Home Front Girls

condolences and heartfelt sympathy, and by the time his visit was over, they were ready to stand and fight for what they believed in once more.
    During the raid, over 4,330 homes had been destroyed and 554 men, women and children had been killed. Some of them were still missing, trapped beneath the piles of rubble, but now troops were drafted in by the hundreds to dig for their remains whilst the Royal Engineers worked to restore electricity, gas and water supplies.
    Meanwhile, labourers worked day and night to dig graves for the victims, and on Wednesday 20 November, the first mass burial took place in the London Road Cemetery. Normally a quiet place of curving paths and graceful trees, on this day more than 1,000 mourners attended the service, which was conducted by Dr Mervyn Haigh, the Bishop of Coventry.
    Dotty, Robert, Annabelle, Miranda and Lucy were amongst the mourners, as Robert had not been able to find an undertaker with time to do a single burial. Miss Timms would be laid to rest with the other victims of the 14 November Blitz in a plain oak coffin with nothing to distinguish it from the next apart from a small label with her name written on it. They found themselves standing at the side of two deep trenches into which the coffins were lowered side by side and stacked three high, and Dotty felt as if her heart was breaking. As the trenches were slowly filled, the top coffins were then covered in Union Jack flags and people openly wept at such a senseless loss of life. But life had to go on for those left behind, who were determined that they would not be defeated.
    Once the service was over, Dotty, Annabelle, Miranda and Robert returned home, while Lucy went off for a job interview at a munitions factory. As she had pointed out, she couldn’t afford to stay at home – and who knew how long it would be before Owen Owen was rebuilt, if it ever was? Each of the three girls knew that they would miss working together, although their friendship was forged now and they vowed never to lose touch.
     
    Back at Primrose Lodge, Miranda offered everyone a sherry. They were all still a bit numb after the funeral, and she hoped that the sherry would revive them. She raised her own glass. ‘To Miss Timms – Dotty’s mother,’ she said, and the other three echoed the toast.
    As she put her sherry glass down, Dotty’s eyes strayed to the letter lying on the table in front of her. Shortly after her own mother’s death – Dotty’s grandmother – Miss Timms had left the name of her solicitor with Dotty, asking her to contact them should anything ever happen to her. Dotty had complied with her wishes, calling in at their offices the day before, where she had been handed this sealed letter addressed to her. Deciding that there was only one way to find out what was in it, she asked Robert to open it for her as it was too difficult to manage by herself with only one good arm.
    He took a sheet of paper from the envelope and handed it to her, and as her eyes scanned the contents, she went even paler than before. ‘My God,’ she muttered. ‘Miss Timms has left her house and the sum of ten thousand pounds to me!’
    ‘Don’t you mean half a house?’ Annabelle quipped, and Miranda glared at her.
    ‘And why shouldn’t she?’ she said quickly. ‘You were her daughter, after all, and when this is all over you will be able to have the house restored. It’s wonderful news, Dotty. You’re a wealthy young woman now and you won’t need to work if you don’t want to.’
    ‘B-but I do want to,’ Dotty answered in a daze. It was all just too much to take in.
    ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Robert butted in, ‘because there’s an idea I’ve been meaning to put to you, but I didn’t like to broach it until the funeral was over.’
    When Dotty looked at him quizzically he went on, ‘Well, the thing is, Laura was saying that we could do with a new typist in the office and she also said that if you didn’t mind moving to London, you could stay with her and her family for the time being. That would still give you time to write too. You could stay with me, but we wouldn’t want to set tongues wagging, would we? What do you think?’ He really wanted to tell her that he would be only too happy to support her but was afraid of rushing things, and possibly offending her.
    ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ Dotty murmured, her mind in a spin. Everything was happening so fast, but then what was there to keep her here now,