Chapter 11 - Entertaining tales

Some of Jane's lighter tales of life in wartime England

Most of Jane’s letters contained stories of occurrences, alarums and excursions, most of which were highly entertaining, even to the casual reader, so I have included a few excerpts here for your enjoyment.  This first one is from Chorley, not long after they moved there.

 

This last weekend was full of rush and bustle because Johnny Walker, who was our Best Man, came up late on Friday night, and on Saturday we drove twenty miles to Manchester and watched him play lacrosse for the South of England team, against the North. The rain drubbed steadily down all day and made things very awkward and soggy, but we enjoyed the afternoon quite well though I knew nothing about the game and Eric only knew a little. In the evening Eric went to the dinner at the club with Johnny, and I went and ate a solitary tea and went to the pictures and saw a dud show. Not an inspiring evening, but I wasn’t worried. The boys met me as I came out of the pictures, and home we went again. They had enjoyed themselves hugely, so that was all right.

Sunday was fun - I got up first and made up fires and cooked breakfast, and then summoned the boys and we ate happily and then washed up and wandered around the garden and showed Johnny the barn. The boys were asked to dismantle Johnny’s bed and take it upstairs, and it took them half an hour because there are only two flights of stairs to the first floor - one from the kitchen quarters, and the main staircase. They went up one at a time, and as fast as Johnny took a piece of bed up Eric would bring it down the back way and put it back again. When Johnny had carried up the equivalent of three beds, he decided that something was amiss, and looked into the matter. The result was an awful scrimmage all over the house, and Johnny was thrust, shrieking, into the cellar among the leaky water-pipes and left there until Eric saw fit to release him. We then got into the car and took Johnny to see the munitions site, and he was duly impressed by all he saw. A rush home for dinner, and then a rush to put Johnny on the train. And that was the end of a great deal of fun and a happy weekend. I do love Johnny and he is such a nice guest to have, and I don’t care how often he comes to stay.

 

Now a short description of some of the domestic doings of the time.  It is interesting to hear these tales and compare them to the way things are done now.

 

You will have to have short rations again, because Mr Nathan (the owner of the house) has just been in and gossiped so long that my letter-writing time has been more than halved, and Eric is due home in a minute.

Damn, there’s the grocer.

Another ten minutes gone west. I love the system grocers have in this country. They give you a stiff-covered book with your name written in a special little hole in the cover. In this all your orders are written together with the amounts, which are totalled up, and when you pay they receipt the order in the book and there you are. This way there is no argument about when you paid what, and no beastly bill file to keep, and I can keep an eye on prices and see what’s what. I also know about what I’ll have to pay out of my weekly fund, and budget accordingly.

My baker and butcher I pay at the door every time they deliver things, and my milk bill comes weekly, so I can keep track of my moneys very easily and never have any trouble, nor have I ever run short and frequently I have a little surplus. This goes into a tin, and there is 7/6 there at present. It is a handy tin, because sometimes I have to juggle about for the right change, or a tradesman can’t change a note, and having a standing fund as big as that means that I can deal with emergencies.

So much for my domestic affairs.

 

Now we have a story about the vicarious English weather, Spring and a dog, as well as sundry other animals.  Vera had also come up for a visit, as it was Easter.

 

I had such a lovely Easter, and feel a new woman after it. The weather wasn’t at all kind to us until Monday, which was not only sunny all day, but warm as well! Tuesday and Wednesday were glorious too, and I went about in my cotton frocks during the day and my flowered silk one in the evenings, and it was marvellous. All my seeds burst forth with such energy that they nearly overflowed, and the wallflowers are out and the daffodils increase in number every day. All the trees are thick with buds and the oaks along the river banks are all misted with green and there are dozens of little bushes all about that are feathery and brilliant with tiny leaves. Everything is so very lovely, and the whole world seems to be breathlessly busy with itself, and I love watching it all. Of course today is wet, and belligerently so, as if the three consecutive days of sunshine were too much of a good thing, but I don’t care much because we have benefited so from the bright weather and Vera’s society that I feel ready to face up to weeks of dampness. On Saturday we wanted to go up to the Lakes, which are only a couple of hours drive away, but it rained all day and was very misty, so we went to Clitheroe instead and had tea at The Moorcock Inn again. We couldn’t see the moors much, because of the mist, and it was very disappointing, but we enjoyed the drive and the tea. On the way we whizzed past a place that said Terriers for Sale, or some such notice, and Eric made me stop the car and we went along to see the terriers. We listened to what the little man had to say about Sealyhams and Wire-haired Terriers, and then Eric bought me the smallest size of Red Setter with long legs and bony knees, and a wet black nose. He is undoing my shoelaces at the moment and growling ferociously. We left him at the kennels until Monday because we couldn’t take him to Clitheroe with us owing to the fact that we were going on to the pictures afterwards, and Vera’s dog was occupying the dog’s basket at night. We didn’t think he would care to have the children romping about and disturbing his Easter holiday. He was so funny about the kitten, too. She eyed him with extreme distaste at first and left the room whenever he came in, but by Sunday evening she was dying for a game. Mac [Vera’s dog] wasn’t having any nonsense and would be very cross if the Beezer so much as looked at him. Time and again she made friendly advances and was always snarled at, so she gave it up, except for stalking round chairs and giving him fierce looks every time Mac settled down for a rest. He would get up with an air of great annoyance and sit down somewhere else and Mrs Deeds promptly stalked at him again and shifted him away. Poor Mac was nearly exhausted by the end of the evening!

