critical Rose Crocker and of Roger Bayliss, her detached and cold employer, and he had seen her gain the respect and finally the affection of all of them.
Edward John had always understood that to resist this half-term visiting arrangement only added to his mother’s problems so, apart from the first chaotic occasion, when he gave his father the slip at Paddington Station and made his way back to the Post Stone farms, he had dutifully complied with it.
There were boys at his school who had lost their fathers in the war. The form was that you were fetched from your classroom and taken to the headmaster’s study. After ten minutes or so you were handed over to the matron who led you to the sickbay where you were given tea and biscuits and allowed to remain, sometimes until the next day but more often for just a few hours, after which you were released, red-eyed, back into the routine of the school day.
In Edward John’s case the impact of the news of his family’s break up had been more protracted. His father, a middle-ranking civil servant, based at the Air Ministry but deployed near Cambridge, made several visits to the rented rooms in Exeter. On each occasion Edward John had been sent on errands, to feed the pigeons in the cathedral square or to buy himself a comic, while his mother was given more details of the uncompromising news that his father, having formed an alliance with the young WRAF officer who wasacting as his assistant, now wished to marry her.
‘How do you feel about all this, Edward John?’ his uncle had asked him, while visiting his boarding school and making arrangements to pay his fees.
‘I don’t really know,’ the boy had answered, vaguely. It was true. It was possibly the conviction that whatever he might feel would have little or no effect on what was about to happen to him that produced an impression of indifference. Maybe he was more affected than he realised by his father’s behaviour and was in a state of passive denial. His main emotion was an undefined sense of shame that his father, this man, whom he had loved and been proud of and who, he had assumed, loved him, clearly did not and had betrayed both son and wife. From being their protector he had become indifferent to them and was now deserting them. Edward John had watched his mother absorb this situation. He saw her draw on her courage, muster her skills – which, after an early and apparently happy marriage, were limited to domestic ones – and set about providing for the two of them. Had she been childless, Alice’s high-school education would have equipped her for some form of skilled work in one of the armed services, but with a small boy in tow, who needed to be well and safely educated where no bombs would fall, Alice soon found that her work opportunities were limited.
At first, Edward John, barely nine years old when his life was so drastically changed by the war, was understandably anxious about how these changes would affect him. Although his mother did her best to conceal how much her husband’s desertion had damaged her, Edward John was aware of herunhappiness. His reaction to the news that she was considering working as warden in a Land Army hostel had immediately intrigued him. ‘What’s a hostel? What does a warden have to do? Will there be animals and can I come too?’ had been his first list of questions. To which Alice had responded, ‘It’s where land girls live when they work on the farms. A warden has to supervise the hostel, cook the meals and take care of the girls. Yes, there will be animals and yes, you can come every weekend. You will be a weekly boarder at your prep school.’ There were further enquiries regarding what, exactly, land girls were. What did supervising mean and what sort of animals would there be and wasn’t there a village school he could go to instead of being a boarder in Exeter? The inquisition had continued, concluding with Alice informing him firmly that, yes, there was a
Edward John had always understood that to resist this half-term visiting arrangement only added to his mother’s problems so, apart from the first chaotic occasion, when he gave his father the slip at Paddington Station and made his way back to the Post Stone farms, he had dutifully complied with it.
There were boys at his school who had lost their fathers in the war. The form was that you were fetched from your classroom and taken to the headmaster’s study. After ten minutes or so you were handed over to the matron who led you to the sickbay where you were given tea and biscuits and allowed to remain, sometimes until the next day but more often for just a few hours, after which you were released, red-eyed, back into the routine of the school day.
In Edward John’s case the impact of the news of his family’s break up had been more protracted. His father, a middle-ranking civil servant, based at the Air Ministry but deployed near Cambridge, made several visits to the rented rooms in Exeter. On each occasion Edward John had been sent on errands, to feed the pigeons in the cathedral square or to buy himself a comic, while his mother was given more details of the uncompromising news that his father, having formed an alliance with the young WRAF officer who wasacting as his assistant, now wished to marry her.
‘How do you feel about all this, Edward John?’ his uncle had asked him, while visiting his boarding school and making arrangements to pay his fees.
‘I don’t really know,’ the boy had answered, vaguely. It was true. It was possibly the conviction that whatever he might feel would have little or no effect on what was about to happen to him that produced an impression of indifference. Maybe he was more affected than he realised by his father’s behaviour and was in a state of passive denial. His main emotion was an undefined sense of shame that his father, this man, whom he had loved and been proud of and who, he had assumed, loved him, clearly did not and had betrayed both son and wife. From being their protector he had become indifferent to them and was now deserting them. Edward John had watched his mother absorb this situation. He saw her draw on her courage, muster her skills – which, after an early and apparently happy marriage, were limited to domestic ones – and set about providing for the two of them. Had she been childless, Alice’s high-school education would have equipped her for some form of skilled work in one of the armed services, but with a small boy in tow, who needed to be well and safely educated where no bombs would fall, Alice soon found that her work opportunities were limited.
At first, Edward John, barely nine years old when his life was so drastically changed by the war, was understandably anxious about how these changes would affect him. Although his mother did her best to conceal how much her husband’s desertion had damaged her, Edward John was aware of herunhappiness. His reaction to the news that she was considering working as warden in a Land Army hostel had immediately intrigued him. ‘What’s a hostel? What does a warden have to do? Will there be animals and can I come too?’ had been his first list of questions. To which Alice had responded, ‘It’s where land girls live when they work on the farms. A warden has to supervise the hostel, cook the meals and take care of the girls. Yes, there will be animals and yes, you can come every weekend. You will be a weekly boarder at your prep school.’ There were further enquiries regarding what, exactly, land girls were. What did supervising mean and what sort of animals would there be and wasn’t there a village school he could go to instead of being a boarder in Exeter? The inquisition had continued, concluding with Alice informing him firmly that, yes, there was a
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