A Mother’s Blessing

‘’Ere, Mam, it’s our Johnny’s fiancée,’ she called back to the darkness of the cluttered hallway.

Molly’s tender heart couldn’t help but pity Johnny’s mother, with her nervous air, her hands disfigured and reddened from her cleaning job at the hospital. It must have been so hard to bring up three children alone with only one wage coming in. It was no doubt because their mother had had to work such long hours cleaning that Johnny’s sisters were the way they were. The fact that their mother was out at work all day and most evenings meant that they had had far more freedom than most girls in the area, whose parents kept a much stricter eye on them.

‘Well, I never … we wasn’t expectin’ you, otherwise—’

‘Give over fussing, Mam,’ Deirdre objected. ‘If she’s gonna marry our Johnny she’s gorra get used to us the way we are, instead of expectin’ us to put on a lorra fancy airs.’

‘Deirdre, you pig, if you’ve bin using my rouge, I’ll skin yer alive.’ Heels clattered on the stairs, barely covered by a threadbare runner, as Johnny’s other sister, Jennifer, came downstairs, her hair carefully curled to emulate the style favoured by the film star Jean Harlow, her flimsy short skirt all but showing off her knees.

‘’Ere, Mam, me hem’s coming down. Have you gorra safety pin, so I can pin it? Only me other one needs a wash, and I ain’t got nuttin’ else to wear, like.’

‘Perhaps it might be better to sew it,’ Molly couldn’t help suggesting.

‘Give over,’ Jennifer laughed, giving a dismissive shrug. ‘I ain’t gor any time for that. I’ve gorra meet me new fella in ten minutes and I don’t want no other girl pinchin’ him from us ’cos I’m late. Gizz us a woodie, will yer, Deirdre?’ she demanded. ‘I’m gasping for a fag.’

‘You’re gonna have to cut that out if we’re going to have a war,’ her mother warned her. ‘Fags’ll be on the ration as well, you mark my words.’

‘Then I’m just gonna have to find a fella to get them for me, aren’t I?’ Jennifer told her, blowing out a cloud of smoke that made Molly’s eyes smart, before asking, ‘So what’s brought you round here then, Molly?’

‘I was just wondering if your mam needed any help with her blackout curtains.’

‘Blackout curtains – just listen to ’er,’ Jennifer laughed. ‘We ain’t gonna be wasting our time messin’ around with nuttin’ like that; brown paper and sticky tape is all we’re gonna be doin’. Bloody hell, Deirdre, have youse been pinching my scent again?’ she demanded, sniffing the air as Deirdre attempted to walk past her.

‘So wot if I have, an’ all?’ Deirdre responded sulkily. ‘You took me last pair of nylons, didn’t yer?’

‘Hurry up and get yerself ready if yer coming down the dance hall wi’ me ’cos I ain’t gonna be waitin’ for yer. Yer want ter come with us, Molly? … Catch me tying meself to one fella like you have with our Johnny … Why don’t yer come wi’ us on Saturday?’ Jennifer asked.

‘It’s kind of you to ask, but me and June are going looking for some material for her wedding dress.’

‘Well, if it’s fabric you’re wantin’, there’s a shop off Bold Street as sells all the best-quality stuff right cheap, on account of it having fallen off a lorry, if yer takes me meaning,’ Jennifer added with a knowing wink.

Molly didn’t make any response. It was impossible to grow up in Liverpool and not know about the brisk black market that existed, with so many goods passing through the docks, but Molly didn’t want to get involved.

She could see through into the back room where the tea things were still on the table. The smell of cheap scent and stale chip fat was making her long to escape, but politeness kept her where she was.

‘They’re good girls really, my Deirdre and Jennifer,’ Johnny’s mother told Molly almost apologetically when both her daughters had gone to finish getting ready to go out, ‘but they’re young and they gorra ’ave a bit of fun, like. Mind you, I’m right glad our Johnny’s going to wed you, Molly. You’re gonna be good for him. Not like some as I could name as would only cause him a lorra trouble.’ Her mouth tightened slightly.

It was a relief to be back in her own home, Molly admitted half an hour later, as she and June worked companionably together. ‘At least we’ve got plenty of light to work in, what with this double daylight saving,’ Molly commented, as they sat on the back step, tacking together the curtains they had cut out, and listening to Max Miller on the wireless.

