Wartime at Woolworths Read online

  To the people of Erith, and those

  who remember ‘the good old days’

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  Acknowledgements

  The Woolworths Girls

  Prologue

  November 1944

  ‘You really need to be home putting your feet up,’ Betty Billington tutted at her friend, Sarah Gilbert. ‘How long is it until this baby’s due? I really can’t keep up with all the baby news amongst my friends,’ she added, a slight twinge of sadness in her voice. She so longed to be like her younger friends who were able to bring new lives into the world, but as quickly as those thoughts had come to mind she pushed them away again.

  ‘I have two months to go, as you well know, Betty. You seem to be so forgetful these days,’ Sarah joshed.

  Another sign of my advancing years, Betty thought before giving herself a quiet shake to remember to stop being so miserable. She had much to be grateful for. With the war now in its fifth year she was blessed to know that her friends and family were still alive, despite Hitler’s attempts to prove otherwise. ‘I do feel you should be at home all the same, rather than here giving me a hand. Not that I’m not grateful,’ she added quickly.

  ‘Betty, if I don’t feel the ticket, I’ll take myself off home but believe me, it’s a joy to be here helping do the staff payroll with you. Georgina is well taken care of at Gwyneth’s house and being child-free and here adding up rows of numbers is pure joy.’

  Betty nodded, fighting back the tears threatening to fall. Gosh, what had come over her?

  ‘At least put your feet up.’ Betty pushed a wooden chair close to her friend, who eased her legs into a horizontal position. ‘Your ankles are a tad puffy. You should take more care, you know,’ she advised.

  ‘That’s because I’ve been queuing for an age at the butcher’s rather than carrying this lump round with me. I swear it must be a boy – he was playing football against my ribs all night long. Little Georgina was a dream to carry compared to this little wriggler.’

  ‘Surely someone else could have queued for you?’ Betty scolded.

  ‘It was quicker to go there myself, as is so often the way. Plus, I’d heard a rumour they had some stewing steak in – I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a good stew.’

  ‘And did he have any?’ Betty asked as she pulled a large leather-bound ledger from a shelf and opened it on the desk in front of Sarah.

  ‘It had all gone by the time I reached the counter but he did have some sausages and put in an extra one “for the baby”, as he said,’ she added with a grin. ‘There are perks to being an expectant mother.’

  ‘What has it come to that we’re pleased to receive an extra sausage from the butcher?’ Betty declared as she checked she had enough brown envelopes in which to put the staff’s wages. ‘Would you mind very much writing the names on the envelopes? The list is here,’ she said, pointing to the row of names neatly written in the ledger. ‘I just need to put through a telephone call to head office. The delivery of cups and saucers has still not arrived and I’d hate to disappoint our customers. It’s strange to think that we are so happy to see a few pieces of crockery on the counters. As for saucepans, I can’t remember the last time we had a shining display of pots and pans to sell. I’m not surprised people are travelling over to New Cross in order to pick up a pan before they’re sold out. Why, if I hadn’t heard that little snippet of information from head office, Maureen wouldn’t have been able to go there to replenish her battered pans that survived the roof of her house collapsing.’

  Sarah giggled as she reached for Betty’s fountain pen and dipped it into the pot of black ink, then felt she should explain when Betty gave her a questioning frown. ‘All this talk of pots and pans reminds me when Alan proposed to me as he stood atop the pots and pans counter. It seems such an age ago now,’ she added wistfully.

  Betty smiled. ‘It’s one of my most memorable moments of working here at Woolworths. Then Maureen burst into song and the customers joined in,’ she added with glee. ‘Such happy times we had before this damnable war started.’

  ‘At least I still have the set of pans that Mr Benfield gave us as a wedding present. It was a struggle but I held on to them for grim life when the Scouts came to the door collecting utensils to build spitfires.’

