empty for some time. The family who lived there before them had flitted to the seaside because they thought it would be a safer place to be when the bombs began to fall. But Gracie didn’t really think anywhere was safe, not while the Luftwaffe were still flying overhead. And they were flying with a vengeance, retaliating against the allies’ severest bombing yet of Cologne with attacks on all the major British cathedral cities. The house where she and her family had lived had been badly damaged in a bombing raid, and her mother, Mildred, was grateful to be able to move them all at short notice to somewhere that was close to the factory where she worked.
Mildred Ashton had been the family’s mainstay while her husband, Petty Officer Bob Ashton, was recovering from the burns he’d sustained when he was with his naval unit somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean. She keenly felt the weight of having to take on so much responsibility for the family’s welfare. She had to sort out the details of their living arrangements on her own, even after Bob was fit enough to come out of hospital, and she relied heavily on Gracie’s support. In the beginning they had few things to fill the new house with, for most of their furniture had been damaged by a fire started by an incendiary bomb and then further destroyed by the gallons of water the firemen used in their efforts to put it out. Mildred had had to work extremely hard, but at least by the time Bob came home they all had enough chairs to sit on and beds to sleep in. With four sets of ration books, and Mildred’s ability to create something tasty from limited ingredients, the family was at least able to eat and they were managing to scrape by. Mildred had also persuaded the two young boys to dig a victory garden before their father came home. There was a tiny square, covered in weeds, next to the privy in the back yard that she knew could be converted with a bit of effort so that they could all benefit from having their own fresh vegetables.
Gracie met Lottie Kemp when she popped out to the local shop early one evening, not long after they’d arrived at the new house. To her dismay, most of the shelves were bare though the queue of hopefuls clutching their ration books stretched out into the street. The two young women got chatting as they stood next to each other in line.
‘I’ve come to see if they’ve any cigarettes left. It’s my only luxury,’ Gracie said diffidently. ‘They help to keep me sane. My mum and I usually share one between us on a night.’
Lottie laughed. ‘You don’t have to apologize to me, you know. I’m on your side.’ And she held up her left hand to show a homemade roll-up burning down between her fingers.
‘We both prefer the tipped ones,’ Gracie said. ‘They don’t taste so strong. But I find smoking does help me to relax, don’t you?’
Lottie nodded. She took a puff of her roll-up as if to prove her point and Gracie smiled. She wasn’t sure why she felt she had to justify her smoking habits to a stranger and blushed when she finally reached the counter and asked for her favourite brand by name. Relieved that her errand was not in vain, she slipped the red packet of Craven “A”s into her pocket.
‘I’m Charlotte Kemp, by the way, known to all as Lottie,’ the other girl said. ‘I live around the corner in Mallard Street, at number 6.’
‘Well, what do you know! We’ve not long since moved into number 9, opposite. I’m Grace Ashton, my friends call me Gracie.’
Lottie had exuded such an immediate air of warmth and friendliness as they’d begun to chat that Gracie felt drawn to her already by the time they shook hands. Lottie looked immaculate in her neat, if not stylish, clothes as she stepped forward to receive the newspaper that was usually put by for her father. Gracie couldn’t help noticing that her hands were carefully manicured and the French pleat in her hair looked as if it had been freshly pinned. Gracie felt positively unkempt beside her in her wide-legged working trousers, that would keep catching fluff in the turn-ups, and the hand-knitted sweater her mother had made up from an unravelled shawl. As usual, strands of her flyaway hair had worked their way out of the elastic band that was doing a poor job of holding together the ponytail she’d scraped off her face only an hour ago.
‘It’s really nice to meet you,’ Lottie said.
‘You too,’ Gracie said. ‘I was hoping I might meet some younger folk when we moved here, but you can’t be sure who’s still around, what with all the blokes away in the army and the women working all hours in the factories.’ She nodded her head in the direction of the people in the queue who were mostly women of her mother’s age.
‘I tell you what,’ Lottie said, ‘why don’t you pop round to ours one night, we can listen to the gramophone? I’m working most evenings at the moment, but that won’t be for much longer. I’m only helping out a friend, so you can pop in of an evening, any time after tea. I’ve got a couple of Benny Goodman records we could listen to. If you like swing, that is?’
‘I love it. Fancy you having records of the king of swing. I’ll look forward to that. Thanks.’
‘Do you know “Darn That Dream”? It was a number one hit some while back.’
‘Yes, I love it. I used to catch it sometimes on the Light Programme.’
‘Have you got a wireless? That’s something we don’t have.’
‘Not any more.’ Gracie looked wistful. ‘We used to have one, before the fire. I miss it. Maybe we’ll be able to replace it one of these days. It’s good to be able to catch the news without having to go to the pictures to see the newsreels. When my dad was first sent out to the Pacific I was always trying to listen out for news of his ship.’
‘Is he in the navy, then?’ Lottie enquired.
Gracie shrugged. ‘Not sure exactly. He’s only just come home from the hospital. His ship was hit by Japanese torpedoes and he got badly burned. We’re not sure where that puts him now.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ Lottie said, adding, ‘My dad’s at home. Bad eyes and a bad chest. They wouldn’t take him on in the first place, worse luck. My sister Maggie and me would both have liked to see the back of him – for a while, at any rate. We might have been able to get out a bit more then. He watches us like a hawk, always wanting to know where we’re going and who with.’
‘I know what you mean. I used to think the same about my dad, but now I feel guilty for ever having had such thoughts. It’s hard on my mum too. I try to do my bit but everything seems to fall on her. We don’t know anyone round here. We used to live on the other side of the viaduct nearer to town.’
‘I tell you what, why don’t I knock on when I’m not working nights any more and let you know when I’ll be in? I presume you’re not working the late shift?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not working at all just yet. I’m on the lookout for a job. I used to work in a school as a dinner lady and I looked after the kids at playtime. But they closed it down when most of the kids were evacuated. Those who stayed behind were sent to another school, somewhere near here. Most of their kids had been evacuated before the Blitz.’
‘You must mean Bessie Street, that’s the main elementary school hereabouts.’
‘That sounds like it.’
‘Well, finding you a job shouldn’t be much of a problem, if you really want one,’ Lottie said.
‘Course I do. I need to be able to help out at home. And I’ve heard they’ll be conscripting women of our age into jobs soon; they want to make sure we’re all pulling our weight. I’d like to find one of my own before that happens.’
‘I do know of at least one job,’ Lottie said, then she paused, ‘though it’s not in a school.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Where is it?’
‘At the munitions factory where I work. They’re desperate for women to work there. In fact, there’s an empty place on my workbench and it’s only up the road. You could probably go down there right now and apply; the office never seems to close.’
‘Do you know, I think I’ll do that. Thanks Lottie, that’s really helpful,’ Gracie