Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue (15 page)

F
OR ALL THE TALK IN THE TAPROOM OF THE
G
REAT
C
ENTRAL
Hotel, of what they'd do to Fritz if they caught him, no civilian expected to come face to face with a German soldier. Yet that's precisely what happened in Brimington in 1917. In no time at all, the story was the talk of the neighbourhood and the Derbyshire press. The local bobby liked to call at the corner shop for a cup of tea; I expect Betsy and Eva heard the tale first-hand.

One Sunday lunchtime in late September, William Darkin and George Fretwell were walking in Bluebank Wood when they spotted four men up ahead. Darkin and Fretwell had permission to walk the wood and, these being the days before public right of way, had not expected to encounter anyone else. As the two men approached, they saw that the group had obviously made some efforts to conceal their presence: they were lying half shrouded in the undergrowth, their bags jutting out of the bracken.

Suspicions were further aroused when, in reply to a cheery greeting, ‘there was not the Derbyshire ring in the voice, a foreign accent striking the ear'. What happened next seems ludicrous.
The strangers commented on the volume of traffic on the nearby railway and, as if reading from an espionage handbook, displayed a keen interest in the large industrial works in the distance – Sheepbridge. This was too much for Darkin and Fretwell who quickly retraced their steps and alerted Mr Stott, the man who had given them permission to walk the woodland path. Stott hastened to the spot, greeted the suspects, and then – as in the best detective fiction – made as if to leave, but doubled back, while keeping the group under observation. Meanwhile, Darkin went in search of a policeman. It was the kind of moment village bobbies dream of.

The strangers offered no resistance when confronted by Sergeant Parnham, and admitted they were prisoners of war who'd escaped from a Nottinghamshire camp some days earlier. ‘The game is up,' their spokesman conceded, as if quoting again from his espionage handbook.

‘News of the capture spread like wildfire.' By the time a car had been located and commandeered (no instant matter in Brimington in 1917), ‘the prisoners were the centre of a large and excited crowd'. Here was a chance for women with sons and husbands at the Front to harangue and abuse real-live Germans. Amid much jostling and shouting, the prisoners were bundled into the car and conveyed to Chesterfield Police Station.

The
Derbyshire Times
was tickled pink and delighted in unfolding all aspects of the story. Particularly fascinating were the contents of the fugitives' kitbags. The prisoners had amassed sufficient tinned food to last a fortnight – which was more than could be said for Betsy's customers – plus cigarettes, tobacco, mackintoshes, bottles of tea, a pair of tiny handmade compasses and several maps said to have been drawn with such precision that
even the smallest hamlets were included. A portmanteau they were carrying weighed ‘fully a hundredweight'; it was extraordinary the men had managed to travel as far as they did. Their fellow escapees had been picked off fairly easily; the last of them to be recaptured, an ace pilot, was spotted by a group of schoolchildren, crouching in a ditch.

The final intrepid four had spent their last day of freedom in the Derbyshire village of Ashover, crossing further into the county as darkness fell and making their way towards the mail train. Missing the train by just three minutes, they had decamped to Bluebank Wood where they spent several hours before their discovery. Their chances of getting further in broad daylight were slim, to say the least, but, with luck, and without drawing attention to themselves by lighting a fire, they could have remained hidden until the next mail train the following day.

A grateful Sheepbridge Company issued specially minted gold medals to Darkin and Fretwell; my grandma kept a report of the private ceremony. The pair were fêted as heroes – drinks on the house – though when they first reported their suspicions to their fellow drinkers on that fateful Sunday in the bar of the Red Lion, they'd been greeted with typical Derbyshire candour and dis belief.

For a few short weeks, the Bluebank Wood incident bolstered morale. People felt their own small contributions to the war were of value, albeit that night-time fears – and taproom jokes – acquired a new edge: the bogeyman behind the coal house really might be the Hun.

This morale boost was timely. By now, everyone knew a handful of people who'd been killed or injured. Annie's friend, Ethel, was widowed. Earlier in the war, she had married a local lad, Henry
Marsden. One of seven children, he was keen to see the recruiting officer, pleased to get fixed rations, and proud to put ‘soldier' on his wedding certificate. They were married barely two years before Henry died of wounds. ‘I never really knew him, Mrs Nash,' Ethel said. ‘Not really.' In her heart, she knew the marriage had been expedient. They'd both had reasons to escape. She bought a black hat and wore it for a month or so, but she was only twenty-four. Ethel Marsden, widow, did not suit her.

The
Derbyshire Times
offered ‘In Memoriam' cards, two shillings and sixpence a dozen, two bob for three dozen or more: everyone wanted a card and a last photograph, including those the dead had fought alongside. What with the grief and the weather and the shortages, one day seeped into the next, shaming those who, in 1914, had regretted being out of the fun.

Neighbours who lost husbands and sons hadn't the heart (or the shoe leather) to scour the shops for the tea, butter, sugar, currants and jam that were rapidly disappearing, and cared nothing that eggs were twice the price of two years earlier, or that flour – if you could get it – was nowadays measly stuff that needed bulking out
with potatoes. Who needed eggs and flour to make a batter pudding when the lovely boy who liked to eat it would never taste a pudding again?