‘Here, was that the front door I just heard, our Molly?’

Molly put down her sewing and went to see.

Visitors didn’t call on weekdays, and neighbours and friends always came round to the back, so she hesitated for a moment when she saw the shadow of a man through the frosted glass of the inner front door.

‘ARP,’ he called out. ‘Come to mek sure you’ve got your government notice.’

‘You’d better come in,’ Molly told Alf Davies. He looked very official, with his clipboard and stern expression, but he accepted quickly enough when she offered him a cup of tea, and smiled approvingly when he saw that they were already busy making their blackout curtains.

‘Not that I know why we have to do all this stuff, mind,’ June challenged him. ‘Not when there isn’t even a war on yet.’

‘Rules is rules,’ he answered her importantly, puffing out his cheeks and then blowing on the cup of tea Molly had just given him. ‘Gas masks are going to be given out this Saturday at Melby Road Junior School, so mek sure that you go and collect yours. You’ll be given a demonstration of how to use it properly, like. Any children living here?’

Both girls shook their heads.

‘Now what about an Anderson shelter?’

‘We’re sharing with the rest of the end of the cul-de-sac,’ June informed him.

‘Is it true that all the children will be evacuated even if their mothers don’t want them to be?’ Molly couldn’t stop herself from asking him. The words of the government leaflet still haunted her, and she couldn’t imagine how terrifying it would be for a small child to be sent off to a strange place to live with a strange family.

‘I can’t answer them sort of questions, but I can tell you that we are looking for volunteers to help wi’ what’s got to be done, if you twose wanted to help out.’

‘Volunteer? We’ve got enough to do, sewing uniforms for soldiers – aye, and paid next to nuttin’ for doing it, an’ all,’ June informed him sharply.

But for once Molly overrode her sister and asked quietly, ‘Where would we go, if we wanted to volunteer?’

‘You can just come round and have a word with me – you know where I am – number 14. The missus will take a message if I’m not there.’ He stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea, and remember, when the time comes for them curtains to go up, I’ll be coming round to check that they ain’t lettin’ out no light, so make sure youse do a good job.’

‘What’s got into you?’ June demanded when Molly had shown Alf Davies out. ‘What did you want to go telling him you wanted to volunteer for?’

‘Because if there is going to be a war, I want to do my bit,’ Molly answered firmly. She’d been thinking for weeks about how helpless she would feel if – when, she now acknowledged grimly – war broke out, and so jumped at the chance to be able to do something for the war effort.

‘Well, you’re already sewing these blummin’ curtains,’ June grumbled. ‘You’re daft if you volunteer to do any more.’

She repeated her comment later when their father came back in, but he merely smiled and looked tenderly at Molly.

‘You tek after your mam, right enough, Molly lass,’ he told her gently. ‘A right kind heart she had, an’ all.’

‘Now what am I supposed to do with it?’

Molly giggled helplessly as June struggled to put on her gas mask. ‘Oh, give over larking about, do,’ she protested. ‘I’m laughing that much it hurts.’

‘Well, let’s see you put yours on then,’ June challenged her.

They had arrived at the school an hour ago to join the tail end of the queue waiting to receive their gas masks, and now, despite the tension gripping everyone, several other people had joined in Molly’s mirth as she watched her elder sister struggle.

‘You gorra do it like this, love,’ an elderly woman informed June, deftly demonstrating just how the mask should go on, after she had stopped laughing.

‘We gor another of them leaflets come dis mornin’,’ a woman standing close to Molly announced. ‘Full of a lorra stuff about food and rationing, it were, sayin’ as how we gorra have ration books and that, like.’

Immediately the laughter stopped and the women looked worriedly at one another.

‘Rationin’? What’s that when it’s at home?’ a young girl with sharp features and a thin anxious face demanded.

‘It’s wot we had during the last war,’ the older woman who had shown June how to put on her mask answered her grimly. ‘The Government tells yer what food yer can buy and what yer can’t.’

‘That’s all we need,’ June told Molly glumly. ‘Nothing to eat!’

‘It won’t be so bad. At least we’ll have Dad’s allotment – and if it helps our lads …’ Molly tried to comfort her, as she packed her gas mask back in its box and shyly returned the approving smile of a pretty WVS volunteer she had been talking to earlier. June might not like it, but Molly was determined to join up for some voluntary work.

