Wedding Bells for Woolworths Read online

  Elaine Everest

  Wedding Bells for Woolworths

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  Acknowledgements

  Dear Reader

  To the people of Alexandra Road, Erith, past and present, and remembering with fondness our friend, Stella White, who will be much missed.

  Prologue

  October 11th, 1948

  Police Sergeant Mike Jackson viewed the scene before him. In all his years in the police service, he had never experienced such an outpouring of grief and love. Although he was present in an unofficial capacity, he had worn his dress uniform as a mark of respect. Now, with an unseasonable chill wind blowing across the graveyard of St Paulinus Church in Crayford, along with a smattering of the rain that had been threatening all day, he wished he had his muffler to pull round his ears and the woollen gloves knitted by his wife, Gwyneth. He shuffled from foot to foot as he stood close to the lychgate, saying goodbye to mourners as they left. Everyone was heading back to Alexandra Road for a boiled ham tea, and something to drink to warm them up.

  Gwyneth had gone on ahead to put on the large kettles loaned to them by friends at the Arthur Street mission hall. She was also keen to check on their baby son, who was being cared for by a neighbour. Mike’s heart swelled with pride as he thought of young Robert. Still only seven months old, he already possessed the sunny disposition of his Welsh mother and the sturdy build of the Jackson men. He smiled to himself as his thought of his father’s opinion that the lad would make a fine policeman; Robert already showed signs of having the required large feet, which would help when walking the beat. Yes, it would be good to have a fourth generation of coppers in the family, he thought with pride.

  ‘It’s a sad day,’ an elderly man said as he stopped to shake Mike’s hand.

  ‘It is, Derek, it is. It was good of you and the lads to turn out to sing at the service. Especially on a such a miserable day.’

  ‘It’s the least we could do,’ the man replied. ‘Not one member of the choir would have missed paying their respects. It’s an honour.’

  Mike nodded and shook hands with the retired police officers who filed past. The Erith Police Male Voice Choir was part of the local community, and he had found it very moving to hear them singing ‘The Old Rugged Cross’ with such feeling. There was hardly a dry eye in the church.

  Stamping his feet to keep his circulation moving, he spotted a police car pulling up and a young officer hurrying towards him. He hoped he wasn’t required to go in to work. Not today of all days. ‘Hello, Dave. Is there a problem?’

  The constable whispered in his ear, aware of mourners close by, and then waited for Mike to make a decision.

  ‘Go and wait in the car and I’ll be with you as soon as I’ve said goodbye to the mourners. It’s not right to be hurrying people on their way,’ he said to the young lad, even though he knew speed was of the essence. He headed up the narrow cinder path, nodding to the vicar and shaking his hand. He found himself repeating the words he’d used with other mourners. It was hard to think of original comments on such a sad occasion.

  As he came closer to where his friends were standing, he could see the headstone of Irene Caselton, late wife of his stepbrother, George. He stopped for a moment to pay his respects to the woman who had been killed by enemy action when a V2 rocket landed on a Woolworths store in New Cross almost four years earlier. Close by was the grave of Eddie Caselton, George’s father. So many people Mike knew were now interred in the grounds of this ancient church, along with the occupants of a German plane shot down over the nearby golf course, who were now at rest in one corner of the graveyard. He hoped to see the day when these lads were taken home so their families could pay their respects in their homeland. War shouldn’t mean young men could never be repatriated. Even though it was three years since the war had ended, its consequences lay heavily on everyone’s minds.

  Mike snapped out of his reverie as an elderly woman dressed head to toe in black approached with a stern look on her face. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Munro,’ he said, hoping the woman wasn’t going to stop him for a chat. Vera Munro, who lived up the road from Ruby Jackson in Alexandra Road, was a person who could find the dark side to a rainbow and enjoyed nothing more than a good gossip. ‘It’s a sad day,’ he added.

  ‘If you say so, Sergeant,’ she muttered angrily, hurrying past him.

