It was the pearl necklace that caught Pamela’s attention – a triple string nestling above Queen Elizabeth’s ample bosom. Each perfect pearl glinted in the morning sun as she accompanied her husband, His Majesty King George VI, decked out in his army uniform with all the bells and whistles but looking serious and gaunt. The Queen wore a lilac coat edged with bands of deeper purple. Her hat was perched precariously on the side of her head, its upturned brim held in place by a spray of silk flowers. She had mauve kidskin gloves, a matching clutch bag and shoes – all perfectly coordinated.
Pamela had been taught to curtsey by her mother. ‘Place your weight on your right foot, left foot tucked in behind – just a small dip and quickly up again.’ Edith Carr had made sure to read up on royal etiquette and her instructions had been specific. ‘Don’t speak unless spoken to.’
Come the hour, Pamela was prepared. She’d dressed in her smart royal-blue two-piece with white peep-toed shoes, and taken special care with her hair and make-up. Now she stood next to her uncle, the owner of Anderson’s timber yard. As the King and Queen approached across the asphalt yard, escorted by high-ranking police officers and anonymous men in suits, she was struck by how small and dainty the Queen was in real life as opposed to the close-up pictures you saw in newspapers. Her complexion was pale and flawless, her dark hair carefully curled beneath the asymmetric hat.
The King shook hands with Hugh Anderson. He asked about damage to the yard – since German bombing had commenced two and a half years earlier, one of the cranes had been destroyed and several consignments of valuable pitch pine from Scandinavia set on fire. The private rail terminal shared with Freeman’s grain yard had been out of action for a week and a storeroom overlooking the dock had been damaged beyond repair. Fortunately, Anderson’s vast cutting shed and the brick-built office block had not so far taken a direct hit.
‘Very good.’ The King nodded, then an aide gestured for Hugh to escort His Majesty down the line.
‘My secretary, Pamela Carr; my office manager, Harold Carr; my bookkeeper, Fred Miller; my foreman, Keith Nelson …’
Queen Elizabeth, following hard on her husband’s heels, smiled sweetly at Pamela but didn’t speak. It was just as well – nerves had scrambled Pamela’s brain and she could scarcely have summoned a sensible reply.
‘What would I have said?’ she asked Fred later, after the royal personages and their entourage had moved on from the docks to inspect Kelthorpe’s fish market and harbour. Fred and Pamela sat in the canteen dissecting the morning’s events over a plate of stew and dumplings. ‘I just about managed to curtsey without falling over.’
Fred grinned as he gestured with his knife towards the rows of crowded, noisy tables. ‘The whole place is abuzz. Frankly, I’ve never understood the way the English continue to kowtow to the monarchy.’ His early upbringing in Berlin had been free from all that rigmarole. ‘We got rid of our Kaiser twenty-odd years ago.’
‘Yes, and look what you got in his place.’ Fred’s mention of his German childhood had taken Pamela by surprise. For weeks after they’d met, he’d kept his status as an enemy alien a closely guarded secret; even now he rarely talked about it.
Their paths had first crossed when they’d shared a boarding house on Elliot Street. Pamela’s handsome fellow lodger had struck her as polite but guarded; they’d scarcely got beyond a formal good morning and good evening before a chance meeting in the town library had revealed a shared love of reading. After that, there had been a few shy moves towards romance – a Sunday walk to local landmark, Raynard’s Folly; a ride along the coast road on borrowed bikes and a first tender kiss.
‘What a catch!’ Connie had declared during one of her, Lizzie and Pamela’s cosy confessionals. ‘Fred Miller is better looking than any of the current crop of film stars. Watch out, William Holden!’
‘Do you like him?’ Lizzie had asked Pamela more seriously.
‘He’s clever and well mannered,’ she’d replied. And Connie was right – Fred was extremely handsome, with his dark hair, clean-cut features and a particular, searching way of looking at you as if your answers to his questions mattered.
‘Yes, but do you actually like him?’ Lizzie had persisted.
