Wait Till Summer

One

Eirlys Price stood in the crowded school hall looking at the anxious-faced children and wondering how they could possibly find homes for them before nightfall. This first arrival of evacuees from London had been expected, but even so, the bedraggled and clearly unhappy group had been a shock. So many and most of them so young; how could tearing them away from their families be the best solution?

Eirlys was twenty-two and she worked as a clerk in the council offices. Today she had been given the task of helping Mrs Francis to find homes for the evacuees billeted on the town. She didn’t mind the duty but would have preferred to have done it with an assistant of her own rather than the tedious Mrs Benjamin Francis.

She tried to stay uninvolved as she had been told, but the plight of the children got to her and she felt her heart squeeze with pity for the youngsters taken from everything and everyone they knew and brought to a strange town with only a luggage label pinned to them to declare their identity.

The school in St David’s Well had been closed for the day to allow for the dispersal of the children to be arranged but the pupils hadn’t stayed home. They had turned up to watch curiously as the newcomers were walked in a long crocodile from the station along the streets where other, older people stood on doorsteps to gawp at the children, offer sympathy and pat a few heads as they passed.

The forty-five evacuees were given a snack meal which had been organised by the WVS formed sixteen months before, in May 1938. Now, in September 1939, with war declared and the country in a state of turmoil, the new Women’s Voluntary Service, local people who could arrange help and comfort wherever needed, was coming into its own.

Eirlys could see that there weren’t sufficient chairs, with many taken by the adults who had come to collect them or simply to watch, so she encouraged the children, who were worn out with the travelling and the anxiety, to sit on the floor. Several went instantly to sleep, hugging their gas masks and their small bags of personal possessions in baby hands. She moved some into more comfortable positions, and stepped among them reassuring them, smiling, admiring a small toy here, a smart hat there, hoping that Mrs Francis wouldn’t take too long before sending them on the final stage of their journey.

One little girl began to wail, I ’ates it ’ere and I wanna go ’ome.

Wait till summer, Eirlys soothed. You’ll love living beside the sea when summer comes round again.

She began to describe the various activities the child might enjoy but had no response. Tears glistened in the child’s eyes and she repeated, I ’ates it ’ere, to every attempt at comfort.

The murmur of conversations and the clatter of plates as the dishes were cleared and washed in the school kitchen was a constant hum that had a drowsing effect and didn’t disturb those who were sleeping. The women who had been told to provide homes for the children for the duration of the emergency stood up and approached the bedraggled group.

As the women approached, all searching for the most respectable looking and hoping to avoid the poorest, some of the younger ones began to cry. Eirlys picked up the unhappy little girl she had spoken to earlier, who smelled unpleasantly of urine and unwashed hair, and cuddled her.

She saw three boys scuttle away from the table to stand in a corner, and guessed they were brothers and didn’t want to be parted. She stepped closer to read their names. Stanley Love aged ten, Harold Love aged eight and a glum-faced Percival Love, just six. Sympathy for Stanley, who had clearly taken responsibility for his brothers, made her stand protectively near them as the process of rehoming began.

Mrs Francis, who was clearly in charge, stood on a chair and in a loud voice addressed the room. Welcome to St David’s Well, children, she began in an accent that made Stanley and his brothers stifle a laugh.

Blimey, brovers, she talks like the wireless! Stanley spluttered.

Mrs Francis didn’t speak for long; she simply explained that the women would walk around and choose the child they wanted to take home with them. And don’t forget to say thank you, she reminded the children firmly. Here in St David’s Well we consider manners very important.

Slowly the children dispersed as the women of the town chose and collected their visitors. They gave their name, and the name of the child they had selected, to Mrs Francis and her assistants and walked off, hand in hand, to introduce the newcomer to his or her new family. Some smiled, some began to look uneasy as the numbers dwindled and the selection was reduced to the untidiest and in some cases the dirtiest children. Stanley and his brothers stood unnoticed in the corner, half hidden by a group of curious onlookers.

Eirlys moved around the sad group and reassured one or two who were afraid of being left to fend for themselves if they weren’t chosen, embarrassed at some of the comments uttered by the women who were loudly discussing the merits and suitability of each child.

See, brovers, she heard Stanley whisper, no one ’ere wants us, so we might as well go back ’ome. They would need an extra vigilant eye, Eirlys thought grimly.

The door of the school hall opened and Eirlys saw her father enter. She waved and he came to stand near her.

How’s it going? he asked. Have you chosen our girl yet?

No, Dadda. I thought we’d wait till the end and take the one no one wants.

