Chapter 7 - Pregnancy

Jane's stories of her children's arrival

Jane had four children all told; three of them, Richard, Gillian and Phillippa born in Scotland and one, Nigel, in Australia. 

Jane only ever spoke in general terms about her pregnancies in her letters to the family, and was in most respects a very private person.  So, you can imagine the exquisite embarrassment Jane suffered at the hands of Mrs Barron the upstairs neighbour when she over stepped the mark.  Jane related the following story to her mother:

 

            Mrs Barron, who has followed my every symptom with the closest attention and interest, and been in turn helpful and a nuisance, just overstepped herself a bit, and affronted me so deeply that I nearly died of rage, and Eric had to write her a firm note and tick her off.

            I was so angry that I wasn't going to tell Eric, but when I got home, there he was, and I was white and shaking with fury and embarrassment, and he couldn't help but see that something was to do.  Mrs Barron's idea of friendly interest sometimes verges on common curiosity, and she has never been above asking very personal questions about my well-being and discussing matters that I would sooner leave un-mentioned.  I have tried to dodge her inquiries many a time, but she is more persistent than any blowfly, and at the same time does me so many real kindnesses that I am rather at a loss to know how to deal with her.  Knowing that her interest springs from genuine kindness, I have ignored or laughed at a lot of her annoying ways, simply because I knew that she had never been taught to know better, but she overstepped the mark at a time when I was feeling like an insect under a microscope anyway, and that just put the lid on it.  Every time I leave the house with Eric, all the neighbouring window curtains suffer a slight upheaval, and every old wife for miles around says to herself ‘that's Mrs Allberry away.’  Everyone I meet in the course of my shopping asks meaningfully if I am keeping well, and looks disappointed when I give a brisk ‘yes thank you’ and no details.  Neighbours, whom I barely know, tell me things about my size and prophesy an early end, and after an unmitigated month or two of this overpowering interest I was beginning to feel exasperated and almost self-conscious, and hated to leave the house.  I have avoided Mrs Barron because she kept asking ‘didn't I have a pain yet’, but she either rang my bell twice a day or hailed me through my open windows as she passed by in the street, so that I felt like dismantling the bell and drawing all the blinds �" only I knew it wouldn't make any difference.  Well finally she came in one day, with a skirt of Molly's that wanted an invisible mend and I had promised to do it.  I did the job and returned the skirt and was just about to leave when the old buzzard hoisted up the hem of my smock and said she just wanted to see how I was shaping.  I protested vigorously, and she said ‘Och, I might be your mother’ and started to feel how firm my bulge was.  I was so flabbergasted that I couldn't say anything except that I was in a hurry, and rushed off downstairs like spring lamb, shaking with rage, and feeling a perfect fool.  There was Eric, and out came the whole story, and when I got to where she said she might be my mother I just burst into tears because I've been wanting you so much, and anyway I knew you would never have intruded on my personal feelings to such an extent.  Maybe the whole thing upset me more than it need have done, but it was also the best in the end, because Eric sat down then and there and wrote to Mrs Barron.  He really is the most wonderful creature, and I felt so cherished and protected, and was given to think what a wonderful thing successful matrimony was, and how lucky I am to have such a husband.  He told old B that it hurt him to have to write in such a manner, but she really must refrain from embarrassing me with such personal inquiries as she sometimes made, and must have more respect for my private feelings.  Both of us were unendingly grateful for all her kindness to us, but that the same time he thought that she should not presume on such short acquaintance etc. etc.  Mrs Allberry would be quite pleased to see her if she cared to visit the nursing home after the baby arrived, but she must understand that he didn't wish her to discuss any details of the confinement or ask any personal questions, because I preferred not to talk of such things.  Hers sincerely, E J Allberry.

            Next day I lived in hourly expectation of the visit, and sure enough she came after lunch, full of apologies and a bit tearful about having upset me, also fully conscious that she had done wrong. I stood my ground quite firmly, and pointed out to her that her action had been very far from anything you would have done.  Also I said that I realised that she had been deeply interested in my adventure, and was more or less re-living her own happy preparations, but didn't feel that she needed to know all the more physical details as well as the numbers of tiny garments I had prepared.  I felt that it was quite enough for her when I told her that I was perfectly normal in every way, and keeping well.  She saw my point, and was really very sorry at what she had done, so I told her that neither Eric nor I wished there to be any ill feeling over it, but she must understand that I had my reserves, and they were not to be intruded upon.  So in the end everything was set in order and all was well again, and relations between us are as cordial as ever.  It was difficult to know how to deal with an older woman, just at first, because I still feel so very young and inexperienced, but I recited to myself all day that I was married and 26 and almost a mother and must be treated with respect, and learn to be a proper grown-up �" and by the time it came to the encounter I ‘had me strength’ and didn't do any of the silly weak things I had been frightened I might do.  Eric was pleased, too, because I think he was half afraid I’d apologise for being angry with her!     Well, there it is, and the air feels clean and I feel better, and the long wait is nearly over, so cheers for everything.  I think Mrs Barron saw Dr Tannahill leave here today, because not long afterwards she sent the maid down to inquire if I was still keeping well.  I merely said ‘yes thank you, quite well’ and left it at that.  Time enough for her to know about it when I finally leave, otherwise I expect she'd be in and out all day to see what progress I was making!

