Bunting, Bunting Everywhere! By Tracey Vale

"German armed forces surrendered unconditionally on May 7. Hostilities in Europe ended officially at midnight, May 8. 1945. Yesterday morning at 2:41 a.m. at Headquarters, General Jodl, the representative of the German High Command, and Grand Admiral Doenitz, the designated head of the German State, signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German land, sea, and air forces in Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Force, and simultaneously to the Soviet High Command," the distinctive voice of Winston Churchill boomed into our home, decreeing the news we had all waited so long, while we endured so much, to hear.

The signing of unconditional surrender, which took place in Rheims, was not accepted by the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, who insisted on it's ratification the following day in Berlin.

We continued to listen to Churchill as he went on to say, broadcast from the House of Commons, "....Today, this agreement will be ratified and confirmed at Berlin, where Air Chief Marshal Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, and General de Lattre de Tassigny will sign on behalf of General Eisenhower. Marshal Zhukov will sign on behalf of the Soviet High Command. The German representatives will be Field-Marshal Keitel, Chief of the High Command and the Commanders-in- Chief of the German Army, Navy, and Air Forces.

"Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, Tuesday, May 8, but in the interests of saving lives, the 'Cease Fire' began yesterday to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today. The Germans are still in places resisting the Russian troops, but should they continue to do so after midnight they will, of course, deprive themselves of the protection of the laws of war and will be attacked from all quarters by the Allied troops. It is not surprising that on such long fronts and in the existing disorder of the enemy, the orders of the German High Command should not in every case be obeyed immediately. This does not, in our opinion, with the best military advice at our disposal, constitute any reason for withholding from the nation the facts communicated to us by General Eisenhower of the unconditional surrender already signed at Rheims, nor should it prevent us from celebrating today and tomorrow, Wednesday, as Victory in Europe days.

"Today, perhaps, we shall think mostly of ourselves. Tomorrow we shall pay a particular tribute to our Russian comrades, whose prowess in the field has been one of the grand contributions to the general victory.

"The German war is therefore at an end. After years of intense preparation, Germany hurled herself on Poland at the beginning of September, 1939 and, in pursuance of our guarantee to Poland and in agreement with the French Republic, Great Britain, the British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations, declared war upon this foul aggression. After gallant France had been struck down we, from this Island and from our united Empire, maintained the struggle single-handed for a whole year until we were joined by the military might of Soviet Russia, and later by the overwhelming power and resources of the United States of America.

"Finally, almost the whole world was combined against the evil-doers, who are now prostrate before us. Our gratitude to our splendid Allies goes forth from all our hearts in this Island and throughout the British Empire.

"We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King!"

Crowds gathered around major monuments, which were to be specially lit for the occasion, as well as in Trafalgar Square, Parliament Square and at Buckingham Palace, rejoicing the end of the dark days. Effigies of Hitler were built in record time and burnt on bonfires sprinkled around the country.

We were the first in our street to decorate. Mum and I became industrious in the backyard with buckets and tubs of red and blue dye. We dyed old sheets and tablecloths, pegged them up to dry, then cut them into squares and triangles. These were evenly-spaced and sewn onto thin rope to form a few hundred metres of bunting. Once ready, we strung this from an upstairs bedroom window, across our front garden to the house across the street. From there, we zigzagged down the street to the upstairs bedroom window of Mrs. Mason, who lived above the corner shop. It was a major feat! I thought it looked magnificent and was caught up, as we all were, in the air of celebration and excitement.

Dad's contribution was to make models of spitfires and warships, to be displayed in front of a painted scene. When he was finished, this was displayed in the bay window of our front room, complemented by an array of spotlights in direct contrast to the black-out curtains we had already removed. People came to look and admire his work, standing on the footpath outside our front garden, pointing out particular parts to small, wide-eyed children. I felt so proud.

Then, came the street parties. They were everywhere. I had never danced and sung so much as in those days following the announcement of Victory in Europe!

