Chapter 4 The World Goes to War Again

Looking back at things, you would think that those who'd lived through the Great War would think twice about going to war again. I don't know about politics, but, one day, Mrs B said I had to come into the drawing room to listen to the wireless and hear Mr Chamberlain say that the country was at war with Germany, again. My heart sank as I remembered the previous war. At first, it seemed that not much was happening, the phoney war, they called it.

At Beckfoot we got two little evacuees from London, brothers, Ernie and Colin. When I heard how they said words like 'up' and 'last' I thought we'd got two very posh boys. I soon learned that was just the way they talk in London. They actually came from a home much like mine, caring parents but never enough money. Mrs B and I quite took to them. Mrs B was always a sensible woman, but she'd always had help when Miss Nancy and Miss Peggy were little. Later Nancy and Peggy went to boarding school. I had to help with the two little boys. I felt I was doing my bit. Mrs B was strict about baths. Ernie and Colin weren't at all sure about what they called 'barfs' every day. Mrs B was also bothered by the fact that they would sleep together in the same bed. I explained to her that they'd probably never slept in a bed on their own and didn't Miss Peggy always get into Miss Nancy's bed whenever there was a thunderstorm?

We extended the vegetable plot and started keeping chickens. I remembered my time on the farm when I fed the chickens. They were good layers, which helped a lot with the rationing. Mrs B joined the WVS, volunteering at hospitals and organising exchanges of second hand clothes and I don't know what else. It certainly involved a lot of tea making. The uniform didn't suit her at all. Well, it didn't really suit anyone. Miss Peggy became a nurse. Miss Nancy had always done a lot of travelling abroad, as her uncle Jim had done, and she seemed to continue during the war. We didn't know what she was up to. We were always pleased to see her. When she could get home, she would bound noisily into the house and everyone would know she'd arrived.

Mrs B shut the dining room up during the winter to save heating it. We all ate together in the kitchen. I think Ernie and Colin felt more at home in the kitchen. We used to read about Londoners sheltering in their underground stations away from the bombs. We were lucky to be up here in the Lake District and glad to be able to look after our two little Londoners away from air raids. I don't think the papers told us about all the goings on.

Eventually, we said goodbye to Ernie and Colin. I wonder what became of them.

Young Jacky Warriner, from Watersmeet Farm, came home from the war walking with a stick and with all the spark gone out of him. Tractors were coming on to the farms and that suited him well. He married the land girl who'd been working on Watersmeet. She coped with his moods very well. She became an important part of the local community, joining the Women's Institute and chatting with everyone. She never took to our way of speaking. She always sounded funny to our ears with the way she said the 'g' in 'ing'. I think she came from Birmingham.