The teacher evacuees, p.1
The Teacher Evacuees, page 1
The Teacher Evacuees
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright
Title Page
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
For the many teachers in my life who have inspired, encouraged and believed in me. I am grateful to and appreciate all of you.
Chapter One
August 1939
The post slid through the gleaming brass-plated letterbox at the tall, narrow North London house, landing on the black-and-white tiled floor with a soft thud.
‘Drat.’ Victoria McKaye stopped with one hand on the door, shoved a strand of thick, wavy, red-blonde hair beneath her straw summer hat and checked her diamond-studded wristwatch, a twenty-first birthday present from her parents. She’d miss the bus but there was no help for it.
Holding her handbag over one arm, she bent to collect the scattered letters. House rules. Whoever happened to be near the door when the post arrived collected and sorted it.
At nearly thirty, she should have her own home rather than sharing digs. However, she had a bedroom to herself and from what she’d seen of them so far, the other girls seemed like good fun. Younger than her, of course, but by now she’d got used to that.
She picked up her own post and flipped through it. Two letters, one from her mother and the other from her youngest sister, both with the Canadian stamps which already looked foreign. Nestled in between them, a slim, tan-coloured envelope emblazoned with the crest of the school where she’d start work in a fortnight.
No more dreary girls’ boarding school in the wilds of Yorkshire. She was finally in London – the heart of everything – and could build an independent life. As she put all the letters in her handbag, she paused. She already knew what her sister and mother would have said but perhaps the one from school was important.
She opened the front door and unsealed the letter, her shoe heels clicking down the front steps and along the walk bordered by pink and white roses, yellow dahlias and purple verbena in full August bloom.
Dear Miss McKaye.
She scanned the letter from the headmistress and then read it more closely, thoughts of the bus and her shopping trip forgotten.
‘Excuse me, Miss?’
‘Yes? Oh, sorry.’ She stepped aside and made herself smile at next-door-but-one’s maid, who today had a small, fair-haired girl with her, pushing a doll in a pram.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Miss.’
‘I’m fine. Ivy, isn’t it?’ Her landlady had mentioned the girl’s name in passing. Victoria stuffed the letter back into its envelope and then into her handbag.
‘Yes, Miss.’ The girl, who didn’t look more than fourteen or fifteen, nodded while the small girl at her side stared up at Victoria with solemn blue eyes.
‘Are you going to the park? If so, I’ll walk with you.’
‘You?’ Ivy put a hand to her mouth and then added ‘Miss.’
‘McKaye.’ Until now, she’d only seen the girl at a distance beating rugs in the back garden or collecting milk bottles.
The maid gave her a hesitant half-smile. ‘The milkman said you’re from Canada. My, that’s far away. My uncle went out there when I was little, and my mum never heard from him again except for one postcard when he reached Halifax. Mum says you can’t be too careful in them foreign places. You never know what might happen with wild animals and such.’
Maybe Victoria wasn’t the only one who’d wanted to disappear. In her case, though, she planned to go back to Canada one day, and she kept in regular touch with her family. Besides, England wasn’t truly foreign. Her parents were English, born right here in London. And her father’s parents, Granny and Grandad McKaye, were originally from Edinburgh in Scotland. Victoria had grown up with Canadian, English and Scottish traditions and took pride in her British ancestry. If things had been different… She shook her head and dismissed the unpleasant thought.
‘Although I am from Canada, and it is indeed very far away, I live here now.’ Victoria was a different person than she’d been back in Canada, in that sleepy rural town she wanted to forget. ‘What’s your name?’ Victoria bent to the girl, a pang of loss tugging in a place she’d buried deep. Nowadays, she didn’t let herself think about having children. The ones she taught at school had to be enough.
‘Diana. And that’s Lucinda.’ She gestured to the flaxen-haired doll in the pram. ‘Mummy’s cross so she sent us out with Ivy.’
‘All at sixes and sevens today, and no wonder.’ Ivy clicked her tongue against her teeth.
‘Daddy says we all have to do our duty, George and Harry shouted and Mummy cried.’ When Diana took the hand Victoria held out, Victoria’s heart squeezed at the trusting, chubby clasp. ‘My brothers are big and going away to fight in the war soon.’
‘Now, now. Don’t worry your head about any talk of fighting and war. It’ll all blow over. Won’t it?’ Ivy’s voice quavered.
Until a few minutes ago, Victoria had thought talk of war was just that, merely talk. Now, she wasn’t so certain. Over the past few months, her family’s pleas for her to return to Canada had become increasingly insistent. Yet, although she loved them, she’d resisted, because of course Britain would be safe from any conflict. Wouldn’t it? ‘I’m sure the prime minister and his government have everything in hand.’
‘See there, Miss Diana? I heard Miss McKaye’s a teacher and teachers know what’s right and proper. You trust your teachers, don’t you?’
