A Girl Can Dream. Anne Bennett
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In late February, as the weather became just a little warmer, Ruth suddenly rolled over on the mat in front of the fire and drew her legs underneath her. May, who was having a cup of tea with Meg, chuckled. ‘That young ’un will be crawling afore long,’ she said. ‘Then the fun will start.’
May was right. The next day Ruth crept forward a few hesitant paces, but by the end of the week she was going at a hefty pace. ‘One body’s work, they are at that age,’ May remarked, and Meg knew she was right. The children were great at minding their baby sister when they were home, but there was still the washing and housework to be done during the day when Meg was alone now that Billy was at school too.
‘Without May next door I would be lost,’ Meg told Joy when they met in mid March. ‘She minds her when I am in the brew house doing the washing or ironing the stuff the following day.’
‘What about your auntie?’ Joy asked. ‘Rose – isn’t that her name? Doesn’t she give a hand?’
‘She used to, but she won’t be able to soon,’ Meg said.
‘Why not?’
‘She’s getting a job. Says the money will come in handy. It was a shock to me because there was no mention of her getting any sort of job before.’
‘Well, there weren’t jobs about for many people,’ Joy pointed out. ‘Lots of men couldn’t get jobs either. You’d see lines of them just standing on street corners.’
‘Yes,’ Meg said. ‘There’s not so many of them now.’
‘That’s because they think there might be a war and they are getting prepared,’ Joy said. ‘What’s your aunt looking into?’
‘Sewing parachutes,’ Meg said. ‘Says it’s really well paid.’
Joy grimaced. ‘Our dad says if there is going to be a war it will be fought from the air and they’ll drop bombs on us like the Germans did in that Spanish town a while ago. I suppose people are getting windy now because of the Anschluss a few days ago’
‘Oh, yes,’ Meg said. ‘My cousin Nicholas keeps going on about that. But I don’t see it’s that much of a problem. I mean, Hitler’s Austrian, isn’t he, and the Austrian Government seemed to welcome him with open arms.’
‘Hardly that.’
‘All right then,’ Meg conceded. ‘But there was no fighting or anything.’
‘No,’ Joy agreed.
‘So Hitler’s happy and Austria must be too or they would have done something about it, so what has it got to do with us?’
Joy shrugged. ‘I can see what you are saying, but I reckon we just might be dragged into it somehow. I mean, your Nicholas thinks there’s going to be a war, doesn’t he?’
‘He’s certain sure of it. He goes on about the way Germany is treating the Jews and how we can’t stand by and see it happen, but no one in their right mind wants another war.’
Meg was right: no one did, especially those who remembered the carnage of the last one. But the papers were full of the atrocities Germany was committing against the Jews; even the voices of the announcers on the wireless seemed doom-laden. ‘Fascism’ was the word bandied about a lot, like the Nazi Party that Hitler led in Germany, and Meg had been quite surprised that Britain had its own Fascist party, led by a man called Oswald Mosley, who seemed to dislike the Jews as much as Hitler did.
She didn’t really want to think too much about it, and when talking to Nicholas she tried to steer any conversation away from the subject of war. But it seemed like it was all Nicholas wanted to talk about until one day she snapped, ‘Oh, go on, Nicholas, you can clap your hands with joy at the thought of another war because you will be safe as houses away at school while others fight your battles for you.’
‘No, you’re wrong,’ Nicholas said. ‘If we were to go to war, I would enlist as soon as I was old enough, sooner if they’d have me.’
‘And what about your studies?’
‘What about them?’
‘Your mother would never stand for you leaving school.’
‘She would have to.’
‘Well, thank God we shall never have to put it to the test,’ Meg said firmly.
On Saturday 1 October 1938, when Nicholas called in with Terry after football, Meg had the pictures in the Despatch ready to show him. ‘So much for you going on about war all the time, Nicholas Hallett,’ she said, stabbing her finger at the picture of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper in his hand as he walked down the steps from an aeroplane.
‘“Peace for Our Time”.’ She read the headline out to him. ‘Peace – see, it’s what every sensible person wants. Peace, not war.’
She knew why Nicholas had thought that there might be a war, because her father had told her that many European countries, especially those near – or sharing borders with – Germany had become uneasy after the Anschluss, especially when Hitler starting grumbling about Sudetenland.
‘Where is this Sudetenland?’ Meg had asked him. ‘I’ve never heard of it before.’
‘Well, it’s part of Czechoslovakia now,’ Charlie said. ‘It used to be part of Germany once and was taken off them after the Great War.’
‘Why?’ Meg asked. ‘I didn’t think you did that sort of thing to countries.’
‘It was like punishing Germany,’ Charlie said, and he shrugged. ‘Anyway, now Hitler wants it back because he claims most of the people there speak German and think of themselves as German, so leaders of countries, including our Neville Chamberlain, are meeting in Munich to decide what to do.’
Meg had not wanted to think very much about politics up until then, knowing whatever government was in power did little good for ordinary people. But now, knowing some of the background, she was interested in the outcome of the meeting. However, the news was good. They’d all agreed to Hitler’s demands and given him back Sudetenland, and any problem with Germany had been averted.
However, almost immediately things changed. Meg knew, for instance, that the Birmingham Small Arms Company had begun making guns because two men in the same street, who had been unemployed for years, got jobs there. Then her father, told her that Dunlop’s had started making different tyres for military vehicles.
In late October she discussed these changes with Joy as they ate lunch and Joy shared her concern.
‘The thing that bothers me most,’ Joy said, ‘is the fact that I really doubt they would go to all this trouble just to be on the safe side? I mean, I have an uncle who’s begun work in what they call a shadow factory beside Vickers in Castle Bromwich, and they’re assembling aeroplanes.’
‘Aeroplanes?’ Meg repeated, and felt a flutter of trepidation. ‘It’s like my aunt sewing parachutes. Like you said, in peacetime why would we want so many parachutes, or planes either?’
‘Maybe Chamberlain was just playing for time,’ Joy said. ‘You know, giving us a chance to get ready.’
A chilling shiver ran through Meg. ‘Oh, Joy, I hope you’re wrong.’
‘So do I,’ said Joy. ‘Two of my uncles were killed in the last war, leaving my aunts widows. Each of them left a son. They are worried to death. The Great War was supposed to be the war to end all wars; although they lost their husbands in that, they thought at least their sons wouldn’t be sent to fight.’
‘It doesn’t seem fair, does it?’
‘No it flipping doesn’t,’ Joy said. ‘And if the unthinkable happens and we do go to war, people say it won’t be a war like any other. If they bomb us like they did in Spain, what are we going to do?’
‘But