Long after the war had ended, Annie still woke up in the middle of the night, listening out for the dreadful wail of the air-raid siren.
She’d have to pinch herself to remember that it had all happened in the past, and there was nothing to fear now. Harry slept soundly at her side, just as he had done before the war, when they were first married. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a funny turn with his nightmares and if he was troubled by them, she took that as a sign that he needed to talk to her more about things. He’d never be someone who found that easy, but she accepted him as he was because she loved him so much.
The way his grey eyes twinkled whenever he saw her was enough to let her know she was adored.
People didn’t talk about the Blitz much these days, but the reminders of those terrible war years were all too visible in the craters and the rubble of the bomb sites which had become playgrounds for the next generation. It didn’t matter how many tellings-off worried mothers gave their kids, they’d be scrambling over fallen masonry and playing soldiers in the ruins every chance they got. Annie didn’t like it – not only because of the tragedies that had unfolded there but also because they were blooming dangerous places – but boys would be boys, wouldn’t they?
Everyone knew someone who’d suffered in the war, whether it was losing their house to a German bomb, or a loved one in the conflict. Emotional scars were quietly acknowledged with a listening ear, tea and sympathy, but the Dunkirk spirit still prevailed. People wanted to look forwards, not back, and the politicians had promised new houses, built by the council, which were springing up all over town. They were boxy-looking, modern and clean and people were pleased as Punch to get one, although Annie still loved their flat above the dairy on Horn Lane.
And that wasn’t the best of it. Once word got around that the government was offering free healthcare for everyone, the queues to see the GP were longer than anything that Annie had ever seen outside the grocer’s or the butcher’s during the war.
The new National Health Service was the most wonderful thing for people like them, who’d had to count every last farthing to make sure they had enough money to pay their health insurance.
A trip to the doctor had always been a last resort, and for the children only. Everyone else just struggled on regardless, relying on old family cures or whatever they could get for a few pennies from the chemist’s.
But now things were different, although older folk like Bessie couldn’t quite believe it and Annie practically had to drag her to the GP for a tonic when she got a nasty bout of the flu, which laid her low for weeks.
The saddest thing was that although doctors’ bills were a thing of the past, and politicians talked endlessly on the wireless about building a healthier Britain, the NHS wasn’t able to save George.
Annie wiped away a tear as she looked over at the only photograph she had of her brother. It had been taken in the back garden at Grove Road, just before he headed off to North Africa, when Anita was still a babe in arms. He was smiling, just as he did on the last day she saw him in the hospital. That had never left him, even when the tuberculosis made it almost impossible for him to speak and his body was little more than skin and bone.
George had only lived two years more after he and Mavis got married and although they visited every couple of weeks, Mum always grumbled that she barely saw him. After he died, Mavis came round to Grove Road with his war medals, which he had left to John, still smoking like a chimney. Poor George. He’d dodged German bullets at Dunkirk, D-Day, El Alamein and the Italian campaign only to succumb, at the age of just thirty-six, to a disease he’d picked up on the streets of Acton as a child. But there was no sense to this life, war had taught Annie that much.
The children still played with the beautiful toys he had so lovingly crafted for them because he never had kids of his own, and they helped Mum to look after his chickens which ruled the roost in the old Anderson shelter.
Mum put a brave face on it all, but she was broken by the loss of her son and on the anniversary of his death every year, she made a sad pilgrimage to lay flowers at his graveside and each time she returned from the cemetery, she seemed to grow a little bit weaker.
Annie was worried sick about her, because not only had she been right off her food, she’d lost a huge amount of weight too. Most things were still rationed, but not bread, and so Annie made copious amounts of Mum’s favourite bread and dripping, toasting it by the fire down in Grove Road.
That was all well and good until the children came home from school and tried to snaffle it. Bill would swipe at them playfully and tell them to ‘Sling yer ’ook’, while secretly feeding them titbits; he really was a doting grandfather on the quiet.
He and Mum adored the children. Anita was a proper little bookworm and true to her promise to Kitty, Annie sent her up to Newcastle once a year. She always came back with a smart set of new clothes and a caseload of books from her aunt. Kitty visited them in London too, bringing with her copies of the Shipbuilder for John. She’d sit with him at the kitchen table and make him add up all the ships’ specifications, to help him improve his maths.
