A House For Spies: SIS Operations into Occupied France from a Sussex Farmhouse by Wake-Walker Edward

Author:Wake-Walker, Edward [Wake-Walker, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2020-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9: KEEPING HOUSE IN SUSSEX

When the war ended and normal family life resumed at Bignor Manor, Barbara Bertram found to her dismay that she could not sleep. As an accusing silence enveloped the house each night, all the elements of her recent fevered life continued to run frantic circuits inside her head. Her subconscious brain could not accept that she was no longer ruled by the demands and anxieties of the moon periods. It therefore re-created them for her in a cacophonous fusion of sounds and images: unintelligible waves of excited French conversation; the gramophone scratching out Jean Sablon’s Je Tire Ma Révérence ; smiling or anxious faces of men and women, many now mutilated and dead at the hands of torturers; the roar of a Lysander passing dangerously low; the clatter of washing-up in the sink; the clink of bottle against tumbler; the shrill summons of the telephone; cars arriving in the drive as dawn broke; the thump of darts hitting their target; and endless piles of vegetables to prepare.

To remedy his wife’s insomnia, Tony Bertram suggested that Barbara unburden all that tormented her at night onto paper. As a writer, he understood the relief that can come from translating the nebulous content of one’s mind into the familiar shape of words on a page. Barbara followed his advice and produced a vivid piece of writing which she entitled ‘C’est on , C’est off — what it was like ’. Whether this monologue was ever intended for publication is uncertain, but it would have been too sensitive a piece for ‘The Office’ to have allowed its airing immediately after the war. Her son Tim has continued to keep it under wraps since his mother died in 2004, so it appears now for the first time. The extracts which follow give us the sound of Barbara’s own voice and a clear sense of how she felt as she went about her special housekeeping duties.

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