![]()
Chapter One
STANDING AMONG THE rails of donated clothing, Cathy Wheeler, neé Brogan, ran her eyes over the various boys’ coats. Spotting a green tweed one towards the end of the rail, she grasped it and pulled it out.
‘I only unpacked it yesterday. It was in one of the new Canadian Red Cross parcels,’ she said, turning it around and holding it up. ‘But I think this might fit your little lad, Mrs . . . ?’
‘Prentice. It looks a bit big,’ said the young mother with tired eyes.
‘Why don’t you get him to try it on, Mrs Prentice?’ Cathy said, giving it to her.
Cathy waited as the young woman fitted the donated coat on her son.
It was Friday afternoon and, as always when she did her stint at St Breda and St Brendan’s ARP Rest Centre, she was dressed in her forest-green Women’s Voluntary Service uniform. Three and a half years ago, before the war started, the room she now stood in had been used by the local community for wedding receptions, dances and the youth club. Now the main hall of the church’s Catholic Club was the first port of call for those who, after a night in an air raid shelter, arrived home to discover a pile of rubble where their house had once stood.
The second-hand clothing section of the WVS’s rest centre, which Cathy was responsible for, was located in the back corner of the main hall. Opposite her was the canteen area, from where a faint smell of hotpot drifted across. Behind the serving hatch, half a dozen of her fellow volunteers were preparing an evening meal for families and ARP workers alike. The massive Bush wireless belted out tunes as the women worked. The rest of the hall was taken up by the dozen or so rows of camp beds with striped tick mattresses. On each bed was a neatly folded grey blanket with a pillow resting on top, ready for the next unfortunate occupant. However, fog had been blanketing the London Docks, just a stone’s throw away, for the past week, which meant the Luftwaffe was unable to use the Thames’s reflection to locate London, and so the emergency beds hadn’t been needed.
It was the first week of November 1942 and Cathy had taken over the running of the second-hand clothes section at the end of the summer from her mother, Ida. They had joined the WVS together a couple of years before to help with the war effort. She’d been carrying Peter at the time and after he’d been born she hadn’t been able to help out as much, but when he turned eighteen months last Christmas, Cathy decided to take advantage of the rest centre’s nursery. So now, while Peter had fun with Auntie Muriel and Auntie Pat, Cathy did her bit to fight Hitler.
‘I still think it’s a bit on the large size,’ said Mrs Prentice, studying her son all buttoned up in his new coat.
Cathy’s gaze flickered over the youngster.
‘It’s got a bit of growing room, I grant you,’ she said. ‘But you only have to tack up the sleeves an inch or two and you’ll get a lot of wear out of it.’
The woman sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. I’ll have it then. And I’ve got a couple of gymslips my girl’s grown out of.’ She delved into the shopping basket at her feet. ‘Can I swap them for a bigger size?’
She offered Cathy the navy garments.
‘Thank you,’ the woman said, as Cathy took the dresses from her.
Unfortunately, as always when there was something on offer for free, people took advantage. There had been a spate recently, especially when word got around that a new consignment from the US or Canadian Red Cross had arrived, of people turning up at a rest centre pretending to have been bombed out. They’d take the pick of the new clothes, plus household items like crockery and linen, which then turned up a few days later for sale on market stalls. Thankfully, although Cathy had never met her before, Mrs Prentice was obviously a genuine case.
‘How old is she?’
‘Ten.’
Cathy, tucking a strand of light brown hair behind her ear, moved to the school uniform rail and sifted through the line of assorted skirts, blazers and trousers.
‘Here we go,’ she said, dragging out two pinafores.
‘Gladys!’
A young girl reading a comic at one of the canteen tables looked up.
‘Come and try these on,’ called the young mother, beckoning her over.
Cathy caught sight of the clock over the door at the far end of the hall.
Almost four thirty already!
