The Grafton Girls

‘Hasn’t it?’ Myra gave a shrug. ‘So what?’

‘You ought to be ruddy well ashamed of yourself.’

‘Jealous, are you, Sarge, ’cos other people are having a good time and you aren’t? Well, I’ll tell you something, shall I? I don’t blame your little Wren for turning you down in favour of her Yank, not one little bit. In her shoes, I’d have done the same.’

‘Sarge, your tea’s going cold,’ the Naafi manageress called out.

The sergeant turned his head, giving Myra the opportunity to escape.

She and the sergeant had clashed from the moment they had set eyes on one another. He reminded her in many ways of her father. A small shadow darkened Myra’s eyes. How her mother had stuck him for so many years Myra didn’t know. Part of the reason she had married so quickly had been to escape her home. She hadn’t known then, of course, that her father would have a seizure in the middle of one of his furious outbursts of temper and die three months after the wedding.

Men! Once you let them get the upper hand they thought they could treat you how they liked. That was why she was determined that no man would ever control her life the way her father had controlled her mother’s and had tried to control hers. She wished passionately now that she had not been stupid enough to get married and land herself with a husband hanging around her neck and thinking he could tell her what to do. Well, he could write as many letters as he liked telling her he did not want her going out whilst he was away. They weren’t going to stop her doing a single thing that she wanted to do.

FOUR

Ruthie tensed as she opened the front door, her shoes gripped tightly in her free hand as she glanced fearfully over her shoulder into the blackout-shrouded darkness of the silent house, terrified of making the slightest sound that might wake her sleeping mother. If that happened…but no, she mustn’t think about that.

Once she was safely outside in the cold dawn air she slipped on her pair of Mary Jane shoes, polished over and over again to make them last as long as they could. It was summer now, but in the winter, wet shoes had to be stuffed with paper and left to dry out, not always successfully. Mothers did their best, warming their children’s thick hand-knitted socks on fire guards in an attempt to send them to school with warm dry feet, whilst young women submitted to the sensible habit of wearing thick lisle stockings, even though they itched dreadfully…

All Ruthie had to do now was make sure she reached the appointed place in time.

Her mother would never forgive her for this; she would tell her truthfully how shocked and upset her father would have been.

Her father! Ruthie paused outside the gate of the neat red-brick semi, not daring to risk putting the gate on the latch just in case the noise might alert her mother to her departure. It hurt so much to think about the way Dad had died, crushed beneath the masonry blown apart by the German bomb that had devastated the Durning Road Technical College in the autumn of 1940. He had been on duty there as an air-raid warden. Her mother, Ruthie knew, would never recover from his loss; it hung over the small house like the pall of smoke and dust that had hung over the destroyed college. When the news had come her mother had insisted on them going down there, even though she had been advised not to do so. The rescue work had still been going on when they had arrived – what could be salvaged of once living, breathing human beings, tenderly and respectfully brought out of the carnage. Ruthie knew she would never forget what she had seen that night: a human hand and wrist – thankfully not her father’s – the watch on it still going, a baby’s rattle, a woman’s torso, images too horrible for her to want to recall.

Ruthie had reached the Edge Hill Road now and she continued down into the area of terraced streets that lay below it, once filled with people’s homes but now ravaged by Hitler’s bombers’ assault on the city during the first week of May 1941, when Liverpool had endured a week-long blitz that had destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed so many people.

Had she come to the right place? She wasn’t sure and she started to fret, her hazel eyes darkening with anxiety as she pushed a nervous hand into her soft mousy brown hair. How long would she have to wait? She stared into the half-light, her heart thudding. She still couldn’t believe she was actually doing this. Her mother would be so shocked and so unforgiving. She could almost see the sad, gentle look her father would have given her if he knew.

She could hear the sound of a bus coming up the road towards her. Automatically she stiffened. She flagged down the driver and it pulled to a halt.

‘Is this the bus for the munitions factory?’ she asked anxiously as she stepped onto it.

The interior of the bus was packed with women, and one of them called up sarcastically, ‘Course it bloody is. What does it look like – a ruddy chara trip to Blackpool?’