Sometimes, a piano was wheeled into the street and Miss Hand would accompany me in my entertainment efforts. If a piano was not available, Isabel provided Charlie Kunz records to substitute. I was taken to Stourport, where relatives lived, to entertain in their street parties. I danced on top of tables or on make-shift stages. It was exhausting and I began to feel 'partied out'.

But, the war was over! I couldn't wait to taste real ice-cream instead of the substitute concoction made from cornflour. The thought of lights in the streets and shop windows spurred Jean and I to run to the nearest main road for the big 'Switch On'. Alas, our shoulders slumped with the disappointment as few of the lamps were working. We felt that Birmingham would be a better prospect and raced back home for permission to board the next bus. Sure enough, and to our immense excitement, many shop windows were lit. We were late arriving back home, despite being out alone at night, but this was accepted, such was the freedom of the times.

I was almost thirteen when the war ended. It was a pivotal time of change. It was a time when traditional education was only a small part of my life, with professional training and theatre vastly overtaking it in importance. 

Bergen Belsen, April 1945, By Tracey Vale

The frivolity of the Ice Cream Parlour front room was in direct contrast to the broadcast we were hearing from the radio we were huddled around. Barely daring to breathe, we felt the intensity and despair in Richard Dimbleby's words and voice as he revealed to us the detritus of what he had just seen and the realisation of the true scope of Hitler's evil. We felt his horror. We felt his pain. We were awash with disbelief and sorrow. I remember it clearly, to this day, the unmistakeable meaning in the faltering of his voice.

I didn’t know anything about the concentration camps or the plight of the Jews until the Allies entered Germany on their march to Berlin. The radio, which was on all the time, began it’s BBC broadcast and we were drawn towards it and listened to the report in its entirety. We had never heard anything like this before.

As children, we were used to the news that war brought forth. We were used to hearing how many soldiers had been killed or how many sailors lost at sea—and always in the thousands. We would hear such announcements often, and life would go on. It was not like it is today, when we hear of the death of a soldier, know them by name and see their coffin return to their homeland. Not so, in World War Two. It was generalised: “Five thousand British soldiers lost their lives today while defending the…”

But this—this was quite different. Dimbleby’s voice unmistakeably faltered several times, so confronting was his experience. My father was swearing as we listened and was stating his concern that I was hearing this nightmare.

It was April 15, 1945. British Troops had just liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp, the first to be freed by the British. Although the Red Army had liberated concentration camps in Poland--including the largest, Auschwitz, liberated in January—little was known of the extent, conditions and inhumanity of the atrocities. Bergen Belsen was a work camp, a slave labour camp, where the imprisoned worked in the grounds or in the bullet factory from dawn to dusk. The camp, without running water, became over-run with disease, primarily typhus, tuberculosis and typhoid and it was mainly for this reason that Germany surrendered it to the British.

The camp was severely overcrowded and filthy, with piles of rotting corpses and thousands of sick and starving people, including children. Dimbleby had spent two hours in the compound and returned to immediately compile his report.

"Here, over an acre of ground, lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which, except, perhaps, by a convulsive movement, or the last quiver of a sigh from a living skeleton, too weak to move.

"The living lay with their heads against the corpses and, around them, moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people with nothing to do and no hope of life, unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them.

"There was no privacy, nor did men or women ask it any longer. Women stood or squatted stark naked in the dust, trying to wash themselves and to catch the lice on their bodies.

"Babies had been born here—tiny, wizened things that could not live.

"A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British sentry to give her milk for her child and thrust the tiny mite into his arms and ran off, crying terribly.

"He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days.

"This day at Belsen was the most horrible day of my life."

Harrowing as this excerpt is, it is nothing to the full description we heard. It was far beyond my comprehension and, I suspect, that of most people’s, to understand and believe that man could be so inhumane to man. The broadcast left us stunned, sickened, wide-eyed and desolate. We felt helpless in our inability to alleviate the suffering of these people, that it was much too late for so many—the numbers of which we still did not know—and that the few survivors had to live with their losses and with their nightmare of inherent horror, terror and forever-etched, painful imagery.

I couldn’t believe what I had heard. Mum held me for a long time afterward.

