Later in 1942 I was sent to manage the branch at Cheadle, Staffs. The manager having been called up.
Stan knew that he would have to go soon, and I would have to do something more directly concerned with the war effort, we had had several periods of ‘deferment’ as it was called. We had to go to the Labour Exchange and sign to say that we were working in the food trade. They left us alone then for a few months.
However, I went to Cheadle on the Monday morning. It was only a small shop and both the manager and the first hand had been called up, leaving just a young girl. I was only twenty but I think she was about seventeen. She said that Fred Hurd the supervisor had asked her if she could find anywhere for me to stay, to save me travelling such a long way each day. “My sister says you can stay with her if you like, her husband is in the forces and there is just her and her baby”.
I went to see the sister in the lunchtime and agreed to move in the next day. Now, I was fairly tolerant and could easily get along with most people but this girl was what I would describe as very ‘gormless’, and the baby had sussed this out from the word go! She was dedicated to being a world-class screamer, for each and everything. Unfortunately, she seemed to fall into an exhausted stupor in the afternoon, (according to the mother). She was then ready to do battle all evening and through most of the night. I stuck it for a few nights, but it was obvious that the baby was calling the shots and no improvement could be expected. I said that I would be traveling in future. It took about two hours night and morning but I soon became used to it.
At the weekend I went to Porthill and told Stan about my week. He told me about his, and of course we both missed each other.
I must just mention some friends Alice and Cyril Humphrey. They lived just round the corner from Shady Grove, on Lawton Road. Cyril’s mother, Mrs. Shepley, lived with them. She had been married to a West Indian and Cyril and his sister were very West Indian in appearance. Cyril was very tall and handsome. He was in the Air Force. Ida was in show business, and had taken her stepfather’s name of Shepley. She was quite famous and was often heard singing on the radio and was in several musicals in London. She had a lovely happy personality, despite her private life being less than happy. Alice looked after the shop, which she and Cyril owned in Crewe. It was mostly jewellery, and a few antiques. Alice was quite a personality, most attractive with very black hair and big brown eyes. She was not foreign but she made up to look a bit different. The result was very striking. We got on very happily together, both having a similar sense of humour, and when Cyril came on leave it was obvious that he too was full of fun. He was also a businessman and was not happy in the Air Force. On one occasion Mrs. Shepley had gone to visit Ida and Alice asked me to go and stay the night with her. It was winter and Alice said, “We’ll have a bit of luxury. I’ve got a little tin of salmon I’ve been hoarding; I’ll make it into fish cakes for supper. We’ll have a fire in the bedroom, and we will each have a gorgeous bath with lots of hot water and be damned to only five inches. (We were all exhorted to only have five inches of hot water in the bath in order to save fuel.) A gas geyser that seemed to work very well heated their bath water. It was Wednesday so we both had been at home in the afternoon. About six-O-clock I took my nightie and toilet bag round to Alice’s. Alice had made the fish cakes, but unfortunately for me she had put curry powder in, which I did not like. I didn’t say anything and ate them because I was hungry. Alice then said, I lit the bedroom fire about an hour ago, it took a lot of coaxing but when it did get going it burned beautifully. Before I came down I put some more coal on and it should be lovely and cozy now, shall we go up and see?” When we opened the bedroom door the room was full of smoke! The fire was burning very well but the smoke seemed to be coming from the hearth. When we looked closely we realised that the fireplace had been put on top of wooden beams and it was these that were burning and smoking. We didn’t panic! Alice got two buckets that we filled in the bathroom. We poured it carefully all round the hearth in order to put the beams out. That caused a lot of dirty steam. Then, sadly, we’d got to put the main fire out. There is no way that you can put water onto a well-lit coal fire without creating a terrible mess! We had to keep rushing out on to the landing to breathe. Eventually it was all out, nothing left but a black soggy mess, which we had then to clear away. We worked together very well, carefully carrying it all downstairs and outside, a bucketful at a time. We were so engrossed in what we were doing that we didn’t even speak. After about the third trip downstairs, Alice just sat on the top stair and began to laugh, of course I laughed too and before long we were both laughing uncontrollably. I suppose we were a bit hysterical.
“Oh Bren”, said A1ice, “I promised we’d have a cozy luxurious evening, look at us, black as the ten of clubs, and you look as though you’ve got a grey hat on”. “Yes, you do too,” I said, whereupon we went into fresh peals of laughter. When we had got it all cleaned up and were certain that no trace of fire remained, Alice said, ‘You have first bath you deserve it’ When I’d washed my hair and had a bath I felt much better.
When I came out of the bathroom Alice said “Guess what? I’ll have to change the bed, I forgot about that, all that wet sooty dust has got all over the bedclothes. I’ll do it, you’re clean, and you go down while I do it, you can make a drink and there may be two biscuits in the tin.
Eventually at about eleven-thirty we sat drinking ‘Camp’ coffee with powdered milk and eating a very uninteresting biscuit. ‘Camp’ coffee, by the way was liquid and the only form of instant coffee available, and then only on the rarest occasions. Nescafe was just about to be introduced at the start of the war, and from time to time someone would claim to know someone who managed to get a little tin of Nescafe. We didn’t know what it was like and it was to be many years before we did. Alice filled the hot water bottles and after a few more giggles we went to bed, and although it had been such a hard working and filthy evening we often looked back on it and only remembered the fun.
I must add a footnote. After the war I’m afraid we lost touch, but in 1982 I saw an announcement of Alice’s death. An address at Wistaston was given so I wrote to Cyril giving him my sympathy. The result was a beautiful letter from Cyril. He invited me to go to see him, and Deb took me one evening. It was a sad and happy time. Alice had had a long and painful illness and it was obvious that Cyril also was a sick man. He said that he was hoping to go away but was finding it hard to come to terms with losing Alice. They had no family; they had lost at least two babies through miscarriage. Ida had also recently died. It was not all sad though. He was justly proud of his beautiful home and garden. He had prepared a delicious meal and we talked about old times, we even laughed about the night of the fire
He said, “After I had posted the letter to you in which I had said “I remember you as a slim and beautiful girl” I had an awful thought, “suppose she’s got enormously fat” but in fact you haven’t really changed, you are still slim and beautiful”. I took that as a great compliment! He brought me home and when he kissed me goodbye said, “I’ll be in touch when I get back”. I have never heard from him since and I wonder whether he died abroad somewhere.