I’m amazed that we persuaded your mam to take on an evacuee, aren’t you?

It took a long time and I don’t think she would have agreed at all, if I hadn’t told her that in my job at the council offices I had to show willing, Eirlys confessed.

Very proud of you, Mam is for sure, Morgan smiled. You working in an office when all your friends could only manage shops. Always boasting she is, about how clever you are.

What are you doing here? Eirlys asked him. Aren’t you working at ten tonight? You should be asleep.

I was curious to see the child we’re giving a home to. Your mam is busy making piles of food, convinced this lot won’t have eaten all day, so I came down for a bit of a walk, like.

The number of children dwindled. Voices became more disapproving as the children were loudly discussed. Seeing the three brothers standing apparently unnoticed, Eirlys wondered vaguely how her mother, Annie, would react if she and her father arrived home with three boys instead of the girl she had agreed to take.

She glanced at her father, nudged him and gestured towards the brothers who were trying not to move in the hope of being forgotten. He stared at the boys with an interested look in his eyes. No! They daren’t!

They looked up as Mrs Francis closed her book with a slap and seemed prepared to leave. They heard her say peremptorily, These last two girls will have to go to the vicarage. The dear vicar and his housekeeper will have to manage until other arrangements can be made. I simply can’t wait any longer.

The two frightened little girls were led off. What’s a Vicarage? one of them asked the other. Then, as she picked up her handbag and moved away from the table she had been occupying, Mrs Francis stopped, suddenly noticing the huddle of children in a corner.

You over there, come here where I can see you.

What, us, missis? Stanley Love didn’t move.

Yes, you, she said impatiently. Why have you been hiding in the corner?

Hidin’, missis? We ain’t hiding. You can see us plain as plain.

Just when I thought we were finished, Mrs Francis muttered to her assistants. Now, who have we left? There were still a few women edging out of the hall, thankful they hadn’t been needed and anxious to get home before someone changed their minds and brought a child back.

Mrs Casey, she called in a shrill voice. What about one of these boys for you?

I can’t, Mrs Francis. Two bedrooms I got and me with two daughters an’ all; it isn’t possible.

Two others were asked and had reasons to refuse one of the brothers.

Just as well, Stanley shouted. We ain’t bein’ separated. Me mum said we got to stay together.

That won’t be possible, young man. You’ll go where there’s a place for you. Now. She turned to a small, thin woman standing patiently near the door. Mrs Evans, my dear?

I couldn’t have three. She shook her head determinedly.

No one is asking you to take three; just one, all right?

No it ain’t all right! Stanley’s head-shaking was equally determined. The three musketeers we are, all for one an’ one for all. We read that at school, he said proudly.

The hall was practically deserted. Mrs Francis looked impatiently at her watch and sighed. I have a meeting of the Air Raid Precaution group in an hour.

Air raids? What air raids? Stanley demanded. I thought you wasn’t goin’ to ’ave any?

Tiresome boy, Mrs Francis said loudly. She took a deep breath in preparation for a lecture on how fortunate they were.

Just stay with me, Stanley whispered to his brothers, and when we get the chance, we’ll ’oppit and clear off back to London. Our ma wouldn’t want us standing ’ere like two pennorth of Gawd ’elp us, waiting for someone to like us, now would she?

Eirlys looked at her father, head tilted in question. They were very close and often read the other’s mind. She knew now that he was wavering, discarding common sense in favour of helping these unfortunate children. Dadda? Could we persuade Mam, d’you think?

No, love, we couldn’t! He looked shocked but at the same time his blue eyes – so like her own – shone with excitement. He looked again at the boys standing so defiant and brave. God ’elp, Eirlys. Persuading your mam to take one girl was a miracle. We’d never talk her into taking on three boys.

Dad, we have to do something. They’ll have to sleep in the school if we don’t take them, and imagine how awful that would be. Frightened, away from their mother and everything familiar, unwanted by anyone, abandoned—

Go on then, and pity help us when your mother is told. Go on, tell that bossy Francis woman they’re coming home with us. It’s up to you to talk your mam round, mind.

Stanley continued to whisper to Percival and Harold, ignoring what was being said, when he became aware of someone standing beside them.

Now what? Harold asked rudely.

Eirlys smiled and said, It seems you are all coming home with me.

Annie Price was predictably furious when the five of them walked in.

Who are these boys? she demanded, placing her hands on her ample hips and glaring at Morgan. I hope you don’t expect me to look after three boys. A girl was what I agreed.

