The Bomb Girl Brides Read online

  ‘And here’s the toilet and bathroom,’ Nora chipped in, anxious to help. ‘We’ve got running hot water,’ she added proudly. ‘Fancy that! No more soaking in a tin bath in front of the fire, eh?’ she said with genuine pleasure.

  Seeing Julia’s bleak expression, Maggie gave a warm smile. ‘Would you like us to help you make up your bed?’

  Tears pricked the back of Julia’s eyes as she gazed at the sheets and blankets piled up in military fashion at the end of the bed. Gritting her teeth, she recalled her father’s stern words. ‘Make us proud, do your duty and do it well, my darling.’

  Before her resolve broke and she made a complete fool of herself, Julia turned abruptly to Nora, Maggie and Rosa who were all hovering uncertainly in the doorway.

  ‘No, thank you. Goodnight,’ she said in a tight clipped voice, before quickly shutting the door on their startled faces.

  Creeping back into the living room, the girls sat around the crackling wood-burner, where they whispered to one another.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ said Maggie in a barely suppressed voice. ‘She’s so posh!’

  ‘Shhh!’ Rosa hissed. ‘She might hear you.’

  ‘One thing’s for sure,’ said Nora. ‘Miss Julia Thorpe in yon back bedroom is never, ever going to fit in at the Phoenix!’

  3. The Shop Floor

  Rosa, Nora and Maggie were keen to relate the latest domestic events to their old friend Kit, who worked in the filling shed, whilst the three of them worked on the cordite line. On long, twelve-hour shifts they filled bomb cases to a specified level with cordite, then inserted an empty tube for the detonator, which would be loaded further down the line. The Canary Girls, as the girls on the cordite line were nicknamed because of the yellow chemical staining on their skin, made sure they tucked their hair tightly under their turbans (which were part of the mandatory factory uniform); if they didn’t, any escaping hair would be bleached bright yellow by the dangerous explosive. Older, more experienced Canary Girls said the unsightly stains could be removed with milk, but, as far as Rosa, Maggie and Nora were concerned, it never completely worked.

  A former resident of the cowshed, Kit had moved out after she’d married; she now lived with her husband, Ian, and her young son Billy, and another baby was on the way. Their home was a big old farmhouse on the Pennine Moors, which meant she regularly needed an update on the latest developments in her former home.

  ‘You’ll never believe it!’ Nora cried, as Kit settled down at the canteen table beside her friends.

  Seeing Nora’s flushed face, Kit responded with an indulgent smile. ‘Go on, I can see you’re dying to tell me.’

  ‘We’ve got a new girl in the cowshed!’ Nora announced.

  ‘A POSH new girl,’ Maggie added, as she handed round cigarettes, which Kit, previously a heavy smoker, just couldn’t take these days and therefore politely turned down. ‘She’s rich too, from the look of her smart clothes,’ Maggie said a little enviously.

  ‘Is she nice?’ Kit asked.

  ‘She seems pleasant enough,’ Rosa said diplomatically. ‘It’s early days for the poor girl.’

  ‘She went straight to bed almost as soon as she arrived,’ Nora said in a disappointed voice.

  ‘She’s definitely not from these parts,’ Maggie informed Kit. ‘You can tell by her accent that she’s a Southerner.’

  ‘All lah-di-dah!’ Nora giggled. ‘She won’t understand a word us Lancashire lasses have to say.’

  Rosa burst out laughing. ‘Hell fire!’ she exclaimed in a deep Lancashire accent. ‘I didn’t understand anything when I first arrived at the Phoenix.’

  Nora immediately made an excuse for Rosa, whom she unconditionally adored. ‘You’re different,’ she said with a smile. ‘You’re Italian!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter where anybody’s from,’ Rosa pointed out. ‘You Bomb Girls are a tight-knit community; it takes time to get to know you.’

  ‘Are you saying we’re stand-offish?’ Nora asked in astonishment.

  ‘No, not at all, you’re welcoming – but behind the welcome you can, occasionally,’ Rosa added cautiously, ‘be harsh to judge.’

  Feeling guilty, big-hearted Nora turned to Maggie. ‘We didn’t say owt to upset Julia, did we?’

