A Fickle Wind. Elizabeth Bourne

the station, as her visit was over and she was returning to base. She was on the platform across from ours, and we waved to her as she boarded her train to return to … what? In my mind, it was sure to be something exciting, exhilarating, and infinitely more interesting than what I would be doing. How I envied her and wished we could have changed places. About ten years later, with three little mouths to feed and an indolent husband, she would come knocking on our door to beg for money from my mother. Do be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it!

      But something was about to happen to brighten my days. Auntie Amy and Win and Les, my cousins, moved into our house for as long as it took them to find another place to live, which was quite awhile. Their house had been destroyed by a bomb, and we were all grateful they had not been at home. I don’t recall Uncle George being there, as he was away somewhere helping with the war effort. I haven’t mentioned Win before because she was much older than I and we really didn’t interact very much.

      But I loved their company. It brought life to our household and interest to my days. Les would play with me, as he had no one else but was old enough to set the rules that controlled our games. Mostly he wanted to play boxing; he was always Joe Louis, who was the World Champion, and I was Bruce Woodcock (I think he was only the British Champion), so I was always doomed to lose. But, what the heck, I was desperate! These relatives eventually moved, and I was back to my own devices.

      The war continued. I particularly recall one night when the adults around me were sure we were shooting down every plane Germany had sent to destroy us. One after another seemed to be exploding from our anti-aircraft guns. We were cheering on our military from our shelter. But, to our horror, the next day’s newspapers announced Germany’s new secret weapon. An unmanned missile accounted for the explosions we had heard. The doodlebug had been launched to wreak further havoc on our country. We nicknamed it the buzz bomb, as it emitted a humming sound as it cruised over. The dreaded seconds came when that buzzing stopped and the missile continued stealthily along its path of destruction before it fell to obliterate anything and everything after its deadly descent.

      We eventually had our own air-raid shelter in our garden, so our nightly rendezvous with our neighbors ceased. As things dragged on and I got a little older, my mother often eschewed the cold and damp shelter altogether, taking the fatalistic approach that if our time were up, so be it. We had had enough. We were tired, drained, and at the end of our tolerance.

      There was the constant worry over my father’s and uncles’ safety. My father had been torpedoed in the Baltic; had survived the German U-boats in the Atlantic, where Royal Navy destroyers were protecting American ships bringing food to Britain; and had served his country in harrowing situations in Egypt and Africa. How much longer could his luck hold?

      Nearly everyone had lost family and friends. Many had lost limbs, sight, and sanity. We were sometimes elated by news and other times in despair. I often lay awake at night worrying that Hitler would invade our shores and subjugate us as he had done in all the European countries he occupied. But, as a country, we held on, albeit with our fingernails, exhibiting that stiff upper lip for which we Brits are noted.

      Finally, the war was over, first in Europe and then in Japan. My father and uncles all survived. My aunt had it on good authority, after all! Everyone was elated. People danced in the streets, and every neighborhood held parties with long tables running down the center of the road, where we sat down to the best meal they could muster. We children, who knew very little about what made the world go around, were so excited. Now all the promises of a different existence would be our reality. We expected great changes: sweets, toys, holidays—a wonder-world. But not quite yet. In fact, not for a very long time. Now came the challenges of postwar Britain.

       Chapter Three

      The biggest change for me was that my father was now home on a permanent basis, and that was wonderful. The only other noticeable changes were that there were no air raids and people didn’t end their sentences with, “God willing” after they said, “See you tomorrow.” That is big, I grant you, but we had expected so much more.

      Ration books and shortages of food, clothes, coal, fuel, sweets, toys, and fun—which had been our old friends for years now—continued for many more years. The rubble in the streets became part of the landscape. Buildings, roads, and houses were in great disrepair. Scaffolding, once erected, became entrenched. Nothing was completed.

      Britain was on her knees. There was no money. The average Brit began to wonder who had won the war. In short order, it seemed, America had started to help financially restore the previously occupied countries of Europe and rebuild Germany and Japan. I had heard the term lend-lease bandied around for years, and I believe it continued after the war, but it was apparently a drop in the bucket when an ocean was needed. Of course, I did not really understand any of this then. But it was obvious to me that we weren’t going to return in any great hurry to the idyllic “before the war” status.

      However, I had a personal challenge coming up that absolutely dominated my worry wall. The exact words had not been spoken, but I was under no illusion about the expectation that I was to pass the Eleven Plus exam, often called the Scholarship. On a national level, all eleven-year-old children had the opportunity to sit for this examination. It was extremely important to one’s future prospects.

      Remote locations were selected, strange children flanked us in unfamiliar rooms, and no known teachers monitored us. A small percentage of children would score high enough to qualify for a grammar school or technical school education—their choice—the balance moving on to what was then called a secondary school, where their education would be complete at age fifteen.

      With the advantage of the grammar or technical school, one could aspire to attend university or be educated to a level that would provide better career opportunities. I recall being at a spiritualist meeting with my mother and aunt where an eleven-year-old girl was singled out by the medium and told that she should stop worrying because she would pass her Eleven Plus. I was ten at the time and envied her so much, as I was already sick with worry. I was a good student, but one could always have a bad day, go into a panic, or just go blank. Anything was possible. How I fretted! My parents would be so disappointed if I failed. Horrors! But none of the vagaries of life descended on me that day, and all was well. A new episode in my life began.

      My parents and I selected a school that was about a half-hour bus journey away. It was really very exciting— and enlightening. It felt as though I were entering a whole new world. The residential area that surrounded the school was lovely. I had never seen such beautiful houses, nestled in trees, with upswept lawns leading to covered-porch entrances.

      Some of the students came from circumstances similar to mine, but many did not. I had not previously been exposed to children from these privileged backgrounds, but I was comfortable with them and found it easy to make friends. Within a couple of days, I had formed a firm friendship with Stella, the girl who would be my best friend through the rest of my school years. We are back in touch after many years without contact—an interesting experience I shall share later.

      I overheard a conversation between my parents that helped me relax tremendously. My mother said they couldn’t expect me to do as well at this school as I had done in grade school, as the competition would be so much steeper. And if my mother said it… well! I took it to heart and relaxed my worry wall. I excelled in the classes I liked—English and history—but was dismal in math and science. No university potential here. But that was okay, inasmuch as my neighborhood friends were all going to work at age fifteen. They were able to buy clothes for themselves, which I envied, although it took about three months of saving their weekly wage to buy a pair of shoes. Of course, they had to contribute at least half of their wages to the household for “room and board.”

      Those school days were relatively uneventful, but two incidents stand out in my memory. It was mandatory to buy a school lunch if one did not live close enough to go home. I paid for my daily lunch but ate little, as the food was deplorable. We were allowed to bring snacks for our mid-morning and afternoon breaks, and I decided these would suffice. So, on returning for my second year, I decided that my family shouldn’t waste the money on school lunches.