Soon after, Dad brought home pictures revealing the awful reality of Jewish persecution. I don’t know how it was that he came by them but I could see they disturbed him. I asked to see them but he wouldn’t allow it, despite my claims of being ready for it.

“But I’m old enough, Dad,” I coerced. I’m not sure if it was the reality of the photographs that I needed or if I subconsciously hoped they would reveal some level of falsehood. That it couldn’t possibly be true that such evil existed in the world I knew.

“Not to see these,” was my father’s quiet but firm reply, as he gathered the pictures together to remove them to a safe place.

Later, the world would embrace the writings of a girl, not much older than myself, who so eloquently put a much-needed human face to the suffering, grief and loss of so many who lost their lives or their families in Nazi concentration camps. That girl was Anne Frank. Her diary, published by her father in Dutch in 1947 and English in 1952, went on to become one of the most read books in the world—second only to the Bible. 

After two years of hiding, Anne and her family were sent in cattle trucks to Auschwitz. Anne was only just 15 which meant she escaped immediate gassing in the gas chambers, the fate of all children on arrival if under this age. Upon arrival, they were branded with a tattoo, shaved, stripped and disinfected. Within months, Anne and her sister were sent to Bergen Belsen where they rapidly became among the emaciated and diseased, both dying of Typhus in March 1945—tragically, just weeks before the camp was liberated.

Much later, I was to visit those haunted halls of Bergen Belsen and witness first-hand the intensive German record-keeping during that time, for there remained, despite the considerable passing of time, rooms full of reams of recorded details from that camp. As well as items of what can only be described as barbaric gore.

School and stage life continues, By Tracey Vale

All of those performances became an integral part of my life and as much a part of my war years as the now-familiar sounds of the air-raid and all-clear sirens, the planes overhead and the whistling sound of a falling bomb. Life continued and we all felt the camaraderie of it. It was a time when friends, family and neighbours were close under a common and shared experience. A sense of closeness prevailed even with strangers, striking up conversations with each other—a direct symptom of war and a common alliance that would have otherwise not existed.

Another symptom of war was the fashions, or lack thereof. During my walks to and from school, accompanied by Malcolm and Jean, and while in the war-time queues, I noticed that all the women tended to look alike. That is, apart from my mother. They all wore overalls, coats made from old blankets and head scarves or turbans. It was a very distinctive war-time look.

Although often embarrassed by my mother's over-dressed appearance, I realise now that I should have been proud. She was a woman of style. I can see her now, sitting in our 'Ice Cream Parlour' front room, dressed with 1930's movie-star appeal. Her legs are crossed and she is smoking a coloured cigarette, from its holder—just for the effect when we had visitors.

Monday, however, was washing day. Isabel's attire was completely different. She dressed as a stereotypical 'washerwoman'—and this despite the fact that we owned a washing machine! It was similar attire to that which she adopted to play the part of a poor housemaid when going down the street to help at her parent's cottage. I can recall her as the washerwoman when I was about five and I suffered burns to part of my leg.

Once the washing cycle was finished, the machine was emptied of its water through a tap near its base. A bucket was placed below the tap to collect the boiling water. On this particular Monday, Dad had arrived home from work and, lifting me into the air, proceeded to dance with me before plonking me down—with one leg in the bucket. My screams could be heard by our neighbours, who came running just in time to hear me screaming even louder.

Isabel believed that the antiseptic treatment, Miltons, was the healer of everything. She had grabbed this and poured it onto my scalded leg. I'm sure my screams could have been heard in the next town! Had Nanny been home at the time, my mother wouldn't have been allowed near the Milton bottle. It took many weeks and, thanks to Nanny's treatments, my leg completely recovered.

Nanny could soothe an aching ear or a sore throat with her homespun medicines. Her remedies helped me throughout my childhood, at times bringing immense relief.

It was 1941 and I was nine years old and suffering from a severe earache during final rehearsals at the Shyre Hall. The performance was to follow that evening. Eileen Hall contacted my mother.

