collecting in the corner of their eyes, ears and mouths – which, despite a weekly Friday night scrub in a tin bath, never completely disappeared – had put William off a career down the pit for life.
All Betty could do now was hope beyond hope that Neville Chamberlain had what it took to stop Hitler in his tracks and to avoid Britain going to war.
‘Please don’t worry, my lovely, sweet Bet,’ William said, before he gently kissed her goodnight on the doorstep of her boarding house. For once she didn’t bring their lingering embrace to a premature end, as she usually would, even if Mrs Wallis – the rather Victorian in nature and incredibly proper and strict landlady – could see them.
Mrs Wallis kept a tight ship, refused her lodgers to enjoy any visitors, except the odd cup of tea in the communal and very formal front room, ensuring propriety was always the priority. It wouldn’t surprise Betty if her landlady was hovering just a few paces behind the bright-red front door, ensuring her wards – as she liked to view those who took rooms in her rather grand townhouse – were home and safely tucked under their floral patchwork eiderdowns.
Knowing her rather stern landlady was now likely to be only seconds away from coughing or, even worse, opening the front door and catching her and William in a loving embrace, Betty finally, and reluctantly, released herself from William’s warm and naturally protective hold.
‘I’ll call on you tomorrow,’ he said, clinging to Betty’s fingers, desperate to freeze time so they would never have to be parted.
But right on cue, heavy footsteps behind the door broke the tender moment as quick as a bolt of thunder. ‘Goodnight, my love,’ Betty sighed dreamily, giving William one final peck on the cheek.
For a few precious seconds, Betty had temporarily forgotten the foreboding thoughts that had dominated her mind all evening. But as she walked past Mrs Wallis in the corridor, bidding her goodnight and throwing her one of her most innocent smiles, the sense of uncertainty suddenly returned.
After washing her face clean with lukewarm water and lavender-scented soap in the porcelain sink in the corner of her room, Betty changed her pale-blue skirt and cream blouse, on which she could still smell William’s musky aftershave, and slipped into her long, white, crisp cotton nightdress.
Climbing into her cold but familiar bed, she tried to close her eyes as she rested her head upon the fluffy pillow – something Mrs Wallis prided herself on. But as soon as she tried to doze off, worry overcame her once more. To Betty, war seemed an obvious outcome to this whole messy situation, but where would that leave her and William? Would she have to kiss him goodbye if he did follow his heart and join the RAF, telling him she would see him soon, knowing the reality could paint a very different picture?
And what would she do? One thing was for sure: if war was announced, she couldn’t do nothing. She couldn’t just rest on her laurels and hope it would pass; she would have to do her bit.
Perhaps she’d have to do as the women of Sheffield did in the First World War and rise to the challenge, stepping into the steel toe-capped boots the city men would leave behind. The steel factories had relied on women to keep the foundry fires burning for four long years and Betty was determined she would be one of the first in line to ensure those sent to war, like her William, had the munitions they needed to fight the battle they faced.
Monday, 28 August 1939
Her arms aching, Nancy wrung the last flannelette sheet through the mangle.
‘Thank the lord for that,’ she said, sighing to herself, desperate for a cuppa after hours of laboriously scrubbing, washing and cleaning. It was Monday, and like most of the women on Prince Street, she had been giving the house a once-over since the crack of dawn. Even before she had safely delivered her two children, Billy, seven, and five-year-old Linda, at school, Nancy had stripped the beds and beat the front-room rug with a brush over the washing line in the back yard.
She had spent the morning scrubbing the front doorstep with a donkey stone, but despite the fact it left her knuckles red raw, and numb with cold when winter came, it was one of the jobs Nancy didn’t mind. Up and down most roads across the city, women could be seen doubled over on their hands and knees, applying as much elbow grease as they did chatter with the neighbours, until their front step was spick and span. No well-respecting housewife would dream of missing the weekly ritual.
‘How you getting on, Doris?’ Nancy asked her good friend and weary-looking neighbour, as she trundled wearily out of her own front door
‘Ah, not so bad.’ Doris smiled, her eyes drooping despite it just turning ten thirty. ‘Nothing a good brew and eight hours of solid sleep wouldn’t sort.’
Nancy didn’t need to ask why. She’d heard Doris’s youngest crying through the walls in the early hours.
‘Georgie?’ Nancy asked, and Doris nodded. ‘He’ll settle soon enough,’ Nancy said reassuringly, but if the truth be known, she had no idea if her well-meant words would come true or not. Little George, as he was also known, hadn’t slept through a single night since his dad – ‘Big George’, Doris’s husband – had been tragically killed at Vickers, the local steelworks. And by the look of it – neither had Doris. The heavy bags under her eyes grew darker by the day and her frail frame seemed to be visibly shrinking.
‘Are you sure you’re managing?’ Nancy asked kindly. ‘Why don’t you let me have the kids over for tea and you can catch forty winks.’
‘Oh, it’s okay, luv,’ came the reply. ‘They’re still all pretty needy.’
Nancy nodded. It had only been three months since Big George had died in the most tragic and unspeakable of manners. His neck scarf had got caught in one of the monstrous lathes; his workmates had tried to shut down the machine but couldn’t stop the thick unforgiving belts quick enough. ‘Decapitation caused by severe laceration of the neck,’ the death certificate had read. No wonder Doris couldn’t sleep; Nancy knew her mind must have filled with unbearable harrowing images as soon as she closed her eyes. There couldn’t be a crueller way to die and now Doris was left with four children, all under the age of ten, to feed, clothe and care for. How she had time to scrub her doorstep, as well as take in washing, sewing and do the odd cleaning job for the neighbours, was beyond Nancy.
She knew there was no point telling her friend to take it steady. How could she? Doris had bills to pay like everyone else and, with no husband to bring home a wage, she was juggling every ha’penny she had in a desperate bid to keep the tallyman at bay.
Doris didn’t need to be told twice that if she didn’t meet the rent, the debt collector would appear at the door and wouldn’t think twice about taking away any possessions she had to cover the money she owed.
Nancy knew that Doris had already pawned most of the jewellery Big George had bought her over the years, including the intricate locket he’d given her on their wedding day, eleven years earlier – a family heirloom that had been passed down through the generations that had been a wrench to part with – but that she refused to let the gold band on her wedding finger go.
‘Listen. Don’t you be worrying about me,’ Doris said, snapping Nancy out of her daydream. She didn’t know how, but she was determined to find a way through the heart-wrenching predicament she had found herself in. She had no choice – she had four kids who were relying on her.
‘Well,
