April 1942
Lizzie Harrison thrust her spade into the heavy black soil then tilted her head to feel the warmth of the sun on her face. It had been a long, hard winter, and this Sunday morning in early spring she and her sister, Connie Bailey, had jumped at the chance to work on the family allotment alongside their father Bert.
‘Shift out of the way.’ Connie shoved Lizzie to one side and carried on working. They had a job to do – a trench to dig and seed potatoes to plant – and dawdling was not Connie’s style. Her shirtsleeves were rolled up and her dark, wavy hair was tamed by a bright red scarf tied Gypsy-fashion around her head.
‘Watch what you’re doing.’ Lizzie staggered then regained her balance. She caught sight of their father stooped over the workbench inside his shed – scrawnier than ever since his heart attack just before Christmas. His grey hair was slicked back and his faded blue overalls hung loosely from his spare frame. When Bert attempted to lift a heavy pallet of seed potatoes Lizzie rushed to take it from him.
‘Nay – I can do it,’ he objected half-heartedly, though he let her carry the tray nevertheless.
‘I know you can, Dad, but you’ve been given strict orders to take it easy,’ she reminded him. She was glad that she hadn’t put on too many layers this morning – simply a short-sleeved Aertex shirt and a pair of khaki dungarees, tightly belted around her slim waist. ‘This spot of sun is grand – why not sit there on the bench for a while and tell Connie and me what we’re doing wrong?’
‘The trench isn’t deep enough. You’re putting the spuds in too close together and upside down.’ Connie mimicked their father’s flat, gravelly voice as she listed their likely shortcomings.
‘Go on, take the mickey all you like,’ Bert grumbled as he took up position on the bench. He still felt breathless at the least exertion, darn it. His arms were weak and his legs trembled as he sat down. ‘But I’ve been winning prizes for my spuds – not to mention my carrots and onions – since before you two were born.’
Lizzie lifted her spade again, ready to take instruction. She didn’t mind the heavy work or the stench of horse manure emanating from the steaming heap by the gate, but as the blade sliced into the earth she couldn’t help smiling to herself. ‘Other girls spend their Sunday mornings filing their nails or reading the latest Daphne du Maurier, not knee-deep in horse muck,’ she commented.
‘Or else sitting at their sewing machines making dresses for their weddings.’ Connie gave her sister a meaningful glance as she stood up straight and eased the crick in her back. ‘How are the preparations for the big day coming along, by the way?’
‘Grand – St Joseph’s is booked and we’ve got the date we were hoping for, the sixteenth of next month.’
‘With the reception in the church hall afterwards?’ Connie was to be Lizzie’s maid of honour. They’d chosen a forget-me-not-blue satin for her, and the bride’s dress would be made from salvaged parachute silk trimmed with lace. At home on Elliot Street the pattern pieces were pinned to the delicate fabric, ready to be cut out then stitched.
Lizzie’s face glowed with a mixture of pleasure and nervous apprehension. ‘Bill and I want to keep it small. He doesn’t like a fuss.’
‘Typical bloke,’ Connie grunted as she returned to her methodical digging, placing her foot on the lug of the spade and using her full weight to ram the blade in deep before lifting and turning the glistening earth to one side. Her own pre-war wedding to John Bailey had been a quiet affair too. My, but that seems a lifetime ago. How young I was, how blithe and hopeful. ‘I take it you’ve told Bill he’ll have to wear a suit.’
‘Don’t worry, it’s all in hand.’ Lizzie’s fiancé, Bill Evans, wasn’t a suit-and-tie man – in fact, he was usually to be seen in his trawlerman’s outfit of heavy Guernsey sweater, oilskin trousers and rubber boots. ‘Yesterday I dragged him kicking and screaming to Moss Bros to get measured up.’
Connie grinned. ‘Well done, you. Who’ll take charge of catering for the do in the church hall?’
‘I’ve asked Aunty Vera and her group of WI ladies. She’s already started saving food coupons for the big day.’
‘Damned rationing,’ Connie grumbled. It had started in January 1940 with bacon, butter and sugar and had since spread to meat, tea, jam, biscuits, cheese, eggs, lard and milk. You name it; there was now a national shortage thanks to Herr Hitler’s blasted blockades.
