WOMEN WORKERS

Evening Star, Issue 23451, 16 December 1939, Page 17

WOMEN WORKERS

“ The British calm is an amazing thing. Jolt it if you can,” writes Margaret Gilruth, the Australian ‘ Herald 1 woman writer in London, after seeing London under war conditions. Here is her war diary. Miss Gilruth gives a series of pen pictures which show the British taking calmly the severest of all trials. Sunday, September 3, 1939.—The day that will go down in history as the declaration of the Second Great War; or perhaps the War of Polish Independence, That smacks of history book style. In bed at 6.30 a.m. after helping to evacuate 600 mothers and small children to Dorset, near the south coast. Other ‘‘ evacuators ” decided to stay the night in billets there. I thought it better to return in a midnight mail train. All manner of delays. Troop movements, the black-out, an Old Testament storm. Arrived London two hours late, 6.45 a.m. Bed. It’s bliss. It’s heaven. I’ll sleep for days. Couple of minutes later —or was it hours ?—telephone rings. Says kind friend, “ What? In bedl That’s folly, sheer nonsense. Just you get up and listen to your wireless. In 40 minutes—that’s 11 a.m.—you’ll know whether wc’.re at war. If there’s an air raid warning, snatch your gas mask and hurry to the nearest shelter.” “ Not in my nightgown,” I protest feebly. Telephone rings again. “ Mrs Walter Elliot speaking,” says purposeful voice. “ Can you come down to the Land Army office immediately? We’re snowed under with work,”

Eerie Yodel. Just arrived, when first air-raid warning of all sounded. It’s like an eerie yodel that goes on and on. Rising and falling, rising and falling. Should say there were about 300 women in building housing Women’s Voluntary Services. Swinging our gas masks, we trooped down to the shelters. All very efficient —because it’s Government run. Electric fans; and eoUghdrops to munch. Grey-haired Hon. Mrs Victor Russell, a worker in the last war, went

serenely on interviewing a volunteer. Lady Reading, in her bottle-green overall, handed round packs of cards in case improvised bridge fours felt like a rubber or so* Remember thinking how handsome she is. And how efficient, how calm. “ All clear ” sirens’ monotone came through very little later. Off we went to our offices. ~ . Second of the war’s air-raid sirens passed me completely by. It yodelled and screamed and howled. I slept on. Heard, however, the “ all clear whistle. Was thoroughly mystified. Decided to find out what the mews just below my flat was doing. Groped to heavily-curtained window._ No sound of aircraft. Police 'whistles still chirruping “ all clear.” Doors right along the mews opening one after another. Neighbours gathering in dressing gowns, in pyjamas, all smiling and chattering. , _ „ _ Lord Dawson, of Penn’s Rolls-Royce (its garage is just below my flat in true London mews style), was standing by. The neighbours, haying passed the time of night, went back to their beds. The British calm is an amazing thing. Jolt it, if you can. In Tin Hat. Take a bus ride from Oxford street to my Fleet street office. And you 11 see the London police still as wonderful as ever—but no more helmets to .make them look tall and dark and handsome. .Instead, tin hatsl A policewoman in a tin hat seems strangely jaunty. Takes away her uncompromising air. After all, what s the difference between a tin hat and a Suzy model? „ . The bus turns into Regent street. Dozens of shops shuttered up; the jewellers did it first. Liberty s, of Silk fame, followed, then came the stnhg of smaller model gown sellers, women these days are in canteens, _ driving Cabinet Ministers’ cars, manning first aid posts, guarding A.R.P. shelters. They have no time for fripperies of fashion. They are women in uniform. Bus rounds Piccadilly Circus. Sandbags bolster walls of big buildings. They’re calling for volunteers to till more and still more. , Everybody—man and woman—works so hard at one thing or another, there’s no time, no inclination for jollity. There’s no glamour about this war, whether you fight it at the front or in London, putting Land Army circulars into their envelopes. Bus turns into the Strand., °, re special police in mufti and tin hats.. Taxis tow fire-fighting apparatus. Girl in front of me says she s going to lay in fine stocks of cleansing cream because they won’t he allowed the fat necessary to make that sort or thing now, will they ? Her pal says why not use weak solution or lemon and water instead ? She’s heard that is just as good. ... . _. i • Bus arrives in Fleet street. Picking up my gas mask, recall fact I haven t seen more than a couple of dozen people the whole way without theirs. One woman had her box covered in gay cretonne 1 Mostly, we carry them on short lengths of string over our wrists, or slung on longer straps so that they can be hitched on our shoulders like haversacks.