‘Who’s that you were just smiling at?’ June demanded as they left the building, the summer breeze catching the cotton skirts of their dresses.

‘I don’t know her name. She was the one who gave me my mask. I was telling her about wanting to do some voluntary work. She’s told me how to go about it. We could both do it,’ she added hopefully.

‘Huh, you won’t catch me volunteering for anything,’ June told her crossly. ‘All them folk telling me what to do! We get enough of that at work. Daft, that’s what you are. As if we don’t have enough to do, and there’ll be even more if this blummin’ rationing comes in … What time did you say as we would meet the others?’

‘Six o’clock,’ Molly told her.

They had arranged to go to the cinema with some of the other girls from the factory, but despite this promised treat June was still looking glum, and Molly thought she knew why.

‘Frank’s bound to write soon,’ she tried to comfort her.

‘He better had, an’ all, if he knows what’s good for him. How the blinkin’ heck am I supposed to organise a wedding when I don’t know when he’s going to get leave?’ June sounded angry but Molly knew her sister well enough to realise that the anger masked her real feelings. Impulsively she reached out for June’s hand and squeezed it.

Back outside on the street, Molly looked round for their father, who had gone to collect his gas mask with some of the other men from the allotments.

‘It’s our mam’s birthday next week,’ she reminded June.

Every year, on her birthday, among other days, the two girls and their father visited Rosie’s grave to lay flowers on it.

‘Aye, I know.’

‘What was she like, June?’ Molly asked her sister softly. ‘I can’t remember her properly at all.’ She’d asked the question many a time over the years but never tired of hearing her sister describe their mother.

June paused for a moment as though she was thinking hard and then said slowly, ‘Well, you look the image of her, and she was a bit of a softie too, like you, but by, she could give you a fair clout when she got angry. Allus laughing, she was, an’ singing too, like – you’ve got her voice, our Molly. Fair gives me a turn sometimes to hear you singing ’cos you sound just like her. Right pretty she was, an’ all, excepting for them last months.’ Tears filled June’s eyes and Molly was once again reminded of how much harder it must have been for June to see their mother fade before her very eyes. Molly had been too young to appreciate the extent of their mother’s illness but June, two years older, had not been spared the reality of what was happening. ‘Dead thin she went, just bones in the end. She’d been poorly all winter, coughing and the like. We thought as how she would get better when it came warmer weather …’

Molly gave a small shiver and moved closer to her sister. She might not always agree with June’s way of going about things, and resent her control over her sometimes, but she was still her sister, the sister who’d been a substitute mother to her for so many years, and Molly loved her dearly.

‘What about this?’ Molly suggested, directing June’s attention to the bolt of white satin fabric she had found wedged between some brightly patterned cottons.

‘But I’d got me heart set on lace.’

‘Haven’t we all, duck, so mek sure you let on to us if you find any,’ a woman with brassily bleached hair and bright red lipstick, standing close enough to overhear, chipped in. ‘My Harry says as how he don’t care nuttin’ wot me wedding dress is made of just so long as he don’t ’ave to waste a lorra time gettin’ it off us,’ she confided saucily.

‘Common as muck,’ Molly heard June muttering contemptuously, turning her back as the other woman reached past them both and picked up a bolt of bright blue fabric, calling over her shoulder, ‘’Ere, Marge, worra ’bout dis den for youse bridesmaids’ dresses?’

‘Who did you say told you this was a good place to get fabric?’ June demanded, pursing her lips.

‘May mentioned it and so did Johnny’s sisters,’ Molly admitted.

‘Huh, I might have guessed.’

‘The satin is lovely and heavy, June,’ Molly tried to distract her. ‘It would make up a treat and look really elegant. We could always trim it up with some lace …’

‘I don’t know … I’d got me heart set on lace, Molly …’

‘’Ere, Vera, you gorra come and luk at dis satin!’ another female voice exclaimed. Immediately Molly snatched up the bolt of satin, hugging it tightly, and resolutely ignoring the look on Vera’s friend’s face.

‘’Aving that, are youse, lass, ’cos if you ain’t …’ the shopkeeper, who was keeping an eye on the proceedings, demanded.

‘Looks like we’ll have to now,’ June grumbled. ‘How much did the pattern say we needed?’

‘Fifteen yards,’ Molly told her, ‘and that includes the train.’