  Maggie shook her long thick auburn curls that she’d just released from the restraints of her white turban. ‘How could we have?’ she demanded. ‘She went straight to bed.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ Kit asked curiously, as she looked around the canteen packed with women smoking cigarettes and drinking large mugs of hot tea.

  ‘She’s being debriefed by Malc,’ Maggie said, as she rolled her eyes in amusement.

  ‘I don’t know how she’ll ever fit in,’ Nora said bleakly, repeating her words from the previous night. ‘Not here at work or in the cowshed with us either.’

  ‘Just give her time,’ Rosa urged.

  Kit smiled as she recalled her emotions when she first entered the cowshed. ‘I thought it was the most wonderful place on God’s earth,’ she confessed.

  ‘Me too, I love it,’ Maggie agreed.

  ‘But if you’ve been brought up posh, unlike us, it might come as a bit of a shock,’ Nora pointed out.

  Maggie lit up a Woodbine, and, after slowly blowing out a plume of smoke, she murmured thoughtfully, ‘God only knows what Malc will make of Miss High and Mighty!’

  Malc, in fact, had taken to the new girl, who – although not from the same class as most of the other women in the factory – seemed bright and willing, and very curious about the bomb-making process.

  ‘What happens to the bombs once they leave here?’ Julia asked.

  ‘Well, that information is top secret,’ Malc replied. ‘But I don’t think I’m giving away any state secrets by saying they’re taken where they’re most needed on the front line. You’ll see them being shipped out of the Phoenix just about every day.’

  After Malc had carefully explained the dangerous sparking potential of jewellery, hairpins and slides on the factory floor, Julia assiduously checked there was nothing metal about her person before changing into the Bomb Girls’ uniform in the ladies’ toilets: white overalls, a white turban and heavy-soled rubber boots. Once Julia was kitted up, Malc led her to the filling shed, where he introduced her to Kit, who was back on her shift after the break.

  ‘This is where you’ll be working, and this is Kit: she’ll show you the ropes,’ Malc said confidently, then left the two women to get to know each other.

  Though they were both wearing identical white overalls, Kit could immediately see that Julia had style. Even though weighed down by ugly rubber boots (which, like the jewellery ban, reduced the danger of sparking on the factory floor), Julia walked with an easy confidence, and she carried herself with a barely perceivable elegance. Sitting beside Kit, Julia listened intently to her teacher’s instructions on how to fill fuses.

  ‘Our job is to blend this mucky grey gunpowder,’ Kit started as she rolled around the explosive with her fingertips. ‘Once it’s smooth, we pack it into one of these metal cases,’ she said. ‘When the case is full, tap it gently, then stack it on to the tray.’ Kit carefully deposited the fuse on to a wooden tray on her workbench. ‘We work with twenty-five fuses per tray, and these are regularly collected by Malc, who replaces the full trays with empty ones.’

  Always curious, Julia asked, ‘What happens to the fuse cases once they leave us?’

  ‘Further down the production line the loaded fuses will be attached to a variety of bombs and explosives,’ Kit explained. ‘Now, come on,’ she said with a grin. ‘Your turn.’

  Kit smiled sympathetically as Julia handled the fine gunpowder that trickled from her fumbling fingers. ‘Don’t worry if it’s awkward to start with,’ she said reassuringly. ‘It’s close work and back-breaking too, especially if you’re pregnant,’ she said with a shy smile.

  Julia glanced at Kit’s uniform, which masked her pregnancy.

  ‘I’m four months gone; my baby�
��s due in June,’ Kit said with a happy smile.

  ‘Is it wise for a pregnant woman to be working in these conditions?’ Julia asked abruptly.

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t. This stuff’ – Kit nodded towards the tray of dark-grey gunpowder – ‘sometimes makes me retch,’ she confessed. ‘But there’s a war on and we’re conscripted women, so who am I to pick a fight with Mr Churchill?’ Kit said, as she turned her attention to expertly filling the fuse cases, which poor, inexperienced Julia continued to struggle with. It was a relief when the factory hooter sounded and they could both get up and stretch their aching backs.

  ‘Time for a cuppa,’ Kit announced. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.’

