The Blitz Read online

  So, what are the good points of Llantrisant? Well, to start with, obviously we’re safe. Not even the Jerries would think it was worthwhile bombing this place. There’s nothing much here except us and the cows.

  Then, except for the strange musty smell, I suppose the James’s farmhouse is nice. We’ve got a room each and they’re so big we’re rattling around in them. Big and cold!

  The furniture’s a bit rickety, but it’s not as though my clothes even a quarter-fill the drawers and wardrobe in the room. I put Freddie my mascot bear on the chest of drawers facing the bed so that I can always see him. He’s been with me as long as I can remember. Then I arranged the five books I’ve brought with me on the shelf. I took Shirl’s money, and carefully slipped one five pound note inside the dust jacket of Diary of a Nobody, by George and Weedon Grossmith, and one inside the cover of Winnie the Pooh. I think the money should stay a secret between me and Shirl for now.

  My bed’s a bit odd. It’s really high off the ground and the mattress sags badly at the sides, so it’s rather like sleeping on top of a roof. I feel as if I’m going to fall off at any moment.

  Looking out of the bedroom window this morning, I can see that the countryside’s very pretty. The fields all around us are a bright, beautiful green, and in the distance I can see hazy, furry, flat-topped hills with shadows passing over the purple. They remind me of the cushions on the settee in the front parlour at home. But I mustn’t think too much about that.

  On the other hand, there’s not much good to say about Mr and Mrs James. From the photographs on the mantelpiece in the dining room, Tom and I reckon they must have three grown-up children. If they treated them like they treated us last night, I should think the kids must have left home as soon as they could. Why did they take us in, if they hate us so much? During tea and then before we went to bed, Mr James scarcely said a word and if he did it was rude or cross. On the other hand, Mrs James never let up. She seemed to have it in for me more than Tom. “Don’t put your elbows on the table! Don’t gobble your food! Don’t scrape your chair on the floor!” (The floor in the dining room’s made of stone, and the chairs make a noise on it.) “Don’t talk with your mouth full!” (When she’d just asked me a question!)

  Then there were the personal comments about my hair (scruffy!) and my dress (too short and too many patterns!).

  Thursday, 31st October

  I couldn’t face writing yesterday. It would have come out all miserable and depressed. Just like the weather.

  Shirl said it rained a lot in Wales, and now I believe her. It started on Tuesday afternoon, and it’s poured down more or less ever since.

  To keep us from getting bored, the Dragon’s had us working for our living. (Well, I’m right that the dragon’s a Welsh national emblem, aren’t I? It seems to suit Mrs James rather well.) She’s had the two of us cleaning her silver and helping with the washing. It hasn’t taken us long to find out that nothing’s ever good enough.

  But we had two letters from home today, one from Mum and Dad and the other from Shirl, and that made us feel better and worse all at the same time. I’m so mixed up, but underneath everything else, I really wish we could go home.

  The food here’s just about all right, but Tom can’t cope with the Dragon’s soup, all watery cabbage. Yesterday he ended up having nothing but chewy bread and yucky jam for tea, because he couldn’t finish his bowl of gruel! There’s plenty of vegetables from the farm, so we won’t be short of beetroot sandwiches, but boy, are we going to miss our fish and chips!

  Saturday, 2nd November

  Yesterday’s chore was gathering kindling for the James’s fire. The Dragon packed us off with baskets over the fields behind the farm to a small copse. And one journey wasn’t enough. Oh no! She had us backwards and forwards at least five times. Now we’ve got enough wood to keep a fire going all winter, if we have to!

  It was an easy enough job because the way the wind’s been blowing up these last few days it’s brought down loads of small branches and twigs from the trees. I don’t mind having something to do. It’s just the way she seems to think we’re here for her personal convenience, like we’re servants or something. There’s never a please or thank you, it’s simply “Do this!” or “Do that!” Or just as often: “Don’t do that!”

  In the afternoon, she sent us off to the stores in Llantrisant to buy some bread and tea. I’ve been carrying an emergency supply of coppers in the pocket of my skirt and I was feeling so down, I thought I’d try and phone Dad from the call box by the crossroads in the middle of the village.

  I just wanted to hear a friendly voice, but when I got through to the fire station in Lewisham, Dad was out on a “shout”, and all I could do was leave a message with the duty desk. This time I couldn’t help it. When I’d put the phone down I cried my eyes out in sheer frustration as Tom looked on pathetically. It can’t be nice to see your big sister properly upset. In the end he put a sticky hand on my arm and I came to.

  “I’ll be all right now,” I sniffed. “Don’t mind me. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have phoned. It won’t change anything, will it?”

  Sunday, 3rd November

  Today must rank as one of the most boring ever. It was a sort of Chapel sandwich. We had to walk to Chapel with Mr and Mrs James for the eleven o’clock morning service, then walk back to the farm for lunch, then back to Sunday School (at the Chapel) in the afternoon, and then (would you believe it?) there was another lot of Chapel in the evening! And the James’s call Sunday a “day of rest”!

