Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett
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bombs rained down on them from the sky, horrified her. Her grandfather’s reference to Guernica bought to mind the pictures she had seen of that blitzed town, the buildings reduced to piles of smoking, smouldering rubble, its many dead or dying, others dreadfully injured.
The savagery of it had shocked the world and now that same thing perhaps might be afflicted on them or those belonging to them. God, it didn’t bear thinking about.
The talk of war was everywhere and couldn’t be escaped as the spring rolled into summer. Tom told her, going home from the McEvoys one day, that not all Irishmen felt that the war should affect them or their country at all.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, you see, many feel that this is England’s fight, not theirs, and they should keep well out of it. I think they are remembering England’s promise of Home Rule as thanks for Ireland’s support in the Great War, where our brother Finn lost his life.’
Molly nodded. ‘Mom told me about that and also that the promise wasn’t kept.’
‘That’s right,’ Tom said. ‘And of course that led to years of unease and almost civil war raging through the land. People here don’t want to be dragged in again.’
‘I can see they have a point,’ Molly said. ‘How do you feel?’
‘I think the past should stay in the past,’ Tom said firmly. ‘What’s done is done, and it does no good to be rehashing it all the time. I think if Britain goes to war we could well be dragged into it whether we like it or not. And though I am essentially a man of peace, I could do my bit as well as the next man if I had to.’
‘Yeah, I think that is the best way to look at it really,’ Molly agreed.
‘But I think it would do no harm to get a wireless in,’ Tom said.
‘A wireless! Oh, Uncle Tom!’ Molly hugged herself with delight.
Tom smiled at her. ‘Joe was after advising me to get one; keep abreast of things,’ he said in explanation. ‘Seems a good enough idea to me.’
‘But how will you work it?’ Molly asked. ‘I mean, we had a wireless at home, but it ran on electric.’
‘These have something called an accumulator in the back,’ Tom said. ‘The man in the shop in Buncrana was showing me. He said it has to be charged up every so often and I can do that in Buncrana when I go in on a Saturday. Anyway, he has one on order for me and I am picking it up next Saturday.’
‘Oh, it will be grand to have a wireless,’ Molly said. ‘Ooh, I can’t wait.’
Biddy didn’t think it was grand at all. ‘Waste of more money,’ she growled out as Tom proudly carried it indoors. ‘Boy, money must burn a hole in your pocket.’
‘I am no boy,’ Tom snapped back. ‘And when I ask you to give me something towards anything I buy, then you may express an opinion. This was bought with my own hard-earned money and we have already established that what I do with that is my own business.’
Molly smiled. For her money, Tom could go for a drink every day of the week because he could always cope better with his mother when he had sunk a few pints of Guinness with Jack and the rest of the men. And anyway, she thought, nothing could take the pleasure away from actually having a wireless in the house again.
England at least was preparing for war. Molly’s grandfather told her of the trenches dug in Birmingham parks and the reinforced brick-built shelters that were going up everywhere. Even the children got involved, and Kevin wrote and told her of the hundreds of bags they had spent ages filling with sand through the hot summer days.
Hilda explained to her about the blackout and the issuing of gas masks.
Not a chink of light to be seen outside and if it is, you face a fine of £200, think on that? And the ruddy gas masks is just horrible. They smell to high heaven, and everyone has a box to put them in that they must carry around their neck in case of gas attacks, they say.
‘What are these gas attacks like, Uncle Tom?’ Molly asked one day in the cowshed.
‘Well,’ Tom said, ‘I can only talk about the last war when the Germans used mustard gas on the soldiers. It buggers up, I mean, damages the lungs so that a person can’t breathe.’
‘Does it kill?’
‘Aye, I believe it can do,’ Tom said. ‘I suppose all these measures are to protect the civilian population. They are sending the children away too, so Joe said. Did your grandfather tell you that?’
Molly nodded. ‘Doesn’t affect them,’ she said. ‘Erdington obviously isn’t considered a high-risk area.’
‘Tottenham is,’ Tom said. ‘But Joe says that Gloria won’t even consider Ben going anywhere.’
‘I don’t blame her either,’ Molly said. ‘But it is scary, isn’t it?’
‘All war is scary,’ Tom said. ‘Only a fool wouldn’t be scared, and though the raids and all won’t happen here, because Ireland has declared itself neutral, we have loved ones to worry about in England that I am certain will soon be in the thick of it.’
‘I know,’ Molly said, and her heart felt as heavy as lead.
On Friday, 1 September, the day many children from England’s cities were travelling to unknown destinations, Germany invaded Poland. Molly’s eyes met those of her uncle as the voice on the wireless told them what this meant. Everyone with a grain of common sense knew already.
Molly was glad the following Sunday that her grandmother wasn’t the kind to linger after nine o’clock Mass. There was going to be an address by the British Prime Minister, just after eleven, and Molly wanted to have the opportunity to listen to it, although she knew what it was going to say.
She wasn’t disappointed either. By 11.15 a.m. on Sunday 3 September 1939, she heard that Britain was at war with Germany, and she felt suddenly numbed with fear.
Everyone, both in Ireland and Britain, expected raids from the air once war between Britain and Germany was official, but it didn’t happen. In fact, nothing did. There were battles at sea and ships sunk which were often reported in the Irish papers. Though Molly could feel sorry about the sailors who had lost their lives, that didn’t adversely affect her loved ones at all.
In fact, what seemed to affect them most was the blackout. As Hilda put it,
Telling you, Molly, you ain’t seen dark like it. You can’t see a hand in front of you. And there’s accidents, of course. I mean, stands to reason. Some of them have been little, like slipping off kerbs and that, and you do feel right daft when you find yourself apologising to the pillar box, or lamppost you have just walked into. But, some of the accidents have been more serious and people have been injured, or even killed on the roads, because the cars and buses and stuff are unlit too. In fact, my old man says he wonders who the enemy is, for Germany has been quiet since the balloon really went up. Calm before the storm, I dare say, but if the government don’t do summat about this here blackout soon, there won’t be the people left to fight Hitler off if he does try to take a pop at us.
Her granddad hated it as much as anyone else, but he was also dreading the rationing that was being introduced in the new year.
I know, though, it will be a fairer system and much better than the last war when the rich bought all before them, so that in some places there was little left in the shops for the rest of us. Anyway, I suppose I must put up with it like everyone else. If you utter a word in complaint about any damned thing these days you are reminded there is a war on. I mean, as if you are likely to forget.
I’ve had word that we are having our Anderson shelter delivered next week. We have the pit already dug and once the