At that time no one in Kelthorpe had known Fred’s background – how his Jewish family had been forced to abandon their jewellery business in the German capital and flee from the Nazi regime, how they’d sought refuge in London where they’d fallen foul of Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts. The family’s bid to escape their past had ended in tragedy: Fred’s mother and father had died in a fire started by the fascists and Fred had narrowly escaped with his life. After that he’d parcelled up his grief and attempted to wipe the slate clean – Friedrich Müller had become Fred Miller and he’d headed north to find work at Hugh Anderson’s timber yard. He quickly became a perfect employee: good with figures, quiet, meticulous and hard-working.
‘I like him a lot,’ Pamela had declared shyly.
‘Your uncle was on tenterhooks too,’ Fred observed now over a rice pudding dessert. ‘But in the event, everything went perfectly – he impressed the King with his detailed knowledge of imports from Sweden and he charmed the Queen by venturing a question about the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose.’
‘It was a big moment for him.’ As the klaxon signalled the end of the dinner break, workers rushed to deposit crockery and cutlery on the trolley by the door. ‘Duty calls,’ Pamela said with a smile. ‘Uncle Hugh has asked to see me at one o’clock on the dot – I’d better not be late.’
She and Fred joined the hurly-burly at the exit. ‘I’m not working at the report and control centre tonight. How about you – are you free?’
‘Sorry – no. I have a last-minute evening shift at Gas Street. Connie needs extra wardens to patrol Maypole Street.’
‘Ah, yes – the SC1000.’ Fred knew that the bomb squad were still working to decommission the dangerous UXB that Bert Harrison had discovered the previous day. ‘After your shift finishes, perhaps?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed gladly. ‘I’ll drop in at Sunrise for half an hour.’
There was a brief exchange of affectionate smiles and a murmured ‘see you later’ as the young lovers went their separate ways.
‘Ah, Pamela.’ Hugh Anderson looked up from his desk and motioned for her to sit. He cut quite a dash in his pinstripe suit and starched white collar, with his thick grey hair and moustache freshly trimmed and a diamond and gold pin glittering against a dark red silk tie. ‘I’ve been considering your position,’ he began.
Perched on the edge of her seat, Pamela drew herself upright. Was this a good thing or not?
‘How long have you worked here as my secretary?’
‘A little over five months.’
‘And you had a baptism of fire, if I remember rightly.’
‘Yes.’ There’d been spiteful gossip to contend with; accusations that she’d only been given the job because of family connections, and worse, that she was a despicable traitor, the lowest of the low, for associating with Fred Miller who turned out to be Friedrich Müller and an enemy alien. There’d been threats and more than one brutal attack in broad daylight.
‘But the situation has eased?’
‘Yes.’ Since Hugh’s bossy and snide senior secretary Betty Holroyd had handed in her notice, the atmosphere had improved no end.
‘It strikes me that you’ve had to take on the workload of two people,’ Hugh went on. ‘Which is why I’ve put an advert in this week’s Kelthorpe Gazette for a replacement secretary.’
‘I see.’ Secretly, Pamela had enjoyed having an office to herself and didn’t relish the prospect of another Betty ruling the roost.
‘No need to look so crestfallen,’ Hugh assured her. ‘My intention is to promote you to the position of senior secretary and to put a junior girl under you.’
Pamela’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, Uncle Hugh – I mean, Mr Anderson – that would be marvellous.’ Just wait until she told Fred, and her mother and father, and Lizzie and Connie! Excitement made her light-headed and she took in little of what followed.
‘This is not a question of favouritism,’ Hugh continued. ‘It’s something you fully deserve. The promotion will come with an increase in salary.’
Better and better! She clasped her hands tightly in her lap.
Hugh’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘Don’t you want to know by how much?’
‘Yes, please!’ It hardly mattered; she would have taken on more responsibility without a pay rise. But it was important to seem professional.
‘How does an extra seven shillings and sixpence a week sound?’ he asked.
‘It sounds marvellous,’ she enthused as her uncle stood up and reached over the wide desk with an outstretched hand. She shook it firmly before making for the door.
‘Make sure you don’t let me down.’ Hugh’s brief parting shot echoed in Pamela’s head as she swiftly made her way along the narrow corridor and into her cramped and cluttered office. There were invoices to be sent, requests for late payments to be made, wage slips to prepare; a whole host of things to be done before she was free to share the news of her good fortune.