Don’t worry, missis, we’ll go back ’ome in the morning, Stanley said jauntily. We don’t want to stay ’ere anyway.

Annie looked at the tired children and her heart softened, as Morgan and Eirlys had thought it would.

They can stay until we find a place for them, can’t they Mam?

Our Eirlys was responsible for organising all this, mind. She can’t walk away from children, can she? It’s her job, Morgan added. And I’ll do what I can to help.

As Annie served a rich stew with mashed potatoes to each of the boys, she said, How can we manage? You work shifts at the factory, I work every morning in the baker’s shop and Eirlys works from nine to five plus all the hours of overtime this damned war is causing.

We’ll manage between us, Mam, Eirlys said. I don’t think Stanley will mind doing his share, will you?

Stanley didn’t reply; he was too busy filling his mouth with the delicious stew. Eirlys was relieved to see her parents share a smile.

As her father left for work that evening, the boys were finishing their meal. Stanley and Harold had consumed second helpings but little Percival ate very little. He sat with his head bowed, chewing with little pleasure on a small amount of food, looking unhappy. When Eirlys tried to coax him, he said solemnly and in a low voice, These ’taters is boverin’ me.

Percival can’t eat no lumps, Stanley explained, scraping the offending potatoes from Percival’s plate on to his own.

I only like chips, the dejected little boy explained. Chips from the chip shop.

It was late before the children had been bathed and fed and settled for the night and Eirlys knew she would not be able to keep the date she had with Johnny Castle. She had promised to take some magazines and books for his mother, who was unwell, but she knew Johnny would understand once she explained about the plight of the evacuees no one else had wanted. Johnny was kind and never anything but good-natured. He would sympathise with the boys as soon as she explained.

Annie was still angry and Eirlys tried to take the blame from her father. It wasn’t Dadda’s idea, Mam, it was mine, she insisted. How could I walk away and leave them to be pushed into a home where they weren’t wanted and separated from each other? If you’d seen those children you’d have taken more than the one you’d agreed, I know you would.

It isn’t their fault, I know that. But your father should have thought it through.

Mam, it was me, not Dadda.

I don’t suppose he needed much persuading. You two always think alike. You look alike and you think in just the same way, soft you are the pair of you, and I have to deal with the result of it. Remember the rabbits you brought home when someone had moved and left them unattended? And the stray cat you insisted on feeding? She sounded angry, she usually did, but there was a smile around her dark eyes as she added, What am I going to be landed with next then, eh?

No more waifs and strays, Mam, I promise.

Annie didn’t seem to hear. She went on, Always wanted a big family he did, your father. Never got over his disappointment at not having brothers or sisters for you.

It was a sensitive subject for both of them. Unfading regret for Annie, and unreasonable guilt for Eirlys, who knew that it had been during her birth that her mother had been damaged with the result that she could have no more children.

Eirlys looked at the pile of clothes she had taken from the three boys and wondered where she would find more. The clothes they had brought were not suitable for school unless the Love brothers were able to cope with the teasing they would surely get from the locals. They were crumpled and very worn. There was a small weekly allowance intended to help feed them, but it was not enough to completely clothe them.

When her father Morgan came in from the factory the following morning she was awake and still trying to decide what to do about clothing.

You’d better start on that washing, hadn’t you? he said as he reached for the kettle to make a pot of tea. First thing I’ll do is fetch the washing bath in and get the boiler lit.

Yes; I have to be at work at nine so it’ll be an early start. Like now this minute, she said.

Together they sorted through the worn clothes, picking out the least worst for the three boys to wear the following day. Today they would have to wear the clothes in which they had travelled. It wasn’t ideal but it was the best she could do. None of the clothes were particularly clean and, looking at the threadbare material and frayed ends, at the holes where buttons had once been, Eirlys wondered if any item was worth the effort of mending.

Your mam’s hopeless with a needle, but you could go and ask Hannah Wilcox if she can turn a couple of my things into clothes for them. Good at that, she is.

She’s had to be, with her husband gone and her parents unwilling to help. She keeps those girls of hers beautifully turned out she does, and all by her own efforts. I’m sure she’ll make a few things for these three, but we’ll have to pay her, mind, she can’t afford to do it for nothing.

It’s half seven, she’ll be awake. Go and see her now, while the boys are still sleeping. I’ll listen for them waking. I won’t be going to bed yet. I thought I’d stay up and help your mother with breakfast.

Eirlys hugged her father affectionately. Thanks, Dadda. I knew you wouldn’t mind me taking them on.