Once the fabric had been parcelled up, Molly and June headed for Lewis’s where they had arranged to meet the others for a cup of tea before going on to the cinema.

‘It comes to something when you can’t even buy what you want for your wedding dress,’ June complained once they had explained to the other girls what was in her parcel, and ordered their tea.

‘You gorra be grateful you got sommat,’ Irene told June forthrightly, above the sound of Sonny Durband, the resident pianist in Lewis’s restaurant.

‘What I don’t understand is why the Government’s doing all of this, like, when Mr Chamberlain ’as promised that we ain’t gonna be goin’ to war,’ Sheila protested.

‘Are you daft or what?’ Irene challenged her pithily. ‘Of course there’s going to be a blummin’ war. Why the ’eck do youse think we’re mekkin’ all them bloody uniforms? Mind, if I had me way I wouldner be workin’ at Hardings. I’d be down one of them munitions factories, like – Napiers, p’haps. Paying women two pounds fifteen shillings a week, they are, so I’ve heard,’ she informed the others in awe-struck tones, ‘and they get to have a bit o’ fun and a laugh. Not like us – not now we’ve got that bloomin’ Jenner woman spyin’ on us all the time. You two will have to watch it,’ she told June and Molly. ‘Hates your guts, she does.’ Then she added, ‘Come on, you lot, it’s time we was goin’, otherwise we’re gonna be late.’

‘Not much of a film, that, and all them Pathé newsreels got on me wick. As if we don’t have enough of that on the wireless, and with all them leaflets we keep on getting sent,’ Ruby grumbled later, when they left the cinema.

‘I thought it was interesting,’ Molly protested. ‘Especially that bit about the new National Blood Bank, and how the Government’s making sure that the hospitals have plenty of beds and bandages, and building new operating theatres.’

‘Listen to Florence Nightingale, here. Next thing, she’ll be wanting to give some of her own blood,’ June grimaced.

Molly flushed but held her ground. ‘Well, I would, an’ all, if it was going to save someone else’s life,’ she retaliated stoutly, ignoring the derisory look her sister was giving her. Molly felt so passionately about ‘doing her bit’ and she was disappointed that June didn’t share her own urgent desire to do what she could to help with the country’s preparations for war.

FOUR

‘Is that Pete Ridley outside with his milk float and horse?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Molly confirmed, protesting when her father opened the back door. ‘Where are you going? He’ll leave the milk on the doorstep like always.’

‘’Tain’t the milk I’m after, it’s the horse muck,’ he told her forthrightly. ‘Right good for the allotment it’ll be. And that reminds me, there’s a few of the lads as will be coming round tonight to talk about the allotments. We’re going to be forming a committee, seeing as how we’re going to be part of the war effort and “digging for victory”,’ he told Molly proudly before disappearing through the door to speak to the milkman.

‘Wait up, Molly,’ June puffed. ‘You’re walking too fast.’

‘I don’t want us to be late,’ Molly answered her worriedly as she waited for June to catch up with her. ‘I’m sure that Miss Jenner is going to be looking for any excuse to make trouble for us.’

‘So what? With old man Harding looking to take on extra workers, he’s not gonna want to lose good machinists like us. He’ll have the Government to answer to if he doesn’t get them uniforms made on time.’

Since the other girls had also arrived a few minutes early, Molly suspected that they all shared her wariness of Miss Jenner. A handful of girls she didn’t recognise were huddled together just inside the workroom, looking uncertain and anxious. One of them didn’t look much more than fourteen, her thin arms and legs poking out of her worn dress.

Molly smiled at them as she tucked her hair up and pinned it back, before putting on her overall. Earlier in the year she and June had treated themselves to a new hairdo apiece at Lewis’s, where Molly’s hair had been cut into the style favoured by the actress Vivien Leigh for her role in the much-anticipated Gone with the Wind.

Molly had just seated herself at the machine when the work bell rang shrilly.

Immediately the door opened and Miss Jenner came in, her lips pursed as she silently inspected the rows of expectant machinists.

‘From now on we shall be having a roll call every morning five minutes before you start work. Anyone not here for that roll call will lose a day’s pay.’

An outraged mutter of protest filled the room but Miss Jenner ignored it, walking over to the new girls.

