The Heart of the Family. Annie Groves

Luke’s, the church that had been regarded by many as the most beautiful church in the city, was its tower and a blackened shell. The Town Hall had been hit, as had the New Royal Telephone Exchange in Colquitt Street, and on Duke Street various buildings had been destroyed. The city was at its last gasp. Flames and smoke billowed from newly hit buildings, and it seemed to Sam that there could be only one end to Liverpool’s magnificent fight against the Luftwaffe’s bombs.

      Sam’s heart had never felt heavier, nor his emotions more intensely aroused. It was only now, looking down on the burning city, that he realised how much he loved it. Liverpool was being bombed and burned right down to its foundations, and yet not one word of concern had Sam heard spoken on the wireless, nor one word of praise for all that its people were doing to try to save it. Let London be bombed and the whole ruddy country knew about it, but when it came to Liverpool, the powers that be didn’t seem to care that the city was in danger of burning end to end.

      The acrid smell of the smoke drifting towards him from Brunswick and Harrington Docks, and the Prince’s landing stage, stung his eyes, or at least that was what Sam told himself was the cause of his need to knuckle the moisture from them. The overhead railway had been hit and from Gladstone and Alexandra Docks Sam could see ships burning down to the water line.

      High above him in the night sky, fighters from RAF Cranage were doing their best to drive back the raiders, and as Sam looked on, an RAF planes pursued one of the bombers, finally catching up with it over the Welsh hills. As he watched the defender bring down the bomber, and then looked down on the burning city, Sam admitted to himself what he had been trying to avoid since the blitz had started.

      He might not be able to do anything to prevent his two older children from being exposed to the continuing danger – not with Luke in the army and Grace a nurse – but he could insist that Jean took the twins out of the city for their own safety and hers.

      Exhaling on the decision, Sam felt his chest contract with pain. He and Jean had never spent a night apart in the whole of their marriage, she was the best wife any man could have and the only wife he could ever want, but it simply wasn’t safe for them to stay in the city any longer.

      Lying awake in her comfortable bed in the cottage she was renting in Whitchurch, Emily Bryant too could hear the sound of the bombers on their way to Liverpool, fifty miles away from her new home in the small market town on the Cheshire-Shropshire border and surrounded by farmland. She had definitely done the right thing getting out of the city, and only just in time, judging by what she’d heard on Sunday when she and Tommy had made their first visit to their new church. Everyone had a tale to tell about what they’d heard about the pounding Liverpool had taken and the damage that had been done.

      By rights she ought to be asleep. After all, they were safe enough here, with no need to go into some nasty uncomfortable air-raid shelter. She was a fool to have relented and left that worthless husband of hers with a decent sum of money in his bank account – money he’d no doubt spend on those trollops of his. He could, after all, have come with her and Tommy if he’d wanted to, but of course somewhere like Whitchurch would be far too quiet for Con.

      It wasn’t too quiet for her, though. It fact it suited her down to the ground.

      As soon as she’d got everything unpacked and the two of them properly settled in she’d have to see about sorting out a school for young Tommy. It was just him and her now. Mother and son, so to speak. Just thinking those words filled her with so much happiness that she could feel it right down to her toes. And yet for all her happiness, and despite knowing that she had made the right decision in leaving Liverpool – after all, what did she owe the city; what had it ever done for her except give her an unfaithful husband? – the sound of those bombers and their relentless purpose brought a lump to her throat and caused her to say a silent prayer for the city of her birth.

      Eight o’clock. She’d better get a move on, Lena decided, otherwise, she’d be late for work and her boss had told her that she wanted her in early because they’d have a lot of women wanting their hair done, since the blitz meant that many no longer had access to proper water in their own homes.

      Lena hesitated as she turned the corner and saw a small group of women and children standing on the pavement outside number ten, where the Hodson family lived. Her heart sank. There was no way she could avoid them, not with half the houses down on the other side of the street and no pavement left.

      ‘Ruddy Eyetie,’ Annette Hodson said loudly as Lena drew level with them. ‘I don’t know how she’s got the brass neck to show herself here amongst proper English folk when her lot have sided with that Hitler.’

      Annette Hodson was blocking the pavement now, her arms folded across her chest as she confronted Lena.

      Some of the sparse mousy hair has escaped from her rag curls and was hanging limply over the red scarf that drew unkind attention to her heavily flushed face. The apron she was wearing was grubby, her fingers stained with nicotine. Annette Hodson was a bully whose own children went in fear of her. Somehow, though, she’d set herself up as the street’s spokeswoman when it came to who and what was and was not acceptable. She’d had it in for Lena ever since she’d discovered her husband leering at Lena one Saturday afternoon after he’d trapped her in conversation, one hand resting on the house wall as he refused to let her go past.

      Initially Lena had been believed when Annette had appeared, quickly making her escape, but then the comments had started, and Lena’s aunt had soon backed up her neighbour and friend, warning Lena that no good came to girls who made eyes at married men.

      ‘Course, it’s that Italian blood of hers,’ Lena had heard her aunt telling Annette.

      Lena had never known the Italian side of her family but she did know that the war had turned some of Liverpool’s citizens violently against the Italian immigrant community, which had previously lived peacefully in the city.

      Italian businesses had been attacked by angry mobs, and Italian people hurt. There had been those who had spoken out against the violence and those too who had helped their Italian neighbours, but there were others who, like Annette Hodson were the kind who seized on any excuse to take against other people.

      Then, by order of the Government, all those Italian men who had not taken out British citizenship had been rounded up and sent away to be interned for the duration of the war. That had led to more violence and also to terrible deprivation for those families deprived of their main breadwinners.

      Italian families with sons who had British passports and who were in the armed forces found that they were being treated with as much hostility as though they were the enemy, and those with Italian blood had quickly learned to be on their guard.

      ‘I’ll bet she was down the shelter last night, though, taking up a space that by rights should have gone to a proper British person,’ Annette was jeering. ‘If I had my way, it wouldn’t just be the Italian men I’d have had rounded up; I’d have rounded up the women and the kids as well and put the whole lot of them behind bars. Aye, and I’d have told Hitler he could come and bomb them any time he liked, and good riddance. ’Oo knows what she gets up to? For all we know she could be a ruddy spy.’

      Ignoring Annette’s insults, Lena stepped out into the road to walk past her and then gasped as a small piece of broken brick hit her on the arm. Automatically she turned round to see Annette’s youngest, four-year-old Larry, grinning triumphantly as he called out in a shrill voice, ‘I got her, Mam. Ruddy Eyetie.’

      ‘Good for you, our Larry. Go on, throw another at her, Eyetie spy,’ Annette encouraged her son, laughing as he bent down to pick up another piece of broken brick.

      She wasn’t going to run, Lena told herself fiercely, she wasn’t. She would think about him instead, her lovely, lovely soldier boy. That way she couldn’t feel the pain of the sharp pieces of brick the children gathered round Annette were now hurling at her with shrieks of glee. They didn’t mean any harm, not really. It was just a game to them. Lena gasped as someone threw a heavier piece, which caught her between her shoulder blades, almost causing her to stumble.

      ‘Eyetie spy, Eyetie spy,’