My name is Lilly Grace Newkirk and this is my homework composition about my family. The people in my family are Mam my five sisters and four brothers and me plus sometimes Dad as well. Theres Granny too who lives in Catford and has a parrot and four aunts. I have other aunts and uncles but they live in Wales so they dont count. All my brothers and sisters are older than me only Noel isnt. Some of them are grown up and dont live at home any more. There names are Peter Mavis Kathleen and Gwen. The ones I live with are Margaret whos the next oldest than me Alice Arthur and Noel. Alice and Arthur are twins I forgot to put Harry in sometimes he is at home and sometimes not.
My oldest brother is Peter. He is in the RAF. Before the war he did a magic show at the Palladium and before that he was with a circus before that he was a tailor and before that I dont know what he did. He never lived at home since I was here but he used to come and visit and bring sweets and things but now he is a prisoner of war in Germany and he cant come and visit any more. Mavis comes nearly every day but she doesnt bring anything. Mavis works on the buses as a lady conducter. Mavis is nice but I like Peter best.
Lilly paused, reading over the last paragraph. She had a vague idea that there ought to be an apostrophe in there somewhere, but she had never quite got the hang of punctuation, and writing compositions was painful enough without all that bother. Still, she was pretty sure something was wrong. Finally after some thought, she amended one word. But sweet's didn't look right either.
My sister Kathleen is a land girl and Gwen works in a factory making parashutes. They dont live in London now. Alice is the oldest at home since Gwen left she is supposed to look after us till Mam gets home from work but she doesnt she only bosses us around.
As if responding to the mention of her name, Alice's voice broke in at this point: "Lilly!"
"I'm busy!" Lilly shouted back.
A pause, then: "Lilly! Can you go to the baker's for me? We're almost out of bread."
"Can't Maggie go?"
"Maggie's not here." That was nothing unusual. Ever since Alice had taken charge at home, Maggie was generally elsewhere. "Come on, Lilly, Mam'll be home in an hour, she'll be wanting her tea."
"Wouldn't hurt you to go yourself," muttered Lilly under her breath, flinging down her pencil. She knew she would have to give in, but she had no intention of doing so graciously.
She flounced down the stairs to find her sister in the kitchen, enveloped in a cotton pinafore and perusing the latest leaflet from the Ministry of Food; while Arthur sat opposite, building a model tank out of bits of cardboard and old matchsticks, and taking up most of the available table space.
"Take the ration book with you," said Alice. "I need a tin of Spam, if Mr Giltrap's got any in."
"Not Spam fritters again," grumbled Arthur.
Alice rolled her eyes. "Don't be so picky. There's a war on, you know. We're lucky to have it. Anyway, it's not fritters. I'm making Spam shepherd's pie for tomorrow night." She glared at Arthur, who had groaned. "Unless you'd sooner have whale meat."
"Why not?" he shot back. "At least with whale meat, nothing you do to it can make it any worse."
Lilly snickered, but quickly got the smile off her face at the look she received from her sister. "Can I get some tinned fruit if there is any?" she asked.
"You don't even like tinned fruit." Alice's eyes narrowed.
"No, but it's a good standby," replied Lilly innocently.
"Don't start with me, miss. Get off with you, and come straight back, no dawdling on the way. And whatever you do, don't you lose that ration book."
Lilly pulled a face at her, crammed the ration book and purse into her pocket, and ran for it, pausing only to get the old shopping basket from the cupboard under the stairs. She flew out the front door and raced to the end of Esk Road, but slowed to a leisurely amble once she was round the corner.
"Don't start with me, miss." As she passed beneath the railway line, she mimicked Alice's high-pitched voice and slight lisp with cruel accuracy; and the high brickwork arch caught the sound and bounced it back. "It'd just serve her right if I didn't come back at all."
She spent a few minutes picturing Alice's lifelong remorse at having sent her little sister out to meet an unspecified, but definitely tragic, fate on the mean streets of Stepney. The whole story, as it played out in her mind's eye, was heartrending enough to keep her enthralled, even while she waited in the queue at the baker's shop.
But as she crossed the street to get to the grocer's, a voice broke in on her flight of imagination: "Aren't you one of the little Newkirk girls?"
Lilly surfaced from her dream, and turned her head. The speaker was a young woman, blonde, slightly flashy, and very pretty. "Maybe you don't remember me," she added. "I'm a friend of your brother."
"Oh. Hello, Miss Tottington," said Lilly.
"Nottington. Rita Nottington." The lady's smile didn't falter, but a slight hardening of her eyes proved the barb had got through. "Let me see, you're Margaret, is that right?"
Lilly just smiled, and didn't answer. She had picked up her sisters' dislike for Rita, without quite understanding its foundation, and she saw no reason to be nice. Besides, it was standard procedure with both her and Maggie not to correct anyone making that error; it came in handy whenever one of them needed an alibi.
