Sunshine and Cider Cake by Georgia Hill

Author:Georgia Hill [Hill, Georgia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008519742
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Chapter Seventeen

‘Mam was worried silly about all the bombs,’ Ruby began. ‘Or the threat of them. That and the gas. Everyone thought the Germans would gas us like they did in the last show, you see. She suffered with her nerves, as we used to say back then. We sat round the radio, me and her, and listened to Chamberlain tell us we was at war, like the rest of the country. And, like the rest of the country, we fretted about what was going to happen. Mam burst into tears, and I got into trouble for finding the embroidered hankie to give to her to mop her up. She was saving it for best, she said. I was twelve then.’ She frowned. ‘Yes, not far off thirteen. Never seen my Mam cry before. Didn’t know what to do. She saw the funny side in the end. Said what was the point of keeping things for best if ruddy Hitler was going to gas us all?

‘Kiddies began to leave straight away. A lot had gone even before war was declared. It all happened very quick. Mam had been at Paddington with Mrs Wicke from next door. She’d seen what happened when they all went. Whole classes at a time from my school, with their teacher, off onto a train to goodness knows where, with just a suitcase and a bar of chocolate. No one knew, you see, where they’d end up. Mrs Wicke’s little Stan was only six and a real baby. Broke her heart to see him go. Didn’t stop crying for a week. And it was all of a month later before she found out he was with a family on a farm near Taunton. Mam said she didn’t want that for me. So yes, you were right.’ Ruby addressed Noah. ‘I was an evacuee but not one who went with the rest of the school.’ She smiled sadly. ‘There’s a part of me that thinks I might have liked that. At least you was with your school pals and your teachers. You knew a few folk. The way it happened with me, I didn’t know a soul.’

‘What happened, Ruby?’ Ashley asked gently. ‘How did you end up in Berecombe?’

‘Mam had a distant cousin. Florrie. Married a Berecombe man. She wrote and asked if they’d take me in. So I got the train, all on my own, told not to speak to no one, counted the fields to pass the time. Never seen anything so green. So green, it sounded loud. And the air! It was that fresh when I got off the train at Axminster that it fair knocked me off my feet. And that’s when I met Jimmy. He’d cadged a lift with the doctor’s car to come and pick me up. My Auntie Florrie married John Larcombe, you see, and Jimmy was their son. Just going on twenty. Thin streak of bacon, he was. All gangly long legs and arms. The doctor and Jimmy collected me all up and brought me here, to Berecombe.

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