  Mike shook his head. ‘Nothing changes,’ he murmured to himself. Up ahead he could see the women he wanted to speak with. The three musketeers, he thought to himself as he approached, watching them huddled together while looking at the wreaths that lay beside a freshly dug grave. These three women had been through much during the war, but their friendship hardly ever wavered. Sarah Gilbert, George and Irene’s daughter, was wiping her eyes as the two other women, Maisie Carlisle and their younger friend, Freda Smith, gave her a hug. What brought them together today was nigh on as bad as the war, but these women were tough and would pull through, he was sure. ‘I’ve just had word from the cottage hospital. There’s a police car waiting just outside the lychgate, if you’re ready to leave?’

  The women all nodded, and without saying a word they linked arms and set off down the path away from the grave.

  Mike took a final moment to bow his head and say his goodbyes. ‘This world will be a sadder place without you,’ he whispered, as his words were carried away on the wind.

  1

  July 1947

  ‘It is with the greatest pleasure that the King and Queen announce the betrothal of their dearly beloved daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, to Lieut. Philip Mountbatten, R.N., son of the late Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Andrew (Princess Alice of Battenberg), to which union the King has gladly given his consent.’

  ‘It’s so romantic,’ Freda Smith sighed as she leant over her friend, Sarah Gilbert’s shoulder to read aloud the betrothal announcement from the newspapers spread over the table. They were in the staff canteen of the Erith branch of Woolworths, taking their morning tea break. ‘Listen to this: “The Princess wore a light grey coat over a yellow silk dress as she walked with him on the terrace of Buckingham Palace.” Maisie will want to know the fashion details. Her customers at Maisie’s Modes are bound to be asking for yellow frocks to copy the Princess.’

  ‘I doubt they’ll be silk, and with our rationing there’ll not be many women in Erith decking themselves out like royalty,’ her friend laughed, as she turned the page to look at the handsome naval Lieutenant.

  ‘Maisie can turn her hand to most things. She’ll find the fabric from somewhere, even if she has to pull apart dresses from the back of someone’s wardrobe. She’s the queen of make do and mend, is our Maisie.’

  ‘You can say that again. However would we all have coped without Maisie and her sewing skills? Nan reckons she’d give those London fashion houses a run for their money if she upped sticks and moved her business to the West End.’

  Freda chuckled. ‘Ruby is right, but the West End’s loss is our gain. Oh, look: it says here that the wedding will be in Westminster Abbey. It would be wonderful to go up to London and watch all the pageantry! We missed out on the celebrations up town on VE Day because of Ruby and Bob’s wedding. A part of me wishes I’d danced in the fountains in Trafalgar Square.’

  Sarah almost choked as she took a sip of her tea. ‘Freda, you don’t even like g
etting your feet wet when it rains, so I can’t imagine for one moment that you’d have jumped into the fountains. You’re also forgetting that we went to London for the Victory Parade last summer. So it’s not as if we missed out.’

  Freda shrugged her shoulders. ‘It was a special occasion, I’ll give you that, but all rather formal, with the forces marching past and the bands playing. My feet ached from just standing there and cheering all day long. It says here that people went to Buckingham Palace last night and cheered their heads off to show the young couple how much they all thought of them. This is just what we need after all the years of war: a lovely wedding to look forward to.’

  ‘A pity she isn’t marrying an Englishman,’ one of their colleagues muttered from an adjoining table. ‘He’s a foreigner, and a Greek at that.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. He grew up here, and relinquished his foreign title. He’s as British as you or me,’ Sarah snapped back.

  ‘Don’t let her rile you,’ Freda whispered. ‘She’s only just accepted me, and I moved here from Birmingham nine years ago. I swear she thinks anyone born outside of Erith is a foreigner and would murder her in her bed.’

  Sarah agreed, and turned back to the newspaper just as a bell rang loud and clear through the store. ‘Oh crikey, our tea break is over already. I’d best get a cup of tea for Betty, to take back with me to the office.’

  Freda didn’t hear a word as she gazed at a large photograph of Philip Mountbatten. ‘It’s just like a fairy tale, with the handsome Prince meeting his beautiful Princess and getting engaged.’