  ‘Dear Mr Benfield,’ Betty smiled, reflecting on her predecessor who had left the employ of F. W. Woolworth to join the army. ‘I was most upset to hear that he’d succumbed to measles whilst serving in the pay corps. It doesn’t seem right that a serving soldier should pass away from something our children suffer with.’ She ran her hand gently across the leather-bound ledger. ‘He taught me so much about running this store. Why, the first pages in this ledger contain his copperplate handwriting. I tried to be as neat in my early endeavours to enter the numbers of hours and pay earned by our staff, but try as I might, my handwriting isn’t as good as his.’

  Sarah nodded, hoping against hope that Betty did not notice the large ink stain she’d left in the ledger when the temperamental fountain pen had leaked onto the lined pages. She hurriedly reached for blotting paper, doing her utmost to stem the flow. Mr Benfield would not have been amused.

  ‘Now, I must crack on and make that telephone call, then perhaps we could spare five minutes to go to the staff canteen for a cup of tea and a slice of the bread I can smell? Be with you in a minute.’

  Sarah smiled to herself as she copied names and numbers onto the front of each envelope before blotting the ink and placing them in alphabetical order. Sarah thought about how much she enjoyed helping Betty in her small office above the bustling Woolworths store. To be able to pop in to help out with paperwork made her feel she was still part of the happy band of Woolies workers. Was it really six years since she had first stood with a group of eager young women in this very office listening to Betty Billington giving her serious talk about the responsibility of being a member of staff and how they would all be given an arithmetic test? It was also the day that she met Alan Gilbert and her glorious romance began as the dark days of war grew steadily closer. Who would have thought that Alan would now be a pilot in the RAF and that they would be the proud parents of beautiful four-year-old Georgina, with another child on the way? Sarah placed a protective hand over her swollen stomach. A son would be lovely. A son who looked just like his father and who would live in peaceful times rather than this awful war. Why, if what her nan, Ruby, said was true, the war could be over by Christmas. There again, she said the same every year.

  With a smile on her face, she looked to where Betty was deep in conversation on the black Bakelite telephone. Her boss seemed to have a glow about her, which Sarah put down to being married to the handsome Douglas. Yes, it would be contentment. Something that all newly-wed women felt in those first few years after their wedding.

  Betty suddenly stopped talking and frowned at what she was being told. A look of horror crossed her face. ‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed. ‘It can’t be true.’

  Making a hurried goodbye, after asking to be kept informed, Betty replaced the heavy receiver in its cradle and turned to Sarah. ‘There’s been an incident at the Woolworths branch in New Cross. We don’t know if it’s a gas explosion or . . . or, enemy action.’ She sunk down onto the spare seat opposite Sarah.

  The young
woman’s face had turned a ghostly shade of white. ‘Is it serious . . . are there casualties?’ Sarah whispered, afraid of what the reply would be.

  Betty nodded her head slowly. ‘There must be . . .’

  ‘Must?’ Sarah asked, hardly daring to breathe. ‘What do you mean, must?’

  ‘There’s nothing left of the store . . .’

  ‘But Mum and Maureen were going there.’ She looked at the clock on the wall opposite the desk. ‘They could have been in the store . . .’

  Betty reached across the desk and took Sarah’s trembling hand. ‘Please, please don’t get upset. You have to think of your baby. Anything could have delayed your mum and Maureen getting to their destination on time.’

  As the women stared at one another, their fellow coworker, Freda, rushed through the office door. She was still wearing the uniform of a dispatch rider in the Auxiliary Fire Service. Without making an apology for her hasty arrival, she blurted out, ‘I’ve just heard at the fire station that New Cross Woolworths has taken a hit. Our lads have to go up there to help out. I’m on my way there now. Betty, I thought you ought to know . . .’ She looked at the two shocked faces. ‘I take it you’ve heard already?’

  Sarah nodded slowly, a sense of foreboding consuming every fibre of her body. ‘Mum and Maureen are there.’ She heaved her feet from where they were resting and, using the edge of the desk, she pulled herself to her feet. ‘I need to go and find my mum. I’ll come with you, Freda.’

  1

  March 1943

  ‘Don’t look now but that woman’s watching us again. I swear every time I visit Ruby’s house the bloomin’ woman’s curtains are twitching,’ Maisie declared as she pulled her pram close to the front wall of number thirteen and kicked the brake to stop.

