MY
MOTHERS STORY part #1
by John
(aka. Oaky Wood)©2005
I had said earlier that
my father was my mothers first love, well in one sense he was. However as
a young teenage girl growing up through the war years, a time of shortages
and rationing, of tremendous hardships. Coupled with the grief that
prevailed everywhere as the dreaded War Department letters were all too
real, when they landed with the deafening thud on the mat. The pause, the
silence that overcame a household knowing the news was invariably bad.
Friend’s family’s torn apart by the loss of a father, brothers and
sons.
Yet through these
terrible times a wonderful sense of togetherness overtook everyone. The
good neighbours came together in hours of need, the sharing of what little
they had, whole streets helping gather everything needed to help a couple
to have such treats on a wedding day, only for the groom to be whisked off
to his local railway station and waved goodbye to on his way to the front
line. For many it would be there final farewell.
My mother who grew up in a smallish mining village on the
outskirts of Mansfield, called Clipstone just a couple of miles down the
road from Forest Town another mining village where my father grew up and
lived. They met at local dances that my mother attended with her sisters.
These were the lighter sides to the war years where, girls rubbed cocoa
powder on their legs to simulate stockings and with great precision drew
the lines down the backs to give even more realism, pantyhose had not yet
been invented or at least were not available over her. Dabbed baker’s
colourings onto their cheeks for rouges and flour for foundation face
powder soot from the chimney for eye shadow and liners. These where the
sort of ingenious ways a girl used to look attractive, as make up cost a
lot of ration coupons. The clumsy thickly made garter belts of the day
left plenty to be desired, together with the vice like structure the
dreaded corset, with its whale bone stays, pulled so tight to give the
beautiful slim wastes so preferred by the young ladies.
Courting was more a series of chance meetings at miners
functions and village festivals than planned affairs everything casual. In
house phones were only for the rich and very select few, as our local
telephone exchanges were still run by the grumpy, deaf old lady, sat
knitting in some nearby Post Office exchange, listening in on the latest
village gossip whilst also trying to listen to the latest rendition by
Vera Lynne the British wartime soldiers sweetheart, on the familiar wind
up gramophone.
My mother had been casually seeing my father on and off,
nothing serious, and always chaperoned by one of her sisters, for quite a
time. They had talked of marrying, or at least getting engaged, but that
blew by like the winds across an open meadow. My father was exempt from
being called up for service by virtue of the fact he was a miner, and coal
was like gold and always in demand by the war department and the munitions
factories, where my mother often worked if she wasn’t helping on the
local farmers lands gathering crops or even making parachutes for our air
force in the local knitwear factories all for pennies an hour. These were
busy productive times for every one, as everything was needed for the war
effort and to help our young soldiers at the front.
It was whilst attending
one of these dances, that my mother first saw the flyer posted on the
billboard of her local village hall, announcing a new dance evening
nearby. The excitement grew amongst all the young ladies in the area and
my mother and sisters were no exception, the buzz was certainly all
centred on this new dance night.
A few miles away were an
American Supply Army Base, which was always off limits to all. For some
unremembered reason on this particular occasion, a big celebration was
planed and all the local girls were invited to this spectacular dance
evening, with food and dance bands flown in especially for the event.
Everyone fussed for days, coupons exchanged down back alleyways and in
secret corners as the local girls gathered there own special armory in
readiness for their finest hour. Oh the dreams of many to be whisked away
from the life they knew, by the handsome Americans in their clean pressed
uniforms and glittering arrays of medallions adorning their chests. A far
better picture than the grimy local mineworkers who’s best shoes were
his polished hobnailed boots, and the lingering smell of the carbolic soap
provided by the colliery owners, and the mothball scented suites they
wore, together with the traditional white cravat around their necks and woolen
cloth caps on their heads.
Is it no wonder that these local lasses were in awe of these knights in
shinning armour, cigarettes, chocolate and real silk stockings were
festooned upon them? The young Americans knew nothing of rationing,
protected as they were behind the tall barbwire fences, which surrounded
the camps.
The war was nearing its end so things were being relaxed all
round, my mother also was bedazzled by the promises of another life, she
fell so deeply in love with a handsome Air Force officer who was stationed
at the camp in charge of maintaining air supplies to the ever advancing
American army in Europe. These feelings were so different from what she
felt about my father, he was more like a brother, often preferring to
drink at his local welfare club than take my mother to the local cinema or
on picnics. The American did all these things and more. My mother was
smitten hook line and sinker my his smooth drooling accent, his tall
stance and yes his beautiful uniform, soon plans and permissions where
gained and it was agreed they would wed the following spring, and my
mother would go to America with him.
This was a time of real
bliss, of floating on air, and a state of euphoria. She floated like a
butterfly with love in her heart as she flittered around gathering her
friends and sisters around her knowing she may never see them again as she
planed her great adventure ahead in America with her new love.
It was fast approaching
spring, Christmas had come and gone, and the new years resolutions made,
as the snowdrops immerged from their winter slumber. Wild daffodils
blossomed in the hedgerows, sparrows chirped and chattered as the winter
scenery changed, and spring began in earnest.
The war was all but over with only a few pockets of German troops holding
out to the bitter ends. The armistice was still not yet signed, this
didn’t happen for several months, politicians for you, I suppose. My
mothers love was assigned to air drop supplies to our allied troops, still
stationed on the continent, so their wedding plans were put on hold until
his missions were over. Time passed and it was well into summer when he
announced his last scheduled drop, then he was being sent home, and they
would marry and go together.
It was early one cold
and blustery summers morning when a knock came on my mothers front door.
It was the base commander who was standing their, his cap in hand and head
hung low. My mother’s world had in an instant been shattered, her hopes
and dreams gone, her love had been shot down and killed on his very last
mission. The tears flooded from her eyes and colour drained from her
cheeks as she collapsed in a broken heap onto the hard tiled, and polished
floor. Her very world had it seemed ended.
She knew she would love
no one else with such passion again, and until many years later, long
after my fathers demise, whom she never really loved he was just there to
help consol her. Yes it was many, many years later my mother did find love
and happiness again, but that is “another story”
Footnote
But for a twist of fate I may have been born and brought up as an American
and not English, had my mother’s true love survived and they had married
as planned all those years ago. Such is fate! And the events that govern
them.
By
John
(aka Oaky Wood)Ó2005
http://thecorner4women.com
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