Open Writing

Standing in the hall one day, I answered the front door bell. An unknown man stood on the step and without any preliminaries he began questioning me. "Who is the head of this household?" he enquired persuasively.

I told him.

"Oh!" said the Unknown, "please give me his full name."

"Frederick William Hirst," I said proudly, always liking the sound of Daddy's name.

"Oh!" said the Unknown, sounding a trifle startled, "how do you spell his name?"

This surprised me very much. What an extraordinary question, surely a grown man could spell Daddy's name! However, I spelt it out for him, distinctly puzzled and racking my brains to know what this was all about. Being helpful I added that Daddy was called after Frederick the Great of Germany, his father having had a great admiration for the Emperor.

Even more startled the Unknown rapped sharply, "Spell the surname 'Hirst' again for me."

I did so and now he asked "Has Mr. Hirst been in London recently?"

"Oh, yes," I was able to tell him.

"What does Mr. Hirst do?"

I was beginning to feel important and told him that he was on the Military Tribunal which was a horrid task and he was working terribly hard.

The Unknown laughed. "Well! well!" he began,when Mummy was suddenly at my side and I started to explain to her what had passed.

The Unknown interrupted, adding that when Mr. Hirst was in London recently he had signed the Visitors' Book at his hotel and the Huddersfield Police had been requested to check the surname, which looked in the book to be written as "Hirsch", very German, and the Christian names of Frederick William only added to their suspicion.

The detective, for such was the unknown, sounded almost amused, for he assured us that they all knew Mr. Hirst very well and what a fine job he was doing.

We agreed we were pleased to hear that a close watch was being kept for spies, and I could not help reflecting that I had added fuel to the fire with my remark about Daddy being named after a previous German Emperor!

Daddy was greatly interested when we reported to him. Mummy scolded me saying that I should not have answered all those questions from a stranger but should have called for her, and, on reflection, I find it rather strange that the detective did not ask to see an older member of the family. Perhaps questioning a youngster is quite good tactics as they are usually frank and eager to help.

Life went on much the same for us children throughout the war years. School days and holidays came and went and I only remember incidents.
Rationing was not introduced for a very long time, but food was scarce. A box of fish came to us weekly from Grimsby, butter from Ireland, and Daddy told us to eat the slices upside down as the thin spread tasted better so.

When the butter gave out, all too frequently, margarine, always called "marge", became the accepted fat for the table. It was a strong, poor substitute for butter, it is greatly improved today.

Men with yellow faces walked about the town, dyed from their work at the British Dyes. The town hummed with activity; dyes and chemicals, munitions and khaki cloth pouring out of the factories and mills. It was rumoured many times that fortunes were being made in the production of khaki, and feeling ran high that this should be so when other men were enduring horror and suffering at great sacrifice.

I remember hushed voices in the schoolroom when the news came that Lord Kitchener, who was on his way to Russia at the invitation of the Tzar, had gone down when H.M.S. Hampshire struck a mine. This appeared to all a disaster of the first magnitude, for such was Kitchener's effect upon the general public that they felt the war might now be lost.

I remember, too, the roar of the munition dump exploding at Low Moor, near Bradford.

With sadness, we saw our favourite oak wood felled for the war effort, leaving the hillside black and scarred, an ugly blot on the landscape for too many years, as it has never been replanted.

Once a party of girls at Edgefield School decided to dress as soldiers, with belts and khaki hats of cardboard one could buy, and planned to march up the main street towards Outlane, and then to deploy in a field to have battle manoeuvres. Doreen and I, needless to say, were enthusiastic participants.

The Commanding Officer organised her force, allotting junior commands, and to my delight, being one of the smallest girls, I was told to be the Drummer boy. For several days Bobby coached me in the art of beating the drum we had bought, showing me how to hold the drumsticks loosely in the requisite fingers, until I grew proficient.

How Bobby knew the way to beat a drum correctly I never guessed. He was like that. Almost always he was able to show and help me with the various ideas we had; it seemed to be instinctive in him.

After school was over on the appointed day the chosen few assembled, donned the simple attachments which were to turn us into soldiers, and on crisp command lined up, smartly formed fours, numbered correctly, and with a special command to me, proudly leading the double line, off we marched, the drum rat-a-tat-ing loudly and effectively.

Along the main road people came to their doors to see what was happening, and many eyes followed us on the march, and many voices called across to one another. It was uphill all the way and began to feel longer than I knew it to be, but almost without pause I kept up the encouraging drum beats until my fingers ached and felt sore, and it was with thankfulness that I halted before the stile leading to the field to begin our battle.