On Sunday Eric and Vera went off to Communion while I dashed about and did the housework and had the fires lit and the beds made and the breakfast nearly ready by the time they were home. We spent the morning by the fire, and had a gorgeous roast chook for dinner and a ‘Delicious’ pudding, and glasses of sherry, and then lay about in a torpid heap for a while. After the wash-up was done we got into the car and drove off to Southport because Vera and I both wanted to see the sea. What a farce! We got onto the sands and then had to ask where the sea was. “Oh, it’s out just now, is there any message?” No, no message. A two mile walk would have taken us to the water’s edge, but we didn’t feel inclined for that, and just strolled about on the sand, playing with Mac and watching an ancient aeroplane take people on three-minute pleasure flights.

We walked along the Prom, together with thousands of portly over-dressed Jews, and lots of extraordinary young girls and spotty youths. Then we went to tea in the Prince of Wales Hotel, which is a large and rather nice place, but not quite as nice as the Savoy. Mac had a biscuit and a surreptitious saucer of milk, and it was such a jolly meal. It was lovely having some feminine society for a while, and I did enjoy Vera’s visit. I put on my wedding hat when we went out and felt very festive.

On Monday Vera had to get a train at four, so I dashed through the housework in the morning, and we drove off to the nearby hills for a while. They are like a small edition of the Yorkshire Moors, only less stern and unrelenting. We drove along little lanes and came to odd corners full of beautiful trees and little houses, and there is a water conservation scheme in the hills that forms small lakes here and there, and it all looked very lovely. I took some photographs of this and that and ourselves, and hope they will be successful. I haven’t used all the film yet, so it will be a little while before I can develop it. I have one exposure left, which I will use to take a posh photograph of young Charnock Rufus for his grandmother. I have already taken one picture of him playing with the kitten, but it was washing day and I hadn’t time to take any more. They play together so prettily, and riot about all over the house, in between eating meals and having a hearty sleep. Rufus is such a dear little fellow, with such tender little looks and wicked ways, and  I hope I rear him successfully.

 

It is 1939 again, and Jane and Eric had been given a couple of weeks’ leave, so they decided to take their belated honeymoon.  They toured Scotland with a car, tent and Rufus.  This is almost all of Jane’s lovely description of their trip:

 

Such a lovely honeymoon we had, and I am sending you some photographs taken here and there along the way.  Owing to dull weather most of the pictures are rather dim, but some are quite all right and show how well-filled my clothes are, even though some of the strain is due to shrinkage of clothes in the wash.

We toured gently along from place to place, camping in a different spot each night, except when we got  to Lossiemouth where we stayed for two nights on the sea shore.  We left home on Saturday 15th, at 4.30 and took Beezer along to stay with Mrs. Smith for his holidays.  Then we took the Great Western Road out of Glasgow and followed the Clyde as far as Dumbarton, where we branched off on the Loch Lomond Road.  Glasgow was shrouded in smoke and rain, and we drove into clear weather and promptly opened  the sun-roof of the car and sang lustily as we went along.  Loch Lomond is only 30 miles from Glasgow and is as beautiful as everyone always says.  The road follows right along the shore at water-level, with steep hills climbing up on the other side, all thickly wooded �" sometimes with forests of orderly firs, sometimes grass and huge elms or beeches, and foxgloves growing wild all over the place.  Every few  yards little streams come bustling down the hill and into the loch.  At its widest Loch Lomond is only five miles across, and most of the time it is only two, and dwindles away until it is very little wider than the stream that feeds it at the northern end.  I don’t know the name of the stream, but it was my first sight of the ‘brown burns of Scotland’.  The water was the colour of beer, and came dashing down a steep hill, over several waterfalls and piles of rock, where it was churned to a lovely creamy froth.  We saw salmon trying to jump up the falls, but the torrent of water was of such terrific force that they couldn’t make the grade.  It was very exciting to watch, and we stayed for quite some time, then went on to a little place called Tarbet.  Here there was an ancient and very beautiful old stone house converted into an hotel, full of old fellows in golf clothes, or else men entirely obscured by fishing garments of a very peculiar kind.