‘Our navy lads bagged another U-boat earlier this week,’ Tom informed Connie on their way to the Gas Street post. As a part-time volunteer for the Royal Naval Patrol Service he paid close attention to battleship activity in the North Sea. ‘U207, to be precise.’
‘Good riddance.’ She felt no scrap of sympathy for the German submarine’s doomed crew. ‘I read in the Daily Express that poor old Malta is still taking a dreadful beating, so we needed some good news to cheer us up.’
Tom squeezed her hand and smiled. ‘I reckon this bunfight will carry on for a while yet, even with the Yanks on our side.’ He was a level-headed realist – a perfect foil to Connie’s more fiery nature – and he’d seen enough action while carrying out RNPS minesweeping duties to know that the Allies were in for a long haul. Besides, being hit by a torpedo and watching your boat and your best pal disappear beneath the waves was an experience that stayed with you. For days afterwards, Tom had believed that Bill was drowned. He and Connie had had all on to console a grief-stricken Lizzie, and then when it turned out that Bill had resurfaced and managed to cling to an upturned lifeboat before being rescued by a Dutch trawler, there had been enormous relief. Sea Knight was gone for good, leaving both Tom and Bill adrift as far as war service was concerned, so Tom had rejoined the Air Raid Precautions team as a warden and Bill had taken up his first-aider role once more.
‘You may be right – you usually are,’ Connie conceded as they rounded the corner of King Edward Street and saw Pamela emerge from her boarding house wearing ARP battledress and ski cap and with a gas mask slung over her shoulder.
They quickened their pace to catch up with her.
‘What have you got to look so cheerful about?’ Connie asked after they’d exchanged greetings.
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, like the cat that got the cream.’
The trio hurried on towards Maypole Street, where they were forced to make a detour down an alleyway to avoid the BRO blockade. The dark ginnel smelled of damp bricks and stale urine and was a dumping ground for a pram without wheels and a dustbin overflowing with rotting rubbish. ‘Damn, I’d forgotten about the Hefty Hermann,’ Tom muttered.
Pamela’s smile broadened in response to Connie’s question. ‘I’ve been promoted at work, that’s why I’m smiling.’
‘Good for you.’ Tom was genuinely pleased for her. ‘You deserve it.’
‘Have you told Fred?’ Connie asked.
‘Not yet. I’m seeing him later tonight.’
‘And how will you celebrate, I wonder?’ Connie’s wink was loaded with innuendo.
Pamela hid her blushes by rushing on ahead.
They emerged from the ginnel opposite the gasworks – an ugly conglomeration of buildings comprising a brick-built retort house, massive condenser pipes and a purifier building, all dominated by a giant metal gasometer where the coal gas was stored. From here it was a brisk five-minute walk past warehouses and Dixon’s builders’ merchants to the sector post.
‘It’s not often that you shake hands with royalty and receive a pay rise all in one day,’ Connie continued to tease. ‘Let’s hope you don’t get too big for your boots.’
‘Take no notice.’ Tom stood up for Pamela. ‘Of you three girls, you’re the one with your feet most firmly on the ground.’
‘Tom Rose, what are you saying?’ Connie pretended to be offended. ‘Are you calling me and my sister flighty flibbertigibbets?’
‘I wouldn’t dare,’ he said with a chuckle as they approached the entrance to the old cobbler’s shop that had been requisitioned by the ARP and now served as a sector post.
Pamela stopped outside the boarded-up shop window, next to a barrier of sandbags and a blackout-time sign that had to be altered on a daily basis. As the evenings lengthened, so the white hands on the clock face crept forward. A tattered Union Jack fluttered above the door: a gesture of defiance that had hung there since Christmas. ‘After you, Head Warden Bailey,’ she told Connie with an exaggerated salute.
‘You’re late.’ The barked greeting from daytime head warden Brian Bellamy wiped the smiles off their faces. He shoved a pile of paperwork across the shop counter towards Connie then reached for his cap hanging from a hook behind him.
‘Only a minute or two.’ Connie was nettled by Bellamy’s accusatory stare. He was one of the old guard who had served on the Western Front in the Great War and had a tendency to lord it over younger members of the Civil Defence teams. Overweight and self-important, he made a point of picking on women volunteers in particular; in his view, female wardens couldn’t be relied upon not to faint at the sight of blood, they behaved illogically and were prone to panic in an emergency, on top of which they didn’t have the requisite brawn to shift rubble or raise casualties from the debris of their bombed homes. All the usual out-of-date prejudices were rolled together in one unattractive, portly package.