"Joan is in a lot of pain with an earache. She needn't do the show tonight as we've sorted a replacement for her. You're welcome to come early to take her home," she said.

"I'll be there shortly," was Isabel's response. However, upon arrival at the Hall she announced that she wouldn't be taking me home. "Joan is a little actress and she knows the show always goes on."

So, I performed. The pain was incredible and it was difficult not to wince. When we finally arrived back home, Nanny was furious. She immediately applied her remedy—a hot onion placed in the ear and held there with some cloth—and sent me to bed. By the morning, the cloth and pillowcase were badly stained but the pain was completely gone.

*    *    *    *

I didn't like the clothes Isabel insisted I wear. Children in our working class area, and especially during war-rationing, just didn't wear clothes like mine. Shirley Temple dresses and velvet coats, trimmed with fur. Little hats with matching gloves and special shoes and boots. On occasion, I did express a subtle objection by explaining that some of the children in the neighbourhood laughed at my clothes, but nothing changed.

"Oh, that's just because they're a bit jealous that they haven't got dresses like you," was her response. I was quite sure they didn't want Shirley Temple dresses, but I left it at that.

Many times during the war and throughout my childhood, these clothes were packed into a small suitcase for me to take to a relative for a short stay. Another small case was packed with a costume or two as I was never sent anywhere, bar school, without at least one at hand. I was sent to relatives for a weekend or during school holidays and yet, when I had the opportunity to go on a school camp, Isabel refused. It was to be three days in the nearby countryside and I dearly wanted to go.

"No," Isabel said. "You wouldn't like it—and, remember, there is a war on." I wondered why it was okay to go to Uncle Tom's, as had been arranged for the following weekend. But I didn't argue.

Uncle Tom ran a local pub and Isabel arranged that I would perform in his Village Hall, while I was there. When staying with Auntie Nancy, I would recite poetry at her Ladies' Club. For Auntie Minnie, I would dance ballet every morning while she listened to classical music on the BBC. I was also 'farmed out' to an Auntie Chris and an Aunt Molly, but thankfully wasn't required to entertain.

Isabel would say "Auntie Minnie would love to have you stay for a while." Or "Uncle Tom is expecting you for the weekend and he wants you to sing and dance at the Saturday Social." And "Auntie Chris is looking forward to you visiting and playing with Mary." There were many others—the list is quite long. Fortunately, they were all lovely people and made me feel wanted.

At other times Mum and Dad and I would go away together—also in spite of the war. We would spend two weeks by the sea, travelling by train and staying in rather cheap boarding houses. Dad would take me rock climbing, beach-combing for shells or trawling antique and second-hand stores—all without Mum. Mum, without Dad, would take me to lovely tea shops for cakes and to nearby theatres. We would all go together to see old castles, country houses, or to sit on the beach building sandcastles with the miles of barbed wire, intended to stop the German invasion, in full view. 

                                                                         *    *    *    *

So many times I was given the responsibility of an adult and yet, even as a teenager, my mother kept me looking like Shirley Temple. My extended family tried to change this by giving me dresses or offering suggestions. Auntie Molly bought me some, as did a close friend of Isabel's. But they were whisked away and never worn.

On a weekend stay with Auntie Chris and her adopted daughter, Mary, who was the same age as me, I became painfully aware of how much younger I appeared. It was at Mary's suggestion that she and I take a walk along the river one Sunday as it was "a good place to pick up boys". I was wearing a , royal blue dress trimmed with silver stars, pinched in above the waist and with a short, gathered skirt. One boy said to Mary "Is this your little sister?". It became obvious that Mary would attract more attention alone, so I chose to sit on a bench watching the ducks and swans and eating ice cream.

When I was 13 and at a full-time theatre school for the first time, I had been instructed to take along practice clothes, tights, ballet shoes and tap shoes. It was summer and I was sent in my usual style of pretty dress, very short, and with white socks. When I entered the building—a beautiful old mansion—and walked along a hallway, I met Madame Lehmiski, the school's owner and principal teacher, coming the other way.

