BOMBED BATH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 9 February 1943, Page 6

BOMBED BATH

CIVILIAN HEROES “THE SPINSTERS OF JULIAN STREET” (By Stanley Maxted in the BB.C.’s Overseas Service) The bombing of Bath is a pretty old story now—for everybody but the bombed—but I stumbled across a tale that I don’t think you will have heard before. I expect, though, that you have heard the kind of place Bath is. There’s a nice old Abbey there, and some old Roman baths, and medicinal springs, while up the slope on a hill is a crescent of perfect Regency houses. It’s a ghost town—a sort of provincial whatnot, full of elderly respectability, extinct poets, disused culture and invalids. The water in the springs I mentioned is supposed to fix up the invalids but I guess they leave it until it’s too late. From the foregoing, you may wonder why Bath should be singled out as a target for the Luftwaffe’s might. Go ahead. I’m still wondering. But while you’re wondering, let me say that if you looked carefully a while ago, you might discover Julian Street. Julian Street is a very respectable street in a very respectable city. Even when I saw it, you couldn’t but admit that Julian Street still reflected its background. It’s been kicked around rather badly, but those house fronts still try to look stiff-necked and dignified—like an elderly duchess that’s had her hat knicked over one eye and her hair mussed, but who still holds a glassless lorgnette over the bridge of her nose and holds her undeviating course, and refuses to notice that anything’s happened. On the way to it, I had met my fire warden. I was in a refreshment emporium, whose proper designa--tion I’m not allowed to give. I was emptying a glass of very good Somerset cider, taken from an old cask in a cool cellar, and my fire warden was leaning with his back to me, and his elbow on the b— counter, drinking what, if I were not broadcasting, I should call “beer”. He had the froth of it in the ends of an outsize in moustaches, to prove it. He had also heard my accent when I opened negotiations to relieve my dry throat, and now turned with a quizzical eyebrow and surveyed me at length. Having made up his mind I wasn’t Goebbels putting on an act, he wiped the froth eastward and westward and cleared his throat. Had I been over long? I told him. Was I looking around? I told him I was.

Then with many “Ah’s” larded in, he assured me I should have been there the nights of the bombing. That’s when I should have been there, —Ar!

I disagreed entirely, but asked him to tell me more—which he did—turning from time to time to the other clients for confirmation, and daring them with his eyebrows, to deny any of it. By now he was firmly fixed in my mind as the Tinker in one of Geoffrey Farnol’s books. His eyes twinkled. His brows beetled, his moustache jufted and his cheeks and nose made round red highlights in technicolour.

He had been on duty in Julian street, and when he’d “had another” he’d take me there. I caught on, and did the necessary. When we had made our way there, the Tinker told me the history of every dislodged brick, every hole, every jagged wall, and every gutted residence. Half-way along tha street he stopped, pointing to a narrow house with the top floor windows gone, and the second floor having broken plaster visible and every sign of being deserted. Only the ground floor was lived in. It seems it was this way:

That three storey house opposite, had been three very small, very genteel apartments—one on each floor. In these had lived three spinsters—also one on each floor; — Miss Carrie lived on top, Miss Beatrice on the second floor, and Miss Agatha on the ground floor. Very correct maiden ladies they were—well into years of discretion—except Miss Carrie who was only about six-ty-two. She was the kid of the trio. Miss Agatha was crippled up with arthritis and unable to move without her crutch and stick, —and then very painfully. Miss Beatrice was—well—Miss Beatrice. She was a sort of female colonel. The three of them had lived here for upwards of twenty years, and had never spoken to each other. No—they had never had a quarrel—they’d never had a chance to because they’d never really met. You see, they’d never been introduced.

Poor Miss Agatha had a pretty thin time of it and her affliction had etched deep lines of pain in her face, and made her rather crabby—and no wonder. It was all the worse because with her poor stiff crippled fingers, she couldn’t manipulate knitting needles, and so play a little part in the war effort. Miss Carrie had an irresistible desire to hug every youngster and baby she saw, —but of course she didn’t. •She was much too well self-disci-plined for that. Miss Carrie was to have married a very suitable young man, with whom, incidentally, she was very much in love—but he was killed at Paardeburg in the Boer War. That same bullet had killed something in Miss Carrie, and—well—here she was. Miss Carrie worked tirelessly with the Red Cross. It partly satisfied something within her. As for Miss Beatrice, —well she really was of the oid school—militant. She believed that men had but one function in life, and that was—to be put in their place,—preferably by herself. For Miss Beatrice, the world consisted of England, and the other places; and the world’s people were made up of the English and the un-English. For her, murder, lying and stealing were very bad crimes—-

but there was one worse—that of being un-English. Of course, she supposed, they couldn’t really help it, the poor wretches, —but what could one do?—except perhaps send them missionaries. Of late she’d even had a few qualms about England, too. The working classes were getting completely out of control—even getting into Parliament. Heavens! What next? So you can see how out of step with the times she was. And now, as though that weren’t enough, here was this upstart Hitler, or whatever his name is, presuming to try to dictate to everybody. She never really took that seriously, the talk about them invading England. The idea was preposterous. As for those ridiculous people bombing Bath—why they wouldn’t dare! She’d never heard of such a thing!

Up to the night that the heavens declared the fury of hell, over Bath, these three elderly maiden ladies had lived in the same house, but had never met. They had pursued the even quavering soprano of \heir fruitless ways independently, on their respective—and respectable—private incomes.