  ‘Whatever are you talking about?’ Sarah asked, bumping her daughter Georgina’s pushchair up the small step and pushing it close to the bay window of the Victorian terraced house. ‘Wait a minute, darling, let me lift you out and you can go in and see Myfi. She’ll be home from school by now,’ she told her daughter, who was demanding to be freed from the reins that were keeping her secure. ‘My, you are growing into a big girl. It must be all those carrots you eat,’ she puffed as she lifted her daughter free of the blanket that covered her. ‘Now, run along and knock on the door, there’s a good girl.’ Sarah turned back to where her best friend, Maisie, was lifting baby Ruby from her pram. ‘Here, let me take her while you sort yourself out,’ she offered, taking the sleeping baby and holding her close. ‘She’s such a little sweetheart. I could just eat her up,’ she said, inhaling the aroma of baby milk and soap flakes that reminded her so much of when Georgina had been that size.

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if it was you she’d been keeping up most of last night. I’m fair whacked today. If it wasn’t for Freda telling us we had to get round here on the double to hear Gwyneth’s news, I’d not have ventured outside me front door today.’

  Sarah smiled at her elegant friend. Her appearance was as immaculate as usual. Considering the country had been at war for well over three years, she looked as smartly turned out as any society hostess on the covers of the latest magazines. Even though Maisie complained about being constantly exhausted, she never once had a hair out of place or her lips not perfectly painted with the bright red lipstick she never left home without. ‘Now tell me, what are you going on about?’

  ‘Over the road at number sixteen. Yer nan told me a new family ’ad moved in but all I’ve seen of her is when she stares at us from behind those grubby nets. Don’t look,’ Maisie hissed as Sarah peered towards the house. ‘Come on, let’s get inside and find out what all the fuss is about, and I’m dying for a cup of something hot, this wind is blowing right through me. Be quick, mind, your Georgie looks as though she’s got her arm stuck in the letter box.’

  Sarah handed back baby Ruby and hurried to extricate her daughter just as the door opened and Freda came out to help them, quickly followed by Myfi and Nelson the dog. ‘Come on in, we’ve been waiting an age for you,’ Freda said, sweeping the squealing Georgina up into her arms. You’ll never guess what’s happening?’

  ‘Don’t tell me that Mike Jackson has finally proposed to our Gwyneth?’ Maisie laughed and quickly apologized as she saw the crestfallen look on their friend’s face. ‘C’mon, Freda, it’s been on the cards for ages.’

  ‘Well, just don’t let on. Pretend you’re surprised, Maisie.’

  Maisie promised she would as she followed her friends into the house and turned to close the door. Sure enough, the curtains moved again as the woman over the road observed the happy group.

  ‘Put that bloody curtain down, woman. Why you want to be forever watching those load of snobs is beyond me?’ Harry Singleton growled from his armchair.

  ‘They look like nice people. I don’t think they’re snobs; well, not like our old neighbours,’ his wife, Enid, answered meekly. ‘They seem to be friendly enough and I’m sure I’ve seen a couple of them working in Woolworths. You ought to go and speak to them.’

  ‘And a fat load of good working at that place ever did me – a bad back was all I got out of it and now we haven’t got a brass farthing to call our own.’

  Enid Singleton knew well when her belligerent husband was beginning to lose his temper and often it meant she’d be at the sharp end of his harsh words. She also knew that they’d had to move away a bit sharpish. ‘The doctor did say that, given time, you’ll be fine so let’s hope you’ll be back on your feet before too long,’ she said, hoping to cheer him up.

  Harry glared at his wife. ‘Don’t you think I’d be fighting the bastard Krauts if I could stand for longer than ten minutes at a time? Do you honestly believe I like being beholden to a woman to care for me and to earn a crust?’ He looked at the mahogany mantle clock. ‘It’s time you had a bit of grub on the table. A man could starve around here,’ he muttered, opening his newspaper to the back page and shaking it dismissively.