Ruthie blushed bright red as the women burst out laughing. A pretty redhead with a mass of curls and smiling eyes looked Ruthie over and then said determinedly, ‘Give over, Mel. The poor kid looks half scared to death. Just starting, are you, love?’ she asked Ruthie, making room for her on the seat next to her.

Ruthie nodded, feeling tongue-tied and uncomfortable.

A lot of people said that it was only the poorer sort of women who signed on to work at the munitions factory at Kirby, and Ruthie suspected from the coarse language and dress of those on the bus that it was probably true. But she needed a job, and not just because now that she was nineteen it was compulsory for her to do war work. She and her mother needed the money, and she had heard that the munitions factory paid good wages, even to unskilled, untrained workers like her.

‘I must be daft in me head tekin’ on a ruddy job like this,’ the woman who had mocked Ruthie grumbled. ‘Up at four and working ruddy long shifts, and tekin’ me life into my hands every day.’

‘Come on, Mel, it isn’t as bad as that,’ the redhead that had offered Ruthie a seat objected. ‘The wages are good, and then there’s them concerts that the management put on for us, and these buses…’

‘Oh, trust you to say that, Jess Hunt. A right little ray of ruddy sunshine, you are. What about the danger then? There was that girl last week had all of her fingers blown off, she did. You could hear her screaming three sheds away,’ Mel announced with relish, whilst Ruthie sucked in her breath and fought back the nausea cramping her stomach.

It had been three days before they had found her father in all the rubble. Her mother had been too distraught to identify his body so Ruthie had had to do it. There hadn’t been a mark on his face – he looked like he was asleep – but where his feet should have been there had been nothing. Ruthie’s had been a innocent childhood, her parents loving and protective, but that single act of identifying her father’s body had stripped that innocence from her.

‘So what’s your name then,’ the redhead asked.

‘Ruthie Philpott,’ she responded.

‘Well, I’m Jess Hunt, and that there is Mel, and sitting next to her there is Leah, and behind her, Emily.’

‘Tell you what to expect, did they, when you went up for your interview?’ Mel asked.

Ruthie nodded her head.

‘Aye, well, it won’t be owt like that,’ Mel told her sourly. ‘A right rough lot some of them as works there are. I know of girls who’ve had to walk home in their bare feet on account of having their shoes pinched from them bags they give you to put your stuff in. That lot you’re wearing won’t be there when you go looking for it at the end of your shift,’ she warned Ruthie unkindly. ‘That’s why we allus wear our oldest stuff.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ Ruthie faltered.

‘Stop scaring her, Mel,’ Jess chipped in. ‘It’s all right, Ruthie, it’s just that when you have to get changed into the coveralls they make you wear, you have to put your own stuff in this bag they give you and then you hang it up on a peg, next to the locker they give you for your purse and that. Most of the time your things are safe enough until you come off shift but there’s a few there that aren’t as honest as they should be and it has been known for someone to find their bag’s empty. That’s why we all wear our oldest things.’

Ruthie was too shocked to be able to conceal her feelings.

‘Gawd, just look at her face,’ Mel said derisively. ‘A right know-nothing, this one is and no mistake. Green as grass, she is. You might as well get off the bus now ’cos you won’t last a day.’ Turning her back on Ruthie she added to one of the other girls in a voice easily loud enough for Ruthie to hear, ‘If you ask me they shouldn’t be tekin’ on folk like her, and time was when they wouldn’t have. She’s the kind that would have turned up her nose at our kind of work. There’s too many of her sort coming wanting jobs in munitions now on account of them having heard that the pay is good.’ She gave a derisive sniff. ‘Seems to me that whilst her sort thinks they’re too good to mix with the likes of us, as soon as there’s a sniff of a bit of money to be had they can’t wait to change their tune.’

Ruthie tried to pretend she hadn’t heard what Mel was saying and to look unaffected by it, but she could see from the quick look Jess was giving her that she hadn’t succeeded.

‘Come on, Mel, there’s a war on, remember,’ Jess broke into her complaint. ‘We’ve all got to do our duty.’

‘Oh, aye, but I’m not daft, and if you ask me it isn’t just doing their duty that’s bringing her sort into munitions. Like I just said, she wouldn’t be wanting to work wi’ the likes of us if it weren’t for the good wages.’

