A Ration Book Daughter Read online

  Jean Fullerton is the author of fifteen historical novels and two novellas. She is a qualified District and Queen’s nurse who has spent most of her working life in the East End of London, first as a Sister in charge of a team, and then as a District Nurse tutor. She is also a qualified teacher and spent twelve years lecturing on community nursing studies at a London university. She now writes full time.

  Find out more at www.jeanfullerton.com

  Also by Jean Fullerton

  A Ration Book Dream

  A Ration Book Christmas

  A Ration Book Childhood

  A Ration Book Wedding

  A Ration Book Daughter

  Coming soon:

  A Ration Book Victory

  Short stories:

  A Ration Book Christmas Kiss

  A Ration Book BBC Christmas Broadcast

  Published in paperback in Great Britain in 2021 by Corvus,

  an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © Jean Fullerton, 2021

  The moral right of Jean Fullerton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Paperback ISBN: 978 1 83895 092 7

  E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 093 4

  Printed in Great Britain

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  For all NHS and Care staff, who while I was at home writing

  Cathy and Archie’s story were on the front line

  in a world-wide pandemic saving lives.

  Chapter One

  STANDING AMONG THE rails of donated clothing, Cathy Wheeler, neé Brogan, ran her eyes over the various boys’ coats. Spotting a green tweed one towards the end of the rail, she grasped it and pulled it out.

  ‘I only unpacked it yesterday. It was in one of the new Canadian Red Cross parcels,’ she said, turning it around and holding it up. ‘But I think this might fit your little lad, Mrs . . . ?’

  ‘Prentice. It looks a bit big,’ said the young mother with tired eyes.

  ‘Why don’t you get him to try it on, Mrs Prentice?’ Cathy said, giving it to her.

  Cathy waited as the young woman fitted the donated coat on her son.

  It was Friday afternoon and, as always when she did her stint at St Breda and St Brendan’s ARP Rest Centre, she was dressed in her forest-green Women’s Voluntary Service uniform. Three and a half years ago, before the war started, the room she now stood in had been used by the local community for wedding receptions, dances and the youth club. Now the main hall of the church’s Catholic Club was the first port of call for those who, after a night in an air raid shelter, arrived home to discover a pile of rubble where their house had once stood.

  The second-hand clothing section of the WVS’s rest centre, which Cathy was responsible for, was located in the back corner of the main hall. Opposite her was the canteen area, from where a faint smell of hotpot drifted across. Behind the serving hatch, half a dozen of her fellow volunteers were preparing an evening meal for families and ARP workers alike. The massive Bush wireless belted out tunes as the women worked. The rest of the hall was taken up by the dozen or so rows of camp beds with striped tick mattresses. On each bed was a neatly folded grey blanket with a pillow resting on top, ready for the next unfortunate occupant. However, fog had been blanketing the London Docks, just a stone’s throw away, for the past week, which meant the Luftwaffe was unable to use the Thames’s reflection to locate London, and so the emergency beds hadn’t been needed.

  It was the first week of November 1942 and Cathy had taken over the running of the second-hand clothes section at the end of the summer from her mother, Ida. They had joined the WVS together a couple of years before to help with the war effort. She’d been carrying Peter at the time and after he’d been born she hadn’t been able to help out as much, but when he turned eighteen months last Christmas, Cathy decided to take advantage of the rest centre’s nursery. So now, while Peter had fun with Auntie Muriel and Auntie Pat, Cathy did her bit to fight Hitler.

  ‘I still think it’s a bit on the large size,’ said Mrs Prentice, studying her son all buttoned up in his new coat.

  Cathy’s gaze flickered over the youngster.

  ‘It’s got a bit of growing room, I grant you,’ she said. ‘But you only have to tack up the sleeves an inch or two and you’ll get a lot of wear out of it.’

  The woman sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. I’ll have it then. And I’ve got a couple of gymslips my girl’s grown out of.’ She delved into the shopping basket at her feet. ‘Can I swap them for a bigger size?’

  She offered Cathy the navy garments.

  ‘Thank you,’ the woman said, as Cathy took the dresses from her.

  Unfortunately, as always when there was something on offer for free, people took advantage. There had been a spate recently, especially when word got around that a new consignment from the US or Canadian Red Cross had arrived, of people turning up at a rest centre pretending to have been bombed out. They’d take the pick of the new clothes, plus household items like crockery and linen, which then turned up a few days later for sale on market stalls. Thankfully, although Cathy had never met her before, Mrs Prentice was obviously a genuine case.

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Ten.’

  Cathy, tucking a strand of light brown hair behind her ear, moved to the school uniform rail and sifted through the line of assorted skirts, blazers and trousers.

  ‘Here we go,’ she said, dragging out two pinafores.

  ‘Gladys!’

  A young girl reading a comic at one of the canteen tables looked up.

  ‘Come and try these on,’ called the young mother, beckoning her over.

  Cathy caught sight of the clock over the door at the far end of the hall.

  Almost four thirty already!

  Leaving Mrs Prentice to deal with her daughter, Cathy tidied the hangers and straightened the piles of newly washed and pressed men’s shirts set out on the trestle table, neatly ordered by collar size.