But, as I say, then came “that night ” The “Tinker” told me it was sudden. Fair gave him a start, it did. Mind you, he’d often said to himself, he had, that he wouldn’t put it past them to ’ave a go at Bath, and when that relay of throbbing drones spewed out crescendos of whistling shrieks, to culminate in searing, splitting, rocking blasts, he just said to himself: “Ar, so that’s it,” —and sure enough, that was it.

At first they didn’t drop them very close to Julian street, but there was his duty to perform, and the Tinkerset about it, in his own volubly phlegmatic way.

When he came to the abode of the three spinsters, he went to the top and warned Miss Carrie to go to the shelter, and she was ready and went like a lamb. Next came Miss Beatrice, who answered his knock, and stood in the doorway, the picture of outraged rights. Go to a shelter? Indeed she’d do nothing of the kind She’d thank him not to make ridiculous suggestions. Shelter indeed. This was her home, and here she‘d stay. Disturbed by Germans She’d certainly see about this. The Tinker didn’t get down to Miss Agatha—who really needed him most of the three—because he was having rather a bad time with Miss Beatrice, and, frankly, getting the worst of it. However, his enemies came to his aid. A bomb dropped uncomfortably close, and the ancient glass of the windows shivered down inside the heavy curtains. Much against every instinct, Miss Beatrice capitulated. In her own time of course. Fairly snorting indignation, she gathered up a rug, a book, and a thermos flask of tea she usually kept by her bedside, and stalked defiantly down the stairs and across the road, trying not to walk any faster than when she took her afternoon stroll. She barely noticed Miss Carrie, who was returning to get a heavier coat.

Just as Miss Carrie passed the door of Miss Agatha’s flat, it opened, and there was Miss Agatha helpless and frightened, looking from between her crutch and stick with wide appeal in her eyes. Down went the natural defences of years of Miss Carrie, spinster—and up came the natural instincts of Miss Carrie, woman. “Oh—please let me help you.” And then with her arm and shoulder supporting Miss Agatha, she half carried her, staggering, out in the hall—down the steps, slowly, and with great difficulty—and started to cross the street. They got almost to the opposite curb when one of those crescendos that started from a pin point of nothing, screeched down filling the world with a horrible sound. A blinding flame, a rocking crash, bricks, glass, and bits of iron railing, tore through the air—and almost automatically Miss Carrie dropped her burden to the ground and flattened herself over it protectingly. Miss Agatha felt a quivering contortion in the body above her, and a sickening warmth that flowed down over her neck, and then just a still dead weight, that pinned Miss Agatha, helpless. By this time, of course, the Tinker was busy with a thousand things to do, but Miss Beatrice was up out of the shelter, covered in dust to find out what was going on. By the light of the blaze which had started in the house that had just been hit, she saw the black inert mass lying in the road, and while the shriek of more bombs not much further away than the last one, pierced her ear-drums, Miss Beatrice threw dignity to the winds and went out to aid her two neighbours. She saw right away that Miss Carrie was beyond any help, that even she could give her. She put her hands under Miss Carrie’s shoulders and lifted her gently away from the body she had been shielding—took her own coat off and laid it on the ground, and turned Miss Carrie over. Even though that poor broken head couldn’t feel it, Miss Beatrice felt she must make her comfortable. Then Miss Beatrice, with a superhuman effort, got Miss Agatha to her feet, and with a frenzied surge of new found strength from she knew not where, got the crippled woman to the shelter, laid her in the bunk on the rug she had brought for herself, and away she went up into the street again—practically colliding with the Tinker outside the doorway of the shelter. Normally she would have asked him why he didn’t look where he was going—butj not now. With a breathless “Come and help me carry her” she led the way to where Miss Carrie’s body was lying. Together, but with Miss Beatrice in command, they lifted Miss Carrie carefully and carried her to the sheltered side of the air raid shelter doorway, and laid her on the ground. The Tinker produced a grey army blanket from somewhere, and without knowing quite why she did it, Miss Beatrice spread the blanket over the younger woman.

One way and another, it hadn’t been a very tidy job that Miss Beatrice had tackled, and she was a mess

But she had a helpless woman still down in the shelter, and no sign of a let-up in the rain of death from the sky. She went down to Miss Agatha and proceeded to help her to lie more comfortably. The Tinker with grime and sweat dripping from his chin, stood surveying the scene, thoughtfully, from the inside door of the shelter. As Miss Beatrice finally straightened up, he prescribed the British cure-all for every occasion, “Now then Missus, if you’ll sit down and rest yourself I’ll get you both a nice hot cup of tea. That’ll put you to rights—you see if it doesn’t.” The despised implication of “Missus” passed over Miss Beatrice’s head unheeded, and she sank down on to a box and thanked him gratefully. The Tinker brought the tea and went off to meet new emergencies. The tea was hotter and more fresh than that in the thermos flask and the two women drank it thankfully, then passed the remainder of the night until the “All Clear” sounded, discussing with each other the unpredictable turns that life can take. There, next morning, the Tinker—who by this time was practically out on his feet—found them. He went with Miss Beatrice to their home, where it was obvious that only the ground floor apartment was habitable. They came back and reported to Miss Agatha, who would hear of nothing but that Miss Beatrice should salvage what she could* from upstairs and move in with her. They made arrangements for Miss Carrie’s funeral, and with the Tinker’s help, moved Miss Beatrice’s things down into the apartment below—and set the place to rights. They’re both living there now—each a great blessing to the other, after nearly twenty years—and both of them thinking up ways for Miss Beatrice to busy herself with other people’s troubles, these two remaining spinsters of Julian street. I don’t suppose Hitler—or whatever his name is—ever dreamt he’d spent all that money to send all those planes to drop all those bombs just to bring some of the British closer together.