Ruthie could feel her face burning with self-consciousness and guilt. It was true that the only reason she had been able to steel herself to apply for a job at the munitions factory was because of the high rate of pay and because it would mean that she didn’t have to leave her mother living on her own, like she would have had to do if she had joined the ATS or one of the other women’s services. To her relief she realised that the bus was pulling up to the factory gates.

‘Come on,’ Jess said. ‘We all have to get off here.’ A little uncertainly Ruthie followed the other girls towards the small opening in the factory gates. Her instructions were that she was to present herself at the factory as a new worker, but as she watched the women, who all seemed to know exactly what they were doing, streaming towards the gates from the buses, Ruthie began to panic. She had lost sight of the girls she had been on the bus with already, and even though she had only known them half an hour and had not exactly been welcomed amongst them, she would have liked the comfort of their presence. She looked desperately towards the gate, trying to remember what exactly she was supposed to do and where she was supposed to go. Why had she done this? Mel was right: she did not fit in here with these girls, she was an outsider amongst them – and right now she felt sick with nerves and misery. She tensed as she felt a quick tug on her sleeve, remembering Mel’s warning and half fearing that her top was going to be torn from her, but when she turned round it was Jess, her eyes crinkled up with a reassuring smile.

‘It’s bloody bedlam here this morning,’ she puffed as she managed to stop them from being parted by the press of girls making for the gate. ‘I just came back to tell you that you’ll have to tell them on the gate that you’re new. There’ll be other girls who’ll be starting today and they’ll keep you back and then get you sorted out. Ta-ra, now, and good luck.’ Jess wriggled back through the crowd.

‘Wait, please…’ Ruthie begged her. There was so much she didn’t know, and Jess’s jolly manner had been comforting in the alien surroundings of this frightening new world. But it was too late: Jess had already disappeared into the mass of women milling around.

‘Here, you. New, are you?’ a brisk voice demanded sharply, as a stern-looking woman gave Ruthie a sharp dig in her arm.

‘Yes. Yes, I am,’ Ruthie confirmed.

‘Name?’ the official demanded, making ready to write it down on the clipboard she was holding.

‘Ruthie…’ Ruthie answered her, flushing when the woman demanded witheringly, ‘Ruthie what? Lord save us, my cat’s got more nous than this one,’ she announced to no one in particular. Some of the other women, waiting by the gate, laughed.

‘Ruthie Philpott.’

‘Right. Next…?’

‘OK, are you? Only I heard her over there mekin’ fun of you, when we was waiting to be let in.’ Ruthie blinked away the tears that were threatening, to focus on the young woman who had just addressed her. She was a well-built girl with small pale eyes, and a sharp glance that seemed to be looking everywhere but directly at her, as though she was looking around for someone or something more interesting, but Ruthie was too grateful for her kindness to be critical.

‘Not giving her my surname was such a stupid thing to do.’

‘Aye, well, we all do daft stuff at times and anyone can see that you’re a bit out of yer depth, like. Couldn’t get into any of the services, like, could yer not? Same here. Tried for the ATS, I did, but they wouldn’t have me on account of me having flat feet.’

‘I needed work that would let me stay at home. It’s my mother, you see,’ Ruthie heard herself explaining.

‘Wanted yer to tip up at home and give her wot you was earning, did she? My mam’s like that, an’ all. Seems to me like you and me ’ave got summat in common and we should stick together.’ She gave a disparaging sniff. ‘There’s some right common sorts working here. Thieving and Lord knows what goes on, so I’ve heard.’

Ruthie could only nod her head. She wasn’t used to having her friendship courted. Suddenly her new life didn’t seem as threatening as it had done. ‘I’d like that,’ she offered shyly.

‘Aye, well, my name’s Maureen, Maureen Smith.’

‘Ruthie…’ Ruthie began, but Maureen snickered and shook her head.

‘Aye, I know I heard you telling it to her wot’s in charge, didn’t I? Live on Chestnut Close, you told her. So where’s that when it’s at home?’

‘It’s between Edge Hill and Wavertree.’

‘Oh ho, you’ll be a bit posh then, will yer, living up there?’