We had tea on the edge of a very tiny lake, and then drove on until 9.30 and pitched camp right beside a pretty river, under the shadow of Ben More.

We drove on over moorland and mountain, beside lochs and rivers, and went through the Pass of Glencoe, which is in the thick of a mass of lumpy mountains, and just the place for a massacre.  I really could picture swirling kilts and skirling pipes and dead bodies all about, despite a huge party of gaping tourists and six motor buses.  We had lunch a hundred yards beyond the Pass, in the Glen of Weeping, a lovely spot with grass and trees and a river, and dozens of small streams coming down from every mountain top.  Glencoe village was a couple of  miles further on, on the shores of Loch Leven, full of tourists and new hotels but very beautiful for all of that, and full of tiny whitewashed stone cottages with roses round about, and sheep, hens, dogs, and goats and children, all infesting the roadway at once.  We always waved to everyone we passed on the way during our holiday, and it was very seldom that we didn’t get a cheery smile and salute in return, which made everything very jolly.

Crossed Loch Leven by a very quaint ferry at Ballachulish, just a few miles from Glencoe.  We took a photograph over Loch Leven to the mountains behind Glencoe, but it is rather dim owing to the arrival of too many clouds.

Half an hour later we were in Fort William, which is at the north end of Loch Leven, and just at the foot of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain, but dull to look at.

Between Ft William and Ft Augustus, about ten miles, we drove through lovely State Forestry Reserve, which was a mass of pines and firs, with foxgloves all along the road.  Ft Augustus is on Loch Ness, and watch as we would we could see nary a monster and have decided to ask for our money back.  We pitched camp half way along the western shore of Loch Ness which is 25 miles long and only a mile or two across all its length, with fir clad mountains on either side.  Sometimes the road is high above the water, and sometimes down by the edge, and it was a beautiful drive all the way.  Eric would put the tent on a slope that night, and we kept rolling down to the lochside and climbing back up again.  An active night!  It was raining too, but had cleared up by morning.

Inverness was our first town next day, but it proved expensive both for petrol and stores, so we left in haste after buying me a pair of rubber over-shoes because my walking shoes had just worn through and I kept on getting wet feet and a cold.

By the time we had reached Inverness we had done 172 miles, and crossed Scotland from west to east in  a long diagonal line.  I haven’t a map handy, but on the back of the last page I will draw a little plan of our route, and though the map may be all wrong it will give you a vague idea of what we did.

From Inverness we went westward along the coast of the Moray Firth, through Nairn and Burghead to Lossiemouth where we camped, after inspecting the ancient ruins of Duffus Castle.  It is the only moated castle in the north of Scotland, built by the Earl of Duffus in 1203 or some such date. There wasn’t much of it left, but what remained was interesting.  Walls were 5ft thick, with sometimes passages in them and little look-outs and such.  One of the bread-baking ovens had been unearthed and a glass frame put over it to keep it safe, there were bits of old carved stone pillar-heads lying about, but most of these old castles have been used as stone-quarries for the building of farm houses and cottages since they became ruined.

Outside Inverness we picked a basin-full of raspberries from bushes growing along the road, and had them for tea.

Lossiemouth was just a typical fishing village, built on a headland above the Lossie River and the sea.  The side of town away from the river is more up-to-date, and caters for the tourists that started coming when Ramsay MacDonald first came into the public eye. He was born there and always spent his holidays there in a very insignificant cottage,  he being all socialist.

 

We spent all next day in Lossiemouth, to have a rest, and went shopping in the village in the morning and played along the beach with Rufus in the afternoon.  He was as good as gold the whole week, and absolutely revelled in his holiday.  He slept on the back seat of the car at night, being guardian, and during the day he sat on his rug on top of the purple suitcase full of our clothing, on the back seat, so that he could see everything as we went along.  He is always perfectly quiet and well-behaved in the car, and in between his sleeps he either looks at the view or plays with his toys.  He has an ancient leather slipper, and a long-dried beef leg-bone 7" long and 1½”  in diameter with hollow ends. This is his favourite toy because his teeth are all coming through and causing him much annoyance.

