Ambulance Girls at War by Deborah Burrows

Author:Deborah Burrows [Burrows, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Sagas, War & Military, Historical, World War II, Medical, Romance, Women
ISBN: 9781473550377
Google: h8BCDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 36992532
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2019-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

Celia’s expression as she read this was as if there was a particularly bad smell in the air. Lily pretended to vomit.

I said, encouragingly, ‘I’m sure it all sounds better when said out loud by a proper actor and actress.’

Lily threw back her head and laughed. ‘Oh, Maisie, how can it? It’s putrid.’ She said, in a mincing voice, ‘It’s our job, you see. Our job!’

Celia shrugged and threw her copy of the script down on to the table. ‘Well, I’m not saying a damn thing. Just let them try and make me.’

We were picked up a few hours later by an ATS girl driving the film unit’s big saloon. She deposited us at the entrance to Ealing Studios in west London, telling us to wait for ‘Harry’.

I felt a tremor of excitement. I’d had acting lessons at Italia Conti, but I’d never been a great success. Maybe I’d be different this time. I fell into a daydream of being ‘discovered’, ending up as a famous film actress and receiving a fan letter from Michael Harker.

Lily chatted to the uniformed guard, who was an elderly man with a little moustache. ‘How big is the studio?’ she asked.

‘Very big indeed,’ he said, and continued in a well-rehearsed manner. ‘Four sound stages giving us in total almost twenty-eight thousand feet of film space.’

Lily made a sound indicating amazement.

‘Ealing Studios,’ he went on in a smug voice, ‘is the oldest film studio in the world and has been the centre of the British Film Industry since 1902.’

‘Gosh,’ said Lily, looking suitably impressed.

A thin older woman in slacks and a baggy cardigan emerged from the building.

‘I’m Harry,’ she said, and checked our names off on the clipboard she was carrying. ‘Follow me.’ She led us along a maze of corridors until we ended up at a small set somewhere in the rear of the building. It had a big table in it, in front of a plywood back with a painted window. The table had been set up with tin cups and a telephone. Cameras and lights in front of the table glared at it ominously. Harry pointed to a line of chairs against the wall and told us to, ‘Sit there’.

Celia set her mouth mutinously at that and I feared trouble. She said, in her regal manner, ‘A simple “please” wouldn’t go astray.’

Celia’s accent was the sort that ruled empires; it was, on the whole, loathed by all except those with a similar accent. The woman gave her a venomous glare.

‘Dear ladies,’ she said, through gritted teeth, ‘please do sit down.’

We sat.

‘What now?’ asked Lily.

‘You wait,’ said Harry. ‘There’s an awful lot of waiting when you make a film. You’ll need to get used to it.’

‘This is only a screen test,’ said Lily, but the woman had wandered off.

Mr Denbeigh turned up ten minutes later with a man he introduced as Les, the cameraman.

‘Know your lines?’ asked Denbeigh, smiling. ‘Capital. Say them with plenty of oomph.’

We sat around the table and drank water from the tin cups as if it were tea and said our lines.

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