Aprons and Silver Spoons: The heartwarming memoirs of a 1930s scullery maid (39 page)

‘You can’t build a
marriage on dreams!’

I’d show him. I’d show
them all. Timothy Moran was going places and he was going there with me right by his
side. War or no war! So I ignored them all.
I
was master of my own destiny,
nobody but me. I hadn’t let anyone push me into working in a dull seamstress
shop aged fourteen and I wasn’t going to be told what to do now.

So the marriage date was set for six
months’ time, Saturday 5 November 1938. In the event, Timothy wasn’t
posted away, but with war brewing we knew time was of the essence. Besides, I reasoned,
why wait?

A Catholic church was booked in
King’s Lynn and Granny Esther bought me a beautiful slinky silk wedding dress
cut on the bias from Downham Market for twenty shillings. Ordinary folk didn’t
have big receptions back then, so we planned to invite guests back to Mother’s
for salmon sandwiches and cake. It wasn’t going to be anywhere near as grand
as Anna Luddington’s wedding had been, but I didn’t give two hoots
for marquees and champagne. At long last I was marrying a man I loved.

Mrs Luddington wasn’t best pleased
to be losing her cook, but I think ever since Timothy and I had started courting
she’d half-expected it and was ever so nice to me despite me handing in my
notice.

As I cooked I found my mind wandering to how
handsome my tall fiancé would look all done up in a smart suit, those piercing blue eyes
on mine as I was pronounced Mrs Moran.

Cooking and dreaming, dreaming and
cooking
.

But as I dreamed and schemed, events
elsewhere were moving at a rapid pace. Events that were to alter my own destiny and the
fortunes of all around me, forever … For just as I was planning my wedding, Hitler began
his ruthless plan of expansion.

He had pressured Austria into joining forces
with Germany and after the Allies agreed in 1938 to allow him to annex Sudetenland, the
German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia, German troops had taken the land by autumn of
that year. Next, Nazi troops and supporters began destroying Jewish shops in German
towns and cities. The Third Reich had openly begun its anti-Semitic operations. War
wasn’t just brewing, it was imminent. One man who was
determined to avoid war and keep the peace at all costs was the British Ambassador to
Berlin, Nevile Henderson, one of the most maligned diplomats the UK has ever had.

During his posting to Berlin in the two-year
run-up to war, he cabled the Foreign Office to tell them: ‘If we handle him
[Hitler] right, my belief is that he will become gradually more pacific. But if we treat
him as a pariah or mad dog, we shall turn him finally and irrevocably into
one.’

Apparently Nevile Henderson was also very
sick with cancer during this time and returned to Britain for treatment. It must have
been on one such occasion that he was invited to Wallington Hall by Mr Luddington to
partake in a shoot. As he headed down to the peace and beauty of Wallington, I was
taking my leave of it.

On my last day, Mrs Luddington summoned me
to her office and presented me with an exquisite silver tea service.

‘Just a little token of our
appreciation and to wish you well in your new life,’ she smiled.

I was at a loss for words.

‘This is just so … so generous,
Mrs Luddington,’ I stuttered.

I could have wrapped her in a big hug.
Instead we shook hands politely and said our goodbyes.

I was to stay with Mother in the two-week
run-up to my wedding. It was safe to say she was as excited as me about the big day and
soon we had filled the kitchen with delicious baking smells and laughter as we cooked up
a storm for the reception. I even baked and iced my own three-tier wedding cake.

Six days before, I was just trying on my
wedding dress to show Mother, when there was a knock at the door. There stood the
flushed face of Tom Jackson, the chauffeur. He looked like he’d been running
and was as red as a beetroot.

‘Tom,’ I said,
‘whatever’s wrong? Come in and sit down.’

‘You’ve got to come
back, Mollie,’ he gasped, gripping the back of the chair as he tried to catch
his breath. ‘Mrs Luddington’s in a right pickle. You look lovely, by
the way.’

‘Whatever for?’ I asked,
pulling Tom up a chair and lighting a fire on the stove for tea.

‘They’ve got a big
shooting party arriving tomorrow and staying for five days and the new chef has just
left them in the lurch. He reckons the kitchen’s not smart enough and he
can’t possibly cook for twenty people on an Aga. What’s more, he
says he can’t do it all with just one kitchen boy for help.’

‘What rubbish,’ I
scoffed. ‘I’ve managed perfectly well this past two
years.’

‘Exactly! Mollie, please say
you’ll come back! Mrs Luddington’s tearing her hair out. The
shooting party’s full of VIPs, including the British Ambassador to Berlin,
Nevile Henderson.’

‘But, Tom,’ I said,
shaking my head. ‘Politician or no politician, it’s the week before
my wedding. Brides should be making themselves beautiful. Not slaving in a hot
kitchen.’

‘I know, Mollie,’ Tom
pleaded, suddenly looking overcome with tiredness. ‘We wouldn’t ask
if we weren’t desperate. You’re our only hope.’

I glanced over at Mother.

‘It’s your choice,
Mollie,’ she shrugged.

I thought of lovely Mrs Luddington and how
badly it would look on her if she couldn’t supply food to her important
guests. She’d been so kind to me, I really couldn’t let her down.
Perhaps the years I’d spent in the service of the gentry had engrained in me a
total devotion, but I knew there was no way on earth I could say no.

‘I’ll be along as soon
as I can,’ I sighed. ‘Mother, can you help me out of this
dress?’

