Susan in NC’s Reviews > Spam Tomorrow > Status Update

“ Even in Piccadilly Circus the crowd showed none of the delirious folly that Noel Coward’s Cavalcade led me to believe was exhibited on the night of 11th November 1918. There was less exuberance than on an ordinary peacetime Boat Race Night. Licensing hours were extended, and it was good to see the doors of restaurants and bars and pubs left open with their lights shining out on to the pavement.”

“ Suddenly the war in Europe was over. On Marian’s fourth birthday, after the last few days of confusion in Berlin, she and I listened to the wireless announcement of the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces. “Marian,” I said, “you must remember this all your life. It’s history.” But the reception was poor; and I could see she would forget at once any word she happened to hear.”

“If Christmas was depressing, the final influenza season of the war was more so…At the end of March, Montgomery and Eisenhower crossed the Rhine with their troops in force. Now we hung on the radio news again, fearing to miss any detail of the advances on all fronts. As though a long railway journey were nearly ended, we began to gather our belongings together and collect ourselves ready to alight.”

“ Donald said that, although there was still much heavy fighting to be done, allied victory was now certain—and not too far off. He started to look for a house for us in London. It would have to have something of a garden for the children to play in. Spending the most austere Christmas of the war at the rectory was depressing. It was not as I remembered the Christmases of my nursery days.”

“ I could not yet share Molly’s and my mother’s enthusiasm for it all. But then I was a newcomer to V1s and V2s. They were not my business as they were theirs. I supposed I too should learn to sound callous about them. We settled down into a quiet routine, which these strange deadly weapons failed to disturb. Every day fewer came. The channel ports were being recaptured by the Allies.”

“The loud-speakers announced that our train was drawing in to another platform. We went across and got in it. Soon, very slowly, it creaked out of the station, moving as though experimentally over many temporary lines. The devastation since I last travelled that way had increased greatly. Flying bombs and V2s had left great ugly sockets in the already badly mauled suburbs.”

“ Meanwhile the Berkshires had taught us enough about the trade for us to make several changes before our next set of clients arrived. Nobody else walked out, or even admitted that they nearly had. Several Londoners came, and the peace of the Cotswolds after living with flying bombs—and soon with the new V2 rockets as well—was enough to compensate for such niceties as we were still lacking.”

“But each doll took eight hours to make: and I reluctantly had to face the hard fact that I was earning only fourpence-three-farthings an hour, even less than I earned as a fruit-picker. I threw myself into a violent orgy of saving, to the great discomfort of Julie and the children. I saved on paraffin and candles and matches and hot water and tea-leaves.”

“ From then on, friends and relations from London and the south of England frequently came down to us for a few days’ rest from the exhausting strain of the flying bombs.”

““What I’ve seen is as good as a ghost,” said Alan... “It’ll be in the papers tomorrow, so there’s no harm in telling you.” He described the terrifying robot-controlled aeroplane filled with high-explosive that German scientists had devised.The Ministry were busy trying to think of a less alarming name for it than those invented by the London press…”