‘No, of course not,’ Ruthie denied. There was something about the way Maureen was looking at her that made her feel slightly uncomfortable.

‘Course you are. Anyone can tell just by looking at yer. Them nice clothes you’re wearing. Got much family, ’ave yer?’

‘No. It’s just me and my mother.’

‘Well, you’re the lucky one then and no mistake. Our house is that full wi’ me mam and da, and me and me sisters, two of them with kiddies of their own, living in it, a person doesn’t have room to breathe. I’m going to be looking for a new billet just as soon as I’ve got a bit of money together from working here.’

‘Right you lot, this way…’

‘Let them others go first,’ Maureen advised Ruthie with a warning nudge as she prepared to obey the overseer’s command. ‘Then we can tag on at the end, like. It don’t do to get yerself too much noticed by them wot’s in charge. Yer don’t want ter seem too eager.’

Ruthie allowed her new friend to take the lead. She gulped as she took her first step into her new world, wondering what on earth she had let herself in for. Far from being exciting, right now this new life of hers threatened to be alien and frightening.

FIVE

Her presence on the streets of Liverpool was certainly being treated with a good deal more respect this morning than it had been last night, Diane admitted, as she walked briskly past the town hall, heading for Derby House. No doubt the fact that she was wearing her uniform had something to do with that. It was a sunny morning but cool enough for her not to feel uncomfortable in her tailored skirt and jacket. Her hair was rolled into a neat French pleat and, unlike some of the girls she knew, she was wearing her cap at the correct angle and not some jaunty and flirtatious version designed to attract male attention.

As she reached the building, the night shift was just coming out, their faces stiff and pallid from the long hours of concentration.

‘Keen, aren’t you? The next shift doesn’t start for another half-hour yet.’

Diane stopped in mid-step when she realised that the question had come from Myra, who was leaning back against the wall of the building, lighting up a cigarette.

‘Yes. I thought I’d get here a bit earlier, just to be on the safe side. I’ve got to report to a Group Captain Barker.’

‘Nanny Barker. She’s OK but a bit of a fusspot. You’ll have to watch out for her sidekick, though, Warrant Officer Whiteley – hates good-looking girls, she does.’ Myra pulled a face. ‘She’s got a real down on me.’ She stifled a yawn. ‘I’m for my bed. I’ve got a hot date with a GI this afternoon. He’s taking me to a matinée. He should be good for a box of nylons if I play my cards right.’

Diane smiled noncommittally.

‘I could fix us up with a double date for later in the week, if you fancy it?’

‘No, thanks.’ Diane refused, adding when she saw Myra’s expression begin to darken, ‘I’m up for going dancing and having a bit of fun, but I don’t plan to date.’

‘Well, it’s your loss,’ Myra shrugged. ‘And it means more men for me!’

‘Glad to have you on board, Wilson. Know much about our ops here, do you?’

‘Nanny Barker’ had turned out to be a sturdy-looking woman in her early forties, with a hearty no-nonsense manner. Without waiting for Diane to reply she continued, ‘According to your previous CO, you’re a quick learner, so I’m going to put you on one of the new teams we’ve set up. I’ll show you round first and explain to you what we’re doing.

‘In January of this year Captain Gilbert Roberts established the Western Approaches Tactical Unit here. It’s based officially on the top floor of the Exchange Building, which is close to here. Captain Roberts and his team study U-boat tactics and then develop effective countermeasures. The unit runs six-day training courses for Allied naval officers to help them improve the tactics they use in their escort groups.

‘Over here in Derby House the Senior Service and the RAF work together on joint Atlantic ops along with some of our American allies to protect the convoys crossing the Atlantic. Senior Service has overall control, but we have an important part to play. It’s our RAF reconnaissance planes that provide vital forward information – as a Waaf you’ll be involved in working on that info. Follow me,’ Group Captain Barker instructed Diane, leading the way to a flight of stairs.

‘Down here is the nerve centre of the ops. It’s bomband gas-proof,’ she told Diane with evident pride as she led her down to what Diane guessed must be a large basement area. ‘We’ve got all the regulation emergency areas, just in case – dorms, ablutions, the Commander-in-Chief’s private quarters, in addition to the telecommunications room, and a couple of off-duty areas.’ She paused to return the salute of a pair of naval ratings on guard duty in front of a large door.