‘Hardings has an important role to play in the war effort and you will find that I run this machine room with the same discipline and dedication with which an army commander controls his men. Since I understand that none of you has any previous experience as machinists, you will each sit beside a machinist and watch her work. Then this afternoon you will be given your own machine and you will start to work properly. Every garment made in this factory will be inspected by me, and if it fails to meet the high standards our fighting men deserve, then the machinist will be fined for the cost of the time and the material lost.’

A gasp of indignation filled the silence.

‘Well, I’m gonna tell her straight I’m not puttin’ up wi’ it. Not for one minute I’m not,’ Sheila fumed later, after the dinner bell had rung and the girls were all clustered together talking, after enduring a morning of silence.

‘I’m tekkin’ meself down to the Metal Box as was, first thing tomorrow morning. Crying out for workers there, they are, so I’ve heard,’ said another girl.

The new girls all looked so exhausted and worried that Molly couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.

‘I’m right worried that they won’t keep me on,’ Jean Hughes, the girl who sat next to Molly, confided whilst they ate their dinner, Molly having surreptitiously given half of her sandwiches to Evie, the stick-thin new girl, when she saw that Evie hadn’t brought anything to eat.

Molly knew that Jean lived down on Daffodil Street, one of the ‘flower’ streets close to the docks, and, after listening to Irene, was worried that she wouldn’t be able to keep a job that she had confided to Molly was a bit of a step up for her.

‘You’ll do fine,’ Molly assured her kindly. ‘It’s just that we haven’t got used to Miss Jenner yet.’

‘I’m sick of this ruddy war already,’ Ruby complained, ‘and it hasn’t even started yet. Our mam’s acting like she’s got ants in her pants ever since we got them blinking leaflets. She’s had us at it all weekend up in the attic, clearing stuff out. ’Ave yer done yours yet?’ she asked June.

‘No. We could have done it tonight, only this one,’ June emphasised scornfully, nodding her head in Molly’s direction, ‘has taken it into her head to go and sign up for the blinkin’ WVS tonight.’

‘Oh, me mam’s in that,’ one of the new girls chirped up, causing June to frown at her.

‘Well, I’m thinking of joining,’ Sheila put in quietly. ‘They’ve bin asking for help round our way with this evacuation of all the kiddies coming up. Me sister’s going mad about it. Seven months gone, she is, with her second, and her husband away in the merchant navy. She wants ter stay here in Liverpool, like, but our mam’s told her as how she should do as the Government wants.’

Throughout every city thought to be at risk from enemy attack, parents had been issued with government instructions, telling them that they were to be ready for the mass evacuation of their children at the end of August. Children were to be taken to their local schools ready to be marched class by class and school by school to designated railway stations, from where they would be evacuated to the country along with their teachers. Parents had been told what clothes and other equipment each child was to have, and local industries and town halls had stepped forward with promises to give each child food and drink for the journey. Volunteers were needed to assist with this process and to help take charge of the children when they arrived at their schools ready for the evacuation.

Those people who would be housing the evacuees were going to be paid by the Government for doing so, and already there was a great deal of resentment being felt amongst the poor of Liverpool about the fact that other people were being paid to look after their children whilst they were denied any such help. The WVS, most of them mothers themselves, had been recruited to help the Government with this evacuation.

June was still in a huff with Molly about volunteering when they got home, but the discovery that the postman had brought letters from both Frank and Johnny evaporated the tension. June, pink-cheeked with excitement and relief, pounced on her envelope. ‘At last. It seems ever such a long time since Frank left, and I’ve missed him that much.’

Late afternoon sunshine poured in through the back door, turning June’s hair dark gold as she sat down on the step to read her letter.

Having put the kettle on to boil, so delaying the moment as long as she could, Molly went to join her, opening her own letter with a heavy heart.

Johnny’s handwriting looked almost childlike. He wasn’t allowed to tell her where he was, or what he was doing, he had written, before going on to complain that he hated the food. Her letter was much thinner than June’s. There was no mention in it of when he might get leave, nor any hint that he might be missing her – but that made her feel more relieved than disappointed, Molly admitted to herself.

‘What’s the return address on yours?’ June demanded.

Molly showed her.

‘They aren’t in the same camp then: Frank’s is different. Does Johnny say when he’s likely to get some leave?’

‘No, does Frank?’

‘He says they haven’t been told anything much and that he’ll let me know as soon as he’s got some news.’