From late February 1918, rationing evened things out and reduced the interminable queues. There were coupons for Betsy and Eva to check and collect and customers were obliged to register with the corner shop as their chosen supplier for grocery staples. But there were still mouths to feed from shelves still half empty and with everything increasingly dear. The fourth year dragged
on, rubbing out hope and picking at everyone's wounds. When, at last, there was talk of peace and neighbours dared to contemplate the future, news came of a grand lad Annie knew, killed the day before the Armistice.

1918 had not quite finished with indiscriminate deaths. Next came the influenza, killing those the war could not reach. In no time at all, the Spanish 'flu claimed local man Charles Inns and, five days later, his son. Young Charles, a fit man of twenty-six, with a wife and a son of his own, contracted pneumonia following the 'flu and was buried with the flowers still fresh on his father's grave. Poor Charles, poor Constance, and their poor young son, who was barely more than a baby. Constance often used the shop; Eva and Annie always chatted with her. She and the baby were so ill themselves that the funeral service was conducted at their home.

But the greatest shock for my grandma was the death of Elsie Phipps, headmistress of the Princess Street Girls' School, the companion school to the Infants' where Annie taught as a pupil teacher and to which she returned following her baby's death. With all her hopes unravelling, Annie needed something to occupy her thoughts and distract her. Though a married woman now and, by rights, no longer needed – like most local authorities, Derbyshire expected married women to give up teaching – regulations were relaxed during the war. Annie took herself back to her old classroom and her old adversary Miss Doughty, and also got to know Elsie Phipps.

Less formidable than Mabel Doughty, Miss Phipps was popular with both colleagues and pupils. Barely a month earlier she and Annie had sat in the church hall, pricing goods for a Red Cross Fancy Fair. ‘And what would you give for this?' Miss Phipps had
asked, lifting a misshapen muffler, ‘or these?' – a pair of gloves – before writing exorbitant sums on the price tags.

But the date intended for the Fair turned into the day of Elsie's funeral. The Phipps were well respected in the neighbourhood – Elsie's father was a committee-man and High Street grocer – and many neighbours as well as colleagues turned out for the church. My grandma joined the procession but, even as she walked in that cold black line, the occasion made no sense. It was incom prehensible how someone she had laughed with, had liked and admired, and expected to go on seeing over the years, could be alive and well one week, and dead the next. She knew Miss Phipps was ill, but she was strong and would recover. Expecting to hear that Elsie was sitting up in bed, making light of her scare and wanting visitors, Annie was told she was dead.

My grandma kept one of the price tags from the Fancy Fair. ‘6/6', it said, in thick red ink. ‘Written by E. Phipps Oct 9 1918, died Nov 5,' she wrote underneath those vivid strokes, the insignificant memento underscoring the preposterousness of the death. Some weeks later, the delayed Fair went ahead. Everyone agreed that was what Miss Phipps would have wanted (and what else would they have done with the contributions?). The church hall was filled with stalls and there was the usual raffle and prizes, but though the Armistice had been signed some weeks earlier, few could muster much enthusiasm for the event.

The year was not quite over, nor the difficulties experienced in the aftermath of the 'flu. There were still parcels to make up – with Glaxo, bread, butter, tea, sugar – and deliver to frail neighbours. On Christmas Eve, Clara Tissington sent Annie (‘Mrs Thompson') small gifts for herself and Eva, with a card expressing ‘kindest regards to your Mother and yourself and thanking
you for all you did to help me'. She enclosed a recent photograph of herself and hoped that ‘when your husband comes home, you will be very happy'. Mrs Tissington's picture joined the others in my great-grandma's tiny album: snapshots of a small community, 1914–18.

W
ILLIE HAD BEEN HAVING A DIFFERENT KIND OF WAR
. P
ACKED
off to France with the rest of them in 1916, he learned that though roses might bloom in Picardy, none grew in the trenches. He considered his posting to the Middle East a stroke of immense good fortune.

His new role as a dispatch rider suited him much better. Willie was not the sort of man to stand in line and much preferred to be a lone adventurer. The job enabled him to drive through the desert on a motorcycle, delivering communiqués both urgent and mundane, kicking up sand in unknown, open spaces. He was proud of his service-issue rifle and prouder still to handle a revolver.

Willie was curious about the world in which he found himself and jotted down some ‘Hindoo' words and phrases: common commands – yes, no, stop, come here – and a smattering of other useful nouns: porridge, paper, bucket, meat; a frugal (and Imperial) vocabulary, just enough to get by with supplementary signs and gestures. He was interested to know more about the culture he observed. ‘Caron,' Willie wrote: ‘a book or bible composed of 104
books, split into 30 portions, and Arabs must read 1 portion each day…' He photographed a Sheik's sons and a young Arab boy to show Annie, and collected postcards of the far-flung places he visited and others he hoped he might see one day: general views of Aden, Basra, Cairo; majestic tombs and pyramids trapped in grainy images. But he was also a card-playing private who liked to place a bet and enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow soldiers and their boasts about the number of pints they could sink. He was only twenty-three, after all.