As Polly approached her home she was greeted by a familiar sight. Agnes was washing the front doorstep. It was her mother’s daily ritual. Polly had often wondered if this was her mum’s way of telling the outside world that if the front of her house was nipping clean, then the inside was too.
‘Hi, Ma,’ Polly said, forcing an air of gaiety. ‘Shall I put the kettle on for a nice cuppa?’
Agnes hauled herself up, putting her hand on the base of her back and stretching her spine into a gentle arch. ‘That’ll be nice. I’m parched.’
Agnes looked at her daughter and immediately noticed the folded-up letter in her hand. She knew there hadn’t been any post today and felt her body bristle. Something was up and it wasn’t good. That much she knew.
Seeing her mother’s gaze drop to the letter of employment in her hand, Polly stuffed it back into her pocket, and out of the other produced a few slices of tripe wrapped in newspaper and tied with string. It was Polly’s peace offering in advance.
‘Look what I got from the butcher’s on the way home – some tripe.’
Agnes cast a wary eye at her daughter as she dried her hands on her pinafore and made her way into the house. Agnes loved her tripe fried with onions; it was one of her favourite meals, which was just as well as it was also one of the cheapest bits of offal you could buy. But Agnes wasn’t fooled. She knew her daughter better than she knew herself.
As Polly went into the kitchen and busied herself filling the kettle and putting it on the hot stove, Agnes sat down on a kitchen chair, back bolt upright. She waited, then, when the tea was made and a cup placed in front of her, she finally demanded, ‘What is it? Spit it out,’ her face now serious, her dark brown eyes piercing her daughter’s greeny-blue ones. Eyes identical to Polly’s father’s.
‘Ma, it’s nothing to worry about,’ Polly said, taking a deep breath and preparing herself for the fireworks about to explode in their little kitchen. ‘Actually, it’s good news. I’ve got myself a new job.’ She tried to make her voice sound as light and carefree as possible, but didn’t quite succeed.
A foreboding silence followed as Agnes carefully poured some of her tea into her saucer, raised the dish to her mouth and gently blew on the small brown lake of liquid to cool it down. Polly had rarely seen her mum drink her tea from an actual cup.
‘Where?’ Agnes said, her face like thunder.
‘I’ve been taken on as a welder at Thompson’s,’ Polly blurted out. She tried to smile but it came out more of a grimace.
Agnes’s face had now clouded over completely. She slammed her saucer back down on the kitchen table, tea splashing over the edges and on to the wooden tabletop.
‘You’re what?’ she said, trying to keep a lid on her boiling fury.
‘They’re taking half a dozen women on to be welders,’ Polly said. ‘And I’ve been chosen.’
‘Well, they’re just going to have to unchoose you.’ Agnes was incensed. ‘No daughter of mine is going to work in the yards.’ Her voice was getting louder, and they both automatically turned to look at Lucille as she started to stir from her later-than-normal afternoon nap in her cot by the side of the range. ‘It might have escaped your notice, but the bombs they’ve been dropping these past few weeks have been targeting our shipyards. One hit the Deptford yard just the other day – in broad daylight – when everyone was there. Working.’ Agnes spat out her words.
As if for protection from her mother’s onslaught, Polly went to pick up her little niece, who had pulled herself to her feet and was beckoning for a cuddle with outstretched arms poking through the cot’s railings.
‘Yes, but no one was hurt, were they?’ Polly shot back. ‘They only managed to damage the engine works there.’ She picked up Lucille, who immediately wrapped herself around her aunty like a little koala bear, nestling her sleepy face into Polly’s neck.
‘Only by chance and bad luck on their part!’ Agnes’s voice was starting to reach fever pitch. ‘I cannot believe you,’ she added incredulously. Agnes was so angry she could hardly get her words out.
‘But Ma, the yards aren’t the only places the Germans are trying to bomb,’ Polly tried to reassure her. ‘They’re not too keen on the collieries we have here either.’
‘Yes, but you’re not going to work down the mines, are you?’ Agnes snapped back.
‘Ma, there’s more chance of us being bombed here in our own home after what I’ve seen today walking back. They’ve hit more houses than anything else. I’m probably better off in the yards, the rate they’re going.’
Agnes knew there was truth in her daughter’s words, as the homes of the townsfolk stood more or less side by side with most of the town’s industry.
‘That might be the case now, but practice makes perfect,’ Agnes argued back, ‘and Jerry’s aim is going to get better as time goes on.’ But she knew her daughter well enough to know she wasn’t going to back down. Polly had been a determined child and had grown into an even more determined woman, and like so many of the town’s brave men, her daughter also desperately wanted to be a part of the war effort.
As if reading her thoughts, Polly said angrily, ‘I mightn’t be able to fight in the trenches, but I’m damn well going to do whatever I can here.’
