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We Won The War, Didn't We? by James Apps

(This is a story based on the fragmented memories of my childhood immediately after WWII and is more or less centred my experiences at age five.  Mixed in are memories of a retrospective nature as information about the Holocaust, the Atomic bombs and the Japanese POW camps became common knowledge. I was allowed to read newspapers from when I was a small child and if the tale seems to exclude my father that is because he was a working all hours he could and was often away until he worked locally.)

 We won the War, didn't we?

The first time I realised what had happened was when my parents and my uncles and aunts answered my questions. At my primary school we played a game of Us against the Nasties, in which only the rotten kids got to play the part of the Nasties and the rest played Us.  The rotten kids ran away and hid so it was more of Us pretending and running around like five and six years olds do, full of energy and excitement, chanting “we won the war” and me wondering what on earth it was all about. I knew there was bombs and airplanes, and I had seen the tanks and armoured cars in Rochester being driven across the bridge.  I had spoken shyly with the men who had marched in a column up the hill past our place and listened to the strange language, and seen the soldiers with   shouldered rifles looking on disapprovingly when one of the men handed me a small bar of dar chocolate and ruffled my hair.

            I was there at the party when the soldiers led the singing of Ten Green Bottles, and gave us tea-cakes and strange sweet tasting concoctions to drink and eat with real spoons. It was a magic time when all the grown-ups were happy and there was grown-up things going on and lights on so I was told. It was later when my aunts and uncles came back in uniforms that I had the idea something big was happening. It, the war was over, the sirens were silent and I remember magic things happening.  We had bananas, half of one each and at first I wondered what they were but the delicious smell was so nice and eating my share was a treat almost as good as having an egg for breakfast, a real one that is, with the shell, runny in the centre and buttered soldiers to dip in the centre. The runny yellow yolk was too nice to miss and with a little salt and pepper,  egg on Sunday morning was a breakfast to look forward to.

            But, back to the school and the chanting children. I had an idea what was happening but no real idea of what had happened.  I had to ask the questions.  I wanted to know who We were and who were the Nasties we didn't like and had obviously beaten.

            Mum explained that it was Hitler and his 'mob' the Nazi's and told me that We were the British and the Americans and explained about how Canada, and Australia and New Zealand had helped out and how Nanny and us had been saved by all of them, which was sweet of her.  She was patient and answered more of my questions and told me about what had happened and how Hitler, and not a Charlie Chaplin lookalike had invaded Europe, attacked Russia and wanted to take over England.  She told me about Winston Churchill, ignoring Stalin and for the Americans only told me about Eisenhower.  She didn't mention the Japanese, or India, or anything about China. She told me about my uncle Sid who came back off the beaches in one of the so-called little boats arriving at Sheerness, half dead from exhaustion, his lungs contaminated by fumes and oil who years later had a large and second family, but at the time was unfit for combat although later he went off again. 

            I listened, I heard stories and always I recall our house was full of service uniforms as the war ended and relatives found their own homes. My uncle Sid and my cousin David lived with us for a while which was fun and at that time my two brothers were toddling around as well. What with me, my Mum and Dad and our Grandmother the house was crowded.

            But we had won the war.

            We had rationing.

            Some parts of our town were rubble filled craters.

            The Army and the Navy were there in numbers and most things we bought were what my Mum described as 'utility'.  School was magic, the smell of pencils, the books and blackboards, sitting at desks, and Christmas when we gave a present and got one in return. The gift of packs of dried fruit from Australia, the singing and the fun of the Jungle Jim in the playground.  It was idyllic  for a small boy trying to make sense of things.

            Slowly I heard about the atrocities carried out by the Japanese, the Italians in North Africa, the battles in Italy, and of course the two Atomic bombs.  I began to read the newspapers not understanding much of it at first but the more I read the more I understood.  One day I saw a picture that shocked me. It was in a paper my uncle had left laying on the table.

