The war continued to dominate conversation in the factories, pubs and homes of Britain. After much of Europe had been occupied by the Axis powers for four years, and with public concern of a German invasion of Britain, the Allies finally launched their campaign to liberate Western Europe, codenamed Operation Overlord. The public’s moral lifted with reports of massive numbers of Allied troops being landed in Europe where the RAF had already secured air supremacy. The nation’s spirits were high, and guarded talk that the end might be in sight was commonplace.
It was also in the June that Ruth was to be summoned into the living room of the Carmichaels home to be told that by the end of September the family would be moving out of their home as the landlord wanted the house back. In itself this was unsurprising as Ruth was aware that the tenancy was due for renewal. What was a surprise was that the family was to move to Eastbrook Farm on the outskirts of the tiny hamlet of Whittingham set against the lower slopes of the Lancashire Pennines some twenty miles from Blackpool and about six miles from Preston.
There was no consultation with Ruth who it transpired had been kept in the dark for more than three months whilst the family had been transacting the lease for the farm. Ruth could not separate this decision from a desire on Edward’s part to keep her from her friends and Blackpool though it transpired that his motives were far more Machiavellian.
The tenancy for the farm had come about because of the death of the owner, a bomber pilot who had been shot down and killed. His wife, who Sam and Ellen knew was unable to continue to manage the smallholding that had commitments to supply eggs, poultry, milk and pigs to the local community and the military forces in Blackpool.
Sam’s interest in farming went back to his own childhood where he had grown up and spent over twenty years on the family’s small farm on the outskirts of Pilling not very far away. He was therefore used to the farming way of life, but importantly, he saw this as a way of moving into a family business. Sam needed to pull many strings to ensure that this valuable tenancy was secured by the Carmichaels particularly as it was one of a number of prime strategic suppliers to the RAF locally. The Carmichaels seemed able to secure the transfer of the farm tenancy and the purchase of the livestock when many others who were far better qualified could and probably should have been given preference.
Ruth could only imagine what life would be like living on a remote farm, miles away from her friends, Moira and her now settled life in Lancashire. She feared the isolation and the inevitable pressure on her to spend any spare time she might have working on the farm, rather than with Charlotte. There was also the matter of how she would get to and from Blackpool. She was told that Sam would take Edward and her to Preston each day by car where they could catch buses that were especially laid on to take workers to both the Preston and Blackpool aircraft plants.
The plans seemed to Ruth to be fragile and in discussing them with Moira they alighted upon the solution that Ruth should stay once again with Moira between Monday and Friday spending the weekends with Charlotte and the family at Eastbrook Farm. Whilst this meant that Ruth would not see her precious Charlotte during the week it seemed to all concerned to be an admirable solution.
September came and Ruth and Edward managed to take a few days from their work to help with the move to Eastbrook Farm. They arrived at the end of the day when furniture and personal belongings had been delivered in the back of a truck provided by the egg packing company that would collect their eggs every two days.
They were met at the farm gate by an old man in his late sixties who introduced himself as Tom Masters, the farm hand. He was a chirpy wizened old man wearing wellington boots from a bygone age, a long coat with string tied around the middle to keep it closed from the chilling breeze and a potato sack draped around his shoulder to stop the evening rain from penetrating. “I’ve been here man and boy” was his greeting as he guided them to the farmhouse rather as though he were ushering royalty.
The farm itself was situated immediately alongside a single track country road that linked a number of small villages and farms. It also served as the main link to Goosnargh to the south which was where the nearest shops were located and Garstang to the west, a more substantial market town. The farm was on the road to the Bowland Forrest and the Trough of Bowland and, for Charlotte, Jubilee Tower where she was conceived. The nearest farmhouse was Bowland Moss Farm which was about half a mile away and there were small workers houses a little nearer. The farmhouse itself dated back to the eighteenth century. It had three bedrooms a large working kitchen with a wood fired stove, a small living room that overlooked the road and another room to the rear which was a boot room with a toilet and bath.
Ruth’s first impression was of a dark uninviting place with low exposed beams, flaking whitewashed walls and cold flagstone floors. The bedroom that she and Edward were to share was slightly larger than she had anticipated but was also dark because of its exceptionally small window cut into the eaves of the house. The walls were papered with floral patterned wallpaper that was in good condition and the boarded wooden floor had a small carpet by the sink. There was electric lighting and power provided to the house and out buildings but as this regularly failed, there was also a backup generator.
