Home Front Girls

them. The Allied Forces were now in France and Belgium, but what if they were unable to hold the Germans off again? It made everyone realise that there was only the Channel between Great Britain and the enemy, and the threat of an invasion became a very real possibility.
    ‘The Jerries have invaded the Low Countries,’ Mrs P told Lucy one evening after work. She was all in a tizzy as she waved the newspaper under the startled girl’s nose. Lucy still tended to go round to Mrs P’s for a cup of tea each evening. It delayed going home to an empty house for a time at least. ‘They’re bombing Holland and Belgium and all the harbours. It says here that almost all our ships have been sunk and now they’re sending in tanks and parachutists. Where in God’s name is it going to end, eh?’
    Lucy felt physically sick at the news, and she knew that both she and Mrs P were thinking the same thing. Mrs P’s Freddy and her own Joel could be out there somewhere.
    Only the week before, a young man’s mother in the next street had received a telegram saying that he was missing, and now the sight of the telegram boy cycling down the road was one to be feared. Who knew whose door he might stop at with a telegram for some poor woman telling her that her beloved husband, son or brother was missing or worse still, dead?
    ‘Churchill reckons they’ll target France next,’ Mrs P went on as she mopped at her streaming eyes with a snow-white handkerchief, and now Lucy’s blood really did turn to ice. Joel had told her in a roundabout way that he was in France in the last letter she had received from him. She glanced towards the darkened window, her mind full of terrible images as the barrage balloons floated like pale silver ghosts in the sky above the city.
    Then only yesterday they had listened to yet another radio announcement informing them that sixty Luftwaffe He-111 bombers had besieged Rotterdam, devastating the city centre. None of them could help but wonder what would have happened if they had bombed Coventry. No one was using the phrase ’Phoney War’ any more. Suddenly it was all too real.
    Yet for the three friends, life went on much as it had before. They went to work at Owen Owen each day and every night they returned home, hoping to hear word from their loved ones. Lucy had not heard from Joel for weeks and nor had Annabelle or her mother heard from Richard, and sometimes they feared the worst, even though they all knew that the post was taking much longer to get through now.
    ‘You’ll probably get a whole heap of letters turn up all at once,’ Dotty would tell them when she saw how worried her friends were, and they could only hope that she was right. It didn’t stop them fretting, however.
    After work today, they all headed for Annabelle’s house where they had arranged to get ready for the dance. Dotty had taken her best outfit to work and put it away in her locker, but Annabelle had promised to find something of hers that Lucy could borrow. Much like Dotty, Lucy had never had the inclination or the funds to follow fashion so she had agreed to Annabelle’s offer, although her heart wasn’t really in it. She would much rather have gone home and read a book or listened to Joel’s crackly old wireless, but not wanting to be seen as a spoilsport, she had agreed to go along.
    Miranda was waiting for them when they arrived at the charming old house in Cheylesmore. The kettle was whistling and a meal of corned beef hash was ready.
    ‘Sorry it’s corned beef again,’ she apologised to Annabelle as she loaded a pile of mashed potatoes onto their plates, ‘but the butcher had run out of meat when I got there and I went quite early this morning too.’
    Annabelle wrinkled her nose but Lucy piped up, ‘It looks delicious. Thank you.’ She scowled at Annabelle, who clearly didn’t realise how lucky she was to have a mother to come home to and a hot meal on the table.
    Once they had all eaten, Miranda shooed them away upstairs although Lucy and Dotty had volunteered to wash up.
    ‘No, you get away and doll yourselves up,’ she told them with a smile. ‘You’re only young once. Oh, but before you do, I wondered if any of you would fancy doing a first aid course? The Red Cross are running it one night a week from next Thursday along in the church hall, and who knows when first aid may come in handy, the way things are?’
    Dotty and Lucy both said they were interested, but Annabelle didn’t seem at all