It was a good thing for him, that quiet time studying, and Harry encouraged it because, like all the local boys, John loved nothing more than to hare about on his bicycle or use the bomb sites around Acton as a playground.
Kitty had none of that whenever she came to stay. As Kitty sat with John going through all the numbers on the page, Annie cooked their tea, quietly marvelling at this clever and determined woman. Kitty had carved her own path in a world which, even after everything that women had done in the war, still thought the best place for them to be was at the kitchen sink.
It wasn’t that Annie had grand plans to go out to work like Kitty. In fact, Annie didn’t mind being at home; she loved keeping house and watching her little ones grow up. It was what she was good at. Harry was still working at C.A.V. where he was one of the union leaders and they were saving up to go to the Isle of Wight on holiday this year. Annie had never been so far afield; she’d heard the beaches were beautiful.
Harry was happier now too, settled in himself. He liked to read the reports in the newspaper about football and he loved to follow the horse racing, but he was dead set against gambling of any sort, which was unusual for blokes. Annie could never quite work that one out. The only time he allowed himself a flutter was on the Grand National.
Harry had yet to break the news of their planned holiday to Kitty, because she’d been hoping to get them all up to Newcastle for a break. Annie would leave that to Harry. Those two still had their letters to each other and their whispered conversations behind closed doors in the sitting room. It had just become part of the routine whenever Kitty came to stay for Annie to bring in a tray of tea and sandwiches and for the door to be shut firmly behind her as she left them to it. She didn’t listen at the keyhole as she had done that first time – why would she? It was just a brother–sister bond, their relationship, and the way they liked to be with each other to talk privately sometimes. She had an inkling it was rooted in the loss of their father when they were both young, but she didn’t pry because, well, it wasn’t her place to do that.
Now clothing was off the ration, she had started taking on some sewing jobs for other people, to make a little pin money, which was nice because she was a dab hand with a needle and thread. She made all the children’s clothes and things for her sister Elsie too, not least the new petticoats which were all the rage.
They required yards of material and Mum laughed her head off at them the first time she saw Elsie swishing about in hers, which she’d starched so that it stuck out a street mile from her legs.
‘You won’t fit that bloody thing in the wardrobe, my girl,’ said Bill, raising his eyes to heaven when he caught sight of her before she went out dancing.
‘Oh, leave off, Bill!’ Mum chided. ‘She’s entitled to enjoy herself and I think she looks smashing.’
Elsie was still living at home in Grove Road and she’d got herself a job as a secretary in one of the factories, which was a big step up. She was more sociable these days but as she gave Mum a quick peck on the cheek, she said, ‘I’ll be back before eleven, so don’t worry or wait up, promise me?’
Annie secretly hoped that one night her sister might stay out late, returning flushed with excitement at having met someone she could go courting with, but Elsie made it plain she wanted nothing more to do with men.
Gone were the days when she’d gallivant all over the West End or Shepherd’s Bush with her mate Joan. In any case, Joan had disappeared off to Ohio to marry that dratted GI Josh at the end of the war and Elsie didn’t complain when she failed to keep her promise to keep in touch.
Elsie confided in her sister Ivy quite a lot, probably more than she did Annie these days. Those two were close in age and they looked up to Annie as a mother figure because she was already working in the laundries when they were little. They’d always been as thick as thieves.
Ivy’s husband Charlie had come back from the war safely and she was very quickly back under his thumb in a way which kept Annie awake at night, wondering if her sister was happy. Annie, Elsie and Mum all suspected that he was knocking her about a bit when he lost his temper. There were no bruises to show for it but there was something about the way Ivy was quieter around him, and smoked nervously, that set alarm bells ringing. No one ever broached the subject because it probably would have made matters worse and nobody wanted that.
Poor Ivy. It was just one of those things that families knew about but didn’t like to mention. It caused a few awkward silences at get-togethers but nothing that couldn’t be smoothed over with a nice cup of tea and a chat about how much the kids had grown since last time.
It was the same in streets all over town. You never really pried too much into what went on behind closed doors.
It was a grim and freezing morning, the sort of day when Annie was glad to be doing the housework in their flat on Horn Lane with the wireless tuned to the BBC, rather than going out to the shops.