‘Less yacking, you two,’ Bert growled from his bench. ‘At this rate those spuds will never get planted.’
‘Something tells me I came along at the right moment.’ The allotment gate swung open and Pamela Carr arrived, dressed for action in green corduroy trousers, white blouse and a fawn V-necked jumper. The Harrison sisters’ fellow warden from the Air Raid Precautions team carried a garden fork and a pair of stout gardening gloves. So slight that it seemed a gust of wind would blow her clean over, Pamela’s light brown, stylishly cut hair and wide grey-green eyes added to the impression that she would be more at home on a catwalk than a muddy allotment.
‘Hey up, here comes the cavalry.’ Fearing that there would be no end to the yacking now that a fresh volunteer had shown up, a sarcastic Bert retreated inside his shed.
‘What can I do to help?’ Pamela hovered by the edge of the Harrison plot. Every allotment within the fenced area behind St Joseph’s School was freshly dug and mostly bare at this time of year, with prickly gooseberry bushes and raspberry canes cut hard back and brave rhubarb shoots just nosing through the dark, wet soil.
‘You can spread some of that horse muck around the rhubarb for a start.’ Connie knew that the smelly job would test the mettle of their more refined friend. ‘There’s a wheelbarrow by the shed.’
But Pamela didn’t flinch as she fetched the barrow then stuck her fork into the heap of fresh manure. ‘Kelthorpe is due a visit from King George,’ she announced from the far side of the allotment. ‘Did you know that, Mr Harrison?’
‘Since when?’ Bert had emerged from the shed and stood with his gnarled hands in his overall pockets, watching the three girls work.
‘It was on the wireless this morning. He and Queen Elizabeth are scheduled to make a tour of bombsites up and down the north-east coast – us included.’
‘Poor old Kelthorpe.’ Connie had reached the end of her trench and paused to gaze across the allotments at the spire of St Joseph’s Church and beyond that to the dockside area, where a dozen or more steel cranes were visible against a clear blue sky. Many of the warehouses lining St Stephen’s dock had been damaged during recent Luftwaffe attacks on vital North Sea ports. ‘To be honest, I doubt that a visit from Bertie and his missis will do much to raise morale round here.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Pamela argued. ‘To my way of thinking, we’re all in it together, rich and poor alike.’
‘Not quite.’ Connie stuck to her guns. ‘The royals aren’t forced to spend their nights cowering in damp, smelly air raid shelters like the rest of us. They swan off to Windsor at the first sign of trouble. And did you know that the Queen gets over twelve hundred clothing coupons per year compared with our measly sixty-six?’
‘Now, now, you two.’ Lizzie wasn’t sure whose side she was on, though that many clothing coupons did seem a bit much. She crouched down to set the potatoes in the bottom of her trench.
Bert chipped in with his two penn’orth. ‘Say what you like, the one we have on the throne now is a darned sight better than that useless article we had before. Him and that Wallis Simpson woman would’ve been worse than useless at a time like this.’
‘That’s true,’ Connie conceded. ‘Anyway, they’ve shipped him off to the Bahamas, out of harm’s way.’
Pamela grew warm as she deftly forked manure into the barrow. ‘Anderson’s is on the list of places,’ she said, referring to the timber yard where she worked as a secretary.
‘What do you mean – what places?’ Lizzie enquired.
‘That’s due a royal visit this coming Wednesday.’
‘Oh my!’ Lizzie stood up and shouted to her father, who had disappeared behind the shed. ‘Did you hear that, Dad? Pamela here will most likely shake hands with the King!’
There was no reply so, mystified and a little worried, all three girls went to investigate. They found Bert standing stock-still with his back turned and both arms raised in warning.
‘Stay where you are,’ he muttered through gritted teeth, slowly lowering one hand to point to a tangle of brambles at the base of the paling fence that separated the allotments from the school yard. There, nestled among the thorny tendrils, inert and silent, was the unmistakable, cone-shaped nose of an unexploded bomb. ‘Don’t make any sudden movements.’ Bert scarcely breathed. ‘The least little thing could set if off.’
‘Oh!’ Pamela gasped. The ugly steel object made her blood run cold. ‘How long has it been there, I wonder?’