Diana nodded and squeezed Victoria’s hand. ‘I’m going to be seven soon. Will you be my teacher?’
At the corner of the road, they turned towards the park and entered it through a pair of ornate wrought-iron gates. The mid-afternoon heat hung heavy, the air had a dusty scent and even the few ducks drifted aimlessly on the water of the pond as if they too were waiting. But waiting for what?
‘I don’t know. Which school do you go to? I’m teaching at Park Road on the other side of the hill.’
That job, a permanent one after a temporary post at a gloomy, quasi-Edwardian-era boarding school on the Yorkshire moors, was the biggest reason Victoria didn’t want to leave England. Here, nobody knew her and she didn’t have to face the pity of her family and friends. Or her former fiancé, now married to the woman he’d betrayed her for, her own second cousin. Letitia with her honey-blonde hair, perfect oval face, indigo-blue eyes and helpless air that since their childhood had made boys and then men fall at her feet.
‘Park Road is my school.’ Diana’s mouth curved into a cherubic smile.
‘Well, maybe you’ll be in my class.’ Victoria’s stomach lurched. The letter from the headmistress hadn’t given any details but she wouldn’t have called the entire staff together at nine o’clock on a Friday morning at the end of the school holidays if not for something important. ‘Since it’s so hot, why don’t we get ice creams?’ She pointed to an aproned seller with his cart near the pond. ‘My treat.’
As Diana bounced with excitement, Ivy stepped back and retrieved the pram her charge had abandoned. ‘I’ll wait over by that tree while you—’
‘I meant ice cream for you as well, Ivy. All of us.’
The girl’s mouth dropped open and her freckled face flushed. ‘It wouldn’t be proper, Miss McKaye. If my mistress heard—’
‘If your mistress says anything, tell her I insisted.’ It was unusual, certainly, but why shouldn’t Ivy have a treat? She worked hard enough. Besides, there was something about her that touched Victoria’s heart and reminded her of the hired girl at home.
Skirting around several men digging a trench, she marched over to the ice cream seller and gestured to the others to follow.
Fumbling for money in her purse, and as Diana chattered about ice cream, Victoria glanced at the London skyline poking through the distant trees.
She wouldn’t let herself think about that meeting with the headmistress. Yet an uneasy chill s
Despite her brave words to Ivy about the prime minister and his government, Victoria read the papers. Hitler had to be stopped and soon.
And if it was up to Britain to stop him, all those rumours about school evacuations she’d tried to dismiss might soon become a reality.
* * *
Two mornings later, Victoria went into Park Road School via the staff entrance near the tennis courts at the rear. This part of the school, a red-brick building with arched windows, had been built in Victorian times and then added on to. Today, the grounds covered almost half a block, although Victoria’s infants’ classroom would be here, in the oldest part.
She smoothed her full navy skirt and crisp white blouse with its stylish puffed sleeves, and hovered outside the staffroom door. A hubbub of raised female voices spilled into the corridor and somewhere a bell rang.
As if on cue, women of all ages, shapes and sizes came out of the staff room and streamed along the corridor. Swept up with them, Victoria clutched her handbag and did up the buttons on the smart peplum jacket of her skirt suit. While she’d hoped to meet her new colleagues individually, maybe this way would be easier. Whatever the news, they’d all hear it at once which would make Victoria less the ‘new girl’.
‘Come along. Don’t dawdle.’ At Victoria’s side, a tall, thin woman with pale blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun gestured towards what Victoria remembered was the school’s spacious main hall.
‘Sorry.’ She gave an apologetic smile which the woman didn’t return. When she’d come here for her interview, Victoria had been impressed with how light the hall was, with high windows that overlooked the schoolyard and playing fields.
In the hall, she found a chair in the middle of an empty row near the back as the buzz of multiple conversations continued on around her.
‘Is this seat free?’
At the soft, hesitant voice she looked up and then nodded. ‘Yes, please, join me.’
‘Thank you.’ The young woman slid into the chair next to Victoria’s. ‘I’m new. When I got the letter from Miss Hopson, I didn’t know what to think.’
‘I’m new too.’ Victoria introduced herself.
‘I’m Nell… I mean Miss Potter.’ Her face flushed and she fiddled with a loose strand of dark-brown hair curled into a chin-length bob.
‘Victoria.’ She spoke in a low voice. ‘I’m in the infants department. You?’
‘Juniors.’ Nell’s voice dropped further. ‘It’s my first post.’
‘You’ll soon understand how things work. We both will.’ Victoria looked around the hall, now filled with women and a few men. The headmistress who’d interviewed her stood at the front and, at her side, was the severe-looking blonde from the corridor.