            Men in pyjamas, men so thin and wasted they looked like the stick people we drew in our pictures, men and women and then further in I saw there were children, skinny, hollow eyed, staring and all wearing little more than rags. I saw a name. Belsen.  I read about these stick people and learned the name Jews and thought then of Jesus, he was a Jew but in the pictures in our bible and at the church he didn't look like that.  I was so absorbed that when a noise behind me was loud enough to startle me I turned away from the awful pictures and the writing to see my uncle standing looking at me.

            “I'm sorry Jimmy, you should not have seen that,” he said and began to gather up the paper.

            “Why not? Those people, are they real? And what happened to them? Who did that to them?” I asked and stood waiting, as a determined child does, for an answer.

            He shrugged his shoulders and as if coming to a difficult decision he said: “All right, I'll tell you but let's go outside in the sunshine.”

            And outside sitting on a scullery chair each he told me about the Nazis and Hitler, and the men, and women, who had allowed such a thing to happen.  He told me how nasty our playground Nasties really were and showed me some of the pictures and explained what they meant.  We fell silent for a while and watched the chickens scratching in the dirt of the shed and our ginger cat stretch in the sun, yawn and go back to his snoozing.  Those people, those Jews, were like the chickens; all the time they were useful they lived but, as soon as they were too weak to work they were killed off.  I shudder at the comparison.  They too were consigned to the ovens.  The difference was that we fed our chickens properly and when we had one for dinner it had been looked after before we – well, murdered it.

            These people were not even fed properly.

            “How many?” I asked.

            “We don't know.” He said.

            And then of course I asked the difficult question: “Why would people want to do such a dreadful thing?”

            Again he shrugged his shoulders and fell silent staring bleakly into the distance and it was a long time before he spoke.

            “I have no idea why,” he said.

            My uncle wept.

            I looked up at the house, the slate roof on top of the yellow and red brick and, knowing that, like my uncle had said those poor people had nowhere to go, I was glad of the roof over our heads; glad also that now my questions were in part answered.  

            Yes, We had won the war.

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Extract from Fleeting Shadows by Lisamarie Lamb

Emma carefully put her head out of the small gap in the door of the Hansom cab. “Are we there?” Knowing full well that they were not, knowing that they were a walk away from the Victoria Club yet, Emma’s heart jumped a little – what arduous issue was rearing up now? Why was nothing ever simple anymore? She wondered if it ever had been.

“Not exactly, Miss.” The driver, John McDonald, shuffled from one foot to the other, turning his cap in his hands. “It’s just… There’s a bit of a commotion up ahead, and the horse won’t like waiting. I know it’s a liberty, Miss, but if the horse gets afeared and bolts I could lose my carriage. And there’s ever such a long line of cabs ahead of us.”

“A commotion?” Emma was curious, so much so that she forgot to be annoyed at the delay. She could hear, now that she had been informed of it, a strange kind of chanting coming from further up the road. “What is it? What is everyone waiting for?” Chanting reminded her of her time in Africa, among the tribes in the wilderness, but this was not the same. This was not the comforting charm of old traditions. This was angry. This was scared.

“Oh, nothing much, I wouldn’t have thought. But whatever it is is in the road.” The man clearly wanted to say something more; his mouth was opening slightly and then clicking closed before any words that he might regret could escape.

Emma chose not to watch his discomfort any longer, even though it did amuse her. And she thought she knew what he was trying to say. “If you cannot take your animal any further, then perhaps you might escort me to the door of the club? I would appreciate it very much.”  

  The smile that broke across the scruffy man’s face told Emma that yes, she had guessed correctly. She stepped from the carriage, being careful not to tread on the freshly stitched hem of her newly made dress, and took the driver’s arm, linking it with hers. “Shall we?” she said, indicating the Victoria Club, the red brick work and creamy corner stones that Emma could see a little way ahead of them. She could also see a gathering of people standing outside, and was that… could she see placards waving in the air?

“If you would rather, Miss, I could take you home again.”

Emma shook her head before she had considered the driver’s offer. She shook her head again, more slowly, when she had had time to digest it. “No, no, I shan’t do that.” She looked at the man and smiled. “I have been looking forward to this ball for some time.” She winked, and, flustered, John McDonald stepped forward, taking Emma with him, almost making her stumble with the sudden force of the movement.