‘Here’s the latest from report and control.’ Bellamy thrust a final piece of paper at Connie. ‘The roadblock at the end of Valley Road has been removed but the Leisure Gardens are still closed until further notice. Looters have been spotted in the grounds of the Royal Hotel.’
Hiding her irritation, Connie continued the takeover while Tom and Pamela sidled past Bellamy into the small storeroom at the back where helmets, eye shields, gauntlets, torches, axes and rattles were kept. As wardens, the handbook instructed them that they must be jacks of all trades, ready to guide the public to shelters in the event of an attack, to assist with casualties, to carry messages between sector posts speedily and with clarity, and, above all, to set an example of coolness and steadiness.
‘Let’s hope those blimps do their job this evening.’ Tom chose a pair of rubber boots and a helmet from the racks. The barrage balloons were relatively new additions to the defence measures put in place in Kelthorpe, ordered there by the head of RAF Balloon Command, Air Marshal Gossage, because the Yorkshire port was now considered a key Luftwaffe target. ‘I fancy a quiet night checking household registers and such like.’
‘There are worse things than being bored,’ Pamela agreed.
After Connie had exchanged curt goodbyes with Bellamy, she poked her head into the storeroom. ‘Honestly, he’s the limit!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve a good mind to tell the pompous so-and-so a few home truths.’
‘Such as?’ Tom loved to see Connie fired up: as she flung her arms wide in exasperation her beautiful face came alive. She seemed to fizz with energy.
‘Such as, women wardens are better than men in many cases.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ It was Tom’s turn to seem put out.
‘You know I don’t mean you.’ Connie had seen the man she loved run into blazing buildings without a second’s hesitation and deal with incendiary bombs as if they were mere jumping jacks on Guy Fawkes Night. ‘But we women get to the heart of a situation faster than men do. When we go into a house, we see straight away who was there when the bomb dropped and whereabouts in the building they were. It’s little details that tell you. For instance, if the kettle’s on the hob we know that the occupants were downstairs and hadn’t gone to bed. If there’s a cot in the bedroom, there must be a baby somewhere.’
‘Get it off your chest, why don’t you?’ If they hadn’t been on duty this was the moment when Tom would have grabbed Connie by the waist and showered her with kisses.
Sounds from the main shop told them that other wardens had arrived. Connie heaved an exasperated sigh then left the storeroom and began to dish out tasks for the evening: Eddie Fraser was to check that all phone boxes in the district were in working order, while his brother Simon had the job of updating the list of recent arrivals at the Women’s Voluntary Service centre next to the grammar school. ‘And, Pamela, I’m putting you on sentry duty at the entrance to the Leisure Gardens.’
‘What about me?’ As the others set off, Tom waited patiently for his instructions.
‘Check the grounds of the Royal, would you? Brian mentioned looters in the vicinity.’
Tom pictured the unlit, lonely walk around the base of the headland with a sheer cliff looming overhead, then his arrival at the start of the broad esplanade with its starlit view of the open sea. A little way along he would reach what was left of the town’s premier hotel. ‘What are the looters looking for?’ he wondered aloud.
Connie shrugged as she picked up the telephone. ‘Scrap metal, perhaps.’ Pausing before making the call, she blew Tom a kiss. ‘Your place or mine later on?’
‘Mine,’ he decided as he set off. ‘And by the way, I’ll have some good news of my own to share soon.’
‘Tom Rose, that’s not fair.’ Connie replaced the receiver in its cradle then rushed out from behind the counter to prevent him from leaving. ‘Tell me now!’
‘No time – I have looters to apprehend,’ he teased, with the twinkle of gentle humour that she loved. ‘You’ll just have to wait and see.’
Metal water bottle – tick. Haversack containing small, medium and large dressings – tick. Rubber gloves – tick. Four small splints … Where the heck were they kept? Lizzie searched the high shelves in the storeroom of her first-aid post until she discovered the wooden splints. Six card labels and an indelible pencil – tick. Last but not least, a small pair of scissors attached to a lanyard, which she strung around her neck.
