Memories are made of this

The school from hell
“Have a good day at school” said their new neighbour, going to visit their mum as Esther tore down the dank tunnel following her equally displaced brothers into the street. Spotting a rag and bone man in the distance, then with further wonder, they watched a child feed his horse sugar lumps, then he was off with a clip and a clop and a bump and a rattle as the cart drew slowly away.
“I do hope they will like their new schools. I have heard so much about them from Father, but people can be wrong can’t they?” Laura heard Magi strike yet another match, and the sickly smell of tobacco increased and built in her scullery as she stood and emptied bucketful’s of neat bleach down the plug hole. Trying to mask the smell of drains, or was it sewerage? She so much wanted to do everything right, intensely aware that the authorities might interfere if anything went wrong.
There was her mother and father aggrieved and simmering down the road, but also wanting to be seen to do the right thing in their seemingly tight, caring community. Them with a daughter back with her tail between her legs and shabby lost kids to care for – as they had already pointed out in Esther’s hearing.
Several hours later, Laura pondered, as she felt her way down the street with her counting steps, noting gaps and steps. And moving out from prams and scooters and bins, unaware of mini-skirts or bouffant hair and too sad to hear or care about rock and roll on the 14-inch television at her father’s house.
Laura then headed toward the Old Village Green where her favourite aunt used to live until quite recently. As she sat restlessly on the bench, in the middle of the green, she heard a quietly spoken voice which she recognized in a moment. It was Beth Williams.
“Deep in thought, Laura, that lovely young man of yours…James wasn’t it?”
Laura nodded and replaced her handkerchief into her jacket pocket. Beth reached out and touched Laura on her hands as they rested uneasily on her lap.
“I was so very sorry to hear of your loss. Mother wrote and told me just before I had finished my nursing training in Wands worth. I wish I could help you. Please ask, as you know where I am living now. Our cottage is three doors away from where you’re lovely aunt used to live on the Old Village Green”.
Sensing Laura’s discomfort she changed the subject clumsily.
“I was just thinking, before you came along, how it was only a few years ago Finedon’s tranquility was so suddenly shattered. Our family was down the Grove, you know, and simply drinking a cup of tea at the table in the scullery when our older brother swore he could hear the sound of a German plane. We all darted outside, of course, only to discover that he was right. A German plane was indeed flying very low right alongside Finedon Hall and near our cottage in Mill Lane”.
“Yes, I know” replied Laura, grateful for something else to talk about instead of how lonely and frightened she constantly felt. “If I remember correctly, Auntie spoke of that in one of her letters. I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for you all”.
“Yes, Laura, we had not the time to think or truly realize our fear till later. We just rushed out into the open fields. Then, as we lay there, it seemed just like the plane was heading right towards our cottage. But then, as it was flying overhead, two Spitfires shot up almost vertically from beyond Holland Walk, I believe. I remember then how they gained height, banking as Polish men from below with ack-ack guns opened fire on the enemy aircraft. I will never forget how we saw the German’s guns slump. Then the plane seemed to roll over in mid-air and, God, how thick black smoke seemed to belch out. Simultaneously the Polish troops, who were billeted in our field in tents about fifty yards away, opened fire. We heard the stricken Dornier 217 veer to the right and, as it did so, trailing black smoke hung right over Finedon. It rapidly lost height, finally crashing somewhere along the main road. I will never forget the speed of the Polish soldiers’ reactions either. One moment they were lying flat on their backs sunbathing and the next they were firing like there was no tomorrow. I recall how I could see the magazines flashing in the sunlight and emptying onto the ground at tremendous speed. Our neighbour Mrs. Green was standing there wringing her hands, for only months before her young son, Michael, had been killed at Tobruck”.
Although desperate and alone it was necessary to remember that others had suffered losses much greater than hers in the past.
Laura’s ankles later just touched the flowering pathway of May and wild flowers jutting, stretching and stroking through the lattice fence next to the Church of England School where her contemporaries had once gone whilst she had been tearfully sent away to boarding school.

The town of Finedon had once extended further west towards Queen’s Cross. It had then been approached by a road past the Bell Inn, reputed to be the oldest established house in the county, and then on to the long meadow, which was now a sewerage farm where dear Nasal still worked. Many of the old houses had been demolished, but in the valley of the village crumbling and leaning stonework and loose wires still stood and interiors of houses exposed. Yet all Esther could see was rubble and mess around her. The Town Crier, Dingy Underwood, had long since ceased doing his job of loudly ringing his hand-bell which sat on a shelf now in his grandson’s grocery shop in Allen Road. His son Bill, also nicknamed Dingy, held onto memories of how, in the distant past, his grandfather proclaimed the news of births, deaths and marriages which was something that the local paper had done for years now.
In the past the doctor, vicar and business people were all members of the council and so it was they who had once run the everyday life of their town. Tales had it that once a man who had murdered his wife was caught and held overnight down at the local Tudor Gate Hotel. Now, though, things were very different, as folk got on with their lives and the local town policeman was always very visible. This did not stop him from having the little flashing blue light removed from his panda car or, on another occasion, his bike nicked.
The school that Esther was reluctantly heading for had been established as a girls’ charity school in about 1714, where the poor girls, destined mainly as waiting/serving staff were clothed and educated by Sir Gilbert Dolben the lord of a nearby manor whose grand lawns and a tennis court swept close to the River Nene, where canal boats dreamily drifted in the summertime. Then, having moved through the main streets of the village, she cut through a back way and passed the wheelwright’s property, Nightingale Cottage and, in the square, the Temperance Hall, whilst at the top of Law’s Lane the War Memorial stood, listing so many townsfolk who had lost their lives, or so Esther had been told by her auntie with a nose for keeping abreast of the times. Her feet lightly touched the pavement as she dashed by the Co-op Grocery Department, then on the corner near the Conservative Club, a builder’s, and over across the green, a shoe factory where an elderly man with a beard sat on a low iron-stone wall tapping the tobacco from his clay pipe into the Quaker House grounds.
Then on she hurtled, past the farmhouse-cum-public-house, the Gate Inn, and along the High Street. The seemingly pretty village was surrounded by countryside that consisted of Finedon Hall with its grounds and farms as well as iron-stone pits – many of the houses she passed were made of mellow iron-stone. The house she lived in was quite different from those. Whilst passing she wondered about those inhabitants. Any thoughts were preferable to the fear of the school and chatter sprinkled in the street, like sugar in sweet tea, as she joined in with street games and tried to find her place in life. Surely things could never be as bad as they seemed.