WHEN BATH WAS BLITZED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 40, 18 February 1943, Page 1

WHEN BATH WAS BLITZED

THE SPINSTERS OF JULIAN STREET (By Stanley Maxted—Broadcast in the 8.8.C.'s Overseas Service.) The bombing of Bath is a pretty old story now—lor everybody but the bomoed—but 1 across a tale that 1 don’t think you will nave luaru before. I expect, though, that you heard the kina of place uaih is. There is a nice old abbey there, and some oid Roman baths, and medicinal spr.ngs, 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 in- , valids. 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 1 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 d gnified—like an elderly duchess that’s had her hat knocked over one eye and her hair mussed.

On the way to it I had met my fire warden. I was in a refreshment emporium, whose proper designation I’m not allowed to give. I was emptying a glass of vdry 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 counter, drinking what, if I were not broadcasting. I should call “beer.” With many “Ah’s” he assured me I should have been there the nights of the bombing. I disagreed entirely, but asked him to tell me more—which he did. He had been on duty in Julian Street arid 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 warden told me the history of every dislodged briqk, every hole, every jagged wall, and every gutted residence. Haif-way along the street he stonbed. 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 threestorey house opposite had been. three very small, very genteel apartments—one on each floor. In these had lived three spinsters. 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, excent Miss Carrie, who was only about 62. 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 20 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. Miss Carrie had an irresistible desire to hug eVory youngster and baby she saw—but of course she didn’t. She was much too well self-disciplined for that. Miss Carrie was to have married a very suitable young man, 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 old 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. 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 their fruitless ways independently, on their respective and respectable private incomes. But, as I say, then came “that night." The warden told me it was sudden. Fair gave him a start, it did. At first they didn’t drop them very close to Julian Street, but there was his duty to perform, and the warden set 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 ansI wered his knock, and stood in the door|way. 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 G-rmans! She’d certainly see about this.

The warden 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 cl-se, and 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 anv 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 on-ned, and. there was Miss Agatha helpless and frightened, looking from between her crutch and stick with wide appeil in in her eyes. Down went lhe natural defences of years of Miss Carrie, sninster—and up came the natural instincts of Miss Carrie, woman. “Oh, please let me help you." And then with her arm and shoulder sunport’ng Miss Agatha, she half carr'ed her, staggering, out in the hail, 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 nin 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 dronned her burden to the ground and flattened herself over it nrotectinglv. Mi s Agatha felt a quivering contortion in the body above her. and a sickening warmth that flowed .down over her neck, and then lust a still deM « eight, that pinned Miss Agatha, helpless.

By this time, of course, the warden was husv with a thousand things to do. but Miss Beatrice was un out of the shelter, covered in dust, to n nd ou' what was goine on. By the ll”ht of the blaze which had started !n the house that had just been hit, she saw the black inert mass lying in the road, not much further away than the last

and while the shriek of more bombs one, not much further away than the last, 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 cripped 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— colliding with the warden outside the doorway of the shelter. Normally she would have asked him why he didn’t look where he was going—but 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 warden 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 comIfortably. The warden with grime and sweat dripping from his chin, stood ! surveying the scene from the inside I 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 unheedled. and she sank down on to a box and thanked him gratefully. The warIden brought the t?a and went off to i meet new emergencies. The tea was hotter and more fresh than that in the thermos flask and the two women drank it thankfully, then nassed the remainder of the night until the “All sounded.

There, next, morning, the warden—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 around floor apartment was habitable. Thev came back and reported to Miss Agatha, who would of r-nthing but that Mi « Beatrice should salvage what she could from upstairs and move in w' f b her Thev nv’d® arrangements for Miss Carrie’s funera 1 . and with the werd-p’a be]n, moved Miss Beafr'oe’s tlr « a down intn th a annr’m nt be^nw—and set tba ptnpp to rights. They’re both living there now—e“ch a great blessing to *h« o 4 her. after pnarl’ r 20 years—and bnfh of them thinkin" un v?ays fn r M !c s Beatrice to husv hprnglf with pronle’s . t fhp-n two remaining spintnrs of Julian street. T snnpns* Hitler—or whatever his nnmp is—ever 'dreamt he’d snen* all that mon°v to send aP those n’anes to dron all those bombs iust tn bring some of the British closer tog^ f ’-*er