farmer’s wife, was in her kitchen. ‘Alf’s down the old stables, Daisy, love. Walk round there and you won’t believe your eyes when you see what we’re housing where the shires used to be.’

‘What is it? You’ve not put pigs in there?’

Mrs Humble looked as if she was seriously considering the proposition. ‘What a good idea; I’ll suggest that to Alf. Now off you go, you have to see it with your own eyes. Go on, it won’t bite you, and I’ll have a pat of fresh farm butter for your mum when you get back.’

Encouraged by ‘it won’t bite’, and being naturally curious, Daisy left the van in the yard and made her way past the big hay barn and a pen of hens busily pecking at some discarded cabbage leaves. Hmm, wonder if there’s room at Grace’s for a hen. We’ve got plenty of cabbage it could nibble, she thought.

Hens, cabbage leaves and even the Christmas capon went out of her head when she reached the stables that had once housed seven magnificent shires on which Daisy and Rose had used to sit.

‘It can’t be real,’ she said aloud.

‘It jolly well is,’ said a cultured voice reprovingly. ‘I’ll have you know, madame, that this beautiful aeroplane is an extremely fine specimen of the Aeronca C-3, manufactured in Ohio in the United States of America in 1935. It’s one of an amazing number of aircraft – one hundred and twenty-eight, to be exact – to be built that year.’

At the word ‘Ohio’, Daisy had almost laughed. Dad’s till and this aeroplane. Was there anything that was not made in Ohio, USA?

A young man in an oil-spattered overall had finally manoeuvred himself up out of the cockpit, not an easy task as the wings were in the way, and so he towered above her. Daisy had no idea whether to laugh or to run away. His face was streaked with oil and grease, which had managed to get itself into his almost flaxen hair. In one hand he brandished a spanner and the other held an extremely dirty rag with which – as he addressed Daisy – he was having no luck at all in cleaning his face.

Daisy gave up and started to laugh. The man’s feet and legs were inside the plane and so she had no real impression of how tall he was. Having grown up with three tall brothers, she decided that the odds were that he was not as tall as they were.

‘Does it really fly?’

‘Of course it does,’ he said as he jumped to the ground. ‘At least it will when I’ve got a few minor problems ironed out.’

‘Shame my brothers aren’t here. There is nothing they don’t know about engines,’ Daisy informed him. It was then that she realised that she was every bit as good as any one of the boys, having been taught by her brothers not only to drive but also to look after the engine. ‘I could have a look at it for you, if you like,’ she offered diffidently.

He looked at her as if he could not believe what he was seeing – or hearing. ‘You? A girl?’

‘Don’t mess with a Petrie, lad,’ broke in Alf Humble, the farmer. ‘They were born with wrenches and spanners in their hands.’

‘Beautiful picture that, Alf. Not sure what my mum would think of it.’

‘No woman is capable …’ the young man began, and then blushed to the roots of his hair. ‘I do beg your pardon, that was fearfully rude, but I mean, I’m sure you have some ability and that’s to be applauded, but this beautiful little yellow bird is going to help defeat the German might.’

His embarrassment made him more like one of her brothers, and Daisy smiled. ‘You plan on throwing things at them, then?’ She could scarcely believe that she was bandying words with a toff. Usually such a voice alone would have had her hiding herself away. Perhaps it was because, with oil all over his face and a wrench in his hand, he could have been Sam.

‘Don’t be facetious. She’s not going to be fitted with guns, although chaps are doing that to planes all over England. But she’s roomy, can reach speeds of eighty miles an hour; she’ll carry equipment, even personnel, between aerodromes. We’ll beat the blighters, just see if we don’t.’ He hauled himself athletically back under the wing and lowered himself into the cockpit.

‘Come on, Daisy. I’ve got a good, fat capon for your mum.’

Daisy and Alf walked together back to the farmhouse.

‘What’s facetious mean, Alf?’

‘No idea, love, but it can’t be good! Don’t think badly of the lad, even though he’s out of a top drawer. He’s in the air force – just got a few days’ Christmas leave – and he’s giving the plane to the country.’

‘Nice – if you’ve got the money.’

‘He hasn’t, Daisy. Third cousin, God knows how many times removed from the money.’ He stopped and turned back to face the plane. ‘Want a cuppa, Adair?’ he called.

A muffled answer came from the depths of the aeroplane.

‘I take it that’s a no then,’ said Daisy, who continued her walk back to the house to collect the star of the family’s Christmas dinner. ‘Adair? Never heard the name before.’

‘Me neither, but the lad doesn’t get all uppity when we use it. Known him since he were living here during his school holidays. He were Adair then and he’s still Adair.’

Daisy tried to match her stride to Alf’s longer steps. ‘But this is Lord Granger’s place, isn’t it? We used to be chased away if we came here on our bicycles.’

‘Young Adair’s mother was a relative of ’is lordship. Died very young; the father went back to America. Adair came ’ere in his holidays and now the house is closed he stays in the attic above the old stables.’

A picture of her three brothers came into Daisy’s head. ‘Is there a kitchen up there, Alf? My brothers would starve to death if they had to look after themselves.’

‘He does sometimes come for a meal in our kitchen. Nancy’d have him move in but the lad’s proud, has a little Primus stove, and now he’s in the air force he’s hardly ever here.’

‘What does he do in the air force, Alf? There’s a war on but nothing happens, if you know what I mean.’

‘I suppose they practise, and he teaches them as wants to fly.’

‘But he’s only a lad, same age as our Ron, by the look of him.’

‘Seems he’s been flying for years. Lads are joining up, he tells us, wanting to fly, and some of ’em han’t never seen a plane outside a picture house.’

‘Just as well nothing’s happening then,’ said Daisy as she refused the offer of some tea and, picking up the capon, and Nancy’s creamy-gold pat of newly churned butter, got back into the van to finish her deliveries.

Only the Petrie twins were at home for Christmas, but still the family tried to behave as normal and all preparations went ahead as they had done for as many years as Daisy could remember. Because Christmas Day was on Monday they were delighted to have two days’ holiday, as the shop was never open on a Sunday. The family members who were not on active service relaxed in their front room, the little Christmas tree twinkling in the window. Flora insisted that the tree be placed there every year.