‘You won’t be permitted to come down here without your pass, so don’t forget to carry it with you whenever you are on duty,’ she warned Diane as the guards opened the doors for them.

Diane had, of course, seen operations rooms before and was familiar with their set-up, but the sheer size of this one took her aback. A huge map of the North Atlantic dominated one wall, whilst filling the centre of the room was a massive table holding an enormous situation map. Around it Wrens were busily moving models of the various convoys to show their deployment. There must have been nearly fifty Wrens working in the room, as well as a good-size bunch of Waafs, Diane calculated as she watched them for a few seconds before switching her attention to the wall bearing a map of the waters around Britain. More Wrens were perched on ladders, updating the maps and the reports chalked on large blackboards.

‘Over there is the Aircraft State Board,’ the Group Captain told Diane, nodding to the rear of the room, where a board showed the readiness of all the RAF stations displayed, as well as up-to-the-minute information about on-going air operations, brought in from the teleprinter rooms close at hand. There was also a weather board, and the noise from the different orders being called out was so deafening that at first it made Diane wince. It would take some concentration to learn to listen only to her own instructions and blot out the rest, she acknowledged, as she watched the control room’s busyness.

‘We’ve just lost a couple of our ops room operatives, so you’ll be working down here to start with, instead of going into the teleprinter communications room, which is where we usually put the new girls to start off with. Normally we don’t put girls down here until we’ve had time to assess them, but since the powers that be have seen fit to poach some of our best girls we don’t have much option. I’m prepared to take a chance on you.’

Diane tried to look suitably gratified, but the truth was that she was feeling slightly intimidated by the activity of the ops room and would have welcomed a more gradual introduction to it.

‘One of your duties will be to show our training groups how the system works. We’re getting a lot of American service personnel coming along to see how we do things here at the moment. Any questions?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Good-oh. I’ll hand you over to Corporal Bennett, then. She’s in charge of the team you’re going to be on.’

To Diane’s relief the young woman the captain introduced her to looked a sensible sort, around her own age, Diane guessed, although the light in ‘the Dungeon’ – as Myra had informed her the ops room was nicknamed – didn’t do her pale skin any favours. She was also, Diane saw with a sharp pang, wearing a gleaming wedding ring. Lucky her. Her chap hadn’t changed his mind, then.

‘Good to have you with us, Wilson,’ the other young woman welcomed her after the Group Captain had introduced them. ‘Done much of this sort of thing before, have you?’

‘No, I’m afraid not, Corporal Bennett,’ Diane admitted. ‘I was working as a teleprinter before I came here.’

Out of the corner of her eye Diane caught the resigned looks exchanged by the other four girls making up the team of which she was now to be part. Instantly she pulled herself up to her full height and said firmly, ‘I’m willing to learn, though.’

‘You’re going to need a keen eye and be quick off the mark. Men’s lives will depend on you. We can’t afford any mistakes, not with so much at stake,’ Corporal Bennett warned her. ‘You’d better partner me so that I can show you what we do and keep an eye on you. I’m Susan, by the way.’

‘Diane.’

Diane carefully memorised the names of the other girls on the team as they were introduced to her. Liz, Jean, Pauline and another Susan, this one to be addressed as Sue, she reminded herself as she mentally catalogued them all. Liz was the one with the serious, almost mournful expression and the short dark straight hair. Jean was tall and thin, and rather earnest-looking, with prominent blue eyes, and she was wearing an engagement ring. Pauline was small with brown curls. Sue was also engaged. Diane promised herself that she would remember them all. She sensed that these young women took their work very seriously and that they would be quick to consider her less than able if she couldn’t manage to do something as simple as remember their names.

Three hours later, despite her initial reservations, when Susan gave an approving nod of her head and told her crisply, ‘You’ll do,’ Diane felt a real glow of pride. Kit would laugh when she told him…Just in time she caught herself up, the small thrill of her success obliterated. Just for a few minutes she had been so engrossed in what she was doing she had forgotten that her engagement was over, her heart was broken. She instinctively reached for the place on her left hand where she had worn Kit’s ring.