‘I’m your mother,’ Agnes said, taking a deep breath, ‘and I say you can’t go to work at the yards.’
It was worth a try, but Agnes was far from surprised by her daughter’s outraged response.
‘You can’t stop me, Ma,’ Polly shouted back, causing Lucille to jerk her sleepy head up. Their mother–daughter argument had reached the no you can’t, yes I can stage, but they both knew the very fact Polly was now an adult trumped Agnes’s rights as a mother. ‘Ma, it’s all arranged. I start Monday morning.’
Agnes sucked in breath at the immediacy of her daughter’s new job, but she still wasn’t quite ready to capitulate. She gave one last throw of the dice. ‘But Pol, welding’s a man’s job,’ she implored. ‘Working in the shipyards is a man’s job.’
‘Oh, how many times have I heard that one?’ Polly said, exasperated, as she balanced Lucille on her hip and opened the larder door with her free hand to try to find some powdered milk. ‘Ma, there’s no more men here to do the “men’s” jobs – it’s up to us women now.’
At that moment Bel, still looking smart in her conductress uniform despite a nine-hour shift, came in through the front door, which had been left open. She’d just finished a relentless day working the Sunderland to Durham bus route and she couldn’t wait to see her darling daughter. It pained her every day to leave her little girl at home, but they needed the money. She knew she was lucky in that she couldn’t want for anyone better than Agnes to look after Lucille, but it didn’t make leaving her all day any easier either.
As she walked down the hallway she caught the tail end of the ongoing argument and braced herself. When Polly and Agnes were at loggerheads it was like the battle of the Titans.
As soon as Agnes caught sight of Bel coming into the kitchen, she demanded, ‘Did you know about this?’
Bel gave a quick sidelong glance at Polly before being distracted by her daughter’s beautiful little face and breaking into a big smile. Every day Lucille seemed to look more like her handsome daddy. Or was it that the more time passed, the more Bel looked for those similarities to keep the memories of the man she loved as close to her as possible?
‘Know about what?’ Bel asked in all innocence, pulling a funny face to make Lucille gurgle with laughter.
‘Polly’s new job at Thompson’s,’ Agnes said, trying to soften the tone of her voice for the sake of her granddaughter, who was now giggling and revelling in her mum’s return.
‘No, I didn’t,’ Bel said, faking wide-eyed surprise wonderfully.
Not for the first time, Polly was in awe at her sister-in-law’s hidden talent for acting. Polly had told her numerous times, ‘You’re wasted on the buses. You should be on the stage.’
With her corn-coloured curly hair and heart-shaped face, Bel also had the looks to be a budding starlet, but the nearest any of them had ever been to the stage was at the Regal, where they’d watched an occasional film or, more recently, newsreels of the latest war updates.
As Polly handed Lucille over to Bel, she whispered ‘Thank you’ in Bel’s ear. It would have added oil to the fire had Agnes learnt that she was the last to know about her daughter’s new job. Polly could easily foresee the apocalyptic outburst which would have inevitably followed had Bel let on she knew about the new job, with accusations of ‘Am I really the last to know?’ and a sarcastic ‘Who am I? Ah, I’m only your mother’ erupting from her mum.
Bel had always had Polly’s back, even as kids when they were growing up on this very street. They’d both been small children when Polly had first brought Bel back home after finding her crying and hungry and shut out of her own house. Bel had gradually become a part of the Elliot household as she was frequently left home alone by her mother, who’d often disappear, sometimes for days on end, on what Agnes referred to as ‘benders’.
Bel had never forgotten how Polly had rescued her that day, and as a result she was fervently loyal to her. She’d always stick up for Polly if she got into any scraps and had told her on numerous occasions, ‘I’ll always be by your side, Pol.’ And she always was.
Today was no exception, although she’d have to play it canny and make Agnes feel she was really on her side if she were to bring her much-loved surrogate mum back down off the ceiling and stop that fiery Irish temperament of hers running out of control.
‘Not only has our Pol just gone and signed up for a job down the yards, but as a welder, of all things,’ Agnes said, gasping with disbelief.
‘Really?’ Bel said, faking yet more surprise.
‘Yes, the very yards that are that madman’s prime target. Is it not bad enough me two boys are out there fighting in some remote desert on the other side of the world, without me daughter sticking herself slap bang in the middle of one of the most dangerous places in the whole of the country?’ Agnes’s latent Irish accent was surfacing from deep within, as it always did when she was either angry, excited or had drunk a rare glass of stout.
‘If everyone thought like that, Ma, then we all might as well start practising our German now,’ Polly snapped, ‘because that’s the language we’ll be speaking if we don’t get the ships out to help win this war.’