Leaving Mrs Prentice to deal with her daughter, Cathy tidied the hangers and straightened the piles of newly washed and pressed men’s shirts set out on the trestle table, neatly ordered by collar size.
‘How are we getting on?’ she asked, turning back to her customer.
The mother looked her daughter up and down.
‘They’ll do until Easter, I expect,’ said Mrs Prentice, bending to tug the hem of the navy gymslip straight. ‘Go and change back into your clothes now, Gladys,’ she instructed her daughter.
‘I have some navy school knickers, too,’ added Cathy. ‘They’re new if you could use a couple of—’
‘Thanks,’ the young mother cut in, opening her purse and pulling out her pink clothing ration book.
‘They’ve been donated as second hand so you won’t need coupons, but if you want, you can drop a couple of coppers in our Spitfire jar instead.’ Cathy indicated the sweets jar on the refectory counter. It was half filled with coins and had a picture of the fighter aircraft mid-flight stuck on it. ‘We’d be grateful.’
‘I’ll see if I’ve got a bob or two,’ Mrs Prentice replied. ‘But what with these two eating me out of house and home and the prices in the shops going up every day, I’ve barely got two ha’pennies to rub together at the end of the week.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Cathy, thinking of the handful of coppers in her own purse.
‘I thought it would get a bit better when the Yanks joined in last year but now you can’t get petrol, sweets for the kids are down to just a couple of ounces and they’ve even put biscuits on ration,’ Mrs Prentice went on. ‘I don’t know how the blooming government expects me to keep a roof over my head and feed two kids on a couple of quid a week from the army.’
Cathy gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I know, but we all have to support our brave boys.’
‘I suppose.’ Mrs Prentice heaved a sigh. ‘Still, I’d better get on. Thanks again for the knickers.’
Gathering her children and their newly acquired garments, Mrs Prentice headed towards the door.
Taking the clothing ledger from the table, Cathy sat on the chair next to the rack of shoes and took her fountain pen from the top pocket of her jacket. After logging Mrs Prentice’s items in the ‘taken’ column and listing the two gymslips under ‘donated’, she closed the book and stood up.
Once she’d pushed the three rails full of assorted jackets, dresses and children’s wear back against the wall, she covered them with dust sheets ready for when she arrived the following morning.
‘Ain’t you got no home to go to?’
Cathy turned around to find Mary Usher, wearing the same WVS uniform as Cathy, standing behind her.
A petite brunette, Mary had spent the afternoon in the yard outside bundling up scrap paper and cardboard for recycling; now she had the red cheeks and windswept hair to show for her hard work.
She’d been a few classes above Cathy at Shadwell School and had lived over her parents’ shoe repair shop in Salmon Lane, which was where she was living now with her two children, because her merchant seaman husband was somewhere in the frozen North Atlantic ferrying armaments to Murmansk for Britain’s fickle ally Russia.
‘Just finishing off,’ Cathy replied, flapping the cover over the boxes beneath.
‘Honestly, you’re always the last one here,’ continued Mary. ‘It’s a wonder you have time to get yourself fed and watered before you have to head off to the shelter.’
‘I put a hotpot in the oven on a low light before I came out and that’ll be ready to dish up when I get in,’ Cathy replied. ‘Unless the air raid sounds, the doors to Bethnal Green station shelter don’t open until five thirty, so I’ve plenty of time, and my mum’s always one of the first through the door so she’ll make sure no one takes my spot.’
‘It seems daft to go traipsing all the way up Cambridge Heath Road when the Tilbury shelter’s only five minutes away,’ said Mary.
‘My brothers go to Parmiter’s School, behind the museum,’ Cathy replied, ‘so it’s not so far for them to get to school in the morning. You in tomorrow?’
‘No, I’ve got to go and queue up for the Ration Department at the Town Hall and try to get Dad a replacement ration book for the one he lost a week ago,’ said Mary. ‘Mum’s going spare as she’s trying to feed all of ...
