The Girl Now Leaving Read online

  The Girl Now Leaving

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Leaving For The Country

  1931

  Leaving Childhood

  December 1933

  Leaving

  Thanks

  Copyright

  The Girl Now Leaving

  Betty Burton

  The Girl Now Leaving is for the generations of workers in the staymaking industry whose important contribution to the economy and development of Portsmouth has been given neither the credit nor the place in history it deserves.

  Leaving For The Country

  Louise Vera Wilmott was born in Portsmouth on the south coast of Hampshire on Midsummer Day, 1917. This account opens in the spring of 1929, the year in which she becomes twelve, and is gathering strength for her headlong flight into the unknown territory of womanhood.

  Clear morning light is everywhere here. The spring sun is up. In Hampshire, in country churchyards throughout the county, it picks out pale moon-yellow delicate blooms of wild daffodils flowering by the scattered thousand. It slides over garden walls of parsonages where grosser, fleshy daffodils stand in brassy, regimented rows. Early morning in an early spring, and God’s most favoured county appears encased in a dome of fragile aquamarine glass. Here, it is easy to believe that in some ancient time the Holy Lamb of God was in its pleasant pastures seen.

  The unclouded landscape undulates softly and, where it is threaded and crossed by the courses of small rivers, by laid hedges and ancient hedgerows, a panorama of patchwork in green plush and sepia corduroy is created, and upon it the Countenance Divine does indeed shine forth, highlighting barrows that still clasp ancient knowledge, and sending needle rays of brightness into dark pagan circles of yews. The sun is unseasonably warm, and having got morning started in Kent and Sussex, it now illuminates the surfaces of trout streams and brooks, it glosses the facets of napped flint, and dries the earth’s chalk bones where they poke through the fertile crust of Hampshire.

  The Earth continues its steady cycle, so that before long morning dawns over Cranbourne Chase and the Blackmore Vale and paints out the warm spring night, still on and on, westwards until it catches the crashing rollers off Cornwall, sparkles Devonshire’s coastal waters and bleaches its shores.

  But young Lu Wilmott, although she was born in God’s own county, is not out there in the pleasant pastures, not under the aquamarine dome of sky. Lu lives in Portsmouth, the great naval and military city, in that area where jerry-built terraces have been crumbling into slums since the time they were slung up by the inadequate hundred. A bad area in which to be born. The odds of getting beyond childhood in the Lampeter area are no higher than they are in the Satanic mill-towns of the northern counties.

  Lu is peering out from a narrow-fronted terraced house whose paint has peeled long since. It consists of a living room, scullery, lavatory and coal-house outside, and one and a half bedrooms. This is her home, no Lampeter Street, Lampeter, Portsmouth. Here she lives with her mother Vera, and her two brothers, Ralph who is twenty and Kenneth who is fifteen. Theirs is the smallest family by far in Lampeter Street. Lu Wilmott has a father, but she has not seen him for a long time. Arthur Wilmott is a sailor, with the Royal Navy, a real Jolly Jack Tar sailing the southern seas.

  Vera Wilmott is a beached woman, one of a great sisterhood who at some point in their own young lives became entangled in the lives of sailors and soldiers ‘gone foreign’. For twenty years, Vera has lived on whatever she can earn piecework. Because she has never had the essential document of proof that she is married to Arthur Wilmott, she does not receive even that tiny allowance allocated by the Navy to one of its wives. Beached women usually have a child for every year the ship comes in. Some of them have more because this is a town where there is never any shortage of randy sailors ready to get any woman lit up with three penn’orth of gin. Vera’s three children are all Arthur’s. Only three because the vessel on which he serves does long tours of duty in waters thousands of miles away, and because she considers herself to be a respectable woman.

  Women like Vera Wilmott are beloved of employers as a vast reservoir of cheap and docile labour. Particularly so the owners of the numerous staymaking factories with which Portsmouth abounds. Since the first refugee with a pair of scissors and pattern for stays set up shop generations ago, the great staymakers have prospered on the back of their efforts, because soldiers and sailors go away and leave women like Vera high and dry and with a family to bring up. Although in the sight of the Royal Navy she is not the legal wife of Able-bodied Seaman Wilmott, Vera has done well by their three children, and kept their mean home going unaided by gin and randy sailors.