‘Where did you teach before?’ Beneath her too-big navy hat, Nell’s brown eyes were frightened and she held her worn black handbag in a tight grip. Her navy-blue pleated skirt reminded Victoria of school uniform, while a washed-out pink blouse with a pointed collar did nothing for the girl’s colouring.
‘In Canada, at a school in my hometown and then at a girls’ boarding school in Yorkshire.’ Before coming to England, Victoria had always thought teaching was temporary and her real life would start when she married. How wrong she’d been.
‘Lucky you.’ Nell’s lips turned up in a hesitant smile. ‘You aren’t going to go back to Canada then, what with all this war talk?’
‘No.’ Even if Victoria wanted to return home, it was likely too late. The thought, which before had flitted through her mind as light as the puff of dandelion seeds, now settled. Had she had her head in the sand these past months? ‘If I want to go home, I’m sure I’d be able to by Christmas.’ Yet even that thought wasn’t as comforting as it had once been. ‘Are you from London?’ She couldn’t place Nell’s accent, which wasn’t surprising since she’d only lived in England for eighteen months. However, there was something careful about her speech that made Victoria wonder if the other girl wanted to hide her background.
‘Yes.’ Nell dug in her handbag for a handkerchief.
‘Which part? I’m still getting to know…’ Victoria stopped as the headmistress rapped on a lectern for their attention.
‘You have undoubtedly wondered why I called you all here today, cutting short a late-summer holiday for some.’ Miss Hopson made an apologetic face as a murmur went around the seated rows of teachers. ‘I wouldn’t have done so unless it was urgent, of course.’
Victoria’s stomach knotted. The sunlight coming through the windows tinted Miss Hopson’s grey hair with silver and her face looked older and more strained than when Victoria had met her in April.
‘It is my duty to tell you that our school life will soon change. Miss Wentworth, head of the junior school, and I were informed several days ago that…’ She paused and looked at the woman by her side whose grim expression remained unchanged. ‘In the care of teachers, pupils in London schools whose parents agree will be evacuated to the countryside beginning on the morning of the first of September. Given that the government’s evacuation plan…’ Miss Hopson raised a hand to quell the chatter. ‘Please, ladies and gentlemen.’
As the room quietened again, the headmistress came out from behind her lectern. ‘As many of you know, discussions about voluntary evacuation have been ongoing for several years now and formalised in the wake of last year’s Anderson Committee Report. The evacuation of London schoolchildren is not unexpected, but I hoped… I know we all hoped that things would not reach this point. However, by working together we will endeavour to keep life as normal as possible for our pupils no matter where we may find ourselves.’
As the chatter broke out again, Victoria glanced at Nell.
‘Do you think the school will be split up, then?’ Nell twisted a starched white handkerchief with an embroidered daisy in each corner. It was beautifully worked and of much better quality than her clothes.
‘Maybe; it would make sense, I suppose. How could a rural village school take in all of us?’ At Victoria’s interview, the headmistress had said that while some classes had as many as sixty children, Victoria would only have forty-five. ‘From what I understand, many rural schools aren’t separated into different levels either.’
‘I’ve only ever lived in London.’ A small smile crept across Nell’s face and instead of fearful she now looked almost excited. ‘The countryside sounds grand.’
To Nell, perhaps, but not Victoria. As Miss Hopson began speaking again, Victoria shuddered. She’d only escaped one pokey, dull place in the country and now, a scant month later, she was about to be shipped off to another. While she already knew life wasn’t fair, having to leave London when she’d only got settled seemed particularly bad luck.
‘Although some of our pupils’ parents have registered them for evacuation previously, there are still many who have not.’ Miss Hopson paused. ‘I have also written to the parents to help prepare them for our departure, and while our school was used as a registration centre for private evacuations last month, there is still much work to do. I’ve asked Miss Wentworth to speak to you on that point.’ She turned to her colleague.
‘She’s a dragon, that Miss Wentworth. She’s one of the ones who interviewed me.’ Nell made a disgusted face more like those Victoria had seen on girls she taught than fellow teachers.
As Miss Wentworth stepped over to the lectern, Victoria studied the woman more closely. Although she was likely only in her early forties, she appeared older and had a pinched look, not helped by her tight hairstyle, old-fashioned wire spectacles and severely cut grey jacket, white blouse and grey pleated skirt.
In another ten to fifteen years, would she be a Miss Wentworth? An old ‘dragon’, at least in the eyes of younger teachers. A woman who still lived in shared lodgings and marked the seasons of her life by the school calendar. Someone whose only treat was an annual trip to the seaside with other single teacher friends, and who stared down old age alone. Victoria’s stomach rolled and she hugged herself. She wouldn’t be a Miss Wentworth. She was still young enough and she’d make different choices. But what if she couldn’t? If there was a war, what if it dragged on for years and she got stuck in a life and place that didn’t fit?