Ruth and Edward were shown around the farm by Sam with Tom Masters close at his heel correcting any errors he was making about aspects of the farm or the stock. To the very rear of the first half acre field were rows of nesting boxes for the four hundred laying chickens and a propagation shed. As they moved towards the chicken sheds, the birds seemed to sense that as it was already getting dusk they would need to go inside where a feed would be there for them. Tom explained that if the birds were not in the hen houses by dusk it was difficult to get them in and the local foxes would undoubtedly kill some overnight.
With the birds safely in for the night their final job was to settle down the thirty six pigs. The smell as they approached the pig stalls was distinctive and lingering as Tom explained that three schools provided swill for the farm, in return for the occasional chicken. Finally Sam pointed to the nearby field and explained that there was a milking herd of thirty cows that Tom looked after seven days per week. On the edge of the other farm yard buildings were a rundown but adequate milking parlour and winter stabling.
As they turned in the fading light to return to the house, Ruth noticed the silhouette of another shed and was about to ask what that was used for when she saw the familiar amateur radio mast proudly erected alongside it. Ruth was furious as she realised that Edward must have been to the farmhouse previously to erect the aerial when he would have had the opportunity to show her the property she was to live in. When she challenged Edward, he was dismissive and firm when he said, “That shed is for my exclusive use and will be locked at all times. If you ever need to get me when I’m in there, there is a bell in the kitchen.”
Ruth quickly settled into the routine of staying with Moira during the week and returning to the farm at weekends. She also enjoyed the renewed freedom of being able to come and go as she pleased. She began to reconnect with her work friends and to go out dancing and ice skating again. Whilst she met young men when she was out at night, she was quick to ensure they knew she was married and would be returning alone to her home at the end of the evening. Ruth was surprised that no one seemed to have seen Sarah around the Blackpool scene and reported sightings of Edward in the dance halls of Blackpool also dried up. Ruth took this to be a positive sign but what she didn’t know was that Edward and Sarah were meeting in Preston somewhere Ruth never went.
Ruth continued her letter writing always being careful not to give a hint of the secret side of her life. This was a terrible subterfuge and was made the more difficult to manage when Ruth so wanted to confide in her mother or Mary and especially Auntie Lott. Her letters were sterile considering the constant turmoil in her life and she felt sure that those who knew her best must also know her letters were guarded and lacked the spontaneity that had so characterised her earlier letters.
In Mary’s most recent letter to Ruth, she confided that her mother was about to move to Cambridgeshire to live with Colonel Hawkeye Brockenbeck who she had met when they visited Blackpool. Mary was concerned that her mother was planning to ‘live over the broom’ a common term used to suggest that an unmarried couple would live as man and wife.
Mary was no prude but she considered this to be improper and had told Mrs Morgan. Mary wrote that she would not be going to RAF Brampton in Cambridgeshire with her mother and told Ruth in the letter that she had joined the army to provide whatever help she could in the war effort. She ended her letter by saying, ‘I will write to you as often as I can, my dear friend, but I hope for one thing in what I’m doing and that is to find someone to love and someone who will love me‘.
It was evident within a matter of weeks that the attempt at the good life on the farm was placing an enormous strain on the family. Sam was unable or unwilling to employ additional help and so he and Ellen were hopelessly overstretched. Ellen took on the responsibility for the poultry and with a little advice from Tom she managed to maintain the egg production but at some cost to her own health. She would work from as early as six o’clock collecting and packing eggs, cleaning the runs and managing the chicks.
Sam’s natural overbearing and demanding personality had room to flourish as he drove Ellen and Tom without any regard for their health or their advancing years. On a Friday night when Ruth arrived home she would immediately be put to tasks that had failed to be done in the week mainly by Sam. Whilst Sam had nominated himself to manage the pigs they were poorly cared for and Ruth would spend much of her weekend under the command of Sam cleaning the pigsties and caring for the pigs.