‘Ready?’ Bill asked. He’d arrived at the ambulance depot on King Edward Street with a few minutes to spare before the start of his shift, leaving him enough time to check the contents of the ambulance: four metal stretchers, eight blankets, reserve haversack.
‘Yes, all present and correct.’ Slinging the rucksack containing her kit over her shoulder, Lizzie hurried to take up position behind the wheel of the specially adapted Bedford van parked in the yard of a disused brewery that currently served as a first-aid post for Kelthorpe Old Town. The yard was overgrown with weeds, and the soot-stained brewery building was covered in ivy. A pile of wooden barrels and two carts that had once been pulled by pairs of magnificent dray horses had been left to decay. Only a small annexe was in use, staffed by the doctor and nurse who oversaw a team of first-aider volunteers.
Bill climbed in beside Lizzie. ‘Hang it!’ he declared before jumping down again and sprinting across the yard to grab the King’s harness proffered by the nurse in charge. Taking the canvas and leather contraption used to keep unconscious or badly wounded patients safely strapped in place, he loped back again, opening up the back door of the ambulance and tucking the harness under a metal bench. ‘My name would have been mud if I’d left that behind.’
‘Where to?’ Lizzie turned on the engine.
‘Valley Road. There’s an old chap at number eighteen who’s tumbled out of bed. He needs to be taken to hospital. By the sound of things, we’re going to need that harness.’
She nodded then steered her ambulance under the wide brick archway on to the cobbled street. It wasn’t unusual for ARP vehicles to be used in domestic incidents such as this. She only hoped that the injury wasn’t too bad and could be easily dealt with by her and Bill.
Meanwhile, dusk was falling and the blackout coming into force.
‘Put that light out!’ The street wardens’ familiar cry rang out from the far end of the street. Blinds were drawn and the pavements fell silent as inhabitants disappeared inside their houses.
The route took Lizzie and Bill through the town square then on along College Road towards Valley Road. Bill smiled to himself at the sight of the ruby and diamond ring on Lizzie’s slender finger. It was still hard to believe that she’d said yes to tying the knot. Blimey; the wedding was less than six short weeks away – a fact brought home to Bill when she’d dragged him off to Moss Bros for a fitting.
‘What are you grinning at?’ she challenged as she stopped at a junction.
‘You. Us,’ he replied enigmatically. A yes from Lizzie Harrison – the prettiest, sweetest, kindest girl for miles around. And modest with it: he’d learned not to compliment her on how beautiful she was because she said it embarrassed her. She would blush to high heaven and grow flustered then change the subject. So, drop the flattery – Bill would just kiss her instead. Kind? Yes, she would just about accept that. But sweet? No.
‘Sugar is sweet,’ she’d pointed out on one occasion. ‘And so are syrup and honey. You can easily overdo sweetness if you’re not careful.’ Lizzie preferred to see herself as a girl in the centre of the action who could keep calm in any crisis and who never made a fuss. Bill didn’t argue with that; it was one of the reasons he’d fallen in love with Lizzie Harrison. That and her deep brown eyes, her wild, wavy hair, her tender touch. His hand strayed towards her thigh and the sway of the van as it turned on to Valley Road brought his shoulder into contact with hers.
‘I’m expecting a bit of good news,’ he dropped in casually.
‘Oh?’ Lizzie pulled on the handbrake outside number 18: a tall, imposing terraced house overlooking the Leisure Gardens.
‘Yes, fingers crossed.’
‘Well?’
‘Forget I said that.’ He frowned and pursed his lips. ‘I promised Tom I’d keep my trap shut until the deal’s done.’
‘What’s Tom got to do with anything?’
‘You’ll see,’ Bill promised as he jumped down on to the pavement.
Lizzie followed him up the garden path. ‘Why mention it if you’re not going to tell me?’
He knocked on the door. ‘Sorry, it just slipped out.’
‘That’s not fair.’ She clicked her tongue against her teeth then resigned herself to being kept in the dark. All in good time, she promised herself.
The door opened and a prim, harassed-looking housekeeper let them in. ‘Mr Goodman is upstairs, second door on your right,’ she told them in clipped tones. ‘Be warned, the old devil swears like a trooper when he’s had too much to drink. His room smells like a brewery at present, so watch out.’