Daughters of the Mersey (25 page)

‘Except for you,’ Leonie said. ‘There’s still time for me to make you a dress.’

‘No, Mum, I’ve decided to wear the blue wool, the last dress you made for me. That will be fine. Unfortunately, we have to give twenty-one days’ notice before we can be married,
that’s the law, and by then I’ll be back at work. I’m hoping against hope I’ll be able to get the day off.’

‘What about you?’ Milo asked Ralph.

‘I’m back working in the bank now,’ he said. ‘We’ve chosen to be married on the Saturday because that makes it easier for me, but it means we won’t be able to have a honeymoon.’

‘Less to arrange,’ Milo smiled, ‘and less expense.’

‘I’m worried about Amy,’ June said. ‘What are we going to do about her?’

‘She’ll expect to be your bridesmaid.’

‘It’s not going to be that sort of a wedding,’ June said, ‘but she’s going to be mad at missing it.’

‘It wouldn’t be easy to get her here and back again.’ Leonie had already pondered the problem.

‘You’ve got a car,’ Milo said to Ralph. ‘Couldn’t you fetch her?’

‘We’ve talked about it,’ June said. ‘But it isn’t really on. Ralph has to go to work and he’d have to buy the petrol on the black market.’

‘Don’t forget we could have an air raid while she’s here,’ her mother reminded them. Bombing had started on Merseyside with small attacks at the end of July 1940. To start with, they had exploded harmlessly in open fields but the raids were gradually building up. One night the planes might drop bombs over Liverpool, damaging infrastructure like the overhead railway and the next night it could be the turn of Birkenhead or Wallasey. People were being killed and injured, and everybody had grown fearful of the air raids.

‘I’ll write to her so she knows all
about my wedding,’ June said.

‘And you could send her photographs and some wedding cake afterwards,’ Leonie told her.

‘If we have a wedding cake.’

‘I’ll make you one. I stocked up with dried fruit and icing sugar before the war started.’

‘That’s hoarding, Mum.’ Milo smiled.

Leonie frowned. ‘A pity it won’t have long enough to mature.’

Amy always rushed home from school on Tuesday afternoons because she knew Mum wrote to her on Sundays and it would be delivered on Tuesday. Today was no exception; she found the expected letter waiting for her but was surprised to find it was from June.

Amy pushed the letter back into the envelope and couldn’t stop her tears. Ages ago, she’d picked up a book in Mum’s sewing room full of patterns for bridal wear and she and June had studied the designs and talked about the dream wedding they’d each have one day. She’d made June promise she could be her bridesmaid as she was likely to be married first. But now she wouldn’t even be there.

She showed the letter to Bessie who said, ‘It can’t be helped in wartime, bach. People can no longer do what they want.’ But that didn’t cheer Amy up.

They were tying up the cows for milking when Bessie said, ‘Jack is thinking of bringing the sheep down from the hill soon for tupping and
perhaps he’ll take you along to help. It won’t be as exciting as a wedding but it will be a nice outing for you, wouldn’t it?’

‘What is tupping?’ Amy asked. It was a word she hadn’t heard before but Bessie didn’t seem to know how to explain it.

Over supper that night, Jack said, ‘Shall we bring the sheep down from the hill on Saturday afternoon?’

‘Oh yes,’ Amy agreed and that morning she helped Bessie make a pan of thick broth for their lunch and cut some sandwiches to take with them. Bessie went off to catch the bus into town to do the weekly shop, and Amy read her book and watched the pan simmer slowly on the trivet over the fire until Jack came home from work.

He brought his bike with him. Usually he left it in a shed on a nearby farm where they had a lane going down to the road. The path up the cwm and through the fields was impossible for bikes. His work was planting trees on Forestry Commission land which had once been an upland hill farm and was some twelve or so miles distant. Jack used his bike every day to get to a meeting point where they were picked up by lorry.

First they ate as much of the broth as they could and Jack fished out a slice of flitch bacon for each of them to eat with their bread.

‘Why are you bringing the sheep home?’ Amy wanted to know.

‘I always do in the autumn once we’ve got the harvest in. They have to come to be tupped by the rams.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Unless that happens there won’t be any lambs. You’ll see them doing it in the fields. We’ll take them back in a few weeks to spend
the winter up there, then I’ll bring them down again for their lambs to be born here in the spring, where we can care for them.’

While Amy put on her coat and wellingtons, Jack wrapped some sacking round the cross bar of his bicycle to make it more comfortable for her to sit on, and tied a shallow wooden box to the carrier over the back wheel for Fly.

‘Even the dog rides up,’ he said, ‘to save his energy for rounding up the sheep.’ Fly was untied and they all set off walking across two fields to reach the top road that wound up to the hill.

There Amy was lifted on to the cross bar and Jack started to peddle. When he had the bike going he whistled to Fly who took a running jump into the box. Amy felt the bike wobble as he landed and felt anything but secure on her perch.

The top road was little more than a lane and just wide enough for a car but they didn’t see even one all day. There were banks on both sides with hedges growing on top, so Amy couldn’t see into the fields and very soon it became so steep that they all had to dismount and walk up it. This was repeated several times until they’d covered the six miles up to the sheepwalk.

Long before then the banks and hedges had given way to wire fencing. It was windy here and Amy could see for miles across rough heather-covered moorland and was amazed. It felt like being on top of the world. The lane came to an abrupt end with a five-bar gate across it. On the other side was Jack’s thirty-acre sheepwalk. He called it hill land but to Amy it looked like moorland. The wind seemed near gale force. She put on the pixie hood that Jack had advised her to bring.

