Shadows of the Workhouse

others went up the highest buildings with nothing but a tin hat to protect them from the explosives and firebombs. One night the building Sally was in got a direct hit. I never saw her again. Her body was never found.”
    After telling me this sad story he paused, and stared into the fire, for a few minutes, then said softly: “She knew the risk. We both did. I’m glad that she was taken first, and not left on her own. Death is kinder than life. There is no more suffering beyond the grave. We will meet again soon, I hope.”
    He said the words “soon, I hope” a second time, and I didn’t know what to say, so I asked him about his daughter.
    Shirley’s skills in Morse code and telegraphy were classed as a “special occupation”. She joined the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) in 1940 and entered the Intelligence and Communications Corps of the RAF. Her father saw a little of her when she came home on leave, but mostly he didn’t even know where she was stationed, because all her work was highly confidential, and secrecy was tight. She had never married, and had always been very close to her parents. After her mother’s death she threw herself into her work.
    Mr Collett, too, found that hard work was the only remedy for unhappiness. After Sally’s death he worked day and night, not bothering much about food or sleep. As an ARP warden he did anything and everything that needed doing: helping ambulance men, digging away rubble, carrying water, filling sandbags, and mending burst pipes. He went out at night when bombs were dropping all around, not caring if he was killed. He helped people out of burning buildings, got them to shelters, carried babies, pushed prams. “It was a hard time, but satisfying,” he told me, “and all the while I fancied Sal was looking down on me, and sharing the experience.”
    Many of his experiences from those days he could still vividly recall. He told me about one little boy, about six or seven years old, he said he would never forget. The wardens had dug him out of the rubble he had been buried under for several hours. He was underneath the body of his mother. She must have thrown herself over her son in order to protect him, when the bomb fell. She was quite stiff and cold, but he was safe beneath her. One does not know the psychological damage that such an experience can inflict, however. He said the boy’s name was Paul. Mr Collett mused: “He would be in his twenties now, and I often wonder how he has grown up, and if there has been any lasting mental damage.”
    He continued his tragic story. “During the next five years I saw Shirley occasionally. She was flourishing. War has that effect sometimes. The unusual circumstances bring out the best in some people. All her intelligence and leadership qualities placed her in positions of command, and she thrived on it. I was so proud of her.
    “In 1944 it seemed that the war was ending and we dared to plan for her demob and picking up our life again. But it never does to plan ahead in wartime. The VI and V2 rocket attacks started. At Christmas 1944 I was told by the RAF that a rocket had fallen on the staff headquarters where Shirley was stationed, and that she had been killed. I have been alone ever since.”

THE SHADOW OF THE WORKHOUSE

    Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in . . .
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
    Leigh Hunt

    Poplar was destined for change. Town planners had a new broom with which to sweep clean, and they were so successful that they swept virtually everything away. Poplar had survived the war, the blitz, the doodlebugs and the V2 rockets. The people had picked themselves up, brushed off the debris, and formed themselves into a community again, almost indistinguishable from the communities of their parents and grandparents. What finally destroyed Poplar was the good intentions of bureaucracy and social planning.
    The tenements were to be demolished. In 1958 and 1959 notice was served to thousands of tenants and alternative accommodation was offered. This could be as far away as Harlow, Bracknell, Basildon, Crawley or Hemel Hempstead, which might as well have been the North Pole, as far as most of the older people were concerned. Social workers and housing officers buzzed in and out of the tenements all day with sheaves of forms and good advice and forced good cheer. The residents were