Albeit under the cloud of war, Ernest and Gerty had been happily living in their home in New Farnley for a little over a year. Ernest was working as a dispenser at John Ridsedale's Chemist Shop in Armley, and Gerty was working in the woolen mills on Wellington Road as a cloth checker. Like everyone else in England, they were following the news of the Nazi takeover of Poland and then Czechoslovakia with mounting fear. When war was finally declared in September, 1939, Ernest, along with many of his friends, immediately volunteered to fight. His preference was the Royal Air Force, but he was rejected because he was part of the medical profession. He was very disappointed, but Gerty was elated, as she discovered she was pregnant. Their joy was short lived, though, when she miscarried at three months, and she and Ernest grieved the loss of a son-to-be.
Within a few months, however, Ernest's protected medical status was withdrawn, and rather than wait to be called up, he took his older brother Tom's advice and volunteered for the Military Police. Both he and his brother were excellent motorbike riders; Tom had been accepted as such, and Ernest felt he could be useful in this regard.
1940 was a tough year for both Gerty and Ernest. As a married but childless woman, Gerty was ordered to work in an ammunitions factory, to take in boarders, usually men deployed to Leeds for war work, and after boot camp, Ernest was ordered south, just in time for the Battle of Britain over London. As part of the military police motorcycle squad, he was to ride as quickly as possible to the site of any shot down enemy aircraft, take any prisoners at the scene, cordon off the area, and prevent any papers from being destroyed.
Two War Stories, c. 1940
Ernest: A German plane crashed in a field in Ernest's sector. He set off immediately on his bike to the scene. Riding along a dirt side road, he noticed that there were regular puffs of dust on the way ahead of him. It took a second or two to realize that an enemy plane was strafing him. Without any hesitation, Ernest stepped off his moving motorbike and fell straight into a ditch filled with water. He saw the saddle fall apart just before the bike itself ran off the road. He was traveling at over 50 miles per hour, but he escaped without a scratch. Except for the saddle which was riddled with bullet holes, the bike was fine, too.
Gerty: Once again, the siren warned of an imminent bombing attack, so Gerty followed the rest of the factory women to the designated air raid shelter. There, as usual, she met up with her sister-in-law Lily, and joining the others, they danced to records of Glen Miller as they waited for the all-clear. A strong waft of very hot air suddenly blew them across the shelter, and, still standing in shocked silence, they realized that the factory had taken a direct hit.
Everyone was dismissed from their duties, and Gerty wended her way to her parents' house which wasn't far. The sky was bright with flames from the factory, and her parents' street was backlit from other area bombings, but it looked all right. Sadly, it was a strange illusion. All that was left of the buildings were the facades--the front doors led right into--a deep pit. Gerty was frantic with worry, but an air raid warden with a hooded torch reassured her that her mother was safe. Milly and George had taken shelter in the cellar under the heavy oak table that housed her father's crop of mushrooms. Milly and Gerty, accompanied by the warden, had to step over blackened beams and ash-covered stairs to coax George from under the table. He thought he was back in World War I. Shell shock it was called then, and it had lingered within him since he was gassed in the trenches of France in 1916. The next day, Gerty discovered that the road she had taken from the factory was littered with unexploded bombs--unseen in the dark and flickering fire light.
In early March, 1941, the entire family, Chattertons and Balmforths, gathered for dinner. Home on leave, Ernest offered a toast. He looked at his wife and then his older sister Emily and her husband, Harold Kingston, and their young son Brian; his older brother Tom and his wife Lily; his parents Thomas and Emily Chatterton; Gerty's sister Beaty and husband Tom Vickers; her two younger sisters Laura and Kathleen: her parents, Milly and George Balmforth. "Let's remember how pleased we are that we are together tonight," he began. "It is very possible that we may never be together again in this life." He lifted his glass, "Safe passages to us all."* Then, he asked everyone to raise their glasses one more time. He had just learned that his best friend, Ronnie Briggs had been killed in action. "To absent friends," he proclaimed sadly.
This is the toast that Ernest offered, time and time again, over the next 47 years.
According to Gerty, the song she used to sing most often in 1941 was, "Please leave me something to remember you by." And Ernest did. Before he was shipped out to the Middle East on the Queen Mary in January, 1942, where he remained until the end of the war in 1945, I was born at St. Mary's Hospital in Leeds on December 30, 1941.
*In this instance, Ernest's fears were never realized. Everyone who was there that night survived the war and returned home to Leeds physically intact.
No comments:
Post a Comment