‘God knows.’ Connie studied the sinister weapon. The last tip-and-run raid had taken place three nights before, when Jerry had offloaded his spare bombs over Kelthorpe on his way back to base after an attack on York.
‘It looks like a Hefty Hermann,’ Lizzie said, identifying the massive SC1000 – hundreds of kilograms of high explosives named after Field Marshal Göring.
‘What do we do?’ Pamela whispered.
‘Don’t move!’ Bert insisted.
‘One of us should telephone for a reconnaissance team.’ Lizzie repressed a shudder. ‘And the others ought to evacuate the nearby houses.’
After the first shock had passed, Connie’s training as an air raid warden came into play and, despite being off duty, she quickly took charge. ‘Back away slowly, Dad. That’s right – one step at a time.’
‘I know the drill,’ he replied tersely. Bert had acted as head warden at the Gas Street sector post until illness had put a stop to that and Connie had taken over. He of all people was aware that the least vibration could cause the bomb to detonate and blow them all to kingdom come.
Pamela held her breath as she too edged backwards, feeling her way around the shed and waiting for the others to join her.
‘So far so good,’ Bert murmured. ‘There’s a telephone box on the corner of College Road. I’ll get on the blower to the report centre. They’ll send out the reconnaissance boys.’
‘We three will raise the alarm and stand guard,’ Connie decided. ‘Pamela, head for the church – it’ll be crammed with worshippers for the morning service. Tell the vicar to get everyone out pronto. Lizzie, knock on all the doors on Maypole Street and warn them.’
‘What will you do?’ Lizzie asked as Bert and Pamela set off on their urgent missions.
‘I’ll keep watch here.’ Connie gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the tight band of fear that had formed around her chest. Luckily, no one else was on the allotments at present, but other keen gardeners were likely to show up as the morning wore on.
‘You’re sure?’ Reluctant to leave Connie alone, Lizzie hesitated.
‘Yes – go!’ Connie pictured the sequence of events: houses within a quarter-of-a-mile radius would have to be evacuated and the area sealed off, perhaps for days, as the brave BROs carried out their work. Police would be needed to redirect traffic, while gas, water and electric supplies would be cut off. It would be a massive operation. Finally, lorry loads of sand would be brought in to muffle a controlled explosion of the deadly device. Rather them than me. Connie pictured the conditions for the disposal team – all volunteers like her – who would be risking life and limb. ‘Go!’ she repeated to Lizzie. ‘There’s not a moment to lose.’
So much for a quiet morning planting spuds! Reluctantly, Lizzie followed her sister’s orders, crossing the street to begin knocking on the doors of the terraced houses that faced the allotments.
‘What the heck …?’ A red-faced man in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat answered Lizzie’s heavy knock. He was collarless and in need of a shave. ‘We’re in the middle of our breakfasts, I’ll have you know.’
‘UXB,’ Lizzie explained as she pointed frantically in the direction of the threat. ‘SC1000, a big one. You and your family need to get out of here fast.’
‘What’s up?’ the woman at the next house demanded as she flung open her door and glanced up and down the street. Three small children peeped out from behind her skirt, their faces smeared with the remains of toast and jam.
‘UXB!’ Lizzie told her. ‘Go straight to the underground shelter on College Road. Don’t stop to gather any belongings. As fast as you can.’
She hurried to the next house, knocked then waited impatiently.
‘Hold your horses – no need to break the door down.’ A frail, stooping woman in her eighties answered Lizzie’s knock with a trembling hand and an anxious look. ‘Yes, what is it?’
‘There’s an unexploded bomb on the allotments,’ Lizzie explained carefully. ‘Are you able to make your way to the shelter on College Road?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after her.’ The harassed young woman from next door herded her three girls out on to the street. ‘Come along, Jessie, take my arm. You’ll be safe with us.’
A lump came into Lizzie’s throat as she saw the small group make their way towards the shelter – the young and healthy assisting the old and infirm. But there was no time to stand and watch. On she went, knocking on doors and delivering bad news, praying that the street would be cleared without loss of life.
