by their lack of ready cash. A few illicit fags were also passed around. ‘We must be sociable, everybody smokes,’ was their excuse to justify the cheap Woodbines they coveted. All the film stars they watched in the small local ABC smoked and the cinema was always full of choking tobacco fumes. There were no objections or health warnings to deter them. It was the accepted norm.
‘Come on, have a puff, be sociable,’ was a favourite phrase. The outbreak of war with Germany in 1939 put an end to their innocent existence. Several of the boys who were eighteen rushed with a patriotic fervour to join the forces as soon as they could and one or two of the girls followed suit. They imagined it would be better than the dull life they endured at home. The rigid class system had kept many of them in their place for many years and this was an opportunity to break some of those unwelcome bonds. Service in big houses or working long hours as shop assistants were not things they wanted any more. Freedom, although dangerous, beckoned them and they were keen to taste it.
Anne was directed to work in a factory that made parachutes. ‘I must do my bit,’ she said but she found the work very dull. She was pleased to be able to make her underwear out of a few remnants of the silk but that was the only bonus.
‘It’s worse than office work,’ she told her father. ‘I wish I was old enough to join the forces. Another year and I will.’
‘Be thankful you are not old enough my girl,’ her father retorted. He had been a young conscript in the First World War, and was gassed before being invalided out of the army. That experience had dented any patriotic enthusiasm he once possessed. Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War he contracted pneumonia which, because of the damage inflicted on his lungs earlier by mustard gas, ensured a swift demise. He had been an intelligent man who had attended the local county grammar school but his war-time injuries meant that he could only work part-time in a simple clerical job for most of his life and money was always in short supply.
James joined the navy as soon as he could in 1939 and Anne and their mother Jane rarely received any letters from him. He was intelligent like his father and had completed a degree course in History at London University, an achievement of which he was proud. He was going to make sure he obtained a better job than any his poor old dad had obtained.
‘I’ve been accepted for officer training,’ he told his parents with pride the last time he saw him and received the admiration and pat on the back for which he had hoped.
Anne coveted a job as a clippie on the London buses. There were plenty of vacancies now that the men had joined the forces, and, although too young, she lied about her age and was accepted for training. She had several boyfriends, one of whom was Richard Brown, a local boy she had met whilst still attending school in Putney, in South London.
On his first leave before being posted to France Richard made amorous advances towards Anne.
‘Sleep with me, Anne,’ he begged. ‘We may not get another chance – I’ll probably be killed in France like my uncles in the First World War. I don’t want to die a virgin.’
Anne considered that reasonable enough despite the warnings of her mother over the years.
‘Keep yourself for your husband, girl, nobody wants soiled goods! Dirty behaviour never pays.’
Silly old-fashioned ideas they were, Anne told herself, out of date and complete rubbish. She was jolly well going to please herself now and she did. Richard and Anne made love wherever they could when Richard was home on leave from his barracks only twenty miles away. After the death of his parents Richard lived with an elderly uncle whose greatest pleasure was to drink with his mates in the local pub, the Pig and Whistle, and they often had his uncle’s house to themselves in the evenings. German bombing raids and nights spent in
‘Come on, have a puff, be sociable,’ was a favourite phrase. The outbreak of war with Germany in 1939 put an end to their innocent existence. Several of the boys who were eighteen rushed with a patriotic fervour to join the forces as soon as they could and one or two of the girls followed suit. They imagined it would be better than the dull life they endured at home. The rigid class system had kept many of them in their place for many years and this was an opportunity to break some of those unwelcome bonds. Service in big houses or working long hours as shop assistants were not things they wanted any more. Freedom, although dangerous, beckoned them and they were keen to taste it.
Anne was directed to work in a factory that made parachutes. ‘I must do my bit,’ she said but she found the work very dull. She was pleased to be able to make her underwear out of a few remnants of the silk but that was the only bonus.
‘It’s worse than office work,’ she told her father. ‘I wish I was old enough to join the forces. Another year and I will.’
‘Be thankful you are not old enough my girl,’ her father retorted. He had been a young conscript in the First World War, and was gassed before being invalided out of the army. That experience had dented any patriotic enthusiasm he once possessed. Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War he contracted pneumonia which, because of the damage inflicted on his lungs earlier by mustard gas, ensured a swift demise. He had been an intelligent man who had attended the local county grammar school but his war-time injuries meant that he could only work part-time in a simple clerical job for most of his life and money was always in short supply.
James joined the navy as soon as he could in 1939 and Anne and their mother Jane rarely received any letters from him. He was intelligent like his father and had completed a degree course in History at London University, an achievement of which he was proud. He was going to make sure he obtained a better job than any his poor old dad had obtained.
‘I’ve been accepted for officer training,’ he told his parents with pride the last time he saw him and received the admiration and pat on the back for which he had hoped.
Anne coveted a job as a clippie on the London buses. There were plenty of vacancies now that the men had joined the forces, and, although too young, she lied about her age and was accepted for training. She had several boyfriends, one of whom was Richard Brown, a local boy she had met whilst still attending school in Putney, in South London.
On his first leave before being posted to France Richard made amorous advances towards Anne.
‘Sleep with me, Anne,’ he begged. ‘We may not get another chance – I’ll probably be killed in France like my uncles in the First World War. I don’t want to die a virgin.’
Anne considered that reasonable enough despite the warnings of her mother over the years.
‘Keep yourself for your husband, girl, nobody wants soiled goods! Dirty behaviour never pays.’
Silly old-fashioned ideas they were, Anne told herself, out of date and complete rubbish. She was jolly well going to please herself now and she did. Richard and Anne made love wherever they could when Richard was home on leave from his barracks only twenty miles away. After the death of his parents Richard lived with an elderly uncle whose greatest pleasure was to drink with his mates in the local pub, the Pig and Whistle, and they often had his uncle’s house to themselves in the evenings. German bombing raids and nights spent in
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