"What a lovely practice dress you're wearing, Babe," she said, as she breezed past. She called everyone 'Babe', whether they were three or thirty. She didn't know that this was my usual outdoor wear, so I decided not to change into my practice tunic and became known for my lovely practice dresses.

The following Christmas, I opened a gift from Auntie Molly. It was two dresses with a note saying 'I hope you enjoy wearing these. I'm sure they are your size.' I was so excited! Clothes like the other kids wore! But they were spirited away without me ever being allowed to wear them, let alone try them on. Again I didn't argue, partly out of not wanting to upset Mum and partly because I believed that if I stayed the way she liked me to be, she would be the happy, fun Mum that I loved.

It was not until I was 17, going on 18, that my look was changed—and this only because it was done behind Isabel's back, with the belief that she would be nothing but pleased upon sight of my new appearance. It was thanks to Dorothy, who was now married to Gordon. Dorothy was about five years older than me, about 23 at the time. She looked at me one day with a decisiveness I hadn't seen in her before. She said "I have to do something about your look!" The cute curls and Shirley Temple dresses were about to see their last. My hair was styled into the latest forties look. The curls were gone and, in their place, a sleek, shoulder-length style with a subtle, soft wave.

Mum gasped when I returned home. "What has Dorothy done to you?!" But soon after this, Madame Lehmiski made me Head Girl, an appointment that wouldn't have carried any weight had I still looked like a ten year old. Isabel was proud and realised it wouldn't have happened had I not been made to look my age.

                                                                          *    *    *    *

Gordon became and remained my big brother from the moment he and his sister, Ceinwen, became such a big part of our home life during those years. I had always admired Jean, who was one of five children, and her crowded, noisy household which I loved to visit and be a part of. Until my cousins came to stay, Jean, on the other hand, loved the quiet of my home and was envious of me not having to share a room or vie for space. For me, the novelty of it didn't wear off—sharing the space meant more love and laughter in our home and I never longed for the quiet.

Gordon taught me to ride a bike. He took me to fairs and showed me how to ride on the roundabouts and switchbacks. From there, he took me on the fastest rides he could find and always made me laugh. He even taught me to swim and I adored him as I would the older brother I didn't have, missing him terribly when his call-up came.

All young men were called up for compulsory service in the armed forces but coal pit workers were also needed. The ballot system was introduced to solve the allocation problem and Gordon drew the coal mine, or 'down the pits', as it was known. His first day down in the depths, with it's dim lighting and dank air, he panicked. With a feeling of terror, difficulty breathing and a racing heart, he was brought back up and deemed unsuitable for pit work. His transferal took him into the Royal Air Force and, in direct and remarkable opposition to his panic and fear below the earth, he became a paratrooper.

He was posted to the Middle East and, on his first return on leave, he brought me back a banana. We hadn't seen a banana for years, one of the casualties. I took my precious cargo to school, although it was quite black by this time, and we all watched our teacher peel it enticingly. We passed it around and smelt it. Some of us even got a taste.

As the war continued and the British banded together on the home front, Churchill continued to buoy up both the troops and the civillians. When Churchill spoke, everyone listened and we, as children, had great fun impersonating him and many of us learnt his words. His speech on June 4, 1940, in anticipation of imminent German invasion, resonated with many and we heard it repeated throughout the war on our radios, as well as his many speeches at each stage.

The first time we heard his announcement that we must brace ourselves against our enemies and that we would not surrender, regardless, we sat huddled around the radio to listen and felt a sense of trepidation, anxiety and fear, but also a knowledge that we would be there for each other. That, in the end, we would come out the victors.

"I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years. If necessary, alone," Churchill's dictinctive voice boomed forth into our Ice Cream Parlour front room.

"....That is the will of Parliament and the nation," he continued. "The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.

"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen, or may fall, into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be."

And the part that we children most often impersonated: "We shall fight them on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender." With exagerated intonation, we decreed, as we marched in powerful style home from school, "We shall nev-ah surrend-ah!"

"...and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island, or a large part of it, were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old." We trusted in the power of those words and continued to have faith that justice would prevail.