  They walked side by side to the bathroom, where they scrupulously cleaned the gunpowder off their hands in the sinks that lined one side of the long bare room, then made their way to the canteen, passing a crowd of bustling girls and chattering women, several of whom called out to Kit.

  ‘Hiya, Kitty!’

  ‘How’s that bonny little Billy of yours?’

  After warmly responding to her colleagues, Kit turned to Julia and said earnestly, ‘The Phoenix women are good women. They might take some getting used to but, believe me, they’ve got hearts of gold – you’ve just got to dig a bit to find them.’

  Thinking that she had no intention of digging around for people’s hearts, least of all their affections, Julia smiled bleakly and followed Kit into the canteen, where they picked up mugs of tea and chip butties from the counter.

  ‘This way,’ Kit called to the new girl, who looked all set to go and sit at a table on her own. ‘We usually sit together at break time,’ Kit explained as she led Julia (who would love to have sat on her own and read the morning papers) to the table where Rosa, Maggie and Nora were waiting for them. As they approached, Julia bowed her head at the curious, staring women all around her and obediently followed Kit, who drew out a metal chair for her.

  ‘How did Julia get on in the filling shed?’ Maggie asked curiously.

  ‘Very well,’ Kit replied. ‘She’s a quick learner.’

  Julia wriggled uncomfortably; she wished they’d all stop talking about her like she wasn’t there.

  ‘We’re all on the cordite line,’ Rosa explained to Julia. ‘On the other side of the factory.’

  ‘I don’t know which is worse, cordite staining your skin and hair bright yellow or working with mucky black gunpowder,’ Nora said with a grimace. ‘Neither does owt for your complexion.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll get used to it,’ Julia said, as she smothered a yawn; she was only three hours into her twelve-hour shift and she was already longing for her bed.

  ‘Were you working in munitions before you came here?’ Maggie inquired.

  With her mug of tea halfway to her lips, Julia paused; how much should she say? Even though she’d only recently arrived, she could already see that she was an oddball; she certainly didn’t want to flag up anything that might set her even further apart from the Bomb Girls.

  ‘No, I, er, I worked in a library,’ she answered.

  Nora in her guileless innocent way turned wide-eyed with wonder. ‘You worked in a proper library, with all them books?’ she gasped.

  Julia smiled tightly as she nodded. ‘Yes, I like books; in fact, I read a lot.’

  Nora shook her head. ‘I’m a rotten reader,’ she confessed without any shame. ‘I can’t concentrate and the words seem to dance before mi eyes till I get a belting headache. I suppose I’m just a numb bugger, that’s what mi mam always used to say to me,’ she said with a cheerful laugh.

  ‘Nora, you must stop putting yourself down,’ Rosa protested. ‘You taught me more about working on the cordite line than any of the bosses.’

  Nora blushed at her words of praise. ‘That’s nowt,’ she answered dismissively. ‘Building bombs is what we do at the Phoenix.’

  Not to be outdone, Nora – who was inordinately proud of her darling Rosa – said with a ring in her voice, ‘Rosa’s Italian! She’s been on a gondola – and she’s been to university too, studying summat …’ Her voice trailed away as she turned to Maggie for advice. ‘What were it she were studying in them foreign parts?’ she whispered.

  ‘Painting,’ Maggie said, as she burst out laughing. ‘And we’re not talking about redecorating the back bedroom – she’s a proper artist,’ Maggie boasted.

  Rosa blushed at her friends’ sweet but rather embarrassing disclosure. ‘I studied art in my home town of Padua, before the war,’ she modestly explained to Julia, who was struggling with her bulky chip butty, which kept slipping sideways out of her fingers.

  ‘Oh, how interesting,’ she replied unenthusiastically, as she gave up the battle and dropped the greasy sandwich on to her plate.

  Nora, who could have eaten chip butties till they came out of her ears, gaped in disbelief at the discarded food. ‘Are you not eating that?’ she gasped in disbelief.

  Julia’s stomach turned as she gazed at the congealed chips on the dense white bread. ‘No, I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Can I have it?’ Nora asked.

  ‘Eeh, she’s got no shame that one!’ teased Maggie. ‘She’d eat owt!’

  ‘I hate to see good food go to waste,’ Nora remonstrated.