  The visible plane of sky young Lu can see through the window of 110 Lampeter Street is neither a fragile-looking aquamarine nor clear. Although it is still early, the streets of Lampeter are already stale for, even though the sea is quite close by, the air has not moved all night and has held on to the unseasonal heat which all day yesterday was absorbed by mile upon mile of squalid red brick, dull grey slate and drab tarmac.

  Lu Wilmott is within sight of her twelfth birthday, but her face, as it peers out apprehensively through the street-grimed window-pane, might be that of a dispirited old lady or a pale and loitering ghost.

  Lu has been sick. Very sick indeed. Her large, brown eyes are sunken in deep sockets, her skin is rough and sallow, her cheeks hollow and her thick, bronze hair appears too heavy for her thin neck.

  Lu has had ‘The Dip’, which clogged her throat until she could hardly swallow or breathe.

  This last winter, there have been schools all over the county which were lashed by this dreaded disease. In Lu’s school alone diphtheria caused the death of three young children, Lu was one of the lucky ones: ‘The Dip’ roared through her body, thickening her air passages, boiling her blood to fever and her brain to delirium until, after a long night of struggle, her lucid spirit returned to her emaciated little body. That day, quite recent, she opened her eyes to see Ralph wringing out a towel in a bowl of water and smiling down at her, and to an awareness that her mother was slumped in a chair asleep over her sewing. Although her brother was smiling as he whispered, ‘Well then, our Lu, you come back to us then?’ tears were rolling down his cheeks. Lu had never seen Ralph cry – he was a man – yet he never made any attempt to hide it.

  That was a week or two ago. Now she is on her feet again, waiting anxiously for Uncle Hector Wilmott’s beer lorry to arrive in Lampeter Street. Her stomach churns with worry as she thinks of all the things that might go wrong. On her own territory she is as fierce and brave as any Lampeter Street child has to be, but where she is going today, she could get lost. They could forget the address where she had gone, perhaps forget on purpose because Mum was always saying she didn’t know how they were going to manage. She wishes Ralph could have been on late shift, then he could have seen to it that Uncle Hec made sure she got there all right. They all know that Uncle Hec drinks his beer allowance as well as a pint at every pub he delivers to. Her ungratefulness made her feel guilty; everyone has said how lucky she is to have an uncle who lives in the country, and another one to give her a lift right to their door.

  Ever since the letter from Aunty May arrived they have all been on about recuperating in the country, which makes Lu feel like one of the mouldy hens Dotty next door keeps behind their shed.

  * * *

  Ralph, who works for Southern Railway, is on early turn at the station. Before it was even light he had come into the front bedroom and shaken her shoulder. ‘I brought you some tea, two big spoonfuls of condensed milk, nice and sweet. Big day, Lu.’ She
had shot up and put her feet out of bed in one motion, causing her mum to drag the cover over her eyes and say, ‘Oh, Lu, for God’s sake!’ at which Ralph had picked up the tea again and indicated with his thumb that she should drink it downstairs. The glass panel in the front door had showed that daylight was beginning to make the yellow light of the gas streetlamps fade. The house was warm and the crumbly lino sticky to walk on.

  In the kitchen, Ralph had had his shoes polished and ready; sometimes of an evening he would sit for ages listening to the wireless, rubbing round and round, spitting occasionally on the toes until they had a glossy finish. His hair too was glossy, parted at the side, Brylcreemed and combed sleekly. Several times since she had got over ‘The Dip’, unable to sleep, she had gone down early to sit in the scullery, and watched as Ralph, still clad only in trousers and vest, went through his morning ritual of washing, shaving, scooping out a finger of Brylcreem, then massaging it into his hair, combing and brushing until every crinkle was under control and greased down.