  There was a roar of laughter from a nearby table where a trainee manager and a stockroom boy were having their tea break. Each held a hand over their heart and fluttered their eyes as they took the mickey out of the girls. Freda scowled. ‘That new trainee manager is so full of himself,’ she said. ‘Give me a royal prince any day over the lads who work here.’

  Sarah laughed. ‘Life isn’t like a fairy story, Freda, although our Princess Elizabeth seems to have kissed the right frog. She’s a lucky woman – but I still prefer my Alan,’ she sighed, reaching for the silver sixpenny piece hanging on a chain around her neck. Alan had given her the necklace some years earlier, when he coined the name ‘sixpenny’ for her in recognition of goods once costing sixpence at the F. W. Woolworths store, where they had met and fallen in love.

  ‘You are very lucky, and I envy you, meeting your Alan right here in Woolworths,’ Freda said as she spotted a dreamy look cross Sarah’s face. ‘I only seem to kiss frogs that turn into wart-covered toads.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll find your prince one day. And I reckon it’ll be sooner than you think,’ Sarah said. She stood up, ready to return to her desk in the corner of the office she shared with store manager Betty Billington. Before walking away, she started to collect the dirty plates from the table.

  ‘It’s not for want of trying,’ Freda said as she brushed a few crumbs from the blue checked oilcloth table covering. ‘I wouldn’t say I’ve had many beaus, but they’ve amounted to nothing. I reckon I’ll end up an old maid, working in Woolworths until I’m too old to serve behind the counter. What’s that saying? Always a bridesmaid, never a bride?’

  Sarah laughed at her young friend. She’d known Freda since the day they’d started work together at the Erith branch of the well-known high street store, back in 1938 – in the months before the war became a reality. The girl in front of her now looked nothing like that frightened, half-starved waif in a threadbare coat who’d seemed scared of her own shadow. Freda was now twenty-six, and a confident supervisor for Woolworths. She’d kept up her interest in motorbikes, which she’d been involved with while a volunteer with the Fire Service at the nearby Erith fire station; and when she wasn’t working in the store she could often be found in Sarah’s husband’s workshop, tinkering with engines and suchlike. Freda’s face had a healthy glow from the time she spent in the open air either with the Brownies and Girl Guides or out and about on one of Alan’s motorbikes.

  ‘You’ve been a bridesmaid many times because you have lots of friends who love you and want you to be part of their happy day. I wish I could say I’d been a bridesmaid at the wedding of Johnny Johnson, and waltzed with David Niven.’

  ‘It is tradition for the best man to dance with the chief bridesmaid,’ Freda replied, her cheeks turning pink at the memory of the happy event she’d taken part in. ‘All the same, it was rather surreal, wasn’t it? Who’d have thought that our Molly, an ironmonger’s daughter from Erith, would marry a matinee idol and hold her wedding right here in this town? It was like a dream to be part of Molly’s happy day.’ A faraway look came into her eyes as she recalled the Christmas wedding at Christ Church, followed by the journey to London in a Bentley for a swish reception at the Ritz. ‘It still feels like a dream.’

  ‘And she gave you her house in Alexandra Road – so if you are going to be an old maid, at least you have somewhere to live,’ Sarah joshed. She didn’t begrudge her young friend her good fortune; Freda had not had a very good start in life before coming to Erith.

  ‘I’m truly lucky, and that’s why I like to rent a room to some of the young women who work here at Woolies while they find permanent homes. I know what it’s like to live in a strange town and not be able to find a decent lodging house. Which reminds me, I must put a card up on the staff noticeboard. My last lodger has just left. It’s a shame I can’t put up one or two of the young chaps who come here as part of their management training.’