‘She’s right, Agnes,’ Bel quickly intercepted, knowing if she didn’t defuse the situation now it was likely to get out of hand. ‘The yards are desperate for workers. Most of the welders and riveters, like Teddy and Joe, have gone, or are just about to go. Someone has to step into their shoes. And besides,’ she added calmly, ‘you’re always telling us: “You can do anything you want – just because you’re a woman, it doesn’t mean you’re any less than a man.”’
Agnes’s mind scrabbled around for a convincing argument, but Bel was right. She’d always told Polly and Bel that they were as good as the next person – and the next man. She had become a victim of her own successful indoctrination.
And now that Bel was here and gently arguing Polly’s case, the wind went out of her sails and Agnes slumped back in her chair.
It was true: when word had gone round that they were allowing the town’s women to fill the positions in the shipyards left vacant by the menfolk, her first reaction had been, ‘It’s about time.’ She’d never understood why they’d had women working in the shipyards in the First World War – some of those women had even been commended personally by King George V when he’d visited Laing’s yard – but had then dropped them like a ton of bricks as soon as the war had ended. But, the mother inside of her argued, that was different. This was her daughter. And this was a different war.
The shipyards that lined the River Wear were renowned for their excellence, as well as their closely knit production sites, and it was exactly for these reasons that they had become one of the main targets for Hitler’s bombers. Because of this the whole town now lived under a dark and threatening cloud, constantly vigilant for the distant drone of the Luftwaffe’s planes.
Agnes knew she wasn’t going to win this argument. Wild horses wouldn’t stop her Pol from starting this job. ‘How any daughter of mine has ended up so pig-headed is beyond me,’ she said, defeated but adamant she would have the final word.
Polly and Bel exchanged a look of relief. They had won. Agnes had capitulated.
The two girls drifted out into the backyard and unpegged the laundry and bedlinen Agnes had put out on the line earlier on in the day, and which was now bone dry.
Agnes stayed at the kitchen table, sipping at her saucer of tea and getting lost in thought.
Polly’s determination to work in the yards shouldn’t have surprised her. She should really have seen it coming. She’d always loved to hear about her older brothers’ day when they came back from working in Doxford’s shipyard. And when she was little she was forever begging her mum to take her down to the docks to see the latest launch. Her favourites were those made from Bartram’s further down the river on the south dock, as it was the only yard in the whole country that launched directly into the sea, which made it far more unpredictable and risky as the waters could be turbulent and cause the ship to keel over if the tugboats guiding it out didn’t do their job properly.
Polly had never been a great one for dollies or playing house. Not like Bel, who had loved nothing more than to sit in the kitchen and watch Agnes cook and then go off and pretend to be ‘mummy’, and feed and clothe any of the little baby dolls Polly had discarded through lack of interest. Polly had always been a bit of a tomboy. It probably hadn’t helped that she’d been brought up with two very loud and energetic brothers – and twins at that. But Agnes thought Polly’s boyish tendencies were more likely due to the fact that she’d been trying to compensate for not having a dad, just like Bel had been trying to make up for not having much of a mum by pretending to be one herself.
As her mind wandered once again to her darling Harry, Agnes got up and walked into her bedroom. She opened the top drawer of her bedside table and took out her husband’s medal. Her Harry had been taken from her too soon, during the final weeks of the First World War in 1918, and now Agnes lived in constant fear that the same fate would befall not only her boys, but her daughter also.
Polly had just been a baby and the twins two and a half when Harry was declared ‘missing presumed dead’, but Agnes had tried to keep his memory alive, not just for her own sake, but for the sake of her two boys, and for her little girl who had never even got to meet her own father.
And she’d done a good job – perhaps too good, as Polly had hero-worshipped the dad she’d never known, especially when she’d learnt he had given his life for King and country. She’d demanded her mum tell her in exact detail everything about her dad: how they’d met, got married, had children; what he looked like; what his job had been before he’d left for war. Everything.
The one thing Agnes could never answer was where Harry had died. His body had never been found, and so there was no grave to visit.
The only physical reminder Agnes had been left with was a medal to commend her husband’s sacrifice and his bravery, the Military Medal for ‘acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire’. It was a medal Agnes cherished like the Crown jewels themselves. Even more so. If Agnes had been offered a swap, it wouldn’t have mattered how poor they were, there would never have been any doubt: the medal would have won over every time.
Agnes’s reverie was broken by the sound of clattering pots and pans and Polly’s voice shouting out, ‘Ma, I’m going to get the tripe on now. Where’ve you hidden the onions?’ Her daughter sounded more relaxed now she’d dropped her bombshell and come out of it relatively unscathed.
‘Where they always are,’ Agnes shouted back. ‘Open yer eyes.’ She couldn’t be angry with Polly for long, or sad for that matter. There was too much of that about these days. ‘And put some tatties on the boil while you’re at it,’ she said, walking back into the hub of the kitchen.