‘Unexploded bomb!’ Pamela burst through the doors of St Joseph’s Church. Sunlight streamed in through the stained-glass windows and organ music rose to the rafters.
‘“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.”’ A twelve-strong choir in crisp white choristers’ smocks led the congregation, and the mellifluous sound of their singing drowned out Pamela’s warning.
She ran down the aisle to intercept the vicar as he approached the pulpit. ‘Stop the service. Empty the church. There’s a bomb on the allotments.’
Gerald Greene looked at her in alarm. ‘Are you sure?’
‘“Merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed trinity.”’
Pamela tugged desperately at the wide sleeve of Greene’s surplice. ‘Quite sure. You must evacuate everyone this instant!’
Sensing a disruption, the organist swivelled in her seat to see a slip of a girl in corduroy trousers and muddy wellington boots engaging in a rapid exchange with the vicar. Greene caught the musician’s eye and signalled for her to cease playing.
‘“Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee …”’ The pipes wheezed then fell silent and the choir and congregation trailed off. Dust motes danced in the sunlight and the brass eagle on the lectern gleamed bright. A hundred parishioners held their breath.
The vicar – a rotund man with a shiny, bald head and a florid complexion – appealed for calm. ‘This is a red alert – follow procedure,’ he instructed. ‘Leave quietly by the main door. Don’t run.’
‘What the bloody hell for?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘I didn’t hear any sirens.’
Confusion reigned – was this a daytime raid or what? People nudged and pushed, muttered and swore.
Pamela ran up the steps into the pulpit and raised her voice above the hubbub. ‘Listen, everyone! A bomb has been discovered on the allotments – a big one. I’m an ARP warden and we’re taking steps to evacuate the area as a safety precaution. The bomb reconnaissance squad is on its way.’ Her voice was loud and confident, though her body shook and her hands gripped the lectern until her knuckles turned white. ‘You must take cover. Those who have Anderson shelters at home, go straight there and wait for the all-clear. For the rest of you, there’ll be room in the College Road shelter.’
‘Blimey O’Reilly – let me out of here!’ A tall man in a grey mackintosh and brown bowler hat began to shove his way past women and children. A younger man in a similar coat and hat followed hard on his heels.
Pamela acted quickly by hurrying down from the pulpit and laying a hand on the older man’s shoulder. ‘Wait your turn,’ she ordered sharply.
‘Says who?’ The older man, who had a stubborn, unmovable presence, shrugged her off and proceeded to push regardless.
‘Says me.’ Bert had ended his phone call to the town hall control centre then quickly made his way to the church, entering through the vestry door in time to hear Pamela issue clear instructions. Now he squared up to the bullies in the bowler hats. ‘I know you two of old, always putting yourselves first.’
Though Ben Simmons and his son Lionel were both younger and more strongly built than Bert, they avoided the old man’s gaze, ducking their heads and muttering as they backed down. Sullenly they took their places in what was now an orderly queue filing from the church two at a time.
Once outside, Pamela quickly shepherded the jittery congregation across the graveyard with its blackened tombstones and leaning stone crosses and from there on to College Road, past Barbieri’s fish and chip shop and on again past the bombed-out Gazette building.
‘Nearly there,’ Pamela said briskly as they passed Cynthia’s hair salon then Harrison’s Bakery. At the entrance to the underground shelter, she joined Lizzie beneath arrows indicating ladies to one side and gentlemen to the other. A pungent smell of disinfectant and bleach emanated from the cubicles below.
‘Careful there – mind how you go,’ Lizzie said as she marshalled the residents of Maypole Street to the safety of the underground public conveniences.
‘Thanks, love,’ the woman with the three children murmured as she passed by with frail Jessie in tow.
‘One at a time, no need to push,’ Pamela cautioned Ben Simmons, who was once more elbowing others aside; every man for himself.
Bert brought up the rear. ‘Save your breath,’ he said with a scornful curl of his lip in Simmons’s direction. Then he too descended the steps.
‘All present and correct?’ Pamela asked Lizzie, her heart pounding. Their job was done. Now all they had to do was wait and pray.
‘Except for Connie,’ Lizzie reminded her friend with a nervous smile.
‘Oh my goodness – Connie.’