  ‘How are we getting on?’ she asked, turning back to her customer.

  The mother looked her daughter up and down.

  ‘They’ll do until Easter, I expect,’ said Mrs Prentice, bending to tug the hem of the navy gymslip straight. ‘Go and change back into your clothes now, Gladys,’ she instructed her daughter.

  ‘I have some navy school knickers, too,’ added Cathy. ‘They’re new if you could use a couple of—’

  ‘Thanks,’ the young mother cut in, opening her purse and pulling out her pink clothing ration book.

  ‘They’ve been donated as second hand so you won’t need coupons, but if you want, you can drop a couple of coppers in our Spitfire jar instead.’ Cathy indicated the sweets jar on the refectory counter. It was half filled with coins and had a picture of the fighter aircraft mid-flight stuck on it. ‘We’d be grateful.’

  ‘I’ll
see if I’ve got a bob or two,’ Mrs Prentice replied. ‘But what with these two eating me out of house and home and the prices in the shops going up every day, I’ve barely got two ha’pennies to rub together at the end of the week.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Cathy, thinking of the handful of coppers in her own purse.

  ‘I thought it would get a bit better when the Yanks joined in last year but now you can’t get petrol, sweets for the kids are down to just a couple of ounces and they’ve even put biscuits on ration,’ Mrs Prentice went on. ‘I don’t know how the blooming government expects me to keep a roof over my head and feed two kids on a couple of quid a week from the army.’

  Cathy gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I know, but we all have to support our brave boys.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Mrs Prentice heaved a sigh. ‘Still, I’d better get on. Thanks again for the knickers.’

  Gathering her children and their newly acquired garments, Mrs Prentice headed towards the door.

  Taking the clothing ledger from the table, Cathy sat on the chair next to the rack of shoes and took her fountain pen from the top pocket of her jacket. After logging Mrs Prentice’s items in the ‘taken’ column and listing the two gymslips under ‘donated’, she closed the book and stood up.

  Once she’d pushed the three rails full of assorted jackets, dresses and children’s wear back against the wall, she covered them with dust sheets ready for when she arrived the following morning.

  ‘Ain’t you got no home to go to?’

  Cathy turned around to find Mary Usher, wearing the same WVS uniform as Cathy, standing behind her.

  A petite brunette, Mary had spent the afternoon in the yard outside bundling up scrap paper and cardboard for recycling; now she had the red cheeks and windswept hair to show for her hard work.

  She’d been a few classes above Cathy at Shadwell School and had lived over her parents’ shoe repair shop in Salmon Lane, which was where she was living now with her two children, because her merchant seaman husband was somewhere in the frozen North Atlantic ferrying armaments to Murmansk for Britain’s fickle ally Russia.

  ‘Just finishing off,’ Cathy replied, flapping the cover over the boxes beneath.

  ‘Honestly, you’re always the last one here,’ continued Mary. ‘It’s a wonder you have time to get yourself fed and watered before you have to head off to the shelter.’

  ‘I put a hotpot in the oven on a low light before I came out and that’ll be ready to dish up when I get in,’ Cathy replied. ‘Unless the air raid sounds, the doors to Bethnal Green station shelter don’t open until five thirty, so I’ve plenty of time, and my mum’s always one of the first through the door so she’ll make sure no one takes my spot.’

  ‘It seems daft to go traipsing all the way up Cambridge Heath Road when the Tilbury shelter’s only five minutes away,’ said Mary.

  ‘My brothers go to Parmiter’s School, behind the museum,’ Cathy replied, ‘so it’s not so far for them to get to school in the morning. You in tomorrow?’

  ‘No, I’ve got to go and queue up for the Ration Department at the Town Hall and try to get Dad a replacement ration book for the one he lost a week ago,’ said Mary. ‘Mum’s going spare as she’s trying to feed all of us on quarter ra—’

  The rest-centre doors crashed back against the walls as Wilf Ingles, the ARP warden for Sutton Street, burst in.

  ‘Have you heard?’ he shouted, waving an Evening News. ‘Monty’s bloomin’ well done it!’

  ‘Done what?’ asked someone.

  ‘Beat the bloody Hun,’ Wilf replied, his lined face alight with excitement.

  The room erupted into clapping and cheering. A couple of two-tone whistles cut through the air as people slapped each other on the back.

  ‘Where?’ someone shouted above the noise.

  ‘Some place called El something or another,’ Wilf replied. ‘It’s all here in the early edition. It calls it a “Great and Glorious Victory”, and says our lads have captured thousands of Wop prisoners and hundreds of tanks. And now they’re driving Rommel and his gang of Nazis into the sea.’ He shook the newspaper again. ‘You can read if for yourselves.’

  People crowded around the elderly warden, looking over his shoulders and craning their necks to read the account.

  ‘Isn’t your Stan in North Africa, Cath?’ Mary asked, turning to face Cathy.

  ‘Yes,’ Cathy replied flatly.

  Mary laughed. ‘Well, your old man must have been right in the thick of it. I bet you’re doubly pleased to hear it’s our boys that have won the day.’