So much for relaxing before my big day.
Already my mind was whirring with menus to serve up to Mrs Luddington’s VIPs.
I didn’t know much about Nevile Henderson, other than he had his work cut out
trying to negotiate peace with Hitler.

Over the coming days I churned out meal
after meal, but on the very last day of the shoot I got to wondering about what I could
make for the guns and my final dinner at Wallington Hall.

Fish? Not restorative enough. Pork? Too
common. No, Nevile Henderson needed something to put fire in his belly.

Then it came to me. I figured that what that
politician needed was a nice hearty bowl of Mollie’s Irish stew. That would
make him forget his troubles with Hitler all right!

I made a beautiful one by slow-cooking a
neck of mutton in the Aga with button onions, potatoes, stock and parsley. The meat was
so tender by the time it was ready it looked like it might melt to the touch. I even
baked a couple of loaves of crusty bread to mop up the juices with. A great hunk of that
served with some fresh salted butter and a piping hot bowl of stew and Hitler would be a
distant memory.

By the time the kitchen boy and butler had
taken it through to the dining room on a silver tray, I felt quite happy with myself.
That poor man had God knows what on his plate when he returned to Berlin. Least I could
do was put a good meal in his tummy and fortify him for tough times ahead. I even
followed it up with Mr Luddington’s favourite – sticky, sweet bread and butter
pudding and a jug of fresh cream big enough to drown a German battleship.

Later on I was just clearing away and
getting ready to take my leave when Mrs Luddington burst into the kitchen.

‘I don’t know what you
put in that stew, Mollie, but the gentlemen of the shooting party were most impressed
and have asked to meet you.’

‘Certainly,’ I smiled,
wiping my hands on my apron and following her through the green baize door into the
corridor that led to the dining room. I was never usually invited into these parts!

Mrs Luddington ushered me into the beautiful
wood-panelled dining room where ten or so men in tuxedos with their wives sat around an
enormous mahogany table. I felt like I should take a curtsey.

Mr Luddington was seated at the head of the
table with Nevile Henderson to his right. He was a tall, thin man with a hook nose and
bushy moustache. He smiled right at me, an empty plate in front of him.

‘Meet Mollie,’ said Mrs
Luddington. ‘She’s come to our rescue by cooking for you all and
she’s getting married tomorrow. Above and beyond the call of duty,
wouldn’t you say?’

The men clapped politely and smiled at me.

And just like that I was ushered out
again.

Back in the kitchen, Mrs Luddington pressed
a brown envelope into my hand. ‘A tip from our guests,’ she
whispered.

I had a sneaky look and was stunned to see
two large crisp five-pound notes. Ten pounds! Bearing in mind I earned a pound a week,
this tip was the equivalent of ten weeks’ wages. Perhaps it was down to the
high calibre of the guns on the shoot, but I’d never had a tip as generous as
this before.

‘That’s a
fortune!’ I shrieked. ‘I can’t accept this.’

‘You can and you will,’
insisted Mrs Luddington.

Along with the tip was a card signed by all
the guns, including Nevile Henderson, expressing their warmest wishes and thanks.

‘Well,’ she said.
‘You deserve it.’ She placed her hand on my shoulder and smiled
sadly. ‘Good luck, Mollie. I hope you are very happy in your new life. Make
sure to visit, won’t you?’

‘I will and good luck to you too,
Mrs Luddington.’ I smiled back.

We may have come from opposite ends of the
social spectrum, but for that brief moment I felt genuine affection and kinship towards
her. She was a proper lady through and through.

When I left Wallington Hall that day, on the
eve of my new life, I realized something – I may never have discovered Sir
Francis’s hoard of hidden treasure, but I was still leaving with a
fortune.

The wedding ceremony went like a dream and
afterwards my new husband and I, and all our guests, returned to Mother’s for
tea.

I was just chatting to a guest when out of
the corner of my eye I saw my father sink into a seat. His face had gone a deathly grey
and I knew a coughing fit was imminent. Rushing to his side, I started to rub his back,
when all of a sudden he began to cough uncontrollably and a fountain of blood gushed
from his mouth all over my cream
wedding dress. A haemorrhage I think
they’d call it now, but my poor, poor father – imagine the mortification and
pain he must have been in.

Me and Timothy on our wedding
day, Saturday 5 November 1938. We’re outside my mother’s farmhouse,
where we held the reception. Only the day before I’d been cooking for
politicians and VIPs.

‘Mollie,’ he
gasped, horrified, when he spotted my dress.

‘It doesn’t
matter,’ I soothed. And it didn’t, not in the grand scheme of
things. I saw my mother’s stricken face and a horrible feeling of doom settled
in my stomach. As we raced ever closer to a second world war, the terrible legacy of the
first was finally catching up with my father.

This is me, a newly-wed, just
before the outbreak of the Second World War. Every so often my husband would take me out
to dances and I’d dress up beautifully, always in a hat and pearls.

I settled down to married life in a
cottage near Timothy’s new base in Saffron Walden in Essex. Cooking for
just one man was certainly a whole lot easier than cooking for an
entire household of the gentry. Dare I say it, my life even became one of ease. Rising
late, doing a few chores and a bit of housework before cooking Timothy his favourite
dinner and a pudding ready to have on the table, piping hot, when he finished work.

Life as a newly-wed was like easing myself
into a hot bubble bath and soon I had slipped into a warm and comfortable routine.

In April 1939, five months after our
wedding, I even discovered I was pregnant. And I suppose that would have been that, the
end of the story. Except life has a funny way of pulling the rug from under your feet
when you least expect it.