Pamela and Lizzie’s minds flew back to the allotments and to Lizzie’s sister standing solitary guard over the deadly SC1000.
Every nerve in Connie’s body was stretched to the limit as she watched the bomb reconnaissance vehicle screech to a halt at the end of Maypole Street. Five men clambered down from their lorry, dressed for action in dark blue battledress with stout canvas belts and steel helmets stencilled with the letter ‘R’ for Rescue. Connie raised both arms to signal the position of the bomb. ‘Over here!’
The BROs climbed the allotment steps with the utmost caution. The leader of the specialist team – a middle-aged chap with short grey hair, glasses and a lantern jaw – ordered Connie to back away from the danger zone.
‘Gently does it,’ he said, scarcely moving his lips. ‘By Jove!’ he breathed when he saw the size of the problem nestled among the brambles. ‘A Hefty Hermann – Jerry meant business, all right.’
‘St Joseph’s Church and Maypole Street are being evacuated to the College Road shelter,’ Connie reported. Her minutes on guard had seemed like hours, each second ratcheting up the tension until it reached an almost unbearable level. She’d stared at three crows perched in the bare treetops overlooking the allotments, desperate for the ominous-looking birds to stay where they were, aware that one beat of their wings, a single disturbance of the air currents surrounding the bomb, could bring disaster.
‘It’s a good job you’ve got your head screwed on. You’re not an ARP girl, by any chance?’
She nodded. ‘I’m Connie Bailey, head warden at the Gas Street post.’
‘I’m Charlie Bishop. I know your dad.’ The head of the reconnaissance squad had his eyes fixed on the UXB while the rest of the team stood by the pile of horse manure, awaiting instructions. ‘We’ll need bobbies to divert traffic,’ he continued coolly. ‘The whole of Maypole Street and a section of College Road will have to be cordoned off. Have you got that?’
Connie nodded again. ‘I’ll go straight to the police station and pass on the message.’
‘Tell them we’ll detonate the bomb in situ – it’s too risky to attempt to move it. We’ll dig trenches around it and fill them with sand.’
Hearing this, two of the men hurried back to their lorry to fetch spades and pickaxes.
‘Right you are.’ Bishop’s tone made it clear that it was time for Connie to make herself scarce. ‘Plenty of sand,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘From Dixon’s builders’ yard. Can you organize that for us?’
‘Leave it to me,’ she assured him, descending the steps two at a time. She passed the parked lorry and ran on along a deserted Maypole Street towards the Gladstone Square police station. A glance over her shoulder told her that the reconnaissance team was already at work on the trench, with helmets off and sleeves rolled up. A thousand times rather them than me, she thought again as she sprinted on. One false move, one jarring strike of the spade against stone, one fatal vibration … Connie breathed hard as she ran to deliver her messages. What a way to spend a Sunday morning! When, oh when, will the bombs stop falling? Will our spuds get planted this spring and will the good folk of Kelthorpe be able to breathe easy ever again?
Five large barrage balloons – serene and beautiful – were strung across the mouth of the Kell estuary, reflecting the warm pink light of the setting sun. They were tethered by steel cables to Scammell winches mounted on the decks of old river barges securely anchored a quarter of a mile offshore and were designed to ward off German dive-bombers who flew in low to wreak havoc on the small fishing port and the docks close by. The balloons also discouraged enemy attempts to lay mines in the estuary; they had proved successful in this respect at least.
‘Listen to that.’ It was later that same evening and Lizzie cupped a hand around her ear to pick up the tune made by the wind whistling against the taut cables. The high, haunting sound sent a shiver down her spine.
Turning up their collars as a protection against the chilly breeze, Pamela and Connie continued to chat.
‘Honestly, some people!’ Connie was saying. Pamela had described how the Simmons pair had attempted to barge their way to the front of the queue earlier that day and Connie’s response was suitably irate.
Lizzie added to the picture. ‘They were the limit, pushing and shoving their way down the steps even though I’d warned them not to.’
Pamela frowned at the memory. ‘I’d a good mind to go down after them and order them back up to pavement level, see how they’d have liked that.’
‘Listen!’ Lizzie said again. The silver blimps fascinated her; the way they tugged at their cables and rolled and dipped like whales in a tempestuous sea.