We collected driftwood on the beach and had a lovely fire in the evening, in which we cooked potatoes whole.  From Lossiemouth we followed the coast after going down to Elgin and seeing the ruins of the cathedral, which we photographed.  We had lunch in a dear little village called Sandend down by the sea, then went on through Banff and MacDuff and lots of tiny coastal villages, all shrouded in thick fog.  It was so disappointing because the road ran along the top of the cliffs, on the only interesting bit of coast I have seen since I came here.  We couldn’t see a single thing, and the fog became so bad that we decided that it would be silly to camp out in all that wetness so we went on to Aberdeen, and stayed in a hotel.  In the early afternoon we went through Fraserburgh, a big fishing town and there was a break in the fog for a while.  All along the beach by the village there were dead-and-gone fishing boats lying with naked ribs and broken sides, beached and abandoned when unseaworthy, or wrecked in a storm.  It was a pitiful sight, but in this poverty-stricken country there is little wasted and the old hulls are broken up for firewood �" much better idea than scuttling them at sea.

From Aberdeen we went southwest, away from the coast, and had lunch in a beautiful spot beyond Bridge of Cairn, where the heather grew in a purple sheet all over the mountains and the moorland. It was absolutely brilliant, and everywhere we looked trees, farms, lochs, heather and mountains all combined to make a perfect picture.  We followed along the Deeside to Crathie Church and Balmoral Castle, and walked in the beautiful castle grounds.  We examined the castle and the lovely gardens, but the castle was disappointing despite being a handsome building.  It lacked the mellow dignity of the old places, ruined though some of  them are.  It was only built in 1853 and is very clean and new-looking.

Braemar was a few miles further on through the hills and pine forests.  It is just a small place with pretty stone houses and a tall wooded hill standing up right behind it.  After leaving it we drove through naked woodland country with a little river running beside the road and only one or two little trees here and there on its banks.  The road went over the famous Devil’s Elbow, an S-bend with a gradient of 1 in 5 and sometimes 1 in 4. Luckily we were going down, not coming up like some unfortunates we saw struggling along.  The road ran on through Glen Shee and a village called the Spittal of Glenshee, and on into Blairgowrie, Dunkeld, Perth and Kinross, through lovely hilly, tree-covered country with stately mansions among the trees and pretty old bridges over the rivers.  That was the night we camped in Glen Farg, and I sent you a card from the village of Glen Farg next morning, posted it somewhere else but can’t remember just where.

We went on south to Crowdenbeath and over the Firth of Forth at Queensberry, under the Forth Bridge, and on to Edinburgh where we bought milk and bread for lunch.

We took the road for Gullane and lunched on the way among a wild horde of midges and flies, and then went to Aunty Tommy’s.

We only wanted to just pay a brief visit and then go on round the coast to Abbe’s Head and camp by the sea for our last night, as we were to stay with Aunty Tommy on Saturday night and go home on Sunday.  However, Aunty T wouldn’t hear of it, and she is very sweet to us and a lovely old soul, so we stayed there, and just took her for a drive by the sea in the evening.  Next morning she was busy so we took Rufus to play on the beach and he had his first swim and loved it, despite the coldness of the water. In the afternoon we took Aunty Tommy to a fete at the Earl of Wemyss Estate, which was spoilt utterly by rain.

After only two hours sleep the night before, I was pretty tired so after lighting the fire for hot baths I got a meal, unpacked all our things, had a bath and leapt into bed �"and didn’t sleep!

 

In February 1940 Jane penned a letter to her sister Peggy in which she relates the story of the day her friend Mrs Barron took them on a trip to Paisley to visit a cotton mill that wove dress-making fabrics.  It was a trip filled with high drama and I leave it to Jane to tell the story:

 