Go on with you. I’ll chuck ’em though the window if they don’t behave, mind. Oh, and call at the bake house and ask for a loaf of bread, will you? The shop won’t open till nine and the lads ate all we had last night. On second thoughts, better get two.

Hannah Wilcox and Eirlys were friends even though their age and their circumstances were different. Hannah was twenty-nine, and had been married to a man who, she had soon realised, was a heavy drinker. While alcohol was in control he had been violent towards her. After a fourth stay in hospital, to her parents’ embarrassment and shame she had sued for divorce – something unheard of in most families – and they steadfastly refused to accept it. They were both members of a local chapel where punishment was considered to be ennobling, and the rules of life were rigid. No mitigating circumstances were ever considered.

Hannah knew the religion was one that suited her parents’ needs. They hated her but couldn’t admit it, so the breakdown of her marriage was something of which they could disapprove and for which they could punish her.

Their hatred of her and the need to punish her was because her brother Rupert, whom they had adored, had died of pneumonia after she had passed the flu on to him, and they blamed her for being alive when he was dead. Her refusal to stay with her husband was a gift to them in their unhappiness. They constantly pressurised her to take him back, insisting that he was her husband until death. That solution was something Hannah had thought about often, after a severe beating had left her in pain and she could see no way out of her situation.

It had been Eirlys Price and her parents who had helped her and supported her through the traumatic early months of the divorce procedure. Every move she made had been discouraged both by her parents and their friends, and the solicitor together with his staff also lacked sympathy, believing that a wife had to stay with a husband through everything.

Members of her parents’ chapel called on her and talked until she thought her head would burst with the frustration of stating her case to uncaring ears, and listening to their lectures on her wickedness. She was selfish, thinking only of herself, a wicked daughter, she was told repeatedly. She should spare a thought for the shame her parents were suffering, she was reminded. It was only Eirlys and her parents, Morgan and Annie Price, who saved her sanity.

After the separation and the plans for the divorce had shamed them in front of their Chapel friends, Hannah’s parents, intent on a reconciliation, had twice allowed her husband back into the house and tricked their daughter into being there alone, and twice he had made Hannah pregnant, each time also landing her in hospital with cuts, bruises and broken bones.

Even when her parents visited her in hospital, they still refused to consider Hannah a free woman and insisted that she was married and should take her husband back. They quoted the marriage vows at her whenever she tried to reason with them, chanting them to drown out her reasoning. When they had reluctantly allowed her to return to their house, after she had been forced to give up the flat above the china shop, they had made sure she lived as unobtrusively as possible, confining her and the children to the two small rooms she had been allotted, not even allowing her to take the babies into the garden to play. Her shame was never to be forgotten. The world had to see they did not condone their daughter’s behaviour.

When Hannah opened the door to Eirlys on the morning after the evacuees had arrived, she greeted Eirlys with a warning finger on her lips and they tiptoed into the living room where a fire burned low and a gas light flickered and popped in the draught.

Eirlys, this is a nice surprise. Hannah smiled as she poked some life into the fire and turned the gas light up a notch. Anything important?

I went to collect our evacuee and came back with three, Eirlys laughed. Dadda was fine about it but our Mam wasn’t pleased. The smile slipped a little as she thought about her mother’s reaction, wondering if her mother would be persuaded to allow them to stay.

She’ll be as kind as your dad, don’t worry, Hannah assured her. Her bark is always worse than her bite. She waited for her friend to say something more but recognising the hesitancy, guessing there was a favour to be asked, said, Can I help? Mam and Dad can’t take one, not with us being here – at least that’s a point in my favour, she laughed. But if I can do something to help you?

The fact is, they don’t have many clothes and the ones they do have are very worn. I wondered if you could make them some trousers and shirts out of some of Dad’s old ones? It will be expensive to buy new for all three of them. We’ll pay of course.

Bring around what you’ve got and I’ll look in my odds-and-ends cupboard and I’m sure we’ll sort out something. Good practise maybe. There was a piece on the paper last week about us having to manage without new clothes if the war lasts more than a year or so.

But it won’t, will it? This time next year we’ll be laughing at all the scaremongering, won’t we?

The last war went on for four years, Hannah said doubtfully.

Yes, but we’ve learned something since then, haven’t we?

Hannah didn’t think so but she said nothing. Talk of war was frightening and rumours varied from a brief skirmish, over by Christmas, to years of deprivation and horror. Hannah didn’t want to think about it. Like many other women she preferred pretending the battles would happen far away and to people she didn’t know.