The pause lasted just long enough to grow awkward before Rita spoke again. "Have you heard from Peter recently?"
"Haven't you?" asked Lilly, all innocence.
Rita flushed. "Not for a little while. As a matter of fact, I was just going to call on your mother, and ask her whether...well, your Mavis writes to him, I was just wondering if she'd been saying things about me, that's all. Not that there's anything to tell, of course," she added hastily. "It's just sometimes things don't look...I mean, people make assumptions...never mind, you wouldn't understand."
If there was one remark which always got under Lilly's skin, that was the one; she'd been hearing it for years from Gwennie, and Alice, and even Maggie. To cop it from Miss Rita Nottington was too much. "Mam isn't home," she said. "She won't be home for hours yet. I have to go now. Goodbye."
She turned away abruptly, and ran off, completely forgetting the tin of Spam she was supposed to have bought; and she had got as far as the railway viaduct before recollection of that part of the errand brought her to an abrupt halt. For a few moments she hesitated, her mouth twisting at the thought of what Alice planned to do with it. Then she considered the alternative, and that decided it; anything was better than whale meat. She sighed, and started back. But she didn't get far. Her footsteps slowed, and stopped, and her eyes turned skyward.
There was nothing to see, yet; but the air seemed to tremble under the weight of the siren's piercing wail.
It was something Lilly should have been used to. She knew the routine; as soon as the warning sounded, the whole family would drop everything, come to the kitchen, and from there they'd go all together to the tube station. Or if she was at school, the teachers would walk them to the nearest shelter, and once they were there, Maggie would find her and Noel, and they'd stay close until the all-clear sounded. But this time was different. She was on her own.
She had to go home. She had to go, right now. And she was already running before she finished the thought.
Her sandals caught against the pavement, and she stumbled. Someone caught her before she fell, but the jolt left her dizzy and shaken.
"Steady, there. Don't go and get all panicky."
Lilly knew that voice. She gasped, and looked up. Sure enough, it was Rita.
"You all right?" she added. "Then tell me where's the nearest shelter."
"I want to go home," Lilly whimpered.
"There isn't time." Rita tightened her grip. "Can't you hear them? They'll be here in half a minute. You stay with me."
"But Mam'll go spare..."
"She knows you'll head for shelter," interrupted Rita sharply. "That's what she wants you to do. Come on, quickly. Which way?"
Lilly wavered; but the low drone of the approaching planes made the choice for her. "This way," she panted, and took Rita's hand. The warning was late; they were too far from the official shelter. They'd have to take cover under the archway where Taunton Street passed under the train line, and hope for the best.
As they approached the underpass, a man called out to them from the narrow laneway to one side, where the arches supporting the viaduct had been converted to workshops and storage lock-ups. Lilly swerved, almost dragging Rita off her high heels, and followed him towards the open door of the third arch along. He followed them in, and pulled the door closed; and Lilly dropped to the floor, breathless, clutching the basket to her chest until it hurt.
Even with the door closed, there was enough light coming in through the gap at the top for her to make out the clutter of old household items stored here. Other refugees were making themselves comfortable: two boys in their mid-teens, one of them with a bicycle; an elderly man with a birdcage containing a slightly hysterical green budgerigar; a middle-aged housewife wearing a faded pinafore. The man who'd let them in, a thin, wiry-looking chap in shirt sleeves and braces, glared upwards. "Typical. Man works an eighteen hour shift, comes home, just about to get some kip, and bleedin' Jerries have to go and spoil it."
"Yes, dear." The woman, obviously his wife, had already settled in at the back of the lock-up. She had brought a cushion, which she put on top of an old steamer trunk, before sitting down and producing a half-knitted sock from her handbag. She nodded towards Rita. "There's room here, miss, if you don't mind sharing."
The look on Rita's face suggested she would rather sit down to supper with Mussolini; but a heavy, resonating crash from outside diverted everyone's attention. It sounded close; bombs always did sound really close, when they went off. Lilly shivered, and closed her eyes. If one landed in Esk Road, and Mam and the rest were still there...
"It's all right, kiddie. They'll be okay, you'll see."
She turned instinctively towards the speaker, who had sat down beside her. And Rita put both arms around her, and gave her an awkward hug. "You keep your chin up. What would Peter say, if he saw you getting into a state?" she added, in what was meant to be a bracing tone.
Lilly held back for a couple of seconds; but the roar of another explosion, louder than the first, shattered her hostility, and she pushed the basket aside and snuggled closer. She wanted Mam, or Mavis, but they weren't here. Lilly didn't like Rita, but as long as there were bombs falling outside, it didn't matter. Rita was Pete's friend. That was all that mattered.
Note: Bread was not rationed in England during the war, although the coarse, heavy wholemeal "National Loaf" was the only bread available. Spam could be purchased under the points system, as could tinned fruit when it was available. Whale was not rationed, but according to most sources it seems to have been extremely unpopular.