  The Chapel is an angry red brick building in the middle of Llantrisant, with “BETHESDA 1888” carved into a large piece of stone high on the front. As you stand in the street it feels like the three big arched windows are like eyes following you as you go, and inside it felt pretty much the same. Everyone turned to look at us when we walked in. Did we each have two heads, I asked myself?

  Morning and evening the Reverend Gwynfor Evans – he’s the pastor at Bethesda – preached a sermon that must have lasted 45 minutes. In the evening I had to keep kicking Tom on the ankle so he wouldn’t fall asleep. And scary stuff it was too, all about sin, hell-fire and damnation. The gist of it was that if we didn’t do what we were told (and I’m sure he kept looking at Tom and me) we were going to burn for certain. Which, given that we’ve come to Wales to escape just that, seems a bit funny really.

  But I tell you what, they can certainly sing round here. I’ve never heard anything like it. A hundred and fifty people in that chapel, and they were making more noise than the crowd do down at The Valley when Charlton are playing at home.

  Sunday school was just awful. The other kids gawped at us, and in between singing and praying we had to kneel on the grubby floor of the chapel hall and use our chairs as a sort of table to colour in some silly pictures of Moses in the bulrushes. I ask you, how old do they think we are? Tom gave up in disgust, so I expect we’re both marked down as members of the awkward squad now.

  Monday, 4th November

  Today we went to a real school for the first time in a year. Well, at least it’s something to do, and gets us away from the smell of the pigs. There’s only the one class in the village school and Miss Williams the teacher seems sweet. She’s quite young and friendly, with beautiful long brown hair done in ringlets. I think she feels sorry for us. In the afternoon, she made us tell the rest of the children about life in Lewisham. You should have seen their eyes when we told them about the bombing. They were standing out on stalks.

  I’m one of the oldest, so I don’t think they’ll give me any bother, but I’ll have to look out for Tom. There’s one ginger kid who might be trouble.

  Tuesday, 5th November

  Firework night! But there won’t be any fireworks in Llantrisant this evening. I don’t think the Welsh would have cared if Guy Fawkes had got away with blowing up the Houses of Parliament. London seems a very long way away.

&n
bsp; And thinking of Mum and Dad and dear Shirl (and Frank and Maureen too), I hope there aren’t too many fireworks over their way either!

  School’s difficult, though the work’s really easy-peasy. But I know I can’t keep putting my hand up to answer questions or I’ll look a right little show-off.

  And every time my back’s turned, I catch that ginger kid giving Tom the eye. His name’s Philip Morgan, and he’s obviously used to being cock of the walk round here. Two things I don’t understand about boys. One is why they’re dirty so much of the time. The other is why they’re always fighting.

  Wednesday, 6th November

  A bad day. The Dragon’s getting worse. She picks me up on everything I do. According to her I’m the most impolite, selfish person there’s ever been. I’m trying really hard, and all she can do is tell me how dreadful I am.

  And then there’s Tom. I thought he was beginning to cope. He’s smiled a bit more in the last day or so, but then I turned my back on him for no more than five minutes at lunchtime, and suddenly there he was, hunched up in a corner with a bloody nose. You’ve guessed it. Philip Morgan!

  Tom’s never been bullied in his life, so I asked him, “Why did you let him do it? I hope you gave him a fourpenny one in return!”

  Tom shook his head miserably.

  “Why not?” I said in amazement.

  “He said they’d all come and get me,” he snivelled.

  Well I saw red, didn’t I? I wasn’t having my little brother being pushed around. “We’ll see about that,” I said, and before school started again after lunch I collared the Morgan kid and shoved him up against a wall. He was very surprised. I don’t think a girl had ever spoken to him like that before.

  “Look,” I said, “do that again, and you’ll need a hospital. Understand?” I hope he didn’t see me shaking, as he crept away to find a stone to hide under. And there’s me complaining about boys fighting all the time. Well isn’t the message of the war that we have to stand up to bullies?

  Anyway, then he went and told on me to “nice” Miss Williams, who turned into not-so-nice Miss Williams. And somehow by the end of the afternoon word had got back to the Dragon her London kids were ruffians and thugs and that it wouldn’t do.

  So neither of us had anything to eat tonight, and Tom’s beside himself with homesickness and anger. I tiptoed out of my room into his to try and hold him together.

  “Stick it out,” I whispered. “It’ll get better, you’ll see!”

  “It won’t,” he moaned, miserably. “I want to go home. I hate this place and I hate school. I want my mum. I’ve had enough!”

  “Tom,” I said, starting to wonder if he might do something stupid, “listen to me. Give it a week. If it isn’t better by then, we might have to think again. But give it a week. Trust me. All right?”

  In the end, he nodded his head.

  Thursday, 7th November

  We had a letter from Mum today, but I had to more or less prise it out of the Dragon’s grasp.

  If she hadn’t dropped the pile of newspapers she was carrying, I don’t think we’d ever have seen it. She looked really annoyed as the letter fluttered from between the newsprint down on to the floor and I helpfully picked it up for her, but she covered her tracks quickly.

  “I was just going to give you that,” she said without a hint of a blush. “Is it from your mum and dad?” As if it was from anyone else!