The family muddled through but it was rare to find Edward or his father working. When Edward was at home on the weekend his father would give him the accounts to manage which were always done in the relative comfort of his radio shack where the sound of Morse code could always be heard whenever Edward was at home. Ruth continued to be suspicious and uncomfortable by Edward’s insistence that his amateur radio hobby was indeed a hobby.
Ruth’s instinct that there was somehow a link between Edward’s amateur radio activities and the war was well founded but she like the rest of Britain was not to know anything of what really was going on in the back bedrooms and garden sheds of almost fifteen thousand homes across Britain.
At the outbreak of the war, the intelligence agency MI-5 rolled out its contingency plans to deal with the problems of illicit radio transmissions by creating a new body called the Radio Security Service. Their role was to intercept, locate and close down all illicit wireless radios operated by enemy agents in Britain or by people who had not been licensed under the British defence regulations to operate a radio transmitter. The newly created body needed to create a completely new organisation and because of a lack of infrastructure and expertise, the Radio Security Service turned to the amateur radio world. Under the military intelligence cover of MI-18, Voluntary Interceptors were recruited and trained to scan the airwaves for radio traffic from in and around Germany and the rest of Europe. It was in September nineteen forty when Edward was signed off from his engagement in the Merchant Navy that he too was secretly recruited.
Edward had been a well known amateur radio enthusiast prior to his Merchant Navy days and had distinguished himself whilst at sea for his acute skills at being able to judge the probable distance of a radio signal and an uncanny ability to recognise the ‘signatures’, the small traits and individual idiosyncrasies of a particular person who was sending Morse Code. Edward would know the small tell-tale Morse signature of the radio operators on any of the company’s sister ships, a skill that was instantly noted and later acted upon. These were the exact skills that the Radio Security Service was looking for.
Edward was approached on leaving the Merchant Navy, asked to sign the Official Secrets Act and was then told about work that the Radio Security Service and what the Voluntary Interceptors were doing. Edward was immediately recruited. His engineering and radio skills combined made Edward ideal for work at the Vickers factory in Blackpool as an ‘essential worker’ and his employment there was secured. Finally, Edward was given the cover of being a Special Constable in order that the combination of being an essential engineer at Vickers and a Special Constable might explain why he was not serving on the front line of the war.
As a Voluntary Interceptor, Edward would be allocated predetermined wavelengths to monitor and his role was to listen and log the tell tale signs and traits of broadcasters sending Morse code. These logs were sent to a ‘Box’ at the Radio Security Service where they were examined by discriminators. Much of the material would eventually find its way to the National Codes and Cipher Centre at Bletchley Park.
None of this was ever known by Ruth who continued to suspect any manner of reasons why Edward spent so much time in the radio shack. For Edward, this clandestine existence was both exciting and convenient.
It was now December and a bitter winter was setting in which made life difficult on the farm. The farmhouse itself was always cold with the exception of the kitchen where most of the family would gather. Christmas Day in nineteen forty four was like any other but at least the family ate well. Charlotte was by now crawling and attempting her first steps and was increasingly close and dependent upon the weary Ellen.
Ruth was tired too and on one occasion she caught sight of herself in a mirror and was shocked to see herself looking so drawn and pale. The family managed to be civil with each other over the Christmas break but it was a fragile truce. Ruth was barely spoken to civilly and comparisons with Sarah were regularly held up as being what a model daughter-in-law would act like.
Ruth had discussed with Edward the deteriorating relationship between herself and him and the open animosity shown towards her by his parents. Edward attempted to improve their relationship but could not or would not do anything to change the way his parents treated her. Ruth even contemplated leaving Eastbrook Farm and trying to set up home with Charlotte and even discussed this with Moira.
Ruth approached Edward with the suggestion that they should rent the nearby Bowland Moss farmhouse which had been empty for some time and he was outraged by the suggestion. He said that he was perfectly content staying with his parents. He simply could not see how desperately unhappy Ruth had become.
In early January nineteen forty five already depressed and looking ill Ruth was horrified to realise that she was pregnant. On this occasion she didn’t need an African Clawed Frog to tell her, she knew for herself as she felt the world collapsing around her. Her only chance of escape from this unhappy marriage had hinged upon the faint hope of her finding someone to take in a mother and child… but a pregnant mother and child would now be out of the question.