  Today, as she had watched, a lump had risen in her throat until she choked over the sweet tea. Ralph hadn’t said anything about her crying; he had just taken the mug from her and, enveloping her in a cloud of the smell of shaving-stick and hair-cream, had given her a long hug. ‘Now, Lu, listen to me, I’m going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle. I know it’s a big thing and all, but I promise you, you won’t have been there more than a day and you’ll wonder you was such a daft ha’porth for not wanting to go. I know you’ll like Aunty May and Uncle Ted, they aren’t like any of the other Wilmotts, they’re nice Wilmotts,’ he winked, ‘like us. Mark my words, you’ll come back your old self. You been really ill, Lu, but you’re over it now and all you need now is feeding up and a bit of country air.’

  She knew that. She had heard how she had been dragged back from Death’s door.

  ‘It’s a long way from home, Ray.’

  ‘No… it’s not really. It probably seems it’s a long way because you haven’t never been anywhere before. It can’t be that far because Uncle Hec drives his lorry over there every week. He bees there, off-loads at Suthick and is in Wickham by nine o’clock. And I promised I’d cycle over, didn’t I? And you know me, I shouldn’t undertake doing a bike ride that was that far.’

  ‘I know, Ray, you told me all that, but it’s just—’

  ‘The first time. I know, but there’s going to be a lot more first times. You’ve done plenty already, you was only five the first time you went to school and you done that good enough.’

  ‘That’s not the same, I knew people, and it was here. Supposing they don’t tell me where the lav is, or what time I got to get up, and where I got to put my shoes and that?’

  He had stood up and ruffled her hair. ‘You got a tongue in your head, Lu. The world’s full of things none of us knows, and if nobody don’t tell you then you got to speak up and ask. You soon found out where the school lav was, didn’t you?’ He had gone back to the mirror again, his reflection looking at herself, grinning as he had fastened his collar on to the back-stud of his shirt then, letting it snap round his neck, stretching his chin upwards whilst he inserted the front stud and tied his dark blue tie in a tight knot.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if sisters could marry brothers, Ray? Then we could get married and I could watch you do your hair and put on your collar every morning. Why can’t they?’

  ‘It’s just a rule. Go on, drink up that tea now. I made it for you.’

  She had done as she was told, drinking the dark tea, sweetly sweet as only condensed milk could make it. This was her favourite drink; she drank it to the dregs. He had handed her his little clothes-brush and, as on other mornings when she had watched him get ready for his early turn, inspected the navy-blue nap of his shoulders for hair or specks. He had buttoned his jacket, tugged it and saluted. ‘When you’re ready for marrying, our Lu, you won’t give a second glance at a short-ass like Ralphy Wilmott.’

  ‘You aren’t short, Ray, you’re a head taller than me, look.’ She had demonstrated by standing beside him at the spotty mirror that hung over the scullery sink.

  ‘Look how tall you are already. By the time you’re thinking about marrying, you’re going to be looking for a chap who’s taller than five foot six and a half—’ his kind smile broadened into a grin – ‘else he’s going to want an orange crate to kiss you goodnight. You got the makings of a Presley for height. The Wilmotts all suffers from their bums being close to the deck.’

  Lu had elbowed him and he had made a play of being knocked for six by her. ‘I’m sorry, love, but I’ll have to get going or I shall be up before the beak.’ He reached deeply into his trouser pocket and drew out two sixpences. ‘Now, when you got yourself washed and dressed, run along to the paper shop and get Dandy and Beano and some of the raspberry drops you like – they got a lot of sucking power; but careful because they say it’s sugar rots your teeth. Keep the rest for pocket-money. You needn’t tell our Mum voluntary, and don’t tell Ken, he’s always on the ear’ole for me to buy him a comic. Just put them in your bag, and don’t start eating the sweets before you get to Aunty May’s. Iron rations just in case you feel in need of a bit of a boost the first evening there… well, maybe one or two to suck on the way (but remember to offer one to Uncle Hec – he won’t take it, raspberry flavour don’t go that well with bunker-beer). And offer the bag to Aunty May.’

  He had talked to her as though she was still seven, but she liked it.

  He had opened the back door, given her a quick bit of a hug and a kiss on her cheek, and another breath of sweet, warm hair-cream and shaving-soap. ‘I’ll borrow his bike at the paper shop, probably on a Sunday, and I’ll ride over to see you.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘No, you don’t need a promise. I said I would and that’s good enough.’