  ‘My goodness – could you imagine the gossip if you did? The old dears in Alexandra Road would have a field day,’ Sarah said, thinking of her nan Ruby and her neighbour and sparring partner Vera Munro. ‘Best you stick to young women from respectable homes,’ she grinned as she collected tea and a sandwich from her mother-in-law, Maureen, who was working behind the counter in the staff canteen. Balancing them carefully to take to Betty, her boss, she headed for the door. ‘I’m working for a couple of hours this afternoon, so I’ll say my goodbyes now.’

  Freda waved back at her friend and tidied up their newspapers, thinking of the happy days ahead for the young Princess. It was half-day closing, and she had something to look forward to as well: a whole afternoon spent helping Alan Gilbert in his workshop stretched before her. The weather was lovely, and with luck she would be able to take one of the motorbikes out for a spin.

  Her life was good, and she shouldn’t worry about being unmarried and without a boyfriend. To be honest, men were often more trouble than they were worth, she thought to herself as she straightened her uniform. It was time to go downstairs to the busy shop floor, to continue working for what remained of the morning.

  Later that morning Freda waved goodbye to Betty, who was standing with a bunch of keys in her hand waiting to lock the front door of the Woolworths store after her staff departed for the afternoon. The sun was still shining, and she could see George Jones over the road at Misson’s Ironmongers, taking in the buckets and pans hanging from the display at the front of the shop. She waved to him. The old man waved back, as did several other tradespeople who were shutting up shop for half-day closing. Freda loved living in the town of Erith, set on the south bank of the Thames. It had become her adopted home after her sad childhood in Birmingham. Freda enjoyed working at Woolworths, and with the security of owning her own house thanks to the generosity of her friend, Molly Missons – or should that be Molly Johnson now she was married to the handsome matinee idol – she had her roots firmly in the friendly town, and couldn’t imagine ever leaving the area.

  Crossing the bottom of Pier Road into the high street, she headed on past the Odeon cinema, where an advert for A Matter of Life and Death caught her eye. She must remember to see whether Sarah and Maisie fancied a night out to watch the film. At once, the memories of attending the special Royal Film Performance in London came back to her – how she’d loved watching the film, and in the company of film stars and royalty. Yes, a night out with her chums would be fun. She
smiled to herself, thinking back to the days when, without children, her mates could drop what they were doing and head out to enjoy themselves – be it at the cinema, dancing at Erith Dance Studios or taking the train to London to see a show, air raids permitting. Now, with the war firmly in the past, it was as if a weight had lifted from their shoulders and even though they still had rationing and the word ‘austerity’ had entered the nation’s vocabulary, spirits could not be dampened as they thought of a war-free future ahead of them all. Lifting her face to the sun, Freda felt the warmth on her face. Yes, it felt good to be alive, and with the excitement of a royal wedding in the offing, things were certainly good.

  ‘Hey, Freda!’ a voice called out as she approached Manor Road. ‘Wait for me, and I’ll walk with you.’

  ‘Hello, Sadie – are you doing some last-minute shopping?’ Freda asked as she stopped to wait for the red-faced young woman to catch her up. ‘Arthur’s getting a little big for that pushchair, isn’t he?’

  ‘You can say that again. He was whining to come with me, and if I’d let him walk we’d not have caught the shops before they closed. Nan needed her liver salts, and she’ll never let me forget it if she goes without due to me not getting to the shops. Last time she sent me back as I’d picked up the wrong kind. It seems Fynnon’s Liver Salts aren’t as effective as the Andrew’s ones. I swear she waited until the last minute before asking me to go, the cantankerous old so-and-so.’

  Freda snorted with laughter. Sadie’s grandmother, Vera Munro, was known for her forthright opinions and stubborn ways, and she knew Sadie suffered at times because of the woman’s sharp tongue.

  Freda liked Sadie, who’d had more than her fair share of bad luck in past years, although she now had her darling son, Arthur, to make up for it. Freda bent down to tickle the lad under his chubby chin, and was rewarded with a toothy smile. She thought Sadie was lucky to have the little lad in her life, and felt a twinge of envy. Would she ever have a child of her own? ‘Do you have time to pop in for a cup of tea, or will Vera be at the gate waiting for you?’