As the pair drew closer to the Victoria Club they could make out the building bedecked with lanterns and baubles, fluttering flags and streaming ribbon decorations in various shades of gold and black. It looked as expensive as the invitation had. It looked rich. It looked, in other words, like Cedric Greet.

But the crowd gathered outside was not the usual group of curious spectators, wanting to see who was attending, wanting to stare in awe at the dresses, at the glamour, at those luckier than they were. Emma knew those people. She had, in her youth, been one of them. Before she realised that it was better to be watched than to be watching.

This crowd was loud. It was moving. It was stamping its feet and waving large wooden signs. It was not happy.

Emma squeezed the driver’s arm, stopping him before they were noticed. “I should put my mask on,” she explained. “The invitation states that it must be worn upon arrival, worn until Sir Cedric makes his speech and we are told that it can be removed.” She slipped the mask over her face, instantly feeling strangely anonymous, even though half of her face was still on show, and most likely recognisable. To some, at least. To a number, she imagined. To everyone if they could see her scar.

 As they approached the crowd they could see now that it was marching, in a circle, out across the Broadway, the road in front of the Victoria Club, thus preventing traffic from passing in either direction. Impatient carriage drivers shook their heads, shouted, cursed, as even more impatient horses stamped their hooves on the cobbles, snorting exhalations of furious breath.

But more impatient than all of these were the men and woman within the carriages. Dressed up, masked, excited, invitations clutched in expectation – and hope – of showing them to someone, anyone. Emma craned her neck as she passed the ones on her side of the blockade and discovered that she knew the names of some of the people within. “Mrs Jones!” she called out, “Miss Baker! Pay your drivers and follow me! Take to the streets, the walk is not far and whatever these people are protesting against surely won’t affect us!”

But no one exited their carriages. No one dared.

And as Emma and her driver drew up to the circling protesters she could see why she was the only one. The anti–masquerade brigade had found Sheerness, preaching about the evils of a masked ball, and handing out crudely printed pamphlets, detailing exactly what they knew to happen at these wicked celebrations, with illustrations, to anyone who happened to pass by. Their placards, raised high in the air and bobbing up and down were brief and damning; Ban this Foreign Influence! Masks are Immoral! We are Civilised in England!

Marie by James Apps

When we heard the news there was silence.

                Marie was dead!

                I felt a cold grip on my heart and tears came easily.  The whole village stopped for a moment, shocked, people whispered.

                Marie’s dead!

                She.

                The bright girl behind the Co-op counter.  The lively voice in the gaslit shop with its stacked goods and filled shelves. The smell of her scent was a honeysuckle bloom in a kerosene heated room with clean sawdust on the floor adding to the musk magic aroma.

                I saw her laying pale on the road.

                She was surrounded by young men, frightened young faces and two sobbing girls. I saw her from the bus seat and I knew. Death has a way of saying ‘I am here mortal’.  Death and funerals bring rain. It was raining, a fine rain that drenched with its persistence, wetting everything under lowering clouds. The bus eased past moving down the hill on the wrong side of the road and there was not an eye that didn’t look at the sadness on the wet road.  We looked at each other before the bus pulled in to the last stop. Daft Colin was at the terminal waiting to direct the bus.  He wore a slickered raincoat and Al Jolson gloves and as soon as the bus moved from the stop to turn around he began his hand waving. 

                The driver stopped the bus and spoke quietly to him. Colin visibly slumped and with his hand folded across his chest he walked slowly off. I watched him go and walked quietly with my mother across the road and on up the hill.

                Marie was dead.

                Later we found out what happened. She was riding with a bunch of cyclists down Brake’s hill and her front wheel hit something, they said, and she wobbled across the centre line at high speed. She bounced off the unforgiving side of a car crawling up the hill and flipped over the top to smash against the tarmac. Her friends tried to help her but it was too late.

                Marie was dead.

