Saving Missy by Beth Morrey

Author:Beth Morrey [Morrey, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-08-05T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

Lancaster Villas

Kensington W8

21st September 1942

My dearest Will,

I had a letter from Sibyl the other day. I was surprised because you know she is not one for lengthy epistles or indeed any form of communication for that matter. Too busy with her chickens. Anyway, she wrote to say that Henry & Milly are doing very well, they are at school up there and enjoying the countryside by all accounts. Best of all Sibby included a note from Milly herself! I can’t bring myself to send it to you in case it gets lost so the following is inscribed verbatim:

Dare Mama

I lov you. Ar room is hiy. Ther ar sheep.

Milly

Isn’t that fine! I’m so glad Sibby didn’t try to correct any of it, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it nearly as much. There was also a picture, which I think may have been one of the sheep. I won’t try to recreate it here.

Things are pretty much the same in London. Father has stopped going down to the cellar during the raids. Says he’ll either die or he won’t and going downstairs won’t make a difference. Mother has started sewing again, always a bad sign.

With the children (and you) away I am glad to have my work. The ambulances make pretty heavy driving, but I am getting used to them. My usual hours are six at night’til eight in the morning. We have to go out as soon as the bombs start dropping, otherwise there is no one left to save. At first it was daunting but nowadays we’re usually too busy to notice. The other night a bomb hit a theatre in Tottenham Court Road. The show was packed with soldiers home on leave – many of the casualties were in uniform. They’d been laid out in the road with a rug over them, and we had to check if they were all dead so we knew whether to take them to hospital or the mortuary.

I found one chap who was alive amongst them and held his hand for a while as I waited for him to pass. He said, ‘Tell Elsie I love her,’ and I said I would. We loaded him and the others up and drove them to the mortuary, but they wouldn’t take them without a doctor’s certificate. So we had bodies in the car but nowhere to put them. In the end we had to leave them in a back street. None of us liked it but what could we do? There were others who still had a chance and we had to help them.

On my days off I’ve been meeting with a few other women in Fitzrovia who are thinking of setting up an Equal Pay committee to push for better rights. The discussions are pretty lively and the other night we were so taken up with arguing that by the time we’d finished we emerged onto the street to find the blackout in full force and I had to use the white kerbs to grope my way to the bus stop.

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