We had a helluva day when we went to the mill.  It was just a couple of days after I got up, and the freeze was still on us, so we wore all the clothes we had, literally, and packed into Eric’s borrowed and decrepit car with a rug each and 3 hot water bottles.  Mrs Barron was with us to find the mill, but we got lost in the snowy wastes just the same, and took hours to get there after a lot of messing about.  The roads had churned-up frozen snow all over them and were more bumpy than a newly ploughed field, and terribly uncomfortable, and I was not as happy as I  could have been, I can tell you.  We didn’t leave the mill until a quarter to five, and then one of the chains on the back wheels came adrift and banged unceasingly against the mudguard, so Eric tied it up with string, and it broke in a different place a few minutes later and nearly drove us demented, to say nothing of damaging the car, so we put in to a garage and had the chains removed.  When we left there it was dark, and we were famished and cold and longing for home, and rattled along in the old car until it suddenly died on us.  Mrs Barron and I just sat for half an hour while Eric stirred up the bowels of the engine and cranked until he nearly died of it, and finally we had to abandon the car and get a tram.  Out we climbed, laden with rugs and water bottles and two huge parcels of materials, to say nowt about all the clothes we had on!  We stood freezing in the snow for ten minutes and then a tram came along and we tried to board it, but the Glasgow trams and buses are hateful, hellish vehicles, and always start off before everyone is on, so Mrs Barron was safely aboard and I was half on when away we went.  I would have fallen out again but Eric gave me a hearty push and I was safe, but he was left running frantically behind.  I pealed furiously on the bell until the car stopped, and out we got to walk the 20 yards back to the stop, cursing like fun, and me feeling rather shaken because I was terribly cold and my legs were still wobbly.  Imagine our despair when Eric sailed happily past in another tram!  We shrieked in dismay and saw him dance up and down in a frenzy to try to stop the tram.  Suddenly I lost control and burst into shrieks of wild laughter.  There we were, tottering down the middle of the road, shedding water bags and rugs into the snow with traffic whirling about us and my husband being whisked away as fast as a Glasgow tram could manage it.  All this in the pitchy and freezing blackout, on slippery and horrible roads.  We were all safely united at last, back at the tram stop, but of course that was all the trams there were by then, so we stood again, getting awfully cold and finally took refuge for 15 minutes in the heated foyer of a cinema until a bus came along.  We got aboard �" but only just �" and were carried past our stop because we weren’t given time to get off.  We had to get another tram home, and by that time I was so terrified of getting on and off the damnable Glasgow vehicles that I could scarcely bear to face the task.  It was awful, I can tell you, because my legs were weak anyway, and my balance is all upset just now and the roads were slippery as blazes.  I was a nervous wreck by the time we got home and nearly in tears.  The walk from the tram stop to the house was almost more than I could manage, uphill on pavements thick with frozen slush, and I slipped about giggling helplessly.  My only comfort was to think of myself as a refugee more fortunate than any other in that I was struggling towards a home, and not away from it.  I’ve never been in such a state in all my life, and Eric dosed me up with hot lemon and whisky when we got home �" after eight o’clock  �" then I got hot soup and built up the fire again, and then fixed a hot meal, and oh boy, how we needed it.  After we had fed, I undid my parcel �" so hardly won �" and showed Eric the spoils and we were both comforted, and retired to bed feeling terribly exhausted but pleased with the shopping.  Now I haven’t any more room except for two sentiments �" I detest Glasgow and all its works, and I luvsha and will write you another piece soon.  Hope you like the stuffs.  Best love, Jane.

 

Then there was this little excerpt from one of her longer letters, which gives us a bit of an insight as to what people did in those times to amuse themselves:

 

Little Nessie is staying with us for a long week, and is being such a help with the babies.  She adores giving Gillian her bottle, which leaves me to do something very useful in the twenty minutes that it takes.  She also takes Richard down to the sea or up to the railway, according to taste.  Jimmy Arnott is the same age as Nessie, and I asked him over to tea on Sunday evening, and he was rapidly followed by Maisie, and finally Mrs Arnott and Grandpa Arnott, and the evening developed into a sing-song around the piano, once the babies were in bed.  Jimmie showed me how to make paper aeroplanes, which I’d been struggling over all afternoon.  Then Nessie, the horrible child, introduced us to a fiend of a puzzle, which I shall show you, and I warn you about it first.  For two days we all went demented, going into a trance every now and then, and suddenly screeching “Got It!” and rushing for paper and pencil only to cast them aside in a fury later on.  Meals were late or forgotten, Gillian starved, doorbells went unanswered, and there wasn’t a scrap of paper that didn’t have a maze of squiggles all over it.  The worst of it is that I did get the thing right once, but was in such a dazed condition that I couldn’t remember how I’d done it.

Well, there you are and here it is:  you have to draw it all in one continuous line without retracing any previous line.  Let me tell you at once that it is impossible, though some maniacs jibbering in an asylum assert that it is easy.  You’ll do it ten million times �" all but one stroke �" unless, of course,  you and Daddy are so clever that you can see how it’s done.  I expect my brother will do it first pop and nae bother at all.