Churchill's speeches on "the menace of tyranny" continued to speak out passionately against Hitler and the Nazi regime's atrocities against those of Jewish descent. On November 14, 1941, he said "None has suffered more cruelly than the Jew the unspeakable evils wrought upon the bodies and spirits of men by Hitler and his vile regime. The Jew bore the brunt of the Nazi's first onslaught upon the citadels of freedom and human dignity."

And, following a French news report in 1942 on the deportation of thousands of Jews out of France, Churchill spoke in the House of Commons: "The most bestial, the most squalid and the most senseless of all their offences, namely the mass deportation of Jews out of France, with the pitiful horrors attendant upon the calculated and final scattering of families. This tragedy fills me with astonishment as well as indignation and it illustrates, as nothing else can, the utter degradation of all who lend themselves to its unnatural and perverted passions."

Also in 1942, German offensives were struggling to make a foothold in Stalingrad and El Alamein, Singapore fell to the Japanese with upwards of 25000 prisoners taken and, in Auschwitz, and unbeknownst to us, the mass murder of Jews began.

I didn't know or fully understand what was happening to the Jews at the time and it wasn't a subject discussed at school. I knew that they were being unjustly persecuted but I didn't know how or why, just that Hitler and the Nazis were to blame. As our nation and our Allies continued to fight against the "utter degradation" and "perverted passions" of the Nazi regime, home life continued as normal as was possible.

By this time, my cousin Margaret had met Joseph Addlington, a signalman who was soon to be sent to Italy. They were married from our home and Isabel had taken care of all the arrangements, right down to the colour the bride was to wear. I went shopping with Isabel and Margaret for this dress, armed with as many clothing coupons as we could muster. We searched in vein for what Margaret wanted—a long, white wedding dress. We were unable to find one but we did manage to purchase a white veil. Then, in a shop window, Isabel spotted a delicate blue evening gown. It was Margaret's size and she liked the style.

"But what a pity it's blue," she said.

Decisive and firm as my mother could be, she responded, "We'll dye the veil to match. It will be lovely!"

And it was. It was spectacular and made all the more surprising by its availability during war depletions, aside from being a colour that you just didn't 'do' for a wedding in those days.

In January of 1943, Russia began an offensive against the Germans in Stalingrad, leading to Germany's first major defeat and to their surrender in Stalingrad. The Allied invasion of Italy was launched following victory in North Africa.  Joseph was on his way to his Italy posting.

By July 25, party leaders voted 'no confidence' against Benito Mussolini, with 100 000 Italians killed and a rapidly declining economy. Thus, his 21-year reign as dictator of Italy was over. Marshal Pietro Badoglio was named new Prime Minister.

A secret Armistice was signed on September 3, between the new Italian Government and the Allies. Operation Baytown began with troops arriving to invade Italy. By September 8, Italy officially announced their surrender and, by mid-October, Badoglio declared war against Germany.

With Italy's surrender, the Germans had taken up the battle in their place, taking up highly strategic positions to form the Gustav Line, a defence that was to prove difficult, treacherous and costly, both financially and in death and injury, to British, American and their Allied troops, in their efforts to break through.

By the end of September, Allied troops had seized Pompeii and, by early October, Italy had regained control of Naples before the Allies' arrival. As well, a new wave of British troops had arrived to enforce the northbound troops. Meanwhile, U.S. troops had succeeded in seizing Italy's Caserta and Capua. By early November, U.S. troops had seized Isernia and joined the British Eighth Army, of which Joseph was a member.

Now, at almost 11, it was time for my friends and I to sit the exam that was to determine which students would benefit from a higher education. However, I was very ill with pneumonia and was unable to sit them. The Headmistress contacted the education office on my behalf and managed to enable me to sit the exam at a later date. When informed of this, Isabel refused the opportunity. The Headmistress was reportedly furious and deeply exasperated as she was confident that I would be offered a place at the prestigious St. Mary's Girl's School, in Walsall, but nothing she could say would sway my mother. 