  Noticing Cathy’s tight expression, Mary placed her hand over hers. ‘I know, luv, it’s ruddy hard not having them around, isn’t it?’

  Cathy didn’t reply.

  ‘And it’s not just the . . .’ She gave Cathy a bashful look. ‘You know . . . but the little things. Like how their eyes light up when you put their favourite dinner in front of ’em, nights in front of the fire listening to the wireless together when the kids are in bed.’ She laughed. ‘I even miss my Ted’s blooming snoring.’

  ‘There’ll always be an England,’ sang a male voice above the throng.

  Others in the room took up the tune.

  ‘I’d better collect Peter and get home,’ said Cathy, raising her voice to be heard. ‘See you when I see you.’

  ‘Not if I see you first,’ Mary shouted back.

  Cathy turned, and, weaving her way through the crowd of singing people, she left the main hall and headed for the door at the far end of the corridor.

  Catching a faint whiff of carbolic, Cathy walked into what had been the caretaker’s storeroom and was now the organiser’s office. Wall charts and stirrup pumps had replaced the mops and buckets, but the smell lingered on.

  The woman sitting behind an old schoolmaster’s desk at the far end of the room looked up and gave Cathy a weary smile.

  ‘You finished for the day then, Mrs Wheeler?’ she asked.

  In her late fifties, with steel-grey hair and a sparse frame, Miss Edith Carpenter had lost her fiancé in the previous Great War and had never found another.

  As the only child of the chief surgeon in St George’s Hospital, she was blessed with a private income, so instead of using all her energy and talents to run a home and family, Miss Carpenter poured herself into good works. It was natural, therefore, that when the WVS was founded a year before Hitler marched into Poland, she was one of the first to volunteer.

  Although the WVS – or Women of Various Sizes, as their founder Lady Reading often called them – didn’t have an official management hierarchy, in truth, in every canteen or rest centre Cathy had ever visited, it was the wives of professionals and well-to-do businessmen in the area who took charge.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Cathy, closing the door. ‘Have you heard the news?’

  ‘Yes, Peggy Wilson popped her head around the door a few moments ago to tell me,’ Miss Carpenter replied. ‘Marvellous. Your husband is serving in North Africa, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, no doubt you’ll have a letter from him soon telling you all about it,’ the older woman said. ‘And how he misses you, too, I’m sure.’

  Cathy gave a tight smile but didn’t reply.

  ‘I hear your mother’s had her baby,’ said Miss Carpenter.

  ‘Yes, two nights ago, in the middle of an air raid,’ said Cathy. ‘A little girl; six pounds, thirteen ounces.’

  Miss Carpenter’s fair eyebrows rose. ‘Goodness. Is she all right?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ Cathy replied. ‘Her waters went just before lights-out at ten and the midwife delivered the baby at three thirty.’

  ‘Have your parents chosen a name yet?’ asked Miss Carpenter.

  ‘Victoria,’ said Cathy.

  The rest centre organiser’s pale eyebrows rose. ‘That’s unusual.’

  ‘That’s what everyone says,’ Cathy replied.

  ‘Well, it must have been a bit of a shock for her discover
ing she was pregnant again at her time of life,’ said Miss Carpenter.

  ‘It was,’ Cathy replied. ‘I think it was more of a shock for my dad, though.’

  Truthfully, it had been a shock for the whole family, especially after the falling-out her parents had had the year before.

  It was a long story, but when Ida’s old friend Ellen arrived with ten-year-old Michael and they found out he was Jeremiah’s son, it didn’t take much to imagine what Cathy’s mother’s reaction was. To be honest, she and her sisters Mattie and Jo had refused point-blank even to speak to their father when they found out, but as her mother had wholeheartedly forgiven him, Cathy had to as well.

  ‘Well, give her my regards when you see her,’ said Miss Carpenter. ‘And I’ll see you in the morning.’

  Wishing the older woman goodnight, Cathy left her to her paper-work and headed towards the smaller hall at the back of the building.

  Pushing open the half-glazed door of what had been the large committee room, Cathy walked into the nursery to a boisterous chorus of ‘Ee-I-Ay-Di-O’, as the two dozen or more children holding hands sang at the tops of their voices.

  Cathy’s eyes scanned the laughing children for a moment before they rested on her son Peter, and love swelled in her heart.

  Although he was only two and a half, Peter was already an inch or two taller than most of the boys his age. She had her side of the family to thank for that, but his thick, sandy-coloured hair and broad features were down to her husband Stan.

  Peter was on the far side of the circle between two little girls but, seeing her, he broke free and hurried towards her, scattering wooden bricks and tin soldiers in his path.

  Cathy put on her brightest face and, crouching down, held out her arms.

  ‘Hello, young man,’ she said, as she enveloped him in her embrace.

  ‘Mummy,’ he replied, hugging her tightly.

  Cathy closed her eyes and hugged him back.

  Feeling the heaviness that was always hovering just over her shoulder and threatening to descend, Cathy gave him a last squeeze and then let him go.

  Forcing a smile on to her face, she straightened up and took his hand. ‘Let’s get your coat and then we can go home.’