  Still, they all seem fine, and say not to worry about anything. No mention of my telephone call. Perhaps the message was never passed on?

  Friday, 8th November

  Things are going from bad to worse. Now Tom’s ill!

  He said he didn’t feel too clever on Thursday evening, but then he woke me in the middle of the night to tell me in a very small weak voice that he’d been sick all over his bed. Only the sheets actually, so that wasn’t too bad.

  I tiptoed around trying not to wake anyone, cleaning poor Tom up, pulling the soiled sheets off his bed and replacing them with mine, and finding him a glass of water and a bowl so that if he was sick again the same thing wouldn’t happen. Finally I found an extra moth-eaten blanket in the cupboard and wrapped it around myself till the morning.

  In the morning I got to the Dragon as early as I could. I knew she’d give someone a rollicking, and I wanted it to be me, not Tom. She raged and banged around for a bit, saying that she didn’t have the time to be bothered with stupid children, but in the end she gave me some spare sheets with the threat that they’d have to stay on “for a fortnight at least”.

  Sunday, 10th November

  Tom’s still not completely better. He’s up and about now, but he’s still complaining of a dreadful headache, and it’s obvious he’s got absolutely no energy. I don’t think he’ll make it to school tomorrow. Still, at least we got out of Chapel and Sunday School – Tom because he was ill, and me because I had to look after him, didn’t I?

  Before the Dragons came home in the evening I took my chance and used their tin bath in front of the living room fire for half an hour, boiling up half a dozen kettles on the stove to get the water hot enough.

  I got everything put away in the nick of time before they came in. But it’s very hard not to leave any wet marks behind when you’re trying to wash yourself in a tin bath, and I prayed they wouldn’t see the damp patch I’d left on the rug.

  Monday, 11th November

  The Dragon more or less forced Tom to go to school this morning, accusing him of being a malingerer. I had to explain to Tom she wasn’t saying he’d got a dreadful disease, just that he was lazy! The poor boy sat and shivered by the stove in the schoolroom all day, and even Miss Williams and the other children could see he wasn’t up to working and left him alone.

  In the evening the Dragon came up to my room to call me for dinner, and sort of hung about as if she was trying to find the words to say something important to me. Maybe she’d decided she actually wanted a conversation after two weeks of shouting. I’d been reading my Jane Eyre and she eyed my little row of books suspiciously, up and down, up and down. For a moment I was afraid she was going to tell me reading was a waste of time (which was obviously what she was thinking) and confiscate the books and their hidden hoard of treasure. But she contented herself with a tetchy shake of the head, as if she pitied me, and turned on her heels.

  Wednesday, 13th November

  I’ve never done anything really bad in my life before, but I think I might be about to, and I feel all tied up in knots about it.

  When I think about it, even in the mornings when I’m at my most cheerful, the last fortnight’s been horrible. After that bother with Philip Morgan, the other kids at school have just ignored us. I’d say they’ve sent us to Coventry, but since we’re in Wales that doesn’t seem quite right, does it? Maybe they’ve sent us to Cardiff then! (You can see I haven’t completely lost my sense of humour!)

  After the first day or so, we just stopped bothering about it, talked to each other, and got on with what Miss Williams gave us to do. She’s gone all stand-offish too, but perhaps that’s just in my imagination. That’s the trouble, you see: keeping things in proportion.

  The final straw came today. It’s a week since I said to Tom I was sure things would improve, and I was wondering what I was going to say to him after school today because I knew they hadn’t. Anyway, that’s when it happened. I wasn’t there, mind. I only saw the results.

  For the last couple of days now, Mr and Mrs Dragon have been pushing Tom outside to help with small things on the farm, even though he’s not really better – pulling up vegetables for supper, piling silage on to the wagon, watching how the cows are milked and so on. That’s all right, I suppose. The fresh air’s probably good for him, and it’s better than him hanging round the house getting bullied along with me.

  Anyway, Mr James had Tom in his workshop this afternoon, supposedly teaching him some woodw
ork. Tom told me he’d been practising knocking nails into a bit of wood with one of Mr James’s hammers when he missed the nail and hit his thumb hard.

  I don’t know what Tom said because he won’t tell me, and I can’t think it can have been too awful, because I don’t think he knows many really bad words, but whatever it was shocked old James. I don’t think Chapel folk swear very much, though it doesn’t prevent them being as rude as they like.

  So Mr James comes back in the house literally holding Tom by the ear, and tells the Dragon what he’s said. Now once or twice I’ve heard Mum use the expression “Wash your mouth out with soap and water” when someone’s said a rude word, but I never dreamed anyone would really do it. But that’s exactly what they did. Mr James held Tom down, and she applied the soap. None too gently either.

  I was shocked. As Tom began to howl I started to say they should leave him alone, but the Dragon roughly told me to be quiet or I’d be next for the high jump.

  When they’d finished it was the usual thing. Tom was sent upstairs and told not to come down till he was called. I went with him and dared them to stop me.

  Anyway, I’ve made my mind up. We can’t stay here. Not after that! We’ve given it our best shot, and things aren’t going to get any better.