  Feeling like she was behaving like a spoilt brat, Julia couldn’t get rid of the offending chip butty quickly enough. ‘Have it,’ she said dismissively. ‘Please take it!’

  Rosa exchanged a disapproving look with Kit. Why did Julia have to be so brusque? It would do her no good if she wanted to make friends in the Phoenix; but Rosa had a strong feeling that Julia really wasn’t interested in making friends; she sensed that the new girl merely tolerated the munitions factory and everybody in it as part of her war effort.

  As Nora chomped contentedly on Julia’s rejected food, Maggie had a novel thought that amused her immensely, ‘What with Kit from Ireland, Rosa from Italy and now Julia from London, it looks like me and you, Nora, are the only locals.’

  Quickly swallowing the last of the sandwich, Nora reached across the table for her Woodbines. ‘Local yokels!’ she joked.

  As the girls around the table giggled at Nora’s silly joke, Maggie threw her a mock haughty glance.

  ‘You won’t call me a yokel on my wedding day!’ she promised. Hamming it up and putting on a posh voice, Maggie continued, ‘In fact – with a bit of luck – you won’t recognize me in my bridal gown and veil!’

  ‘OOOOH!’ came a collective teasing cry from her friends.

  Julia, longing for the work hooter to go off so she could escape the endless round of banter, stared gloomily at the dirty Formica table-top and said nothing.

  Julia’s first day at the Phoenix was long and hard. The cold from the floors, constantly kept damp to reduce the risk of sparking, seeped up her legs until they were numb, and the bitter north wind whistling in through the permanently open factory doors made her shiver until her teeth chattered.

  ‘Remember to wear a woolly under your overall tomorrow,’ Kit advised at the end of an interminably long day. ‘It can only get colder.’

  As Kit hurried away to pick up her little son from the Phoenix’s nursery, Julia, tired to the bone, staggered up the dark lane, slipping and sliding on the unfamiliar wet cobbles. The cowshed was warm and welcoming, with the wood-burner crackling, but tea was no more than sardines on toast and a few leftover baked beans. Julia volunteered to wash up, and then – too tired to talk – she bade goodnight to her housemates.

  ‘I’m sorry to be unsociable,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’m just done in.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,’ Nora said with a kindly smile. ‘After my first shift I could have slept on a clothes line!’

  Shivering in her cold bedroom, Julia quickly changed into one of her pretty embroidered nightdresses.

  ‘God!’ she thought to herself. ‘What I need in this bloody ice-box is a thick winceyette nightie and a pair of bed-socks.’


  Grabbing a book, she gritted her teeth as she opened the covers and jumped into bed. Even though she’d put a stone hot-water bottle between the sheets earlier, they still felt damp – how she longed for an India-rubber one that she could clutch to her chest instead of the primitive heavy bottle that barely gave off any heat. And the heavy blanket that lay like a brick on top of her and smelt vaguely of mould Julia was sure had served time in the Crimean War. Shivering with cold and feeling utterly miserable, Julia fought back tears as she tried not to remember the warmth and comfort of her cosy bed at home, with its pretty eiderdown and plump feather pillows. There’d always be a glass of hot milk on the bedside, left by their devoted housekeeper, who’d spoilt Julia rotten since she was a child, and, if she was lucky, a few homemade shortbread biscuits. Forcing herself to focus on the here and now, she began to read her favourite Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but got no further than the second page before the book slipped from her fingers and she fell into a deep sleep of complete exhaustion.

  4. Settling In

  As freezing January slipped into wet February and a cloying grey mist covered the moors, Julia slowly became accustomed to her work. She was soon so quick and deft at packing fuse cases that Malc, who wasn’t given to flowery compliments, congratulated her.

  ‘Eeh, you’re a regular little fire-cracker,’ he chuckled, as he removed the filled tray from her bench and replaced it with an empty one. ‘You’ll break the world record for shell-filling if you carry on at this rate.’

  Julia liked Malc enormously, but she hadn’t the heart to tell him that his cheerful banter was wasted on her. Because of his broad Lancashire accent and use of local quirky idioms, she could understand only half of what he actually said.

  ‘Anyway,’ Julia told herself wearily, ‘I’m not at the Phoenix to make friends; this is my duty, and duty comes first in my family.’