Kathleen’s Story: Heroism, heartache and happiness in the wartime women’s forces. Duncan Barrett

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      By the time Kathleen went up to her room that evening she was barely able to stand from the physical exertions of the day, and she woke the following morning feeling as if every muscle in her body had been pulled. It hurt just to walk down the stairs, but there was nothing for it except to head out to the gardens and start digging all over again.

      The days at the grand estate passed excruciatingly slowly, and for Kathleen, who loved to talk and laugh, it was a lonely time. She was often left on her own for hours while Mr Shaw worked elsewhere in the grounds. Much of the time her only company was an old Suffolk horse called Patsy who, like the gardener, had seen better days.

      One evening, Kathleen had just returned to her room to change out of her muddy clothes when there was a knock on her door. ‘Come in,’ she called, sitting down on the side of her bed.

      Minnie came tumbling in excitedly. ‘You’ve been asked to go to dinner,’ she announced.

      ‘Where?’ Kathleen asked her, confused.

      ‘Here, with the family,’ the girl explained, grinning. ‘They want you to join them in the drawing room first – for sherry!’

      ‘Oh, right!’ Kathleen exclaimed. She hastily put on her only decent-looking dress and followed Minnie downstairs into the grand drawing room.

      There, the lady of the house, Mrs Ashbourne, and her youngest daughter were waiting to receive her. The mother was a tall and elegant woman and her daughter was pretty, although Kathleen thought she looked rather tired.

      ‘So, you’re our new land girl,’ Mrs Ashbourne said, eyeing Kathleen with interest. ‘How delightful. And how is old Shaw treating you – not too roughly I hope?’

      ‘Not at all,’ Kathleen answered. ‘He’s been very kind.’

      ‘I’m so glad,’ the lady continued. ‘My daughter Jane here works as a nurse in the local hospital, you know. It’s terribly hard work, but the young must do their bit for the war, I suppose.’

      Jane looked up and gave Kathleen a feeble smile.

      Looking around the room, Kathleen saw that it was hung with a number of old oil paintings depicting the family’s ancestors. Mrs Ashbourne was delighted to talk her through them all, introducing each long-departed family member one by one. From what Kathleen could gather, the Ashbournes, along with most of the other wealthy families in the area, were Quakers. They had all made their money in manufacturing, and by now they had intermarried pretty thoroughly.

      At dinner, however, it was Kathleen’s family that was the object of conversation. The Ashbournes had never had anyone like her sit at their table before, and they were fascinated by every detail of her life when she was growing up. Story-telling was Kathleen’s forte, and she warmed to the task, entertaining them with tales of her parents’ romantic meeting in Cape Town and the struggles they had faced coming back to England, where they had survived on the rabbits they caught and skinned for dinner. The whole family hung on to her every word – in fact, the only difficulty she faced was trying not to giggle when the servants she had been playing cards with the night before winked as they served her potatoes.

      After dinner, Kathleen snuck back down to the basement for a cup of tea with the maids and listened to them gossip about the family. ‘They’ve got 12 children, you know, and at least two of them are doolally,’ Minnie told her.

      ‘They say the Ashbournes are running out of money,’ the girl with the deformed hand chipped in. ‘It was all invested overseas, and now they can’t get it ’cos of the war.’

      ‘And as for that Jane,’ the head housemaid, a woman of about 40, added, ‘I’ve heard she’s in love with one of the wounded soldiers she’s been treating down at the hospital – and it turns out he’s a lorry driver in Civvy Street!’

      ‘Ooh, I don’t think madame would be too pleased about that!’ declared Minnie. The group of women laughed together until their sides ached.

      Kathleen enjoyed the chance to join in with the servants’ gossiping, but she soon discovered that the head housemaid had a romantic secret of her own. That night, when Kathleen tiptoed down to the kitchen to fetch herself a glass of water, she found the woman perched on the kitchen counter with her legs wrapped around the postman.

      Kathleen gasped, and the couple sprang apart in embarrassment. As the postman hastily picked his trousers up off the floor, she backed out of the room, blushing, and fled up the stairs.

      Kathleen’s own love life was continuing as well as could be expected with her boyfriend hundreds of miles away up in Scotland. She and Arnold continued writing to each other regularly, and she kept him up to speed with all the strange goings on at the grand house. But it wasn’t long before she had a new and entirely unwanted admirer to deal with.

      The fields neighbouring the Ashbournes’ estate were owned by a young farmer who had recently inherited them from his father. He had several land girls working for him already, but when one of them fell ill he asked Mr Shaw if he could borrow Kathleen for the day to help harvest his Brussels sprouts.

      ‘Aye, ye can ’ave the girl,’ the old man replied, ‘but only if ye promise not to overwork her. The poor lass is thin as a rake, you know!’

      Kathleen set off, happy for a change of scene and hoping to get to know some of the other land girls. But she soon discovered she would be spending the day all alone in a ten-acre field, her only visitor being the farmer. The young man took a keen interest in the flame-haired girl who was picking his sprouts, and stopped to stare at her whenever he passed by on his tractor.

      It didn’t take long for him to find an excuse to come and talk to her. ‘You be a pretty little thing to be getting your hands so muddy,’ he remarked admiringly.

      ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ Kathleen replied, carrying on with her work.

      ‘Got a boyfriend, have you?’ the man asked her.

      ‘Yes, I have,’ said Kathleen, firmly.

      ‘That be a shame,’ the man told her wistfully. ‘I been looking for a wife to run this ’ere farm wi’ me.’

      Kathleen said nothing, and eventually the man went away. But over the next few weeks he kept asking Mr Shaw if he could ‘borrow’ her again. The young man was clearly lonely and longed for someone to share his days with, but Kathleen soon grew sick of him pestering her.

      One day, the young farmer took Kathleen with him into Bury St Edmunds, where he had some errands to run. She sat in the passenger seat of his van, wrapped up in her own thoughts and doing her best to avoid conversation.

      Suddenly there was an almighty crash as the van collided with another vehicle. Kathleen was thrown from her seat and her head smashed straight through the windscreen, lodging there as the van came to a halt. Her neck was completely surrounded by glass, and it was cutting painfully into her skin. If she moved even an inch, she was sure it would sever an artery.

      Before long the police were on the scene, carefully dismantling the windshield around Kathleen’s head and freeing her from the prison of glass. She was rushed to the local hospital, where her cuts were bandaged up, but the accident left her with a ring of tiny scars around her neck.

      Before long, the case came to court, and Kathleen was called as a witness. The СКАЧАТЬ