How is Johnny? she asked, hoping to change the subject. What does he think of Stanley, Harold and Percival Love?

Oh, I didn’t see him last night. Sorting out the evacuees took most of the evening. Luckily we were meeting at his mam’s house so I wasn’t letting him down. Besides, he knew the evacuees were coming; he’d have guessed what happened and understood.

What is he doing now the beach is closing for the winter? Has he got a job yet?

Because Johnny Castle’s family ran Piper’s Café and their stalls on St David’s Well Bay during the summer months, when the town was filled with day-trippers and holiday-makers attracted to the small town and its lovely sandy beaches, they all had to seek other employment during the winter.

He’s decorating old Mrs Piper’s house at the moment, and hating it. Johnny loves working on the sands, and likes to be out of doors, working with people. He dreads the end of the beach season. He never minds painting the stalls and swingboats and the like, smartening them up for the season, that’s a part of the work on the beach, but painting Granny Molly Piper’s house is not a favourite pastime.

Poor Johnny. Mrs ‘Granny Moll’ Piper isn’t even his real gran, is she? Hannah smiled.

No, but she acts as though he is. He and Taff have to do as she says the same as their cousins.

The friends said goodbye, with the decision made to use the newly washed clothes as a guide to making new outfits for the boys in time for the following week when they would all be starting at the local school.

Eirlys was thinking about Johnny Castle as she closed the gate behind her. She knew something of the protest about the name of the cafés and stalls owned by Molly Piper.

It was the Castle family who ran the businesses belonging to Moll Piper, which had been started by her grandparents, Joseph and Harriet Piper, with a small wooden café close to the sands. Moll Piper’s daughter Marged and her husband Huw Castle had worked on the sands since they were children and Huw’s brother Bleddyn had worked beside them. As soon as they were old enough, their own children had become involved, the cousins working happily as a team. Although most members of the workforce were called Castle, the name of Piper was still used and would be, Moll told them, until the last Piper was dead.

As she and her unmarried daughter, Marged’s sister Audrey, were the last two, Huw and Bleddyn constantly tried to persuade her to change her mind and rename the business – but to no avail. Bleddyn and Huw felt it was an injustice, as they had managed the business since Moll’s husband had died and Moll had practically nothing to do with the day-to-day organisation. Huw’s wife Marged avoided discussing it; agreeing with her husband, agreeing with Moll, using lots of words but saying nothing.

It was past eight o’clock that morning as Eirlys walked thoughtfully back to her parents’ house in Conroy Street. She hastily prepared breakfast for them all, offering toast and eggs to the subdued boys. Then, leaving her father to look after them until her mother returned from work at one o’clock, when he would at last be able to get some sleep, she made her way to the council offices and the continuing work of arranging schools and checking on the accommodation for the children.

Every placement had to be investigated, the schools prepared for the extra pupils, meetings arranged for the families to sort out any difficulties before they developed into problems. There were endless reports and forms to deal with, people to send out with questionnaires regarding the evacuees and their welfare. She ate a snack lunch at her desk, stopping only briefly to look out at the bustling town. As all the shops and offices closed between one and two o’clock, the shoppers gradually disappeared and only a few people walked the pavements.

She saw Johnny riding past on his bicycle and guessed he had been sent to buy more paint to finish his decorating for Granny Moll Piper. She didn’t wave. He wouldn’t expect to see her there at her window high above the street.

He was whistling and wobbling his way through a group of workmen standing examining a delivery of buckets and stirrup pumps that had been unloaded on to the road. How everything was changing. Even though not a single bomb had been dropped, the town was being turned inside out in preparation for war.

She shivered as she thought of the dangers to come in the pretty little town, and the young men who were leaving in droves to fight an invisible enemy far away across the sea.

She thought of Ken Ward from whom she had parted recently. He had wanted so badly to join the army and fight, but asthma had meant he received Grade Four at his medical, too low for any kind of enemy action. His family had moved to London and Ken had accepted a job with a small theatre group there and had asked her to go with him, but she had refused to leave St David’s Well. She had often wondered if the decision had been the right one and each time decided it had been.

She wouldn’t have stood on the railway platform without regret and watched him leave if she had really loved him. An unwillingness to leave her parents and a job she enjoyed wouldn’t have entered her mind. She missed him, though; they had been friends for several years.

At five thirty, when she began to tidy her desk and prepare to leave, she was handed another pile of papers and asked to try to get them filed before she went home. With a sigh, she agreed. She was anxious about the evacuees, and wondered how they had fared during their first day, but the work at