Intervals of Hope, page 12
“Another great war won’t happen,” the woman said, adding: “I will bet our farm, and all its livestock and crops.”
“I’ll take you up on that,” Devon said. The woman glared at him.
“How do you know about another war?” I asked, turning toward Devon.
“Have you seen the rallies?” he asked.
“I’ve been to them. So, yes.”
“Well, you should know then. That tells the story. Soon, we’ll all be involved.”
The couple stared at us, the woman simply grimacing as they walked away.
In October of 1936, when I was back in London, I forced Ian to take a long walk with me. We stumbled upon a rally in Hyde Park where, it was announced, one hundred thousand people had gathered to hear of their “destiny of greatness.” They professed this destiny had also brought the leaders of the newly re-named “British Union of Fascists and National Socialists” to the East End, proclaiming through loudspeakers about worthless elected officials, and the power of finance to govern given cheap labour abroad:
“…the British, who for one-thousand years have never been conquered by the foe without, have been subdued by the foe within. To our brother Britains we say: unite. Britain united is invincible and irresistible. And together we will build the mightiest civilization mankind has known. A new world awaits: the united will of Britain reborn. Britain’s advance in British Union.”4
We watched as a troupe of men, Blackshirts dressed in the colour of midnight with lightning emblems on their sleeves, marched into the crowd and stopped to make a speech. One of the men stepped up on a soap box and read from a pamphlet we were handed:
“Not so long ago East London was the home of British stock. The cabinet maker, polisher and tailor were Englishmen. Today the Englishman in East London is the slave of the Jewish master.”5
As we made our way home, a crowd turned out against the Blackshirts, barring their path and ours with furniture and using stones as weapons. We were blocked by a lorry filled with bricks and turned on its side on Cable Street. We wouldn’t make it out of here without being hurt.
Bobbies in uniform and Blackshirts littered the streets along with the enormous opposition. The Bobbies had clubs and knives, and the opposition hurled rocks at a group of us, as though we were part of the gang of ragtag Blackshirts responsible for this mess.
“Here,” I said, taking Ian’s arm and ducking down a familiar alleyway as we were pelted from all directions. “This way.”
Ian and I read in the Gloucestershire Echo, the next day, after we had cleansed each other’s wounds in the scullery, that the resistance had prevailed. The leaders of the Blackshirt movement, including the man Pa and I had seen speak at the Olympia rally, were imprisoned.
A short time later in our row house in South Leeds, over a breakfast of black tea, marmalade and toast with my new chum Robert, I read in the Gloucestershire Echo about changes on the throne that had seen King Edward abdicate in favour of the Duke of York, within three days.
“King Edward loves that divorced American woman more than he loves his country,” I said as I buttered my toast.
“Quite so,” Robert said, hovering over the table. “The Coronation of his brother, King George VI, will be the beginning of a new era of peace in this country. War has been averted, you’ll see.”
“I read that the rallies in London have ended. I’ll need to see for myself when I go. Like my Pa said, I’ll go to London and look that burg over. Mum will know that our new future will mean living in Northaw with Uncle Devon.”
“She’ll be amenable to that, I’m sure,” Robert said, pouring hot water into the teapot.
“Then you’ll have to enjoy working through the payroll cheques and electrical bills at the mines without me.”
“There’s certainly no enjoyment in that.”
So, I wrote from South Leeds to say that I would come to London to attend the Coronation Procession due to take place May 12, 1937, starting and ending at Buckingham Palace.
Mum, Ian, and I watched from Hyde Park Corner on a drizzly day with a slight wind blowing periodically at erected British flags. The procession was to go from The Mall, to Whitehall and to Westminster Abbey; north paralleling the River Thames, to Northumberland, past Trafalgar Square, to St. James, and to Piccadilly; north on Regent street, west on Oxford, south on East Carriage. The exquisite carriage that was pictured in the newspaper recently, along with the collection of horses and guards, all in full regalia, was heading towards Hyde Park Corner when I saw her: a woman I recognized in the crowd across the street. A woman I could not forget.
Wearing a gold dress and a sparkling hat that resembled a large bow sitting on her head, she held the hand of a tiny girl in a faded dress. A man with a beard and a pushed-in bowler hat stood close beside them. The woman, who had played Violet at the Duke and Duchess Theatre so many years before, perused the crowd eagerly.
Boyhood reminiscences began returning to my mind. She had never been more beautiful. The man beside her was Lieutenant Dick Campbell. Violet had forsaken both Captain Roddy Dunton to whom she was engaged, and me who was once enamoured with her, in favour of the fake Lieutenant now standing at her side. The play had ended as these two main players had wanted. And I had never been able to change that outcome, until now.
The imitation Lieutenant seemed to be staring back in my direction, but my attention was focused on her as she glanced at the cheering crowds. I could see no one else apart from her. The Lieutenant at her side, the little girl, the crowd, and the advancing procession all seemed to evaporate into some distant and faded reality.