Fly was sent running in one direction to round up the sheep and Amy was sent in the other. Jack directed
the round-up with shouts and whistles. Amy had to jump from one rough tussock to another and more often than not splash into water in between.

It took a long time before Jack was satisfied that he’d rounded up all his flock, then one or two sheep were separated out as having the markings of another farmer. Amy was told to open the gate and the flock was pushed out on to the lane. The sheep immediately put their heads down to nibble at the fresh green grass on the verges, and Fly lay down to rest but kept his eye on his master.

‘Time for bait,’ Jack said, retrieving the packet of sandwiches from his saddle bag and offering them to Amy. She was hungry, but when he threw his crusts to the dog, she did the same. Fly received them with enthusiasm.

Going home was easier as it was downhill all the way. Fly ran loose so he could control the flock and kept them moving at a brisk pace. Jack and Amy followed on the bike. When they were nearing the fields above Coed Cae Bach, Jack hung back and whistled for Fly to halt the flock. When he’d achieved that, Amy was sent to creep along the bank to pass them while the dog stood guard and Jack prevented any retreat. She opened wide the gate to the first field and propped it open. Then she stood back to block the sheep from going further down the road.

Another whistle from Jack and Fly had them swooping into the field. Amy was sent to run alongside them to keep them near the hedge while Jack shut the gate behind them. Then there was the last gate to open into the little field and the flock was safely back at home.

Amy had much preferred
the trip up to the sheepwalk to going shopping. She had seen half Wales laid out below her and felt full of fresh air, but she was exhausted and so was Fly. Bessie had returned from town, the Saturday sausages and Sunday joint were beginning to fill the kitchen with savoury scents and she was now out milking.

Jack said, ‘I’d better go and give her a hand. Why don’t you go and get Fly’s dinner for him? He’s had to work very hard today and he’s tired. And I’d be grateful if you’d shut the hens in for me before you take your wellies off.’

Amy gave Fly an extra handful of food to reward him and found he’d already gone to sleep before she reached his kennel, but he was fully awake in an instant and excited to have it. She patted him and decided she’d had a lovely day. After shutting the hens in she found Jack in the house separating the milk while Bessie organised supper.

‘Uncle Jack,’ Amy said, ‘can I help you take the sheep back up to the hill when they’ve been tupped?’

‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘I’ll be very glad of your help. I couldn’t have managed without you today.’

J
UNE WAS BACK AT
the hospital
and helping to nurse the sick and injured. She blessed the fact that her nurse’s uniform included a white cap, because it hid her shaved hair. Life suddenly seemed unreal. She found the raids terrifying, and the injuries flooding in afterwards made her see the full horror of war at first hand. It made her realise that Ralph might soon be in a worse position. She clung to him, glad that she could run across the park to be with him whenever he was at home and she was off duty.

She longed to stay all night with him, but when the air-raid sirens sounded all the nurses were ordered to the shelters. A stand-by rota was set up in case the small number of night staff couldn’t cope with the casualties. Some were on first call and some on second, depending on the number of injured needing attention, but all would be called if the hospital was hit and needed to be evacuated. June had done enough drill to know that in the event of a raid, she’d be missed if she wasn’t where she was expected to be.

She had asked to have her weekly day off on 20 October, and that had been agreed. Her only worry then was that she’d been told all leave would be cancelled and staff called in if the hospital was in difficulties because there were many bedridden patients who would
need help.

On the night before her wedding, June went home to spend some time with her family. Ralph was invited for supper and Mum managed to put on a celebratory meal. He went home afterwards in his own car which had been returned to him looking like new.

That night it was Bootle that received the attention of the Luftwaffe, and though they had a warning, nothing fell nearby, so June felt she’d had a good night’s sleep. In the morning, her mother came to her room bringing her a cup of tea. ‘Stay in bed a little longer and rest,’ she told her. But June wanted to enjoy every minute of this special day. It was a lovely morning, with the sun just breaking through the autumn mist.

‘I’ll get up,’ she said, ‘and pick some roses from the garden to make buttonholes. I want us to look like a wedding party when we go to the register office.’

‘I’ve already picked every remaining flower,’ Leonie said. ‘I’ve had to pull off the odd brown petal from the outside of some, but it’s been a good year for the roses.’ She smiled. ‘It’s such a treat not to rush to open the shop, Ida will be in charge of the business today. I’ve made small buttonholes for the men and larger ones for the ladies. I’ve made a special one for you with two roses, one cream and one white, with some maidenhair fern to set them off. It looks surprisingly glamorous.’

June could hear the family collecting in the kitchen so she put on her dressing gown and went to join them. ‘We’re all going to have breakfast together,’ Mum told her. ‘I have four eggs, so as a treat it’s going to be boiled eggs and toast.’ The ration was one egg per person per week.

June was surprised to see Pa already up and trying to help. He seemed a
different person. ‘I’ll time them,’ he said. ‘Four minutes, isn’t it? I’m fussy about my eggs.’

As the ceremony was due to take place at eleven that morning, it gave June time to have a leisurely bath and put on her blue wool dress and small hat of matching blue feathers. As her mother pinned her roses in place for her, June leaned closer and kissed her. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, ‘for talking Pa round. You made him change his mind.’

Leonie smiled. ‘There’s a happy family atmosphere this morning,’ she said, ‘but it’s Milo you must thank for that.’