So, for my next stage of education, I went along to the Wolverhampton Road State School. I would see the St. Mary's girls walking to and from their school and I thought how nice they looked. I longed to join them and wear their uniform. The dress was casual for the state school as there was no requisite uniform.

Within a week or so, my new Headmistress, contacted Isabel for an informal meeting in her office. When Isabel arrived and sat down, she remarked on my progress, good grades and ability, finishing her speel with: "What on earth is Joan doing at this school? She would benefit and be challenged at St. Mary's and in a manner that we are unable to offer her here. That is really where she is best suited."

But my mother's ambition for me was the stage. Theatre school was what was important to her, not a higher education. In my heart, I thought I would either be a dance teacher or a nurse. The sight of the uniformed nurses walking around the hospital grounds opposite us, and to and from the wards and nurses home, had always appealed to me. And, thanks to Nanny, I knew I had the stomach for it. I was never concerned at the sight of blood and one of my jobs at home was to do 'nursing' tasks for my grandparents, jobs that Isabel was too queasey to undertake. I would cut toenails, apply peroxide in their ears and empty their commode—and all as a young child.

As 1944 began, I continued at Wolverhampton Road State School. All the while, events in Italy were building. The historic and commanding monastery of Monte Cassino, originally built in 524 A.D., was bombed on February 15 to utter degradation due to unfounded fears of German occupation, although we did not know this at the time. As a result, German paratroopers moved in, hidden and protected by the jagged ruins, and took up posts from this high point, where they could not be seen but where they could spot all approaches on all sides, even better than before.

Movement up this steep mountain was slow, treacherous and difficult, most of which could only be attempted under the cover of darkness. Eventually though, following costly and gruelling battle, victory was achieved at Monte Cassino. By mid-April, Germany's defensive Gustav Line had begun to fail and, by mid-May, British Eighth Army and the U.S. Fifth Army launched a massive assault on the line. As the year wore on, British, U.S. and Allied troops continued to break Hitler's lines of defence and regain Italy from his clutches.

I returned home from school one day in September to find my mother and Margaret in a sombre embrace. They told me that Joe had been wounded and was in hospital. 

"What it does mean," Margaret said, putting a brave face to the news, "Is that he'll be sent home."

Within a few days, she received notification that his leg would need to be amputated. On this news, she seemed calm but sad.

"As long as he comes home, I can look after him," she said. "The loss of a leg won't worry me too much."

However, the next communication was of his death. Margaret was desolate. Joseph was the love of her life. She hated that war had taken her father, also Joseph, before she could ever know him and hated it even more that she had lost her Joe.

On November 29, 1944, Joseph passed away at the age of 24. He is now buried in Italy, at the Caserta War Cemetary, where many who died in the local hospital are buried along with Prisoners of War. His tombstone states simply:

In Memory of
Signalman JOSEPH THOMAS ADLINGTON

14287170, Royal Corps of Signals
who died age 24
on 29 November 1944
Son of Joseph and Elsie Adlington; husband of Margaret Joan Adlington, of Cannock, Staffordshire.
Remembered with honour
CASERTA WAR CEMETERY

As for so many in these times of multiple deaths, she was stoic despite her inner, bitter sadness. We heard her say often, "I am not the only one suffering...so many killed..."

Many bore their grief in the stoicism that seemed to be required of them during this time. With recent death being the experience of almost all around them, they were almost expected to rally sooner and carry on with their lives without fully giving in to the grieving process. A lone death in peace-time was quite different, giving the person or people left behind the time to grieve and the support from the people around them who cannot imagine what it must be like for them for this particular loss, offering their sympathy and empathy because of this.

It was not until several years later that Margaret married again. I thought her new husband was very understanding and empathetic when he agreed to the name Margaret chose for their first-born—Josephine.

On the eve of 1945, I performed my fourth appearance as 'Miss New Year' at the annual pageant in Walsall's Town Hall. With Churchill's D-Day Speech of June 6 behind us—in which he spoke of the triumphs in Italy and elsewhere—there was hope in the air for this new year. A year in which victory against "Nah-zism", as Churchill contemptuously pronounced it, would soon become a reality.