Our last encounter, years ago, suddenly came to my mind. She had been kind, stating that I was sweet and quite handsome, and that I could see her at any time; even outside the play. If given the chance, I could have expounded my devotion to her. Life with Violet in the mines would have been wrong; being together in Northaw could be a dream.
I had seen more of marital love now, having observed the other miners blackened with soot, and their wives constantly scrubbing and bathing and feeding them every night, the same as Mum had done to Pa in the brief time we were all living together in South Leeds. Watching the miner’s wives raising their children in an unsuitable habitat and remaining loyal to this cause year after year brought me to the realization that this sort of sacrificial love was a rare phenomenon, to be cherished if found, and a marvel. This, I would explain to Violet. We could have this sort of love, only in an ideal place. Details of my plans to move to Devon’s farm, and for her to accompany me, would follow.
Mum grabbed hold of my arm as I started to leave. Violet remained in place as the noise of the marching band approached, and I broke free. I would have to navigate through the crowd on this side of the street, then cross over the wooden barrier, and traverse the busy street to get to her.
As I began meandering through the crowd, the procession close by now, I contemplated how this encounter would be different than the last. I would begin by telling her of all the silly dreams I had had about her when I was a boy. The play she was in wasn’t real, and I had now put aside such foolish and childish notions as I had been taught to do through the verse in First Corinthians that Mum had made me memorize in contemplating God’s love.
At present, I would add, childish fantasies have given way to more of an acknowledgement of the harshness of life and death than I have ever known, and an appreciation of passionate devotion leading to love; my time in the mines had had that effect upon me.
I ran over, knocking the wooden barricade down and plunging myself into the crowd at the other end of the street before the barrier was erected again and the soldiers marched seamlessly past.
I had been shoved around, this way and that, and surveying the crowd revealed that Violet was gone. The crowd had moved in to fill the void as though she had never existed; as if the colourful streamers and British flags, the cheering and the throngs of people had absorbed her.
After an array of Royal Guards mounted atop white horses passed by, followed by marching army and navy personnel, I disappeared into the horde of spectators and searched for her in vain. There was rapturous applause as an elaborate carriage appeared, propelled forward by a team of black horses. Three conductors with triangular hats were on board, one seated at the front and two standing at the rear. The carriage was adorned with life-sized, golden angels and ornate gold ivy leaf that formed the sides and the roof. Shortly after the vehicle had passed, the last of the soldiers marched by and the crowd began to disperse. I resumed my search, but to no avail.
Violet was gone.
When I arrived home after hours of wandering the streets aimlessly, I explained to Mum that I had seen Violet at the procession, a woman I knew from productions at the Duke and Duchess Theatre. I described how I had snuck out at nights to see her. I told Mum of my vision for a new future in Northaw with Uncle Devon after I saved some coin, one in which she and Ian would move out to be with us. Along with the money from selling our London home, we would be able to start again, together, as a family; perhaps with our own farmhouse near Devon’s.
Mum smiled for the first time in recent memory, before kissing me on the head.
“An unreciprocated love,” she said, her smile persistent, “and this woman now a wife and mother perhaps, but still, your first love.”
“I can’t think of her with anyone else,” I said. “And what of Northaw?”
Her smile turned sombre.
“I’m not interested in your Uncle Devon’s hobby farm,” she said. “I believe he’s not so keen about it, either. Your uncle fancied that we should move there, not me.”
“That farm’ll bring us together.”
“Nothing doing.”
The following day I pedalled my old Betsy, left out to rust in the rain and almost dead, over to the Duke and Duchess Theatre. The lights were out. A series of long planks were stretched across the entryway, secured on each side by nails set haphazardly in place to fasten them against the brick wall. The same sign I had seen so long ago was still here, indicating that the basement had flooded, and the date of the next showing was yet to be determined.
As I ate boiled potatoes and charred beef later that day with Mum and Ian, a sputtering candle between us, a news report on the radio questioned German military might, considering the German airship called the Hindenburg that had burst into flames over Lakehurst, New Jersey in America the previous week.
“A terrible shame,” Mum said, “but a sign of the peace to come.”
I relived the Coronation Procession of the Duke-turned-King George VI in exacting detail including the girl and the bearded man with the pushed-in hat, Violet’s downcast eyes and the apparent sadness I now perceived in her, all reproduced multiple times in my dreams.
14
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s September 3, 1939 declaration by radio was replayed, over and over, in and around the mines:
“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that, unless we hear from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”6
I immediately left a note on my boss’s desk, departed the office, packed my belongings, and left South Leeds. If what Devon said was true, if I would be forced to descend into the pit every day for the war effort, and if Pa was wrong and I could still be conscripted regardless, better to depart that infernal place in favour of the beauty of Northaw.
Moving in with my Uncle Devon, I did little to help on his farm. The crops had dwindled down to a measly patch in the yard, and there were only a handful of chickens and pigs to feed. My time was spent working on other farms, for more industrious farmers.
I sent a wire for Mum and Ian to join us, Mum replying with the simple phrase: “Nothing doing. Come home.”
