The Girls Who Went to War: Heroism, heartache and happiness in the wartime women’s forces
around Holbeach, as the battered British Army regrouped and replenished itself. Soon soldiers started to be seen around the village, and a nearby stately home called Bleak House was requisitioned by a Royal Artillery regiment.
Jessie knew the house well, since her friend Joan was the niece of the caretakers there, Mr and Mrs Hedqvist, who encouraged Jessie to come and play the grand piano in the drawing room whenever she liked. ‘We don’t see much of the soldiers really,’ Mrs Hedqvist told her when she turned up to practise one day. ‘They’re mainly just using the kitchens and the dining room for their officers’ mess.’
As Jessie approached the magnificent piano, Mrs Hedqvist sat down on a chair and took some knitting out of a little bag. She often liked to knit while Jessie played, and the regular klick-klacking was almost as good as a metronome.
Jessie began to run through a few scales. Then, when she felt she was properly warmed up, she moved on to a piece she had recently learned, a nocturne by Chopin in G minor. She was pleased to find that she could get through the whole thing without the sheet music – and even more pleased, when she reached the final notes, to hear applause echoing around the drawing room.
Jessie looked over to Mrs Hedqvist, but the caretaker was still busy with her knitting. Then she turned and looked behind her, where she discovered the source of the clapping. A young soldier was standing by the doorway, clearly enraptured by the music. ‘That was wonderful,’ he exclaimed, beaming at Jessie enthusiastically.
‘Oh – hello!’ Jessie replied, her cheeks flushing red. ‘I’m glad you liked it.’ The soldier was a couple of years older than her, with dark hair and a beautiful smile, and Jessie found him very attractive.
The young man approached the piano. ‘I don’t suppose you take requests?’ he asked her.
‘Well, what do you like?’ Jessie said. ‘If I don’t know it, you can always hum the tune and I’ll try to pick it out.’
‘How about “There’ll Always Be an England”?’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Jessie told him, launching into the popular tune. But what seemed easy to Jessie obviously impressed the young soldier. As she played, she looked up now and then, and every time she saw him grinning from ear to ear, clearly enchanted by her performance.
Jessie had come to Bleak House intending to practise her classical pieces, but that afternoon she found herself playing a host of popular tunes instead as the young man requested one song after another. Soon they were both so lost in the music that they had completely lost track of time, and it was only when a grandfather clock in the corner of the room began to chime that the young man suddenly came to his senses. ‘Oh my goodness,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be on duty!’
He dashed for the door, shooting Jessie another quick smile as he went.
Jessie remained seated at the piano for a moment. ‘That was charming, my dear,’ Mrs Hedqvist commented, giving her an encouraging smile.
Jessie had almost forgotten that the older woman was still in the room. ‘Oh, thank you,’ she replied, as she stood up and brought the lid down over the keys. But somehow she wasn’t quite sure that it was the music which Mrs Hedqvist had been charmed by.
The following day, Jessie was on her bike, riding home from her job at the greasy spoon, when she saw the young soldier cycling towards her on the other side of the road. ‘Oh, there you are,’ he called as he spotted her, wheeling around until they were side by side.
‘Hello again!’ Jessie said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you, of course,’ the soldier replied cheekily. ‘I’ve just been round to your house and your mum said you’d be coming along this way.’
He must have got my address off Mrs Hedqvist, Jessie thought. She couldn’t help smiling.
‘Would you mind if I cycle with you?’ the young man asked politely. ‘I thought you might like some music on your way home.’ As they pedalled away, he began singing ‘Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye’, one of the songs Jessie had played for him the day before. She noticed that he remained perfectly in tune throughout, and his delight in the music shone through just as it had in the drawing room at Bleak House.
‘That was lovely,’ Jessie told him when he came to the end of the song.
‘I’m glad you liked it,’ he replied. ‘I take requests too, you know.’
Jessie laughed. ‘All right, how about “Run Rabbit Run”?’ she suggested.
The man launched into a spirited rendition of the song, and for the rest of the two-and-a-half-mile journey, he kept her entertained with one tune after another.
In between songs, Jessie learned that the young man’s name was Jim Winkworth, and that he had worked in the kitchen of a top London restaurant before joining the Army Catering Corps. ‘I’m in charge of the food for all the bigwigs,’ he explained.
‘Well, I suppose you could say I work in catering too,’ Jessie replied, ‘but we mostly serve truckers, not Army top brass!’
‘Oh, I’d swap with you any day,’ Jim told her. ‘You’d be surprised at the table manners of some of the majors and colonels.’ But it was clear when he talked about the fancy dinners they laid on for the officers at Bleak House – with the finest crystal and silverware the grand stately home had to offer – that he loved his job very much, and took great pride in getting every detail just right. ‘When I was out in France, we’d have killed for a pantry stocked as well as the one they have here,’ he told her wistfully.
‘You were in France?’ Jessie asked, surprised.
‘Oh, yes,’ Jim replied. ‘I was sunk twice on the way back from Dunkirk, but both times I got pulled out of the water. In the end I came back on a little fishing boat.’ He grinned at her. ‘I guess I must have just been born lucky.’
‘Most people would call being sunk twice pretty bad luck!’ Jessie pointed out.
‘Well,’ Jim shrugged, ‘there’s plenty of men who didn’t make it back at all.’ After a moment’s silence, he began to sing again. Clearly whatever horrors he had seen had only made him more determined to embrace the joy of life.
When they got to Holbeach Bank, Jessie invited Jim in for a cup of tea, and soon he was entering her parents’ little house for the second time that afternoon.
‘Oh, he found you then?’ Mrs Ward commented dryly as Jessie ushered the young man into the kitchen.
‘Yes, Mum,’ Jessie replied, hoping her mother wasn’t going to be rude to him.
‘So, Jim, where do your family come from?’ Mrs Ward asked, as she plonked the teapot down on the table, gesturing for Jessie to pour the tea.
‘To be honest, I have no idea,’ he told her. He explained that he had spent his childhood in a Dr Barnardo’s orphanage in Hastings and had never found out who his parents were.
As she listened to the sad story, Jessie’s heart went out to Jim, but his words had a different effect on her mother. ‘I’m not keen on that one,’ she told Jessie, after the young man had set off back to Bleak House. ‘He’s got no family, no background. You don’t know who he is.’
‘Neither does he, Mum,’ Jessie reasoned. ‘You can’t hold that against him.’
But Mrs Ward shook her head firmly. ‘You don’t want to get involved with him,’ she said.
Jessie took little notice of her mother’s advice, however, and soon Jim was stopping by at the greasy spoon several times a week to see her. They spent hours at a time cycling around the countryside together, pausing every now and then for a kiss and a cuddle, until it was time for him to accompany her back home.
Jim hadn’t failed to notice Mrs Ward’s coolness towards him. ‘I don’t think your mother likes me,’ he told Jessie one day, as