She was just running over the tops of the cupboards with her feather duster when the music stopped and a voice came over the airwaves speaking in a tone which sent a chill down Annie’s spine. It was just like the darkest days of the war.
‘This is London. It is with the greatest sorrow that it was announced today from Sandringham that the King, who retired to rest last night in his usual health, passed peacefully away in his sleep earlier this morning.
‘The BBC is now closing down for the rest of the day except for the advertised news summaries, shipping forecasts and gale warnings.’
Newspaper headlines proclaimed, ‘THE KING IS DEAD!’ and within a day the heir to the throne, Princess Elizabeth, had been named as his successor. She seemed to embody everything that the new decade was about, with her fashionable haircut and beautiful clothes, her dashing husband Philip and their two sweet little children, Charles and Anne.
The state funeral would take place a week later and it was to be shown on the television, which caused a lot of excitement. Mrs Banks, who lived opposite her mum on Grove Road, had a set in her living room and so the whole street crowded in there to watch the funeral. The kids were herded in there by the dozen to see such an important event and clips around the ear were meted out to any child who dared to speak as the funeral procession made its way into St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Winston Churchill was among the mourners, in his heavy overcoat and black top hat, looking so much older. It was as if the weight of the responsibility of leading Britain through the war had finally taken its toll on him.
There were three queens in attendance, all clad in black and wearing veils to hide their grief. Elizabeth, the young princess who would be crowned next year, old Queen Mary, looking as if she’d stepped straight from the Victorian era in her headdress and skirts to the floor, and the late King’s grieving widow, Queen Elizabeth, the heroine of so many London families to whom she’d been a great comfort during the Blitz.
They were the past, present and future of the nation, frozen for a moment in their grief for their son, husband and father. Everyone shared in the sadness of their loss. The King had been a tower of strength for the nation during the battle with Nazi Germany, but there was something about the televised images which made it feel to Annie as if they were intruding, peering in on their world.
Mum didn’t manage to watch the funeral; she was feeling poorly again and so she went for a lie-down. Within a few weeks, she was in hospital. Doctors did some tests and found she was riddled with cancer. There was nothing anyone could do to save her.
Mum didn’t want a fuss, that wasn’t her way, but Annie and her sisters tended to her every need, taking turns to spend as long as they could by her bedside. The nurses did what they could to make her comfortable but her face twisted with pain every time they tried to move her and in the end, she slipped in and out of consciousness, aided by morphia to relieve her torment.
She looked so small and shrunken, lying in hospital bedsheets stiff with starch. Annie thought back to her days at the laundry, when Mum would make light work of ironing those sheets. She’d seemed invincible, not just to Annie, but to all the laundry girls, and especially to Bill, who always joked she was too good for him. Annie had secretly agreed with that, until she was older and realized that for all his faults, Bill treasured her mother.
It was a mercy that he wasn’t there when she finally went.
Mum had been asleep for a while but she suddenly coughed, her chest heaving with the effort of it, and opened her eyes to look straight at Annie.
‘The children send their love,’ said Annie. ‘They’re making you a get-well card and I’ll bring it tomorrow . . .’
Mum smiled and Annie held her hand and, in that moment, Annie noticed her mother’s fingers were as cold as ice. Mum closed her eyes and Annie watched as all the colour drained from her face.
‘Please don’t go,’ Annie whispered. ‘Don’t leave me, Mum.’ But it was too late.
A nurse came to the bedside and felt for a pulse. When there was none, she pulled the sheets over her mother’s head and opened the window.
Somewhere outside, a bird was singing.
The first blossom of spring was on the trees when Mum died. Annie picked some and laid it upon her mother’s grave. She was buried next to George, which was her dying wish.
Bill was lost without his Emma, the woman he’d wooed in the laundries of Soapsud Island during the First World War, who’d put up with all his grumbling and borne him beautiful daughters. The light went out in his world when she went.
A year to the day after her death, he was rushed into hospital with chest pains, taking with him his favourite picture of Emma, as she was when they first got engaged. The nurses found him clutching it when he passed away that afternoon.
Everyone said he’d died of a broken heart. Annie believed them.