  Enid hobbled off as fast as she could to the small kitchen at the back of the house. She thought it convenient that Harry’s bad back seemed fine whenever he took a walk to the New Light for a pint or two. Here on Alexandra Road, the air smelt cleaner than it had in the streets around their old home and she felt a lurch of excitement in her stomach at what the future held, as long as their past never caught up with them. It might even be possible to bring home their two boys, who had been evacuated in 1939. She tightened the ties around her pinny and peered into her stone pantry at the paltry supplies. But even if she was struggling, the piece of paper tucked into her pocket offered some hope. It was so lucky she’d walked past Woolworths just as the card advertising for a cleaner had been placed in the window. Even opening the door to the stone pantry and viewing only one egg, a couple of slices of bread and a few potatoes couldn’t dampen her happiness. Yes, she’d soon be able to put more food on the table and possibly send a few bob to the kids. If it weren’t for her Harry, life would be on the up.

  ‘So, why have we been summoned here?’ Maisie asked as she passed baby Ruby to her namesake before settling on the arm of the settee in Ruby’s best room. ‘It must be something important if you’ve put us all in here,’ she grinned, looking round Ruby’s front room at the faces of the Caselton family, each person balancing a cup and saucer on their knees whilst all speaking at once to catch up on news. Ruby’s lodgers, Freda Smith and Gwyneth Jones, along with Gwyneth’s daughter, Myfi, were grinning fit to burst.

  Sergeant Mike Jackson stood nervously, trying to listen to Gwyneth and Freda’s conversation while his father, Bob, attempted to get his attention. ‘We really need to get locals involved in the allotment society. There are some allotments going begging and they’re starting to become overgrown. Do you think you could have a word down at the police station and get the lads to put out the word that we need more people to get involved in the “grow your own” campaign?’

  Mike nodded his head, not taking in his father’s words. There were bigger thing
s on his mind at the moment.

  Ruby rocked the young baby in her arms and stroked the little girl’s button nose. She’d been chuffed to bits when Maisie and her husband, David Carlisle, had announced they would be naming their first-born Ruby Freda Carlisle. Personally, she felt her name was a little old-fashioned and would have preferred to see the girl named after Princess Elizabeth or Princess Margaret, but it was an honour she wore with pride and she had already declared the baby to be as precious to her as her own children and grandchildren. ‘Come on, Mike, let’s get the formalities out of the way then we can have another cuppa and a slice of the seed cake I made special for the occasion,’ she said loudly, putting a stop to all the chitchat in the crowded room.

  Mike Jackson coughed politely before holding out his hand to Gwyneth, who got to her feet and took her place by his side. ‘The thing is . . .’

  ‘Come on, cough it out,’ Maisie urged the shy man.

  ‘The thing is . . .’ Mike said again, trying to clear his throat and loosen the top button of his police uniform. At that moment he felt rather sick and the room was closing in on him. ‘The thing is . . .’

  Gwyneth patted his arm. ‘The thing is, Mike has asked me for my hand in marriage and I’ve accepted,’ she announced proudly in her lilting Welsh voice.

  ‘I said yes too,’ young Myfi declared from the floor, where she had been sitting playing on the rag rug with Sarah’s daughter, Georgina, which caused the roomful of friends and family to erupt into laughter at the same time as shouting their congratulations.

  George Caselton slapped his friend on the back. ‘You kept that a secret, you dark horse,’ he exclaimed. He was pleased for his friend, who had remained a bachelor for many a long year. ‘You’ve made a good choice in Gwyneth.’

  ‘I’m sure Gwyneth did some of the choosing as well, George,’ Irene Caselton reprimanded her husband. ‘Many congratulations,’ she said, giving both a polite kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Thank you,’ Gwyneth replied politely. She had never felt comfortable in Irene’s company as the older woman always gave off an air of being more important than anyone else in the room. George Caselton, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish and was as warm and welcoming as his mother, Ruby, and daughter, Sarah. ‘Mike asked me a little while ago but he wanted to do things properly and ask my father first.’