Little Shelter
Little Shelter by Leonora Debs
The snowflake pattern of light on the ceiling of the under-stairs' cupboard shifts, blurs and strengthens with the draught. The Beatrix stove gives a warm light and a little heat. The Singer hand sewing machine hums as my mother turns the handle, slow, low then faster, higher changing back to slow as the seam ends. A small crackly noise from the valve radio gives a little cheer. None of this seems strange to me as I watch my mother from my slatted bed chair, Utility of course, as she bends over the woollen fabric, pins in mouth, tape measure around her neck. My mother sews for a local tailor, who takes men's used uniforms and promises their women New Look skirts and suits. My mother unpicks these, presses them then cuts the pattern from his measurements and turning the fabric inside out, avoids the worn patches and produces a garment to fit. She gets half a crown for her efforts.
At times, being wakeful, I sit at the back of the table behind the machine and recite a short poem. "I lost my dear little doll dears "
The tiny coal cupboard has a large telegraph pole supporting the roof, my father's answer to our wartime shelter. The street shelter is too far and overcrowded. He says he'd know where to find us here, and that the strong pole would make a secure triangle if a bomb dropped - it might give us time. He has been there when men searched for their loved ones and he knows. He is never there, for each night he fire-watches for incendiaries, having been invalided out of the army.
My baby sister snuffles in a Moses basket beside me on the floor. Mum's leather coat is stretched across us both. Leather helps against flying glass, Mum says. We are here every night now while Dad's away. Mum can't carry two of us together up two flights of stairs to our one bedroom flat, and quickly down again when the siren warns of a second air raid. So which one does she take up first, leaving the other alone and vulnerable? A dilemma I do not have to solve. Sometimes it's different. Dad loves the cinema, and very occasionally decides to go, taking me with him to split their parental responsibility. I sit on his lap aged barely three, watching old pre-war films till I sleep and am carried home late on his shoulders. I realise I have forgotten his fathering.
1944/
Beatrix stove lit by paraffin with a surface to put a tin kettle on.
Slatted Utility furniture made as part of war effort with minimum wood.
'New Look' was short skirts from minimal cloth. Men's knees wore through, so useable piece of trouser fabric was short. Necessity!
Half a crown was 2 shillings and 6 pence, about 1/16 of my father's weekly wage.
He worked on telephones for the GPO. General Post Office.
He worked for 8 hours before dashing home to eat and then fire watch most nights on the roof of the telephone tower for several hours.
To lay new cable two men would push each end of a rod threaded as an axial, through the centre hole of a giant 5ft diameter wooden 'cotton reel' threaded about with wrist thick cables, unrolling as they went along the roadway. Bombs caused the need.
