be spokeswoman for the group and mentally prepared herself for a future scouring pans in an army canteen.
The encounter was a collaborative triumph for the girls. Helen led the assault on Mr Fox. Initially he remained unmoved; if the girls weren’t prepared to darn their hose he had no sympathy. Helen was outraged at this. She had spent hours of her life repairing ladders with a crochet hook, and pointed out that they were far too poor to waste good hosiery. But couldn’t they wear slacks, which would be smart, and warm in winter? ‘His mouth fell open. He was genuinely shocked. “Not in my office,” he replied frigidly.’
Another girl, who had not up to then said a single word, suddenly spoke up. ‘If you insist about stockings, we shall all have to find other jobs,’ she said baldly.
There was a silence. All Mr Fox’s male staff had been conscripted; he had things how he wanted them now. How on earth would he replace his entire female workforce? But the turning point came when thissame young woman advanced demurely towards Mr Fox with the words, ‘Our legs don’t look too bad.’
As she spoke, she slightly raised the hem of her mid-length skirt and extended a well-turned, evenly stained calf towards him:
‘Oxo,’ she announced simply.
Mr Fox was caught, and he knew it. It was he who had appointed his female employees on the basis of their shapely legs. Snarling with defeat, he dismissed them. They never heard another word and, though daring to wear slacks was carrying liberty too far, they all knew there would be no further objections to them going barelegged. This they continued to do for the remainder of the war, in summer and – sore, raw and bleeding with chilblains – in winter.
*
For thousands of women like Doris Scorer, Phyllis Noble and Helen Forrester, lipstick shortages and stocking wars were in the foreground of their lives. It was like some law of nature: the more war, with its demands and privations, encroached on the attributes of femininity, the more resourceful and ingenious women became in expressing those attributes. Their self-respect as women was at stake. Make-up and elastic shortages embarrassed and undermined them, but they were possessed with an obstinate spirit. As one woman said, ‘one needed that lipstick to show that one’s flag was still flying’. Female morale required beauty. Even if you were lonely, even if the husbands and boyfriends you loved and wanted to please were on the other side of the world, you curled your hair and went to the pub, or the dance. It made the waiting and the enduring less punishing; it made you feel better about yourself. So you put on your war paint and set out to get a wink and a flattering comment from the fitters, the foremen or even the patronising drill sergeant.
Hardly surprising, then, if things boiled over from time to time.
Newlywed Kaye Bastin was still waiting. Brian’s family, who lived near Henley, took her under their wing, and baby Anne was born late in 1941. While she was still small they moved back to a flat in Brighton. Here, Kaye made life work on her own terms. ‘There were so many like us … we just had to get on with life.’ She had plenty of friends and took Anne to the local mother and baby clinic. Her niece wasalways willing to babysit if she wanted to go to the pub at the end of the road with her sister. Intermittently, letters arrived from Brian. ‘He was having a good time in South Africa. He was a young man … I knew that he wasn’t faithful, because he wrote and told me about his girlfriends. And in fact one of them got pregnant and had to have an abortion. Then there was another one, who conceived, but she didn’t have it, because it was an ectopic pregnancy.’
Her husband’s sexual transgressions were no worse than those of innumerable servicemen posted abroad. Though barely twenty-two, Kaye now drew upon a reserve of tolerance and broad-mindedness that would stand her in good stead for the rest
The encounter was a collaborative triumph for the girls. Helen led the assault on Mr Fox. Initially he remained unmoved; if the girls weren’t prepared to darn their hose he had no sympathy. Helen was outraged at this. She had spent hours of her life repairing ladders with a crochet hook, and pointed out that they were far too poor to waste good hosiery. But couldn’t they wear slacks, which would be smart, and warm in winter? ‘His mouth fell open. He was genuinely shocked. “Not in my office,” he replied frigidly.’
Another girl, who had not up to then said a single word, suddenly spoke up. ‘If you insist about stockings, we shall all have to find other jobs,’ she said baldly.
There was a silence. All Mr Fox’s male staff had been conscripted; he had things how he wanted them now. How on earth would he replace his entire female workforce? But the turning point came when thissame young woman advanced demurely towards Mr Fox with the words, ‘Our legs don’t look too bad.’
As she spoke, she slightly raised the hem of her mid-length skirt and extended a well-turned, evenly stained calf towards him:
‘Oxo,’ she announced simply.
Mr Fox was caught, and he knew it. It was he who had appointed his female employees on the basis of their shapely legs. Snarling with defeat, he dismissed them. They never heard another word and, though daring to wear slacks was carrying liberty too far, they all knew there would be no further objections to them going barelegged. This they continued to do for the remainder of the war, in summer and – sore, raw and bleeding with chilblains – in winter.
*
For thousands of women like Doris Scorer, Phyllis Noble and Helen Forrester, lipstick shortages and stocking wars were in the foreground of their lives. It was like some law of nature: the more war, with its demands and privations, encroached on the attributes of femininity, the more resourceful and ingenious women became in expressing those attributes. Their self-respect as women was at stake. Make-up and elastic shortages embarrassed and undermined them, but they were possessed with an obstinate spirit. As one woman said, ‘one needed that lipstick to show that one’s flag was still flying’. Female morale required beauty. Even if you were lonely, even if the husbands and boyfriends you loved and wanted to please were on the other side of the world, you curled your hair and went to the pub, or the dance. It made the waiting and the enduring less punishing; it made you feel better about yourself. So you put on your war paint and set out to get a wink and a flattering comment from the fitters, the foremen or even the patronising drill sergeant.
Hardly surprising, then, if things boiled over from time to time.
Newlywed Kaye Bastin was still waiting. Brian’s family, who lived near Henley, took her under their wing, and baby Anne was born late in 1941. While she was still small they moved back to a flat in Brighton. Here, Kaye made life work on her own terms. ‘There were so many like us … we just had to get on with life.’ She had plenty of friends and took Anne to the local mother and baby clinic. Her niece wasalways willing to babysit if she wanted to go to the pub at the end of the road with her sister. Intermittently, letters arrived from Brian. ‘He was having a good time in South Africa. He was a young man … I knew that he wasn’t faithful, because he wrote and told me about his girlfriends. And in fact one of them got pregnant and had to have an abortion. Then there was another one, who conceived, but she didn’t have it, because it was an ectopic pregnancy.’
Her husband’s sexual transgressions were no worse than those of innumerable servicemen posted abroad. Though barely twenty-two, Kaye now drew upon a reserve of tolerance and broad-mindedness that would stand her in good stead for the rest
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