                She was going to be married to one of the young cyclists. Had all her life before her. What a lovely girl! Such a shame that one so young should.... The whole village talked about her, said how they had last spoken to her. So unexpected, tragic, a loss.  The village mourned and so did I.

                But I didn’t know her.

                And yet I will never forget that pale face on the wet road.

                Marie was dead.  

Extract from Groene Vitriool by Jo Eden

When I first came to live on Sheppey in October 2008, I started to research the Island’s ecology and history.  One of the many things I discovered was that a substance called copperas was processed here on quite a large scale in the 16^th C and even up to the 19^th Century. Copperas was a very important commodity, with many commercial uses, bringing wealth to England and in particular to Queenborough.  I found a very short reference to a man named Mathias Falconer, by historian William Lambard in his “Perambulations of Kent”, written in 1570.  Falconer was a Dutch immigrant who started processing copperas at Queenborough.  It is thought to be the earliest known reference to a chemical factory in Britain. This is my imagining of his story.

A Reading from a Letter locked in a small iron box, which was dug from a trench, during the archaeological excavation of Queenborough Castle in 2005.   It was addressed to Anna Falconer, closed with the seal of Mathias Falconer.

My Dear Anna,

Before I am laid in my grave, I am compelled to write this letter to you as my dear wife.  It has come to you sealed with instructions “To be opened by you alone after my death”.   There’s a dreadful ache in the sinews in my old hands, which makes this all the harder to write, but I must try to set things right by you, before it is too late.

I know that you have always shared with me a deep love of the flat heath-lands around the home we built together back in Brabant, in our Dutch motherland in the year 1545.

You were my companion and help through the years I spent learning my trade as an alchemical engineer, working with what to you was the accursed copperas.   In truth, I wished only to give the best support I could to our little family.   But you know it became impossible for us to worship as our consciences saw fit, because the Spaniards still ruled North Brabant.

Oh Anna, I remember you fondly as a young woman of 20, dressed all in white and pink for our wedding day, what a joyous day that was!  And do you remember that Christmas-time when we visited your cousins in Antwerp?  The goose was so fat we thought it would not be cooked in time for the festive meal.  The trees were all dressed in white and the bells were ringing out when we took our little Pieter tobogganing for the first time after morning church.  How he loved it!  Reluctant as you were, but brave woman that you are, you took a turn on the sled, and how you laughed when you fell into that snowdrift and came out looking like a snow-woman, with your bright red nose!

Ah yes, we had some happiness in our years together and I was reluctant to take you and our beloved Pieter, who was then but seven years old, to England, against your wishes, but I felt it was for the best.  I believed it would give us freedom from religious persecution, and give us the chance to build a better quality of life.   And it did give us those things, did it not, Anna?

Think what a guileful Act the Pope decreed, to make Antwerp the only place where copperas could be bought!  Hah, those Papists sowed up the market as tight as a duck’s arse!  So, in the year of ‘65, when the Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth of England offered up monopolies to “certain Dutch Mynerall men”, I had to take the chance to come to England.  I am proud to be one of those few men charged by the English Crown with the task of seeking places which yielded the stones to make copperas.  Aye, that was the same year that the Spaniards sent their Armada against the English fleet, and were defeated by the clever strategies of Drake and our Queen.

I won’t forget what a time of unease and triumph that was!  Stalwart fishermen from Queenborough, Leysdown, and Minster were called to sail with Drake for their country in 11 small ships, such a time!

Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  So it was that, in ‘73, I fetched up with you and Pieter at Queenborough on the Isles of Sheppey, and we were furnished with very serviceable quarters, at the Castle.   I had found that copperas stones were indeed plentiful on the Minster and Warden shores.

Those heavy, knobbly, dull grey pebbles, full of iron.  Only when they are broken open and exposed to the air and sea-water, do you see their true essence.   Pale green globules like fish eggs lie on the cut grey-green surface which shines like metal.  Your nostrils pick up the faint but unwholesome bad-egg smell of brimstone.  Peuch - and it has a nauseous taste! You didn’t know what copperas was at that time, and God knows you always hated it after! But I still think it is almost a magical substance!