  She had followed him down the back-garden path, and watched as he unlatched the lane gate. He turned and winked. ‘You’ll love it, Lu. Guaranteed. Just remember, it was Aunty May and Uncle Ted invited you, it wasn’t us that asked them to have you, so you’ll be welcome. I’ll bet they’ll spoil you to death.’

  Ralph was at the centre of Lu’s life. She knew that he would hate it going off to work and seeing her sad, so she gave him a grin and said, ‘They’ll fatten me up like one of their pigs, I expect.’

  ‘Then Uncle Hec won’t have to come and fetch you, you’ll be able to roll down from the top of Portsdown Hills and I’ll wait at the bottom with a handcart.’ He winked and was gone.

  Very few letters indeed were ever addressed to 110 Lampeter Street, so it had been an occasion when a week or so ago the postman had rapped and pushed the small envelope through the letter-box. ‘Just listen to this,’ Mum had said. ‘It’s from your Aunty May out at Wickham that married your Dad’s brother Ted (Ralph and Kenny would remember them, they came down to Portsmouth; but that’s a good many years ago: you were just a babe). It says, “Dear Vera, As you know Ted’s brother Hector drops in here sometimes when he is this way, and when he came last time he said that your youngest had had the diptherier and had been very poorly which had left her peaky and off of her food so me and Ted thought it might do the girl a bit of good to get out of Pompey and come over here and get out in the fields a bit. We got plenty of room to spare, as you know there is only Ted and me, and my dad rattling around in this big house, and having a bit of land of our own, there’s always a decent bit of food about. We got ourselves a nice little Jersey heifer a year or two back, and she is now milking very well, and I make our own cream and butter, and I’m going to have a go at some cheese. I have always been a great believer in plenty of milk to build a person up after a bad time. It is my belief that Jersey milk, which is full of fat, is far the best of any. We would be very glad to have her, no need to write, just tell Hector the day she will come. Blessings and good wishes to all, your sister-in-law May Wilmott.”’

  Lu’s mother’s eyes had gleamed with pleasure. ‘Well, would you believe it? Isn’t t
hat a nice offer? On your way to work, Ken, you can call in at Hector’s and ask Aunty Elsie if she’d get him to call round here next time he’s going that way. What a nice thing of her to do. I always liked Ted and May, he’s the best of the Wilmotts.’

  It had all been settled without reference to Lu. Uncle Hec was a drayman at the brewery and had said he would take her over on the dray, but she would have to keep her head down till they were clear of the city, because a drayman isn’t supposed to take passengers except his mate. Uncle Hec preferred to call himself ‘a drayman’ rather than a common lorry-driver. ‘Room for a little’n, eh Luey? Not that you’re going to be a little’n for much longer. She got your height, Vere. Not a lot of Wilmott about her.’ They all said that. The reflection of hers and Ralph’s heads looking out of the mirror showed how different they looked – him with black hair, blue eyes, a snub nose and round head; herself a ‘Copperknob’ with brown eyes and a straight nose. Something like her mother, except that Mum’s hair was more reddish: she did it with a tu’penny ‘Tonette Coppertone Wrinse’.

  Lu supposes that she must take after the Presleys.

  Ken puts his head round the living-room door. ‘All right then, our Lu. Don’t get lost, and don’t get near the goats, they eat people’s clothes off them. See you when you get back,’ and he was gone. Not for the first time she wonders what it must be like to go to work each morning and spend your day among coffins and dead bodies. He says that some corpses will sit up and groan and make you jump out of your skin. She doesn’t know whether to believe him or not. He works at the Co-op Funeral Department. He says dead bodies don’t bother him, doesn’t even notice them, but Lu doesn’t know whether to believe that either. You surely can’t work at the undertaker’s and not notice dead bodies.

  As she walks to the newspaper shop to get her sweets and comics, she sees Eileen Grigg and her little brother. She’s never called Eileen except for the Register. Lena. Lena Grigg is mean and nasty to everybody but especially to Lu. She is envious of Lu who gets things, whose Mum isn’t always whacking her, and who has two older brothers who are nice to her whilst Eileen is the drudge of hers.