Months turned into a year and London city officials began warning of impending German bombings and gas raids. There were anti-air raid exercises in daylight and darkness. “Black out” tests were held so people of the city could grow accustomed to extinguishing lamps at night to highlight nothing for enemy planes above. Provisions for firefighting were accumulated and stocked, and the main streets were lined with hoses and masks. Air raid wardens, those who would assist citizens in the event of bombings, were recruited and trained. Trenches, lined with sandbags, were dug around Hyde Park. The production of twenty-six million gas masks was underway.
We listened to such news over the wireless as we sat down to yet another dinner of chicken scraps and half-rotted potatoes, a regular staple, but preferable to the memory of South Leeds dinners of watery soup and stale bread with black tea.
“I’m leaving on the train tomorrow to fetch Mum and Ian,” I said, separating the thin chicken meat from the bones. “I’ll have to sell our home there.”
“No one’s buying houses in London, not now,” Devon replied, stabbing at pieces of potato to collect them with his fork. “I can send them another wire to come here.”
“The wires do no good. I want to fetch them myself.”
“Why? This farm is being overrun by children evacuated from London on the train, every day.”
“You want me to stay here and help shoo them away?” I said, taking a drink of water. “Don’t think of them.”
He pulled back the curtains. There were four boys outside, trampling through the garden. Another group of boys resembling Glen, Boris, and Charles lingered in the distance, smoking.
“Hard to ignore that,” Devon said.
“Keep the curtains closed and you’ll be fine.”
As the curtains fell back into place, the wireless provided warnings to all those living in London. Stay indoors. Always know where the nearest shelters are. Bomb shelter inspections are underway, and procedural reviews to evacuate the city centre have begun. The German Luftwaffe might fall on the city any day, don’t let it fall on you…
I left the following afternoon on the first train from Cuffley Station to London, carrying the empty, bulky, green suitcase. My city had been transformed. As reported, the main streets were filled with hoses, masks, and working men. The men dug trenches and piled sandbags. Underground shelters were being reinforced. Black curtains lined the windows.
“I’m here to take you and Ian to Northaw, Mum,” I said as she opened the door.
“We’ve already begun collecting our things,” she said, taking my hat and the suitcase and inviting me in. “You can help.”
We listened to the wireless as I folded Mum’s dresses and stacked them in the open suitcase on the floor. German destruction of civilian targets in London had led to the British bombing of non-military targets in Berlin. A bombing retaliation against London was not only possible, but probable. City officials had begun evacuating children to the countryside as Devon and I knew well, while parents remained behind to work for the war effort.
Hundreds of German and Italian bombers, dotting the air like a swarm of flies, cast an eerie shadow over the dusk of the city and specked the darkening landscape of the sky. Tons of incendiary bombs, high explosives, and parachute mines fell like rain. The deafening noise of plane engines, explosions, anti-aircraft guns, and alarms engulfed the air; ‘moaning minnies’, sirens that would become commonplace, wailed in the background.
The city was in a blackout, and we ran down the street, crowded now, Ian clutching the family cat Minnaloushe tightly to his chest as Mum pulled him along. I scurried alongside with the green suitcase, and we ran through the busy, darkened streets toward the underground, our safe haven, while searchlights feverishly probed the skies for movement. There would be no trains for us tonight.
In my father’s war journal, he described Zeppelins over the city, and how the people were as nervous as kids. Now, fears had shifted to a sky littered with aeroplanes. A row of grey barrage balloons above was forcing German planes higher, amidst ricocheting machine gun and anti-aircraft fire. There was overwhelming panic in the streets.
A wireless radio report echoed from a nearby house, the reporter stating that because of the blackout, German bombers would be forced to rely on the moonlight covering the Thames, the fires blazing below, and the light of the incendiaries to show them where to drop explosives.
We ran through flocks of people gathered around the entrance to the Tilbury stop of the underground subway system. Air raid wardens stood outside the entrance, directing us down to an area just beneath Commercial Road and Cable Street.
A putrid array of human smells greeted us, accompanied by an assemblage of shadowy figures standing, sitting, sleeping, or squatting and choking the place. A pleasant welcome indeed. Hundreds had taken refuge here, a comfortable solace amidst friends, family, and strangers of common circumstance.
We huddled together into a space near the wall and found ourselves listening to the rumblings above as we soon fell nervously into exhausted sleep, Minnaloushe pacing around our collective feet before finally settling down on top of Ian.
The next morning, we emerged into the daylight to wander through smoking streets. This was a city we no longer recognized because of buildings that had disappeared. Broken glass crunched underfoot. The scent of dirt and burnt wood, dust, and brick powder permeated the air. There was the occasional odour of raw explosives accompanied by the sight of fragmented bomb casings, as well as unexploded bombs and debris; there was the overpowering stink of sewage; the noxious scent of domestic gas; and the only pleasing aroma, one of sap from trees that had been cut in half by the shelling. Some houses also seemed to have been sliced in half, the rooms still intact as though a doll’s house was on display.