Connie paid attention at last. ‘I don’t like them,’ she said with a frown. ‘All that hydrogen hovering over us – it’s enough to give you the heebie-jeebies.’
‘But they’re amazing,’ Lizzie protested. She’d read up about the blimps in a Ministry of War pamphlet. ‘Made of two-ply, rubber-proofed Egyptian cotton finished with aluminium powder to give them that sheen. They’re the length of three cricket pitches, did you know, and filled with twenty thousand cubic feet—’
‘That’s enough, Einstein.’ Connie cut her sister off in mid-sentence. ‘Picture something that size being struck by lightning or by enemy gunfire. Boom!’
Pamela studied the silent dirigibles tugging and straining at their cables. ‘I agree with Lizzie – they are beautiful,’ she decided. ‘And I hear that the RAF is going to install two of the LZ variety on the headland.’
Pausing for a moment on the broad, straight promenade where they strolled, Connie and Lizzie glanced up at the rocky, heather-covered promontory that separated the old town from the new. ‘LZ?’ Connie queried.
‘Low Zone. I only know because Uncle Hugh has offered billets to two RAF men at Sunrise. His house is on the seafront and it’s big enough to take in a couple of extra lodgers. They’ll be on hand to operate the balloons whenever there’s a yellow alert.’
‘Can’t we talk about something more cheerful?’ Lizzie came between Pamela and Connie and linked arms. ‘Here we are dressed up in our Sunday best on a glorious sunny evening.’ Connie in her bright red coat and matching beret, Pamela in a blouson-style green windcheater and Lizzie risking a summery pale blue cardigan over a floral printed frock.
‘You mean, ignore the blimps and the barbed wire and pillboxes lining the beach and the fact that there’s a Hefty Hermann still ticking away on Dad’s allotment?’ The morning’s events had left Connie feeling unusually down in the dumps.
‘Yes, and think about Tom waiting for you in the Harbourmaster’s Inn instead. That should cheer you up.’ Lizzie winked at Pamela and waited for her sister’s reaction.
At the mention of her sweetheart’s name Connie’s expression brightened and her pace increased dramatically. She strode on along the prom, past the bombed ruins of the Royal Hotel – now a giant heap of burned roof beams, broken slates and bricks – towards the pub. The wind caught her hair and a new, eager light appeared in her brown eyes. ‘And while we’re at it, let’s hear more details about your nuptials,’ she reminded Lizzie. ‘Who’s doing the flowers for you? Do you still want a bouquet of pink carnations? And why not borrow my white satin shoes that I got married to John in to save on coupons?’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘Aunty Vera’s in charge of flowers as well as food. She says she can get hold of pink carnations for my bouquet. And no ta – your feet are a size bigger than mine.’
‘You could pad the toes with tissue paper,’ Pamela suggested. ‘Connie’s shoes could be your “something borrowed”.’
‘But they might bring me bad luck.’ Connie’s marriage to John Bailey had been far from happy and had ended with his tragic death in an accident at the timber yard. ‘No thanks, Con – it’s new shoes for me, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘Have it your way.’ Reaching the wide glass door of the Harbourmaster’s, Connie swanned in ahead of Pamela and Lizzie to find Bill Evans, Fred Miller and Tom Rose propping up the bar.
Tom turned his head and gave Connie his broadest smile. He strode towards her and greeted her with a kiss.
Spying Pamela, Fred followed suit, putting his arm around her waist to guide her in his gentlemanly way to a table by the window.
And then came Bill: Lizzie’s Bill, with his long, loping stride and smiling eyes and with one unruly dark lock of hair straying down over his forehead. ‘What kept you?’ he asked as he took her hand. Eyes for her and no one else, his one and only.
‘We’re not late,’ Lizzie insisted, her heart racing at the sight of her beloved. ‘We’re bang on time.’
‘What will everyone have to drink?’ Tom stepped up promptly to take orders.
As the sun sank below the headland, on this beautiful Sunday evening in spring, the three air raid girls sat with their drinks and their sweethearts in the smartest bar in town, at a table with a view of the sparkling sea – a trio of young couples in love. What better way than this to bring an eventful day to a close?