 

But that was the only reported misadventure and all the other mentions of her pregnancies were just a happy mother-to-be reporting about her condition.  The news of her very first pregnancy was delivered with the expected level of excitement of such an occasion.  It is interesting perhaps to note that this was in the days before there was any way of telling the gender of an unborn child and until the actual birth it was all a nice, tantalising mystery…

 

20^th September 1939

            Darlingest little Mummy,  All this cramping of spaces is for economy because of the air mail rates and the rise in food prices, which makes it impossible for me to spend 2/6^d on letters this week, and I want to put several in one envelope.  So please forgive the short rations. [Short rations, my eye!  This letter alone would have gone eight normal pages, and the next two another seven, so rations weren’t all that short at all!]  I have been dying to write this letter for a week, but was so anxious not to lead you astray for a second time that I only wrote by ordinary mail last week so as not to give the show away too soon.  The time has now definitely arrived for you to invest in another lottery ticket because this time Junior is definitely on the way, and round about next May you will doubtless be a proud Grandmother.  Dr Tannahill says May 9^th or 10^th is the first possible date of arrival, and it may be any time during the fortnight after that, so don’t get flustered if you don’t win the first lottery, because there is time enough for the next one.  [Not far out, as it happened �" the date was in fact the 16^th.]  By golly I’m pleased and so is Eric despite Hitler and the awful way my tummy behaves in the mornings.  I’m not good for much, and am getting a woman for half a day each week to clean the house, and will just keep it dusted and tidy, because Dr T. says I’m not to do any scrubbing or laundering.  I shall be terribly glad when Gerry arrives not because I want her to work while I lie on the couch, but because she will cheer us so nicely.  Eric still works appallingly long hours, and comes home tired, and I find myself being very dull for him just now despite my best efforts.  I hope it will soon pass, so that I can cheer him on a bit because he is having such a difficult time. He has got rid of his fool of a foreman, which simplifies matters but doubles his own work and the Office of Works is trying to speed things up more than ever, with the result that Eric is on the job from morn till night trying to keep costs down and production up, and it is quite a difficult task.  His whole future depends on his success with this work, so I have to back him up and cheer him along as much as I can, even if my stummick is hanging by a thread in the meantime.  What a life.  We are both fine and grand apart from these things and so far the war isn’t worrying us very much.  It seems a bit remote to me because I only hear about it on the radio, which is very calm about it.  It is upsetting to hear news of loss of lives and shipping, but now that the first upheaval is over and we can sit cosily behind our darkened windows everything seems peaceful enough.  I refuse to be jittery about air raids until I have been shown a few samples, and even so I shall be safe enough in this building, which is of five storeys and built of stout stone, not bricks.  Being on the ground floor is a good thing because even if the building was hit it is doubtful if the lower floors would be damaged in such a tall building.  So really, we are very safe, and you are not to worry at all, because we aren’t worrying, and doubtless everything will be all right in the end.  I listen sometimes to the German stations broadcasting in English and really they are a stupid lot of nonsense.  They spend their whole time hurling frightful and childish insults at our government, and praising the Pure and Truthfulness of German Propaganda.  Then they say how cruel the English blockade is because it is warring against women and children. No mention of the 600 women and children killed when Germans bombed an evacuation train in Poland, and certainly no mention of the “Athenia” and the hundreds of lives lost there.  They said Churchill sank that ship so as to rile America into joining the war.  Har har.  Well that’s enough of that dreary subject.

To return to the subject of Junior.  Eric wants a boy but I don’t care which it is, but we have decided, subject to the parties concerned that it shall be either Richard or Ruth, and I am writing to Richard next thing to ask him if he will be a godfather.  It is early days yet for these plans, but who cares about that and it may give Richard some fun thinking about it. The rest of the Godparents can be thought about when we know what sort it is.  I feel so pleased with myself and I do hope you are pleased too. I am hoping that it will mean enough to you to make up for lots of things which is why I have been looking forward so much to the time when I can present you with a robust and virtuous Grandchild.  You will probably understand what I am driving at, so I won’t dwell on it.

 

Jane’s letters became more sparse around 1942, and from this point on there were  only four letters during the next six months. It is my opinion that the Australian family, being now rather spread out and having to share letters, most of them did not find their way back to Jane’s mother for safe-keeping.  Of course we know that quite a number of letters did not reach Australia at all, either lost at sea or elsewhere. This is a shame, as they have thus far managed to give us a very firm idea of life in Jane’s world. But this is not quite the end of things yet! There are a couple of letters from other people, and in the middle of all this, Jane discovers that she might be pregnant again, and the family plans the move to Edinburgh!  The actual move itself is not the subject of a letter, as it was last time, but we can easily pick up the threads. 

The same applied to Jane’s letters for the rest of the war, and there were lot of letters missing.  The birth of her second child, Gillian, happened on December 30 1942, and her third, Phillippa, on August 2 1944.  Neither of these pregnancies were announced, or rather the letters containing the announcements did not survive, but there was plenty of news about the children as they grew up.